The Crandall Surf Report 2.0
commentary on almost anything that seems interesting





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Saturday, February 15, 2003
 

This week's CBC science program Quirks and Quarks was excellent - especially the part on bioterrorism.

As recently as a few years ago, Quirks and Quarks was a shortwave ritual in our house (we could get it on the backlobe of CBC's Northern Service). Now the audio stream is more reliable than the shortwave link.

One of the best science shows on the planet.
1:37:21 PM    


Really targeted ads....

Imagine spending millions on just a few people and doing it in an incredibly inefficient way.

The telecom wars are not over and there may be another meltdown as a result of the upcoming FCC decision.
1:29:21 PM    


It is sad that Salon is in such trouble, but a huge and growing debt coupled with a small subscriber base may well bring down the magazine.
8:46:44 AM    

The Union of Concerned Scientists has an interesting overview of earth-penetrating nuclear weapons.

At what point does this sort of weapon become acceptable? My guess is that it would be a quick way to see if any of your allies would support you and if massive consumer boycotts in much of the world would damage your economy.
7:16:45 AM    


It turns out an expert truck driver rarely touches the brakes. A quick back of the envelope of what it takes to stop an 80,000 pound truck going 60 mph quickly convinces you that the life expectancy for normal disk or drum brakes would be very short.

The trick is to use an engine braking system. Jake Brakes are the most common. I didn't realize the idea came from the same Cummins who founded the engine company of the same name, but it makes sense.

You can get a braking effect in by downshifting – without adding fuel to the engine. As the engine goes through the compression stroke some of the energy of your motion is used to compress the air. A Jake Brake modifies the timing on the exhaust valves so that when you want to brake, the valves open as the piston reaches the top of the compression stroke (without this trick some of the energy in the compressed air would drive the piston down – getting the energy out of the engine dramatically increases the braking efficiency).

Setting up a Jake Brake is something of an art and some truckers take pride in coast to coast trips without touching the normal brakes.
5:57:09 AM    



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