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LE MANS TOPS AND SUITCASES
THERE’S A neat story of tops and suitcases associated with the 24 Hours of Le Mans, curiously enough with a gap of 30 years. Here are several of my favorite tales, gleaned from two SAE papers I...
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GEOTHERM ENERGY
THE U.S. could supply the world’s current energy needs for the next 30,000 years. Were we to tap only the most accessible of it, the energy obtained would be thousands of times the current annual U.S....
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ALICE KOBER, ACE DECODER
A NEW book concerning the Bronze Age describes a mystery every bit as intriguing as any faced by Sherlock Holmes. The Riddle of the Labyrinth, The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code, by Margalit Fox,...
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WHEATIES CAR BADGES
DURING THE 1950s, General Mills cereal brand Wheaties—even then “The Breakfast of Champions”—had a neat program of offering car emblems as premiums. Thirty-one of these embossed and painted tin badges...
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SUPREME COURT’S E15
RAISING THE ethanol percentage in gasoline from today’s E10 (10-percent ethanol) to E15 (hence a 50-percent larger dose) now has a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. See http://goo.gl/YKjND for details. Not...
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BOSCH eCLUTCH, ETC.
WITH MORE and more drivers never learning the knack of operating a clutch, Bosch has come to their rescue with something it calls the eClutch. Briefly, it incorporates an electrically operated pump...
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DORNIER DO-X
THE TALE of the Dornier Do-X flying boat has technicalities galore, an impressive world tour—and even a bit of post-Versailles skullduggery. Vom Original zum Modell: Dornier Do X, by K.H. Regnat,...
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HOLMES’ LONDON
WATSON CALLED London “that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.” Hardly high praise, though he and Holmes were also familiar with London’s best...
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LA CREATION DU MONDE
LET’S CELEBRATE the art of theater set design. Here’s a wonderful book on the topic, together with focus on one of its subjects, artist Fernand Léger, and one of my favorite pieces of music, Darius...
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FAILED DESIGNS
ENGINEERING HAS been defined as “doing a lot with a little.” But, of course, too little is not a good idea. This is the theme of To Forgive Design: Understanding Failure, its review by Philip Nobel...
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