Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2016 i Popular Mechanics South Africa

Get the most out of your month SUN 3/7 THE WINTER CAR CHECKLIST Coolant. Anti-freeze not only inhibits freezing (duh), but also prevents rust and corrosion and lubricates the water pump. Battery. Regularly check battery electrolyte level, clean the terminals using warm (not hot) soapy water, inspect drive belts and check charge rate – a weekly one-hour daylight drive is good for boosting charge. Windscreen. Don’t use hot water to remove frost; preferably use a scraper, even an old credit card. Tyres. Smooth rubber is simply a bad idea outside of a dry race track. If you’ve hit the tread wear indicators, you’re nearly at the 1 mm legal limit. (Source: The AA) FRI 8/7 THE WINTER HOME CHECKLIST Unclog gutters of twigs and leaves, particularly in the winter-rainfall Western…

On the risk of shooting on GoPro: “I saw the music video Ilya (Naishuller) did for a band and I thought the action was definitely going to work, but I was worried about how much narrative you could do and will a narrative story work.” On the durability of GoPros: “In the end there were about 14 used. They would get damaged – interestingly, not because the lenses would break, just the connector port where you plug the GoPro in to a monitor got damaged. That’s sort of the weak point because no one was thinking that you’d plug it in while it’s on your motorbike. The GoPros themselves were fine.” On talking straight to camera: “It was a very challenging film, the hardest I’ve made by a long way…

THE HIPSTER IN ME likes to be the first to do something. Right now I’m not doing anything, really. I guess making amends with a deity does count as doing something. I’m also fighting the urge to take back control of the steering wheel, because testing a new function takes full commitment. I peep at my visibly distressed photographer in the rear-view mirror. A truck cuts in to my lane up ahead and I notice that it’s travelling below the national speed limit that the Mercedes-Benz E-class I’m driving is set to. I also notice that the road is about to curve quite significantly. As one of the first people in the country to be testing this car’s self-driving chops on public roads and highway speeds, this is the moment…

SOMETIME AROUND NOON on a late-winter’s day, as the Sun’s steepening angle chased the chill from the ground, I bent to the dirt near the turkey pen out back. Up sprouted neat rows of thick and sturdy garlic shoots. The 2016 crop was beginning to claim its place, its greenery forming the first sign of many harvests ahead. I snipped off a piece a couple of centimetres long and slipped it into my mouth, like a stick of chewing gum, and let the powerful rush of flavour carry with it a sense of pre-spring satisfaction. I have a demanding, complicated job and a large, busy family, which together can occupy almost all of my attention. But the garlic and the garden that produced those fresh shoots serve as an anchor…

kyle.kock@ramsaymedia.co.za This NSX has been a long time coming. But somewhere along the line, Honda had a philosophical crisis. Was this a car to compete with Corvettes and lower-echelon 911s? Or should it go after bigger game and put fear into Ferraris, like the original NSX from 1991? Eventually, Honda resolved to go big, which meant pretty much starting over. So here we are, finally. As with the first NSX, the new one is, at heart, a normal car rife with subtle Honda ergonomic touches. There’s the slender A-pillar that allows great forward visibility and the steering-wheel cover that has no stitching to chafe your fingers. Elsewhere, electronics create a duality of character, from hushed and refined to loud and edgy, spread between four drive modes. For instance, the sound:…

There’s something magical about Stuttgart’s grand saloon. In the limo class it more than held its own against more expensive rivals from Britain and has over its 40-year history been accepted as a universal symbol of class – especially the 500s. I’ve long said that if I were to drive one car for the rest of my life, it would have been a previous generation (W222) S500. I wondered if I’d bestow the current crop of S500s with the status of being my dream retirement vehicle when the S500e L arrived for a week-long test at the PM office. Part of the appeal of S500s for me were that they have always been powered by silky-smooth, muscular V8 engines that allowed for effortless overtaking acceleration and high-speed cruising. As you…

READER TIP Adapt your shop vac to pick up dropped valuables WHEN YOU DROP a tray of small parts, like short screws or plastic wire connectors, it’s a nightmare to pick them up. Things become dire if you’ve dropped them on thick carpet or grass. A classic strategy is to use a magnet to pick them up, but what if the parts aren’t magnetic? Reader Derek Grozinger of Ottawa, Ontario, suggests a shop-vac hack that can help. Find a thin, porous piece of fabric, like an old undershirt, tear off a small piece and stretch it over the end of the vacuum’s hose. Secure it in place with rubber bands. Now turn on the vacuum and allow the suction to pick up the pieces. The fabric allows air through, but…

Samsung SUHD TV Reports of LED TV’s death may have been somewhat exaggerated in this publication. While we still stand by the statement that OLED is superior as a technology, LED still has a few aces up its sleeve to up the powered pixel ante. With the resolution marketing arms race behind us (stop worrying about “true 4K” already) and large TVs becoming the new normal, the focus is now firmly on getting the deepest blacks and more colour variation and brightness. Quantum dot technology is Samsung’s latest ace in the hole. The marketing material describes never-before-seen exploits in pixel wizardry that dramatically increase the number of possible colours the display can recreate. On top of that is another brightness trick called HDR (where many images are overlayed to bring…

NEW IDEAS THAT COULD CHANGE THE WORLD Compiled by THE EDITORS popularmechanics@ramsaymedia.co.za ARROW460-GRANTURISMO CRUISER TRAVEL IN STYLE LIVING THE GRAND LIFE involves a wider range of toys than most people are accustomed to. It’s not just enough to have a car for every occasion: if that occasion involves water or air, well then, a car simply won’t do. For the world premiere of the new luxury motor yacht “Arrow460 – Granturismo” and H145 luxury helicopter, Mercedes-Benz Style chose – where else? – the millionaires’ playground of the Côte d’Azur. The sleek twosome were joined by the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class Cabriolet. The 14-metre long, 706 kW Silver Arrow of the Seas is said to combine the advantages of an open boat with those of a hull cabin cruiser in unique fashion.…

Can the Blue Oval do any wrong? Ford’s new-model onslaught continues to bolster the company’s rise as the firm challenges segment leaders across the market and consumers are taking note. Its first foray into the baby MPV market sees the B-Max step up to the likes of Honda’s Mobilio, Suzuki’s Ertiga and the Toyota Avanza. There’s only one problem though: surely the 7-seat rivals have the 5-seat B-Max’s number? I’m going to stick my neck out and say not exactly. When last have you watched a young family in a tight parking spot at the mall get into a seven-seat vehicle? It’s not exactly the most graceful thing and, depending on the vehicle, access to that third row isn’t easy and the last bench often swallows up previous cargo room.…

A LOT OF people know what a CNC machine is. But for those who nod and hope the subject changes, a CNC machine is a computer-driven cutting tool. You can use a CNC to carve out ornate inlays in furniture, template a jig, or even make your own guitar. CNC stands for computer numerical control, which basically means that you input the plans (in the form of a vector or line drawing) and the machine cuts them. Because the process is computerised, you get the same results every time. And they’re always perfect. CNCs can get expensive. Woodworker Ben Aroh (pictured), started out with a small, basic machine that cost R75 000. A year later, he bought one for R225 000 and now he’s considering upgrading to a R600 000…

Shopping list Instructions parent only parent and kid kid only 1. To build our ice lantern as part of a Groovy Lab science experiment (see box, right), our first step was to make a bunch of zany oversize ice cubes. (You can find the silicone trays at kitchen stores.) Put anything you want in the cubes – we used Cheerios, food colouring, pebbles, Legos, leaves, and other stuff. We even froze a length of string between two cubes to be used as a handle. 2. Line a baking sheet with aluminium foil – this is your building surface. (Tip: Before you start building, make enough room in your freezer to accommodate your lantern when it’s finished for a final freeze.) Set a bowl of water next to your work area.…

USEFUL, CLEVER TIPS FOR YOUR HOME WINNING TIP NOW YOU SEE IT We are very keen campers and have lately begun using a 4x4 bush wagon for our excursions. We have always had the problem of kids and even us adults tripping on tent pegs and injuring ourselves, especially in the dark. Our solution was to buy a few brightly coloured pool noodles, cut them into the lengths of the tent pegs, slitting them with a sharp knife along one side and then sliding them over the tent pegs. Not only are the tent peg more visible, but they are less likely to injure you seriously if you do happen to trip over one. My wife, a stickler for a neat camping site, also finds them more pleasing to the…

IT MADE PERFECT SENSE AT THE TIME February 1939 The Hale Telescope at the Palomar Observatory was the most powerful in the world, with a five-metre concave mirror at its heart. It cost a mammoth $6 million US, and scientists at the time reckoned that they would be able to push the borders of the known universe to one billion light years away. The Square Kilometre Array, due to come on stream in 2020, will be able to look back in time to practically the dawn of the Universe, 13,5 billion years ago. December 1971 Radio-controlled drifting may be relatively new in the world, but radio-controlled racing had started taking the US by storm as early as 1970. Powered by two-stroke model aeroplane engines running on a mix of methanol,…

TO THE TYPICAL SCHOOL PUPIL, it must sound like fantasy: a principal who thinks children spend too much time having facts rammed down their throats and, instead of slogging their way through homework, they should be out playing. It’s a tantalising prospect, especially if terms like “lowest common multiple” keep distracting you from terms like “PlayStation”. But it’s very much reality for Gavin Keller, the man who instituted a no-homework system at his Cape Peninsula school. Not only is the idea increasingly garnering more interest, but it’s also been great in terms of report card symbols. Even so, in many circles the jury’s still out.* Keller’s approach may be at odds with the traditional way of doing things, he says, but it’s more in tune with the way the brain…

I rarely feel silly doing things, but riding an electric scooter to work made me feel very silly indeed. I’m not a small man and not a particularly well co-ordinated one, so the constant threat of falling off at every bump in the pavement more than an apple high was a clear and present danger. A fear compounded by the watching eyes of dense Monday morning suburban traffic. It would’ve been hilarious if I had fallen off, but by the white of my knuckles and the bruises on my ankles, I didn’t. Personal mobility is still best when done under your own power, but rideables are gaining popularity because of novelty value and celebrity culture. What we shouldn’t forget though is that the celebs are paid to look good, so…

ON AN EARLY SPRING DAY in New Buffalo, Michigan, a layer of clouds hangs over the close-cropped buildings like a duvet. The grey ground has only partially recovered from winter. It’s the time of earth-churning and seed-planting. Of little furrows in long straight lines. And yet, on the farm that belongs to Milan and Daniel Kluko, it’s already harvest day. Green Spirit Farms is an unusual place – a farm crossed with a Virgin Airlines flight as imagined by Tim Burton. On the growth floor, as the Klukos call it, patches of green sprout through Styrofoam sheets on floor-to-ceiling racks, floating in water that slowly circulates through the rigging. In the brighter areas, Tesla lights creep over lettuce bunches like upside-down cable cars. LEDs make the room glow pink and…

THE THUMB Oscar Berendsohn: My father owned a shipyard on a river near Hamburg, Germany. There were flatcars on it that transported heavy machinery on railroad tracks. I was five years old when a hired guy told me and my brother to sit on the flatcar and he pushed. I sat down, but as it started rolling I got scared and jumped off. When my feet touched the ground, this car pulled me under and cut off my left thumb. There was one doctor in town and my father couldn’t stand him. So my brother had to go across the river for another. That doctor sewed my thumb back on, but it didn’t work. Gangrene set in. They had to amputate. Roy Berendsohn: I never saw the lack of a…

DARIO TRINCHERO is a rock star at high school. Which is odd, because kids who stand out by achieving perfect scores on international maths exams are usually on the less glamorous end of the cool divide. That we couldn’t walk across campus without being stopped for at least three hugs from girls speaks volumes for how academic achievement is valued at Somerset College. But a rock star is only as good as his band. The teachers who helped Dario achieve his high accolades are equally impressive in their commitment to excellence. Trinchero is also a regular teenager who gets a bit shy in interviews and seeks the comfort of his group of friends. Being one of the best maths students in the world isn’t easy, but you’ll never say so…

There have been plenty of technological developments in the automotive industry that push the boundaries of safety, environmental and autonomous issues, but they do tend to push prices beyond that of the average consumer. So, it’s refreshing that every once in a while a vehicle comes along that comes kitted with just the bare essentials for those on a budget, and the recently updated Captiva can count itself among them. Or so I thought. Sales of crossovers and compact SUVs are burgeoning not only in South Africa, but the rest of the world as well, and to keep up with some of the trend Chevrolet put the Captiva’s nose under the knife. It now boasts a revised grille and LED daytime running lights and 18-inch alloys in the cladding-protected wheelarches.…