Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2016 i Popular Mechanics South Africa

SUN 6/8 THIS MONTH IN SCIENCE HISTORY It’s hard to believe that it was just 25 years ago on this day in 1991 that trainspotter-turned-electronics, buff Tim Berners-Lee published an outline of a world wide web and it was made available for public use. We wonder whether TimBL would have pushed ahead had he known that Twitter lay in store. For the record, as we write this, statistics show that there are now more than four billion pages on a billion sites on the indexed web. The jury’s out on how many of those are worthwhile. FRI 13/8 UNDER THE SKIN The latest take on a hugely successful concept, last seen here three years ago, Body Worlds Vital uses actual human bodies, preserved and laid bare by means of a…

IF YOU EVER VISIT THE SERVER ROOM of the fastest super computer on the African continent, the earplugs they ask you to wear may be overkill. Your mileage may vary, but the cooling fans, while loud, aren’t what you would call deafening. There was, however, a deafening silence to any questions about how much the CSIR Centre for High Performance Computing’s newest toy costs. So far some of the work that Lengau (seTswana for Cheetah) has done has more than justified the purchase price. The current system is named Lengau owing to its speed of 1 000 teraflops (certified peta). Thanks to the technology, the system is also smaller in footprint than the previous one. The Dell HPC system is comprises 1 039 Dell PowerEdge servers, based on Intel Xeon…

THERE ARE STILL PLACES in this country where it’s possible to get a great haircut for under 50 bucks, but most stylists charge double that. Guys who balk at spending a car payment on a haircut often assume this is a racket, but there is real science behind a great haircut. A solid barber chooses a style for you based on your head shape, then adapts the cut to specifically fit your skull. “If you use a number 3 guard on clippers, you’re cutting every hair to the same length,” says Shirley Hagel, a New York City stylist who cuts the hair of New York Ranger Chris Kreider. “But nobody’s head is perfectly smooth. What makes a good haircut is cutting all the hair differently to make it look like…

I never thought the day would come that something would unseat the Harman Kardon Aura as my favourite wireless multiroom speaker. The R3 doesn’t quite do that, but it gets very close, only being let down by not fully conceived software. You can’t fault the speaker quality though, with clear mids and thumping bass pushed to all corners of the room. On the top are the touch controls and mode display, which sits above the 1” tweeter and its audio reflector. The bottom houses the inputs power input and the down-firing 4,2” woofer which also has an audio reflector. It’s a cylinder and the dome-shaped reflectors radiate the sound waves equally (I tested this with a sound meter app). A tripod mount on the bottom is handy for positioning it…

Ask most people the time, and they reach for their cellphones and say something along the lines of, “Eleven forty-eight”. If you’d asked the same question 50 years ago, they’d have cocked their left wrist and answered, “Nearly a quarter to.” So, in 2016, why should you be buying a watch? For one thing, atomic-clock accuracy isn’t everything. And by the way, today’s watchmaking techniques and technology are able to produce everyday timepieces, not the chronometers of days gone by, that keep time pretty damn accurately. The thing is, in 2016 the traditional wristwatch is, somehow, still the essence of cool. And it’s not just about tapping into a hipsterish retro lifestyle. Increasingly, as technology advances in leaps and bounds, many people are yearning for something with a more measured…

From its very inception, Star Trek vowed “To explore strange new worlds.” Apparently now that includes the cinema. Star Trek Beyond will be available on about fifty Barco Escape screens: three adjacent screens – the traditional centre display plus one on either side – that offer a panoramic, wrap-around viewing experience. It’s like a horizontal IMAX. While fifty screens may not sound particularly impressive, movie studios hope Barco Escape will one day be able to compete with 3D, IMAX, and 4DX (which involves seat motion, flashing lights, and scents) to reinvigorate the theatrical experience. And though the experience was available for the first two Maze Runner films, Star Trek Beyond will be the real test of the possibilities. Already bullish, 20th Century Fox signed a fiveyear deal with the company…

KEY FEATURES GROSS WEIGHT 28 tonnes KERB WEIGHT 19 tonnes PAYLOAD 9 tonnes MAX SPEED 110km/h OPERATING RANGE 800 km BALLISTIC PROTECTION STANAG 4569 Level 3+ BLAST PROTECTION STANAG 4569 Level 4a and 4b A COUPLE OF YEARS BACK, at the Gerotek proving grounds near Pretoria, we had a memorable turn at the wheel of a Paramount Marauder, a vehicle ideally suited to rush hour traffic. Crushing rush hour traffic, that is. The Marauder is the smallest of the formidable armoured vehicles produced by the South African global defence and aerospace company and it’s now been joined by the biggest. The new-generation 8x8 armoured vehicle was launched in Astana during the annual Kazakhstan Defence Exhibition. Labelled a high speed, long-range, and low profile armoured vehicle, the Mbombe 8 is described…

IT’S NOT THE TOUGHEST OF JOBS. Mostly, you sit around and wait, before being strapped into a car and going for drive lasting only a few seconds. And when you finish work, everybody is really interested in how your day went. Life’s like that for a crash test dummy. Up to now, it’s tended to be more of an adult career and a short-lived one at that. That’s why more sustainable virtual versions have been created and now Toyota has expanded its family of virtual crash-test dummies by adding three new models. The new brood will replicate the physical characteristics of children aged 10, six and three. They are all based around software that’s known as Total Human Model for Safety (THUMS), which maps and simulates the injuries suffered in…

FOR THE LOVE OF GADGETS ON THE GO Hasselblad X1D Consider this as serving notice to those professional portrait photographers who have sworn off mirrorless cameras. The medium format 50 MP sensor can capture up to 14 stops of dynamic range. Boom. What is surprising about this camera though, is how it has rocketed mirrorless cameras into the mainstream with regard to vocabulary. No more faffing around with describing the sensor crop à la micro four-thirds or APS-C, just DSLM. It earns it, too, with 16-bit RAW image capturing. It isn’t cheap, but you can’t expect it to be. This is a brand new animal that is the apex predator among mirrorless cameras. And it’s a proper mirrorless with a touchscreen and electronic viewfinder. No one saw that coming from…

Usain Bolt made the sign of the cross, pointed to the heavens and kissed his skinny fingertips. Two lanes over stood Justin Gatlin, his thick shoulders filling out his bright-red team USA tank top, diamond studs in his ears. He was as sombre and focused as Bolt was loose. The runners set their feet in their blocks and placed their fingers on the track, waiting for the gun. Like Bolt, Gatlin had tasted Olympic glory before, having won gold at the 2004 games. But that was a lifetime ago – before a ruinous 2006 doping ban, before authorities annulled his world record and exiled him from the sport for four years and before the 2008 Summer Olympics when Bolt burst on the scene, running the 100-metre dash in an unthinkable…

THE FLYER FOR THE FIRST GAME TOURNAMENT READ: The first “Intergalactic spacewar olympics” will be held here, Wednesday 19 October, 2000 hours. First prize will be a year’s subscription to “Rolling Stone”. The gala event will be reported by Stone Sports reporter Stewart Brand & photographed by Annie Liebowitz. Free Beer! IT’S ESTIMATED that the gaming industry will earn almost R400 billion this year – making it the world’s fastest-growing entertainment segment. The international experts in statistics reporting, Statista, reckon the South African games market is currently worth R2,9 billion and forecasts year-on-year growth of at least 6,1 per cent. The result of this industry’s fast upward growth has resulted in the local competitive gaming industry seeing gains in popularity, game support, sponsorship and prize pools. As well as coverage…

“Overclocking in general is what you do to get more frames in your game. If your game lags, you overclock and then it might not lag anymore.” ON A QUIETER PART of the anonymous community website Reddit, frequented by more than 200 million users in 2015, a user posts: “I miss ‘Can it run Crysis’”. User Nilick opens his thread with a provocative question: “When will we once again see a game that demands more than what is readily available to everyone?” After the release of the first-person shooter game Crysis in 2007, it quickly became synonymous with computer benchmarking. The reason: it was sent out with poor efficiency, meaning many gamers needed computers with better processing power than recommended, to run it at optimal graphics. Computer nerds sharing specifications…

DESPITE THE CONVENIENCE of on-demand video, satellite TV and all the rest of it, we’re still prepared to trek out to the shopping mall to sit in a darkened, upholstered room with a bunch of strangers staring up at a giant screen while complaining about the price of Slush Puppies. Predictably, when it comes to home theatre those who can afford it try to replicate the big-screen experience as far as possible (with the probable exception of the Slush Puppies). We’ve featured some astonishingly opulent home theatre systems, most recently in our issue of September 2015. From high-def video to audiophile sound, from plush furnishing to magical acoustics, it’s clear that discerning movie buffs are prepared to invest big bucks. Well, the bucks just got bigger: IMAX is now offering…

Don’t carry it, slide it WHEN YOU’RE STUCK for an easy way of moving camping gear from car to campsite, there might be a solution at hand: that child’s sled, body board or sandboard that happened to have been packed in, just in case expanses of dune or water happened to be close by. If made of plastic, even better: it will slide easily over grass, gravel or sand, and the plastic is highly durable. BELT HANGS BARBECUE GEAR If you’ve got a tree next to the patio (or sturdy balusters on your deck railing), wrap an old belt around it, as tightly as possible (tighter than you’d prefer on your own trunk). Put S-hooks over the top of the belt. Now you can hang a barbecue brush, tongs or…

1 MERCEDES-BENZ E-CLASS We have gone on at length in these pages about the techno wizardry incorporated what Mercedes-Benz calls the most intelligent executive sedan. Top of the list for me are the car’s range of driver aids, its industry-first touchpad controls and its massive optional dual info screens. On the KwaZulu-Natal launch route, I was happy to let the car do a lot of the work, thanks to the Extended Driving Assistance package that does everything from steer to accelerate to brake to a standstill (for now, you do need to stay in regular contact with the steering wheel). My co-driver was more conservative. Or maybe just less trusting. Auto-parking cars are relatively common these days, but the E-Class adds a couple of tweaks. Not only does it steer…

WINNING TIP SUCK IT AND SEE I had to run a new electrical cable through a existing conduit, but don’t own a snake or fishtape. The length between the sockets was about 15 metres, with multiple bends in between. After repeatedly trying to get a steel cable through the corners of the conduit, I was about to give up. I hit on the idea of tying a small ball of cotton (slightly bigger than the diameter of the conduit) to reasonably strong fishing line. I tucked this into one end of the conduit and held a vacuum cleaner on the other end. It needed the right size pipe on the end of the vacuum cleaner to get an air-tight fit to the conduit – duct tape can come handy here…

THE VOLVO OCEAN RACE is regarded as the toughest and most prestigious sporting competition of any kind in the world. No other event tests people and equipment more extremely, or requires such a combination of individual skill, team work, engineering excellence, technological capability and sheer guts. These are qualities that Volvo Cars shares with the race and that is why it acquired the competition in 1997, linking its own tradition of engineering prowess, design and team work to the world’s most arduous and acclaimed sailing race. “The Volvo Ocean Race is tough and prestigious. So are we,” says Håkan Samuelsson, president and chief executive of Volvo Cars. Volvo Cars joins the team at the Volvo Ocean Race to reveal a gruelling new route for the 2017–2018 competition that will push…

PERFORMANCE CAN BE A DIRTY BUSINESS. Dirt is a practically inevitable byproduct of fuel and the combustion process and it can clog up the inside of your vehicle’s automotive cardiovascular system. Result: sluggishness, poor efficiency, lack of performance and poor economy. BP says its Ultimate Fuel with Active Technology, five years in the making, will clean up your engine’s act and stop dirt from reforming. That’s particularly relevant for precision components such as fuel injectors and intake valves. The fuel does all this without harsh abrasives: its molecules attach themselves to dirt and basically float away with the stuff, to be burned in the combustion chamber. Your freshly scrubbed engine will improve your mileage, too: as much as 50-plus kilometres extra in a tankful, according to the company’s tests. And…

A TRIBUTE: I LIKE STAR TREK. All of it. The original series, the movies, the various spinoffs, the rebooted movie franchise. Each version of Star Trek has filled some niche in my life. I watched the original show with my father, a guy who had little use for television otherwise. I went to the movies early and often as an aimless youth. Watched Next Generation as a young parent, holding one of two indifferent bottle-sucking infants when they were fresh off late-night crying jags. I took in Deep Space Nine in fits and starts while writing books, and Voyager during my divorce. I finally watched all four seasons of Enterprise on Hulu in a weeklong jag last summer. Star Trek matters. It is badass high adventure told in quick, artful…

NEW IDEAS THAT COULD CHANGE THE WORLD popularmechanics@ramsaymedia.co.za IN BERLIN DURING JUNE at this year’s NOAH Conference – a leading event for the internet and digital industry in Europe – the “smart urban pioneers” idea contest initiated by carmaker smart entered its final and decisive phase. Each of the three finalists launched their own campaign on the popular international crowdfunding platform Indiegogo. In the race for the final ranking were Cabin Spacey and Urban Affairs 2016, both from Berlin, and myLike from Munich. The car brand sees its involvement as promoting innovative projects that enhance the quality of life in the city. Its “smart urban pioneers” competition kicked off in December 2015 with the aim of identifying innovative ideas and projects that improve the quality of life in the city.…

WHEN WE BOUGHT our house – an old house, beautiful little place – it needed a lot of work. Still does. But it’s a sweet yellow house with a red barn out back and a stream running alongside. An endless field behind the barn gives the boys room to run and the house has the original blownglass windows, wide-plank floors and the odd low door for whacking your head on. Early on, I had as many items on my to-do list as I do now. Replace the basement toilet. Install stairs to get to the attic, which was basically inaccessible. Paint all the mauve and Buick-blue trim. Weatherproof the windows. Spread mulch. Retile the upstairs bathroom floor. Figure out what kind of bugs are living in the barn. Fix the…

It took me 15 full minutes to clean out the Fortuner before I returned it to Toyota. That was after a weekend where my family didn’t really do anything special except for back-to-back birthday parties. One of those parties required some light off-roading, which showed off one of the enduring flaws of Toyota’s all-conquering SUV. While the Fortuner is an amazingly capable vehicle, I’m yet to be convinced that it was originally conceived as a seven-seat wagon. The flip up configuration is still a terrible solution, it obscures vision and is prone to coming loose, like it did when travelling up the hill to my daughter’s first party of the day. How does it drive? Like a bakkie. Well, that’s not entirely true because the coil springs on the rear…

It hardly seems possible that this all-American that conquered the world has been with us for three-quarters of a century: the brand is celebrating its 75th year of existence. Over time, though the Jeep has become more civilised – if not exactly soft in some of its iterations – the version that’s become known as the Wrangler has traded most on the name’s authenticity and heritage. The original, a simple utility tool for World War 2 use, has metamorphosised into a range of products that only hint at its workhorse origins. It has passed through the hands of different owners (and in wartime was made by more than one). But the basic principles, expressed by Jeep’s manufacturers, still hold true: 4x4 and off-road capability, functionality and open-air design. The Jeep…

Although it’s pretty safe to assume that high-performance vehicle manufacturers tend to lap up all the glory when one of their products is lauded as a dynamic marvel, that’s not entirely fair on the strip of rubber around the wheels that actually keeps said vehicle firmly attached to terra firma. To demonstrate just how exceptional the successor to the 5P is, Continental took members of the local motoring media to Zwartkops Raceway in Gauteng to sample the new SportContact6 on a few examples of the Mercedes-AMG model portfolio. With the SportContact6 unashamedly designed with maximum dry-weather performance in mind, Continental were not shy to point out that wet weather braking was on par with the outgoing tyre. That said, the company claims that performance increases up to 14 per cent…