Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2018 i Popular Mechanics South Africa

It was great reading the Adventure Time article in September’s issue, confirming that the mag is moving with the times. Many people my age (Forty, cough) grew up on point-and-click adventures, as well as their predecessor 8-bit consoles and home computers. I’d hazard a guess that this may be one of your bigger readership groups. I’ll be looking out keenly for Jengo, but wanted to point out the omission of the most recent release of one of the biggest names in ‘point and click’ fame – Ron Gilbert. The title is Thimbleweed Park, and the interface is visually modelled on the successful SCUMM engine. It’s available online and easy to buy via Steam, for example. Speaking of the SCUMM engine, there’s a great emulator out there called ScummVM (available on…

Melinda Gates is the co-chair of The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the largest philanthropic foundation in the world. THIS APPLE III was a gift from my father, who was an engineer working with NASA. I was about 16, and we were all supposed to share it, but I took it over almost immediately and persuaded my parents to let it live in my bedroom. I spent hours on it playing games and learning to code, and my dad more or less had to ask permission to use it. But he didn’t seem to mind; he was always incredibly supportive of my interests in science and computers. ‘After I took a job at Microsoft, I had the Apple III sent to Seattle, because it reminded me of how a computer changed…

Popular Mechanics’ US copy chief (a former level 90 druid in World of Warcraft) tested the new Razer Blade (R25 000). How does it compare to her R3 500 Lenovo 110S laptop? It feels sentient, a sleek black idol waiting for you to do something worthy. It’s total overkill for Stardew Valley, a pixelated retro-style farming game that, on my Lenovo, is, well, playable. On the Razer, Bumblebee Farm looks cozy and lush. Footsteps are weighty, and the cows, goats, and sheep sound alive. On the 110S, my farm seems to be covered with layers of old plastic, and the sound is muddy. Of the more graphically demanding games I tried out, only one would even fit on my little Lenovo. The Witcher 3 was exhausting to learn, but nevertheless,…

MONITOR A /HP Pavilion 32 Display If you’re used to hunching over a 13-inch laptop screen, a big external display will transform your life. This HP is exceptionally valuable for its huge size, and comes recommended for anyone except video editors or serious gamers, who will need a higher resolution. (R5 320) MOUSE B /Logitech MX Ergo The payoff for taking time to learn a trackball? A conspicuous lack of wrist pain. If R1 500 is too much to spend, the R250 Logitech M325 is an excellent classic-type mouse. Same for anything Logitech, really. It makes awesome peripherals. (R1 500) ROUTER C /Asus AC2900 Upgrading from the router you got from Telkom will give you an immediate bump in speed, stability, and range. It may seem pricey, but this Asus…

(5) I would never say I’m a smart man. I’m a very simple labour guy. My dad’s an electrician, my brother’s a pool guy. So that right there explains the entirety of how I came up with the whole idea. (6) Actually, I’ll give you exactly what it was. I had worked for Coachella kind of since the beginning, around 2003. It wasn’t technically a real job. I was one of the first people to show up in a camper. They put me in this back area behind these oleanders and said, ‘Stay over here – if anybody else shows up in a camper, we’ll send them over to you and you can tell them where to park.’ Every year it escalated. More campers, bigger parties, more pools. First a…

WORMWOOD (ARTEMISIA ABSINTHIUM) is a wild plant in the daisy family native to northern European mountainsides. It is nature’s richest source of alpha-thujone, a chemical compound believed to have mind-illuminating powers. It tastes harshly bitter. None of that stopped Sasha Selimotic and Taras Hrabowsky, cofounders of Standard Wormwood Distillery, from building a line of spirits around it. ‘We were drawn to the mythology,’ says Selimotic. ‘Before absinthe was legalised, it was a lost ingredient. We had to bootstrap wormwood’s redefinition outside the traditional palate.’ The business partners, who have known each other since primary school in upstate New York, were home distillers – moonshiners, really – in Brooklyn for nearly a decade before deciding to go legit. Their spirits maintain a creative DIY character. They source grains upstate, rye being…

‘The brain is the most complex structure in the known universe,’ says Allen Institute chief scientific officer Christof Koch. Here’s how to make one. First, procure roughly 86 billion neurons (A), which are cells that collect information from other cells, via projections that look like tree branches (dendrites [B]) and shoot that information down itty-bitty cattle prods (axons [C]) using electricity generated by sodium and potassium ions. Next, get some as yet unknown number of support cells called glia. These include oligodendrocytes, which wrap the highways of the longest, most important axons in fatty sheaths to speed up their electrical signals; astrocytes (D), which look like sponges and can communicate with each other; and microglia, which act as the brain’s private immune system. Each neuron should have an average of…

1 Fell the tree. 2 Many of the branches are at about perfect height for cross-cutting, so turn these into firewood-sized pieces, working from the tip to the trunk. 3 Cross-cut the tree into two or three large pieces that are easy to rotate and manoeuvre, then whack a splitting axe or standard axe into the end of one of these; the axe forms a handle that enables you to rotate the log. Another good tool for rotating logs is the time-tested cant hook, a large pole with a pivoting hook on one end. 4 Buck the log into 30 cm pieces that allow for easy splitting. Yes, shorter pieces mean more cutting, but they are lighter, easier to handle, and split much more easily than longer pieces. Cut as…

POPULAR MECHANICS SENIOR HOME EDITOR SOLVES YOUR MOST PRESSING PROBLEMS I lost the aerator from our kitchen mixer, and now nothing I buy fits. Do I have to replace the unit? T Manuel You’re closer than you think to the fix. First, be sure that you have the wrong aerator. I’ve seen correctly sized aerators not thread right on the first try because a little dirt or corrosion on the mixer prevents the threads from taking. Use a mini plastic brush (which you should keep in your plumbing kit) to lightly brush the mounting area on the mixer. Rinse the area clean and try the aerator again. Assuming the aerator still doesn’t fit, cleaning the aerator mount will at least tell you whether the mixer has external or internal mounting…

Last month, we looked at the basics of giving your car a DIY minor service. But what about the brakes and running gear – items that definitely deteriorate with time? I’m talking about the wheels, tyres and suspension – essential components that mustn’t be neglected. These items are all grouped together at the four corners of your car. So each time we jack up a wheel and get in under the mudguard, we’ll assess each group and I’ll explain the checks and work you might need to do, and how to do it. Because of the safety-critical nature of this work, please see the note below, and our disclaimer at the end. Disassembly and tyre-wear check Place chocks on both sides of both wheels on the side of the car…

WINNING LETTER FINER DETAILS Greetings, Popular Mechanics team. Over the years, I have had many hobbies, one of which is constructing model cars, planes and boats in great detail. Many of these models have taken me five to six years to construct, even though the scale is small – usually around 1:30 or 1:40. I spend a lot of time before the construction begins working on scale drawings of the proposed model. All my models have been made from scratch, with materials at my disposal at the time; only occasionally do I need to purchase odd bits of materials. I’ve even made tyres for some of my cars from rubber that I bought from America – although the rubber was white, and I had to experiment to get the black…

If you have to ask, probably not. Gaming consoles are approachable, can involve more than one IRL player, and are cheaper than a PC. But if you’re starting from zero or have an ageing console, PCs win almost every category. There are a few games that only come out on Xbox, PS4, or Nintendo Switch, but the biggest titles are usually available on a PC, plus other non-console exclusives. PCs are more expensive, but when you buy one, you get access to games, plus a device that will let you file your taxes or do homework. The reason pro competitors and the most famous Twitch streamers use PCs is because the keyboard and mouse are, arguably, more precise than thumb joysticks. And unlike on a living-room Xbox, gaming on a…

FOR AS LONG as he can remember, reader Eric Kaltenbacher’s father, Helmut, had talked about building a Swiss clock featured in the August 1964 issue of Popular Mechanics. A trained wood patternmaker and builder, Helmut had bought tools for the project over the years, but never got around to completing it. Around December, Eric took matters into his own hands and decided to build the clock himself. He hoped to finish in time to present the gift to Helmut on Father’s Day. ‘I went into it determined to finish,’ he said of the intricate project. ‘I wasn’t sure if it was going to be enough time or not, but I set that as a goal.’ Eric, an electrical- and optical engineer, had a photocopy of the old article when he…

GIN DOESN’T AGE in barrels like bourbon or Scotch, picking up golden colour and rich character traits from wood. But just because it’s see-through doesn’t mean it’s not as structurally complex as any brown spirit. Instead of deriving flavour from a limited mixture of grains, gin gets its flavour from an array of botanicals. In Berkshire Mountain Distillers’ new Ethereal line, there is always the backbone of juniper, plus multiple levels of citrus – lemon, lime, grapefruit. But each edition relies on diversity – lavender, cubeb berries, coriander, peppercorn, rose hips and many others – combined in specific proportions that are closely guarded trade secrets. ‘We can discover new flavours by varying ratios of the botanicals we use – how they relate to each other and how to combine them…

Researchers have known for some time that an episode of depression, even early in life, doubles the risk of developing dementia, but they are just now figuring out how the two diseases fit together. In recent studies, people who have had a bout of depression had more proteins associated with vascular disease, and fewer proteins associated with general cell health in their blood than people who never had the disease. ‘It almost looked like they had premature molecular ageing,’ says Meryl Butters, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Preventing the increased risk may come down to ameliorating the effects of the stress hormone cortisol, which shoots up during depression.…

HEATING WITH WOOD is a study in stubborn self-sufficiency. It’s hard work, but as with growing vegetables, it’s rewarding. It’s also a study in efficiency or inefficiency. Looked at as industrial engineering, the goal is to turn a standing tree into heat as efficiently as possible. You shouldn’t take the easy way out and convince yourself that cutting and burning firewood is just a lifestyle choice that’s all frost-covered mornings and flannel shirts. Efficiency should elbow its way into that cosy scene. In fact, it has to. I weighed this thought recently as I sat on the tailgate of my bakkie. After a morning’s pleasant but hard work, I had cut up and stacked a whole load of white oak, almost half of it already split by hand. The wood…

Speed test your WiFi Telkom says you’ve got the Gigabit package, but home internet still feels slow? Connect to your home network with an Ethernet cable, then go to Speedtest.net to see how fast your internet is. Next, do the same test on WiFi. If the number drops, try repositioning the WiFi router higher up and away from obstructions, or upgrading to a mesh system, like Eero’s one-beacon starter kit (R8 049 from Shiptu) SONGS TO CLEAN THE GARAGE TO ‘SEASON OF THE WITCH’ Al Kooper & Stephen Stills ‘THE LAST OF THE REAL ONES’ Fall Out Boy ‘PINK CADILLAC’ Bruce Springsteen ‘FOLLOW THE LEADER Foxygen Start a nail one-handed For all those times you’ve found yourself flying solo on what should be a two-man job, here’s how to start…

WINNING TIP INTERCEPT THE MESS Cutting holes for downlights, or anything else that needs to go in the ceiling, is always a very messy exercise. If you have access to your roof space, save yourself the mess and just drill a pilot hole for each light. Then tape a plastic bag over the underside of each hole and drill the holes from the top using a hole saw or jigsaw. This way, you will capture all the dust and mess in the bag, and you ensure that you don’t hit any wiring or brandering in the roof. Chris van Strijp, Randburg MY 2(0)C WORTH Every so often I need to go to the hardware store to buy a fitting for a water pipe, a new seal for a tap, or…

BIG QUESTIONS. ANSWERS YOU CAN’T FIND ON THE INTERNET. OF COURSE YOU CAN. In fact, you likely have a device in your home right now that not only traps light and stores it – but keeps it cold, too! That’s right, your humble refrigerator: Open the door and voila! Light. It’s always there, ready to illuminate your carefully curated array of fine comestibles. We’re not sure how those photons get in there in the first place. They probably inject them at the factory, like Freon or something… Hold on. We’re now being told that the light in your fridge is not the same light all the time, but actually emanates from something called a light bulb that turns on when you open the door. What will they think of next?…

WRITE TO US, ENGAGE IN DEBATE, and you could win an exciting prize. The writer of this month’s winning letter has won a Makita Impact Driver Drill valued at R5 199! Like all the tools in Makita’s 18 V cordless range, the 13 mm DHP482Z Impact Driver Drill has been engineered using the latest technology. It is both lightweight and compact, with variable speed delivering up to 28 500 impacts per minute. It has an electric brake, reverse drill mode and 21 torque settings with a maximum fastening torque of 62 Nm. The single-sleeve keyless chuck allows for easy bit installation and removal. Charging time for the 3 Ah battery is 22 minutes. The kit includes a Cordless DHP482Z Impact Driver Drill, two 3 Ah 18 V batteries, and the…

LATE FEBRUARY and it’s 43˚C in the shade. Except there isn’t any shade on the high, wind-parched plateaus of the Cederberg. Watched over by San paintings, Boltwin Tamboer and five others harvest rooibos the old-fashioned way: removing the top two-thirds of the waist-high bushes with simple metal sickles before gathering the woody green stems in bundles the size of a boerboel. Almost exactly ten thousand miles away, in a trendy Portland cafe, a bearded barista pulls a shot of Red Espresso from his gleaming La Marzocco GB5 before topping it with a feathery almond-milk spume and a dash of organic honey. He’s been at it all morning: The cafe’s mountain-biking, software-coding, yoga-practising patrons can’t get enough of the new beverage that’s naturally caffeine-free, packed with antioxidants, and downright delicious to…

COMPANY Medrobotics, a medical devices company LOCATION Raynham, Massachusetts WHY IT’S A TARGET After a decade and $200 million in fundraising, in 2015 Medrobotics got FDA approval for a flexible robot that gives surgeons less invasive options for several surgical procedures. WHY IT MIGHT RING A BELL Last year, CEO Samuel Straface was leaving the office one night and noticed an unfamiliar face in his conference room, sitting with a bunch of electronic devices. Straface asked the man who he was there to see. The man said the CEO. Straface said, ‘I’m the CEO,’ and phoned the police. Charges against the intruder – Dong Liu, a dual Chinese and Canadian citizen – of attempting to steal trade secrets were later dropped. The Justice Department has not said why. WHAT TO…

FIRST: WHAT IS A GAMING COMPUTER? Playing a game is among the most taxing jobs you can give a computer. Editing video comes close, but nothing demands as much processing power as creating a photorealistic environment that constantly reacts to your input. Above all, gaming PCs require a serious graphics card (also called the graphics processing unit, or GPU), the hardware that handles the calculations required to make everything look pretty, even when the scene is full of explosions and moving characters. They’re designed to be upgradable, so, years from now, when your system can’t handle the demands of the next Call of Duty, you can spend a few grand on a new graphics card instead of buying a whole new PC. That’s right – PC. Most Macs don’t have…

At press time, 11.5 million people are subscribed to watch Tyler Blevins, known online as Ninja, play Fortnite on Twitch. His video views earn him R7 million a month. Do you have what it takes to unseat him? (Add up the assigned points after each answer to get your score.) 1. What kind of computer do you own? Chromebook (0) Macbook (0) iMac (0) The latest Asus ROG system (2) Your own build, with 64 GB DDR4 RAM and at least one GPU costing no less than R10 000 (5) What do you prefer? Playing video games (10) Sleeping (–10) 3. Do your forearms cramp easily? Yes (–10) No (10) 4. Dry eyes? Yes (–10) No (10) 5. Are you bothered by jokes about gamers? Yes (–10) No (0) You…

IPHONE XS Apple’s iPhone XS is available in two sizes: the 5.8-inch XS and the 6.5-inch XS Max. Other than display size, though, everything about these two handsets is identical. Both are powered by the new A12 Bionic chipset. These are the first commercially available phones with the new 7 nm chipset. Combined with the Neural Engine, the A12 Bionic means that you have a phone that learns from you and can adjust its processing- and battery-saving capabilities depending on your usage patterns. In terms of design, both the XS and XS Max are larger versions of the iPhone X (which Apple has discontinued), which means that it has the now-ubiquitous notch, no home button and no 3.5 mm headphone jack. Both handsets have a rear-facing 12 MP dual-camera set-up…

MODEL: POLAROID ORIGINALS ONESTEP 2 PRODUCED: JIANGSU, CHINA TIME TO DISASSEMBLE: 58 MINUTES, 6 SECONDS NUMBER OF PARTS: 140 NOTES: To use a Polaroid OneStep today practically means retraining yourself – there’s no zoom, little exposure control, an old-fashioned viewfinder, and a finite amount of film. Recreating a OneStep, which was the goal of The Impossible Project, the company that first sought to reverse-engineer Polaroid film before buying the defunct brand, rechristening itself Polaroid Originals, and creating the OneStep 2 in homage to the classic, was even more difficult. Polaroid’s breakthrough was devising a darkroom the size of an index card, and its chemistry, which supported an entire supply chain of companies – most of which failed when Polaroid did – proved exceedingly difficult to recreate. And it had to…

THE PRESENT A AL GARDNER and his brother-in-law built the house in Mount Kisco, New York, back in 1984 – two stories, three bedrooms, with a sweet little porch overlooking a sunny backyard. At the time, Gardner had worked in construction management for years. He had, in fact, been mechanically inclined ever since he was a kid, when he helped refurbish a Beaver tractor his dad bought from a neighbour. But the house was the first he ever built from scratch, and he was proud of it. Not many people can say they’ve built a house for their family. Al Gardner could. Al has a hard time walking up the stairs to his home’s second floor these days, so he lives on the first. In a lounge chair, surrounded by…

Consumer saws Consumer saws are intended for garden maintenance and minor storm clean-up, not firewood production. They’re too slow to produce a lot of firewood efficiently and you’ll wear them out if you try. They’re repairable, but generally not rebuildable. COST: R1 500 to R5 000 ENGINE SIZES: 30 cc to 50 cc Farm/ranch saws Larger, more powerful, and far more durable than homeowner saws, farm saws are well-suited for garden care and storm clean-up, and can easily handle cutting several cords of wood a year. But most lack the ability to be economically overhauled when the time comes. At a servicing dealer, chances are good the cost of the overhaul will be greater than the saw’s replacement cost. COST: R6 500 to R9 000 ENGINE SIZES: 50 cc to…

FOR THE COST of a can of paint and a bit of free time on a weekend, you can easily transform a room by applying a coat … well – two coats – of paint, to a wall. And painting a wall is really easy. All you need is a little bit of patience, paint in your chosen colour, and a few basic tools. Your most useful equipment here will be a drop sheet (any old piece of plastic or cloth will do), a decent paintbrush (40 mm width is a good all-purpose brush), a damp cloth for wiping up drips, a stick for stirring the paint, and a means of reaching the highest point of the wall you’re painting – a chair is okay, but a ladder is best.…

WRITE TO US WITH YOUR TIP AND YOU COULD WIN A MASTER LOCK HAMPER WORTH R2 000 Master Lock One Lock has a 55 mm body with a 7 mm hardened-steel shackle for improved cut resistance. It also has a directional combination padlock that allows for up/down/left/right directional movements to open the padlock, and is more secure than a standard combination lock. The One Lock code is resettable to any number of movements in any sequence. Master Lock products carry a limited lifetime warranty. Master Lock Indoor Bluetooth Padlock gives you the freedom to monitor access and control who is able to open the lock via the Master Lock Vault eLocks app on your smartphone. You’ll also be able to track the history of when the lock was opened and…