Innholdsfortegnelse for May - June 2022 i Popular Mechanics South Africa

A DAY IS 86 400 SECONDS LONG, EXCEPT that it never really quite is, not exactly. That number is an excellent average, but the Earth’s rate of rotation is in constant flux. After 2020 clocked some of the fastest days on record since 1960, scientists are considering subtracting a second from an upcoming calendar with a 59-second minute, or negative leap second, to align our UTC (the Coordinated Universal Time, used to set clocks around the world) with the time set by the rotation of the Earth (UT1). In 1971, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) set a standard that the UTC would never be more than 0.9 seconds ahead or behind UT1, says Demetrios Matsakis, chief scientist at Masterclock, a precision timing system company, and former chief scientist for time services…

FIVE MASS EXTINCTION EVENTS ARE generally credited with the state of life on Earth today, but new scientific evidence suggests Earth’s history may be marked by additional extinction events, as well as seemingly incidental population explosions. Jennifer Hoyal Cuthill, PhD, a data scientist at the University of Essex in England, and her colleagues used a machine-learning algorithm to chart shifts in the diversity of life over time and found that life doesn’t always rebound after extinction. This new research ‘goes against some of the traditional stories about evolution, which focus on mass extinctions and what happens immediately after them,’ she says. Scientists often assert that mass extinction events make way for mass adaptive radiation events, periods when surviving species evolve and flourish. When the dinosaurs went extinct roughly 66 million…

FIRE KILLS WARSHIPS. IN THE EARLY DAYS OF World War II, the USS Vincennes was set ablaze when Japanese shells shattered the heavy cruiser’s hangar space. The damage itself was not fatal, but the boat’s own paint and inventory – spare aeroplane parts, life jackets, and machine oil – fed the fire, lighting up the night sky to attract more heavy-calibre gunfire. In the early morning hours of 9 August 1942, the Vincennes rolled over and sank near Savo Island in the South Pacific. As similar losses mounted, the US Navy embarked on a campaign to rid its combat ships of almost everything that would ignite. A new ban prohibited cork insulation, linoleum flooring, rugs, and curtains, along with items from sailors’ personal belongings, such as excess books, dress uniforms and…

Here in Singapore, we went into full-on lockdown in 2020. We were allowed to go to the grocery store, but otherwise we could not go anywhere. And I just got a hankering for some pizza. But the ovens here are pretty small, like the size of a microwave. I tried to make a pizza on my gas braai by sliding it directly on to the grid, but it was just all right. I wanted that leopard-spotted bottom, and the charred bubbles on the crust. I saw online there were some pizza ovens selling in the US that go on top of a gas braai. And I thought, maybe I can make something like that. My design uses a thick steel baking tray as the base, covered by a stainless-steel dome…

IF YOU ENJOY RESTORING old cars, tools or antiques, there’s a good chance you’ve used a rust-removing product at some point, and you might be wondering which formula works best… Let’s take a look at the chemistry, before we talk about product options and their performance differences. ACID-BASED Typically speaking, most rustremoving products use an acid-based solution. Milder products tend to focus on citric acids, while the more potent stuff is generally phosphoricacid based. That said, you might be wondering why you’ve seen social-media videos where Coca-Cola or vinegar is used to remove rust. Well, the latter is a form of citric acid, while Coke has phosphoric acid listed as one of its ingredients. Of course, the quantity of phosphoric acid in soft drinks is very low. In concentrated form,…

Mazda2 FIGURES 15 L petrol 6-speedautomatic 3-yearunlimited km warranty 3-yearunlimited km service plan 85kW; 148 Nm Priced from R284 800 (base model) mazda.co.za THIS LITTLE Mazda2 caught me rather off guard. I don’t usually gravitate to small cars, but this one really appealed to me. For a daily commuter, this size vehicle makes a lot of sense, and this particular compact hatch will serve you diligently on that front. Comfort levels are high, finishes and workmanship are impressive, and there are features aplenty … most of which you might only expect in more premium vehicles. Standard across the entire Mazda2 range now are LED headlights (which are also self-levelling), front and rear electric windows, driver and passenger airbags, a multifunction steering wheel, push-start (keyless) ignition, 60:40 rear-seat split, and ISOFIX…

WRITE TO US popularmechanics@ramsaymedia.co.za WINNING LETTER I really enjoy reading Popular Mechanics, particularly the DIY articles. My daughter is a music teacher, and we jointly make gifts for her students each year. She also runs two extramural music groups – ukulele and marimba. In the recent Eisteddfod, her TVC Ukulele Society achieved an A++ grading as well as Best in Category, so we decided to make them some gifts for their achievement. We decided on stands for the ukuleles that could be easily dismantled to be stored flat in the ukulele bags. Hinges would’ve made the folded stands thicker, so we decided to go with a slotted fit-together approach. We looked at various ideas on YouTube and the closest suitable concept was from cardboard. No details were given, so we…

NO ONE KNOWS WHERE WE GO WHEN we die. Or for that matter, what happens to our most intimate thoughts, dreams, and desires when the nerve cells in our brains fire for the very last time. But it looks as though Microsoft may have some ideas. In December 2020, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) granted a patent to Microsoft that outlines a process to create a conversational chatbot of a specific person using their social data. Specifically, Microsoft could use images, voice data, social media posts, text messages, and written letters to ‘create or modify a special index in the theme of the specific person’s personality’. That sounds pretty benign, but in an eerie twist, the patent states that the chatbot could potentially be inspired by friends or…

TESLA NEARLY didn’t happen. In the early 2000s, the company had a bit of a rocky start. In fact, it wasn’t even Elon Musk’s idea, although he was open to investing millions in the dream of two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who wanted to sell a high-end electric sports car – sustainable and sexy. Power Play is the story of how it all came together, and Tim Higgins, the book’s author who also happens to be a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, explores exactly what it took to turn the auto industry on its head. While it may feel now that every carmaker today is going the electric or hybrid route, Elon Musk was the person who spearheaded the electric vehicle (EV) market and beat the odds doing so. He…

MSI VECTOR GP76 12TH GEN GAMING LAPTOP MSI’S VECTOR GP76 has landed in South Africa, and prolific gamers, or really anyone who demands exceptional performance from their computer, should take notice. This beast of a machine confirms, rather emphatically, that laptops can indeed deliver blistering speed and high performance. When it comes to power, few laptops can match this device. Its 12th Gen Intel Core i9 processor executes tasks with lightning-quick efficiency. Compared to the previous model, performance has been improved by a prodigious 45 per cent, a stat that really bodes well for intensive multitasking projects. Powered by Ampere, NVIDIA’s second-generation RTC architecture, a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070Ti processing unit (GPU) takes care of the graphics – in layman’s terms, you’re in highly capable hands, as this technology is incorporated…

NOW MORE THAN EVER, the transition to sustainable energy sources is at the forefront of that ever-buzzy buzzword, ‘cleantech’. Brayfoil Technologies is developing new innovations to accelerate the green revolution with their morphing blade technology inspired by birds’ wings. The minutiae of this industry are countless and as a collective, bit by bit, we’re moving towards a greener future with energy production becoming markedly more sustainable. Key to this is wind power, which in and of itself is a hugely complex ecosystem of research, continued development, and innovation. The pace of windpower installation needs to accelerate significantly from its current level of 88 GW installed globally in 2021, to more than 200 GW per annum by 2030 if the world is to hit net-zero targets. In simple terms, net zero refers…

Building cars is a family thing for us. After World War II, my dad built racing cars – midgets, hot rods, that sort of stuff. He actually raced for a while himself in the San Francisco Bay Area and was the first to hit 100 mph on the Oakland Speedway. When I was a kid, I always hung around the workshop with dad, helping him out, and kind of got the knack of it. After I got out of the navy in the late ’60s, I started building aluminium bodies on racing cars: midgets, dragsters, funny cars, and sporty cars. I also started building motorcycle petrol tanks for the Harley-Davidson XR-750 flat-trackers in the early ’70s. I’ve been a fabricator, building cars and parts for other people, almost my whole…

1 MAY 1953 They Call It Spin Fishing The photo-realistic illustration on the cover of this issue depicted ‘the great sport of spin fishing’. The accompanying story explained how this new style of fishing was taking the United States by storm, mentioning that ‘within 10 years Americans will be a nation of spin fishermen, bar a few die-hards who refuse to try anything new’. We’re not sure if that happened, but the full-colour illustrations of 70 spin-fishing lures, the photos of rod and reel variations and the detailed explanations certainly shed light on this emerging sport. 2 JUNE 1959 Fence It Right Ever considered erecting a fence around your property yourself? The idea of the project might sound daunting, but this article, filled with detailed instructions, broke it down into…

HOW CAN OLDER FIGHTER JETS STAY ALIVE while flying the deadly skies? With a little help from lasers. The US Air Force is working with Lockheed Martin on a defence system called Self-Protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD), a pod-mounted laser that will protect fighters from incoming air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles. The system, which the air force wants to place on planes by the mid-2020s, will likely initially protect older fighters that can’t take advantage of stealth to hide from the enemy. Lockheed is also working on a separate weapon, Tactical Airborne Laser Weapon System (TALWS), that will use program data from SHiELD. Today’s fighters are largely limited to passive defences against incoming missiles. Pilots can try to take evasive action by flying outside an incoming missile’s sensor arc, launching…

Black Mirror, a popular sci-fi anthology on Netflix, seemingly prophesied this technology back in 2013 with an episode titled ‘Be Right Back’. In it, a woman signs up for a chat service that lets her communicate with an AI version of her late partner, who’d died in a car crash. We won’t spoil it for you, but suffice to say, things get weird. And then there’s the 2013 film Her, wherein Joaquin Phoenix stars as a lonely writer who dates Samantha, an intelligent operating system voiced by Scarlett Johansson, with troubling results. While Samantha is not a chatbot per se, the film still illustrates the psychological trauma that can befall those who lean too heavily on technology.…

THEY’RE ROLLS-ROYCE QUIET. SOME ARE Lamborghini fast. No oil changes. No exhaust smell to remind you that parts of Miami will be underwater in 30 years. But after testing a bunch of new electric vehicles (EVs) for Pop Mech’s Auto Awards last year, I understand why, for the past few years in the US, the number of Ford F-Series pickup customers alone is greater than the number of all new electric-car customers combined: EVs are still a hassle. Specifically, driving them far is a hassle. Through no fault of the manufacturer, even a $105 150 Porsche Taycan 4S’s technical excellence becomes irrelevant when you’re nervous about finding power to run it. Three days of testing a Taycan required five apps’ worth of downloading, password creation, and email confirmation. And of…

As China and Russia inch closer to rivalling America’s top fighters, the US Air Force is on the hunt for a new jet. Dubbed the Next-Generation Air Dominance programme (NGAD), this effort is intended to replace America’s hobbled fleet of F-22 air superiority fighters. While maintenance records indicate that just 33 F-22s are flight-ready at any given time today, China’s fleet of Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragons is estimated to number around 50 aircraft, and Russia’s fleet of Sukhoi Su-57 Felons is growing, expected to reach 76 planes by 2028. America’s air supremacy is at risk. The J-20 and the Su-57 are stealth fighters designed for the contested airspace of a near-peer war. Most modern fighters specialise: America’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter serves a primary ground-attack role, while the F-22 Raptor…

BEING ABLE TO CHANGE THE ENTIRE LOOKand feel of a room with the press of a button or a quick voice command is one of those rare things that makes you feel like you’re living in the future. Colour-changing lights have existed for years, but never in a form that was useful. They were typically big, clunky fixtures that you had to plug into a wall, took up valuable shelf space, and required a remote to control. They certainly weren’t elegant – mere novelty items at best. Plain white LED bulbs had an equally rocky start. By the end of the 2000s, you could replace a standard incandescent bulb with one, but they were still generally ugly, with bizarre fins around the bases, and they often cast an unpleasant shade…

IT FEELS LIKE EVERYONE I know has an angle-grinder horror story to share. Most of the time it’s a ‘friend of a friend’ story, but that doesn’t make them any less terrifying. While I’ve had a few close calls myself, these days I seldom get the skriks when using a grinder. Part of this has to do with practice as well as exposure to the tool, but mostly, it’s that I no longer fear them. As I stated in the grinder comparison article in the March/April issue, in my experience most angle-grinder accidents happen when the operator isn’t confident in what they’re doing. Of course, that doesn’t help first-time anglegrinder users, as it often takes time to get comfortable with the power tool. If you’re new to angle-grinder operation, here are…