Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2013 i Popular Mechanics

What You Said (ABOUT OUR DECEMBER ISSUE AND MORE) We read all of your comments, tweets, and letters. Unless they're in ALL CAPS. Please don't write letters in ALL CAPS. Our online fans had a lot to say this month. • We broke the news on our auto blog, "Proving Ground," that Nissan is using drive-by-wire in its 2013 cars. "Electric power steering is as far as I'm willing to go and still feel comfortable in my car," Rich Hanewald wrote on Facebook. Also on Facebook, Paul Lascari countered: "Airliners have had fly-by-wire for years. If the technology is good enough for aircraft, it must be good enough for earthbound vehicles." • Our story "10 Apps to Run Your Small Business" (popmech.com) amused reader Doug Colley. "Does anyone make an…

Motorsports F1 is Back … Again WILL A NEW STATE-OF-THE-ART TRACK KEEP GRAND PRIX RACING IN THE U.S. FOR GOOD? In mid-November, the same weekend that Nascar's Chase for the Sprint Cup series came to a close at the Homestead–Miami Speedway, a very different kind of race was taking place at a brand-new track in Austin, Texas. The Formula One United States Grand Prix has not been held since 2007, and naysayers may yawn that the expensive, twisty, turny, highly technical F1 racing that is so popular around the world can't succeed in the States. The sport reached its peak relevance in the U.S. in the '60s and early '70s when the Grand Prix took place at Watkins Glen and American drivers such as Dan Gurney competed with Europe's best.…

IN THE 1950S, AS THE COLD WAR HEATED UP, A SMALL TEAM OF ENGINEERS SET TO WORK ON A SECRET PROGRAM CALLED PROJECT 1794–A SUPERSONIC CRAFT DESIGNED TO SHOOT DOWN SOVIET BOMBERS. NOW A TROVE OF DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS SHEDS NEW LIGHT ON THE AUDACIOUS MISSION TO BUILD A FLYING SAUCER. Conceived in secret but officially revealed in 1960, the U.S. military's flying saucer program produced two prototypes of what was called the Avrocar. The craft shown here is on display in the museum at Ohio's Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. In September 2012, Michael Rhodes, a technician at the National Declassification Center (NDC) in College Park, Md., donned white cotton gloves, entered a climate-controlled room, and opened a cardboard file box. It was time for the report inside—"Project 1794 Final Development…

There are two schools of thought when it comes to keeping your tech gear humming: never-ending fiddling and never-get-around-to-it procrastination. But both tinkerers and technophobes can end up with a stack of projects waiting for a rainy day. This weekend, make it rain progress for 48 straight hours. DAY: FRIDAY GET READY: PREPARE SELF, SAVE DATA NO. 1 2 HOURS First, make a plan that's achievable. Your list should include a balance of projects, from the have-tos (sensible data backup) to the want-tos (whole-home audio!). Don't forget all the adapters, tools, and other supplies you'll need. Order cables ahead of time online—they'll cost far more in a last-minute run to the store. Backup NAS drive ($100 to $200) 10-foot Ethernet cable ($3) Home Theater Makeover TV mounting bracket ($30 to…

I live out in a rural area and can't count on plow trucks to clear winter snow from the street, so I do it myself. I've been using our old tractorand a scraper blade, but I'm tired of freezing since there's no cabin. I've decided to buy a plow truck. What should I be looking for, and should I consider getting a used one? Although you're getting a truck for the luxury of staying warm and dry, remember that you're buying a tool, first and foremost. Here is what to look for when perusing the market: The truck must be able to carry the load of the plow system out front without significant impact on handling; it needs a heavy-duty alternator to deliver electricity required for the electric hydraulic pump;…

Lately I've noticed these repeating animated GIF files showing up on all of my favorite sites—they're annoying yet strangely compelling. Can I make these myself? An animated GIF is an easy way to relive a single moment over and over ad nauseum. The GIF—graphics interchange format, and pronounced jif (see Glossary, below)—was invented by CompuServe in 1987 as a way to compress color images without degrading their visual information. Because the format usually results in a small, widely readable file—and because a single file can include multiple layers and, therefore, be animated—it boomed in popularity along with the Internet. But that was in the 1990s, before the Internet became so self-aware; now the information superhighway is bursting with GIFs of cats, politicians, cats with politicians—and so on. The initial return…

FOR MANY HOMEOWNERS IT ONLY TAKES ONE LOSS OF POWER OVERNIGHT TO SPUR THE PURCHASE OF A GENERATOR. WITH NUMEROUS RECENT OUTAGES IN MIND, WE TESTED FOUR 2000-WATT MODELS, PUTTING THE MACHINES THROUGH THEIR PACES EVEN AS HURRICANE SANDY STRUCK OUR REGION. WE ALSO EVALUATED THE QUALITY OF VOLTAGE AND AMPERAGE AND DISCOVERED THAT THIS QUARTET HAS BANISHED CONCERNS ABOUT DIRTY POWER. ALL FOUR CLEANLY AND SAFELY RUN ANYTHING WITHIN THEIR WATTAGE RATING, EVEN LAPTOPS. BRIGGS & STRATTON P2000 Likes: Great power quality (see below) and a great buy. Also, equipped with the best handle of the four. It means the machine can be easily carried by one person with one or two hands, or by two people, each using one hand. Two large captive screws on the access panel…

I'm a wood guy, but I understand that it isn't for everybody. It's satisfying to cut, split, and burn wood, but it's intense work. And there's a lot of cleanup at every step in the process. If you're not counting on the fireplace to provide heat, maybe the cozy, clean, and pleasant appearance of a gel-alcohol fireplace would be a good fit, even though the flame lacks the depth, complexity, and hypnotic beauty of a wood fire. These appliances are pretty simple—they're basically a steel box with a ceramic log set, and they burn gelled alcohol in a can. There are also liquid-alcohol fireplaces, many of which have no log set. The big advantage of these fireplaces is that they don't require a flue, so you can put them nearly…

DINOSAUR DETECTIVES EXAMINE TEETH-MARKED REMAINS TO DETERMINE HOW EXTINCT CARNIVORES DEVOURED THEIR PREY. A long groove on the flat triceratops frill is joined by a sideways mark, showing that the head was first pulled back and then shaken to the side. Deep bite marks on the edge of the frill are strange because there is little meat there—meaning a T. rex gripped this part to yank the head off. The carnivore nibbled on the nose, leaving sets of three to four shallow, parallel scratches. (Humans leave similar marks on the bones of chicken wings.) AS A PALEONTOLOGIST with the Museum of the Rockies, Denver Fowler is as much a detective as he is a scientist. His area of expertise: Late Cretaceous murders. Fowler is studying Tyrannosaurus rex bite marks on…

IN THE 30-FOOT WAVES CREATED BY HURRICANE SANDY, A HOLLYWOOD ICON MEETS ITS DOOM. IT WAS MIDNIGHT ON SUNDAY, OCT. 28, WHEN COAST GUARD PILOT Wes McIntosh established radio contact with the HMS Bounty. The three-masted, square-rigged ship was 100 miles off the tip of Cape Hatteras, N.C., right in the heart of the churning gray pinwheel of Hurricane Sandy. McIntosh and his six-member crew had left Raleigh in their C-130 Hercules search plane a half-hour earlier. They were still 60 miles away, just outside a solid wall of rain visible on the radar, when McIntosh got the first update from the foundering ship: Six feet of water had pooled in the belly of the boat, and the Bounty was flooding at the rate of a foot an hour. "The…

HOW TO SPLIT THE UPRIGHTS FROM 50 YARDS OUT When Alex Henery of the Philadelphia Eagles steps onto the field to attempt a kick, he has no time to worry about mechanics. Once the ball is snapped, he has 1.25 seconds to send it on its way. Many factors will influence the outcome of the play. The second-year pro tries to focus solely on the rhythm and motion that have made him an NFL star and a subject worthy of study at his alma mater. 1. The Hold Everyone knows the laces should point away from the kicker's foot, but pros like Henery demand that the ball be standing straight up too. Tilting it lowers the center of mass, making it tougher to strike the sweet spot, says biomechanics professor…

The snow is falling, the fire is roaring, but you feel restless. Cure your cabin fever with us: start creating, fixing, doing. DIY SCIENCE Save a bottle, a can, and a few jars from post-party trash and use them to create your own weather station. p. 92 DIY HOME Six facts about standby generators that'll help you decide which one is right for your home and wallet. p. 94 BRIEF HISTORY OF Illuminating the history of the lightbulb, from Edison to the Bat-Signal. p. 112 FRONT END TICKING IN THE TURNS? REPLACE YOUR CAR'S HALFSHAFT. IT'S SURPRISINGLY EASY, REQUIRING JUST A FEW SIMPLE TOOLS AND AN AFTERNOON OF WRENCH WORK. p. 76 Our experts tackle your toughest tech, home, and auto questions—from how to pick the right truck for snow-plow…

Jed Rockwell has worked around skis and skiing his entire life. He used to help design and build racing skis for K2; he tuned skis for serial World Cup champion Bode Miller; and he has advised the ski technicians who travel with the sport's top competitors to prep their gear before every run. The stakes are lower for recreational athletes, but, Rockwell says, waxing skis or snowboard bases once a week can make turning smoother and more fun. Taking care of the steel edges will help too. As an added benefit, "sharp skis turn better, so they're safer," he says. Rockwell does have a warning for DIY technicians: Be careful. Taking a garage-sale iron to your bases, for instance, can destroy a $1000 investment. (Hint: If you want to skip…

HOW TO TURN YOUR HOUSE-PARTY LEFTOVERS INTO A METEOROLOGICAL MASH-UP. You don't need a TV weather forecaster in an expensive windbreaker to tell you what's happening in your own backyard. Save a few containers from your next wintertime bash and use them to build a simple barometer, wind vane, and rain gauge. Keep an eye on the sky and record the data; tracking local conditions can alert you to the approach of storms or clear, bluebird days. And you'll have one seriously microbrewed forecast. Cheers! INSTRUCTIONS Barometer: Drink a straight-necked bottle of beer, and overturn the bottle into a maraschino cherry jar. The mouth of the bottle should not reach the bottom of the jar. Add food coloring to some water; pour enough into the jar to cover three-quarters of…

DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY 1/10 AGES: 4+ BUILD TIME: 2 HOURS PARTS COST: ABOUT $20 UP, PERISCOPE! Materials Two pieces 3 x 15–inch foam board Two pieces 3.5 x 18–inch foam board Two pieces 3 x 3–inch foam board Two 3 x 3–inch mirrors Duct tape Assemble this eye-spy device with your kids, and in a short time, your little ones will be peeking over your neighbors' fences and around bedroom corners. Hey, no one said espionage was ethical. How it works To understand the optics of periscopes, think of the letter Z. The light reflected from an object hits a mirror tilted at45 degrees at the top of the device. The light then bounces to an identically angled mirror at the bottom, providing the image we see when we look…

1809: English chemist Humphry Davy invents the first electric light. His arc lamp connects wires to a battery at one end and a charcoal strip at the other. 1874: Canadian inventors Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans file a patent for an incandescent lightbulb thatconsists of carbon rods in a nitrogen-filled glass cylinder. They sell the patent to some guy named Thomas Edison in 1879. 1880: Let there be light—lots of it! Edison's team upgrades the lightbulb with a carbonized bamboo filament that can burn over 1200 hours. Its carbon-filament predecessor maxed out at 40. 1882: One of Edison's associates decorates his family's Christmas tree with the first ever set of incandescent string lights. Until the 1930s, the Christmas staple is too expensive for the average homeowner. 1893: General Electric debuts…

If Goldilocks were to get a tablet, she'd choose a 7-inch, because it's just right. Lighter and easier to handle than full-size tablets, these new devices are also generally more powerful than a smartphone. These qualities—plus fresh offerings from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and Google—have led to a spike in small-tablet popularity. We judged the latest on specs, performance, and, for Goldilocks's sake, plain likeability. — RACHEL Z. ARNDT Less than three years after the original iPad's debut, the category has grown but the devices have shrunk. Behold, the new crop of tiny tablets (clockwise from top left): the Nook HD, Kindle Fire HD, iPad Mini, and Nexus 7. Live the 007 dream–writ small, at least. These 1:36-scale (7.5-inch-long) die-cast metal replicas span the franchise, from Sean Connery's rides…

BY SEAN BROCK, AS TOLD TO ROBERT MORITZ AWARD-WINNING CHEF SEAN BROCK ON COOKING THE WHOLE DARN HOG. A pig roast is like a big party where you get to be part Boy Scout, part caveman. You can't do it by yourself, and that's the beauty of it. You're sitting in lawn chairs, telling stories, and tending a huge fire all night long. It's the opposite of fast food. Nothing makes me happier. I've cooked a lot of pigs—hundreds of them, I'd guess. A lot of that pig has been served at my restaurants, McCrady's and Husk, but just as much is the product of roasting with friends. If you roast a large pig, like 200 pounds dressed, it can take 24 hours. Through the night you can't go to…

In operation for more than seven decades, equipped with a 440-hp steam engine, and capable of cutting logs as large as 8 feet across, Oregon's Hull-Oakes Lumber Co. is a unique slice of American history. Timbers dumped into the holding pond (opposite) are moved to the mill by a sturdy little boat called the log bronc. A chain conveyor draws the massive tree trunks out of the water and into the debarking machine before the sawing begins. Millwright trainee Dustin Luther, one of about 60 Hull-Oakes employees, flanks the 1906 Ames Regal steam engine. "This is a great place for a guy who can't or doesn't want to go to college," says Don Wagner, a longtime mill employee and its unofficial historian. "You come here and school starts." During the…

• PLOW-TRUCK TALK•SOGGY SANDY DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY 5/10 Most cars sold in the United States drive the front tires. It makes for inexpensive, easy-to-manufacture, roomy cars that get better gas mileage than the rear-wheel-drive alternative. Getting power from the transmission to the front wheels is a bit of a challenge though. That's what a halfshaft does. The two halfshafts have the simple job of transmitting torque to each of the front wheels. But that job is complicated by the drastic up-and-down motion of those wheels, the near-90-degree difference in lock-to-lock steering angle, and the requirement to attach to a stationary transmission. In spite of this the halfshaft is a robust part with a reliable 100,000-mile life span. Still, like every stressed part, it eventually fails. The rubber boot on the…

ANIMATED GIFS STUBBORN SOFTWARE TABLET AS SECOND SCREEN BY RACHEL Z. ARNDT PROTECT YOUR DIGITAL IDENTITY WITHOUT LOSING YOUR SANITY. Getting hacked is becoming an Internet rite of passage. Consider 2012 alone: First Zappos was hacked, its customers' passwords and other personal information exposed. Then LinkedIn announced that its users' passwords had been compromised. Then eHarmony. Then Yahoo. More than 30 million users' passwords were stolen. The growing, painful password problem is twofold: Hackers have gotten very good at what they do, with more capable tools than ever, and those tools can work so well because we are still really bad at choosing—and remembering—passwords. Coming up with a password is a compromise between security and convenience. Very complex passwords are highly secure but difficult to remember. To make them work,…

• FLUELESS FIREPLACES• REPLACING GLASS• TOOL TEST: PORTABLE GENERATORS Blackouts are nothing new, but major storms over the past two years have hammered home the importance of electrical power. Last fall Hurricane Sandy pummeled the Northeast, disrupting power for more than 8 million customers and leaving families homeless as temperatures dropped. Sandy blew in just 12 months after a historically destructive snowstorm hit the same region. In fact, 2011 was among the nation's worst years on record for grid-disabling natural disasters, with power interruptions longer than 24 hours affecting 21 million customers. Sadly, Sandy promised a second consecutive year of dire power-outage numbers. While big-box stores quickly sold out of portable gasoline-powered generators after the storm, Generac, Briggs & Stratton, and Kohler announced that they would ramp up production of…

Ah, winter. Time to hunker down inside—and realize that you never tackled half the projects from your 2012 New Year's to-do list. Feel guilty? The best cure for that—and cabin fever—is to get busy. Here are the home-savvy shortcuts that'll help. A little bit of painting goes a long way. [1] Clean up those scuffed walls in high-traffic areas, such as hallways and foyers, with a fresh coat of semigloss or satin finish. You can also [2] turn up the volume in a drab room by painting just one wall a different color than the rest. Use a piece of artwork or upholstered furniture as a cue for which hue to choose. And who says that an overhead surface needs to be white? [3] Paint the ceiling a darker color—again,…