Innholdsfortegnelse for Winter 2018/2019 i Popular Mechanics

WHEN WE MOVED from the city to the country, the boys were, I think, six and three. On the third night in the new house—the first house they’d ever lived in—my wife and I were tucking them in and the older one started to cry. I asked him what was wrong. “I liked when we used to walk to the bagel store across the street in our pajamas,” he garbled through his tears. He was right. Every Saturday morning, we would wake up and shuffle across First Avenue to Ess-a-Bagel and order a big, warm, puffy breakfast. A city ritual. Now the view out our kitchen window was a red barn and a field. We told him that we would do new fun things that would become regular things. And…

A / Lego Technic Bugatti Chiron AFTER MANY EVENINGS of working on this two-foot model (and it will be many), along with having a to-scale version of one of the most beautiful cars ever made, you’ll also know how the engine works, because these pistons actually reciprocate. You’ll know that the car has an eight-speed transmission, because you can actually shift gears by pulling on the steering-wheel paddles. You’ll know that the real Chiron needs a special key to activate top-speed mode, because you need a special Lego key to drop the rear wing into the same top-speed position. Like the McLarens and Ferraris and the Porsche Lego made before it, the Chiron shows how good Lego is getting at letting those of us who will never see this hypercar…

B / For Flying SONY WH-1000XM3 The only other headphone to match Bose’s noise-cancellation technology, plus crazy comfortable padding for your ears and an industry-top 30 hours of playback between USB-C recharging. $350 C / For Your Desk RHA MA650 WIRELESS Neckband headphones from a Scottish company that sound way better than anything you can buy for less than $200. The 12-hour battery will last all day, and as long as you take the time to find the correct earbud fit, they’re light enough to forget you’re wearing them. $100 D / For Walking the Dog APPLE AIRPODS Many companies have tried, some have come close, but no one else has achieved the convenience of what Apple released in 2016. You can use either earbud alone, and the pause/play function…

MOST NIGHTS, TIM MEADOWS stays up late. It’s the only time the house is finally quiet. At 3 a.m. he might read a book or take a walk outside, finally able to get a moment to himself—a break from the responsibilities that accompany the daylight. Even in the darkness, though, the 23-year-old is still on the clock. His dad, Jon, could emerge from his room at any time, asleep and wandering. There are security cameras throughout the house, but Tim does most of the watching. “This is a constant babysitting job,” Tim says. “Just making sure he doesn’t break anything, or break himself.” For 43 years, Jon Meadows lived a decent life. He was a truck driver and a family man; he enlisted in the National Guard in 2002. During…

1/ A BETTER KIND OF STYROFOAM. The mushroom-based packing material Ecovative makes only requires 1/5 to 1/8 the energy used by a similar piece of plastic foam. Mycelium samples grow through and around agricultural waste like wood chips to form completely compostable padding—the opposite of polystyrene, which can take more than a million years to biodegrade. 2/ A MAILER YOU CAN REUSE FOR TEN YEARS. That’s ten years with no new boxes. The customer just folds up Limeloop’s waterproof mailer—which used to be a vinyl billboard—and sends it right back to the vendor for the next shipment. The firm is testing a pilot program this year with companies including Toad & Co., MAIKA, and Western Rise.…

FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER in a consumer video camera, footage taken in complete darkness looks like it was shot in the middle of the day. The SiOnyx Aurora IR night-vision video camera uses a massive one-inch optical sensor with pixels three times larger than those of most other cameras, allowing it to gather the minuscule bits of light reflected off the moon, stars, and foliage around you. If you’ve ever been hindered by low light when using a GoPro, you’ll love it. On a recent trip to Fire Island, enjoying the boardwalk on a moonless night, we could barely make out one figure alone on the sand. Then we looked again through the Aurora. In night mode, the OLED monocular revealed a surprise: That solitary figure was, in fact,…

DANIEL STEIGER LAZER BLUE TWO-TONE HYBRID WATCH NOW ONLY $99!!! This fantastic watch features; metal case structure, digital format display 24hr, weekdays and seconds, with an easily accessible alarm system. Integrated into the crystal; the Blue Lazer coloring provides a unique look. Now $99(plus s&h) with PROMO CODE - PM8NLZ www.timepiecesusa.com/pm8nlz | 1-800-733-8463 RED ROCK DELI POTATO CHIPS Red Rock Deli potato chips, one of Australia’s popular snack brands, is now available in select U.S. markets in three unique and sophisticated flavors: Himalayan Pink Salt, Red Curry Coconut and Lime & Cracked Pepper. http://www.redrockdeli.com DEWAR’S DOUBLE AGED SMOOTHNESS What’s in a name? In a word, standards. At Dewar’s, we’ve made a name for ourselves by living true to our standards for over 130 years. That’s about how long we’ve been…

Okay, gather ’round. This time it’s for real. The smart watch and the Apple Watch in particular have until now mostly been classified as Pretty Cool. For me, the watch’s greatest attribute was that it made me reach for my phone fewer times per day. But the new Series 4 feels like an arrival. The screen is bigger enough that even if you never saw the previous ones, you’ll probably say, “This is a big screen.” It displays eight complications at once—texts, calendar, heart rate, even the time!—which means less poking tiny icons to find stuff. I probably won’t need the ECG and fall-detection capabilities, but those are astonishing bits of technology that could help millions of people. The haptic feedback on the dial, so it feels like a mechanical…

A / Eastwood 13660 AMPS: 4.3 LIKES: Attractive fit and finish. The front-mounted belt-tension lever makes it easy to swap belts. Good power and runs smoothly with no vibration. We also liked the clearly marked angle gauge below the work support on the table that serves the disc. DISLIKES: It and the General have a small work surface on the belt. $150 B / General International BD7004 AMPS: 4 LIKES: A decent little sander at a decent price. In the horizontal position, it exhibited the least deflection. It comes with the most aggressive belt of the three, allowing the tool to function like a belt grinder, which is handy for something like cleaning up a mower blade. DISLIKES: A poorly placed rubber bumper makes changing the belt a challenge. $110…

THE SYCLONE was so cool because it had that ’80s mini-truck look, but it was also really fast. It beat a Ferrari back in ’91, when I was a teenager. A decade later, when I had some money, I found one 35 minutes away. It was pretty much bone stock, so I upgraded the boost, then started some other bigger projects. But I realized I didn’t want to do that. It’s too easy to get sucked in. Next thing you know, you’re replacing the original parts with some guy’s aftermarket parts. So I took it all back to stock. Now, the only work is maintenance, which I do myself. Being turbocharged, it’s a spaghetti mess of vacuum hoses, so for some jobs you have to prepare for several days of…

YOU BRING your car to the oil-change place and they slap a sticker on the windshield: Change it again in 3,000 miles or three months. You probably knew that the 3,000-mile interval was ridiculous, but what about that other deadline? What if you don’t drive much and let your oil sit for six months? A year? I know a guy with a fleet of Ferraris, some of them seven-figure cars, and he goes only by mileage. “That oil was in the ground for 100 million years,” he says. “What’s six more months?” Good question, one that I recently answered through semi-intentional negligence. Here’s what happened: In 2008, I bought a Troy-Bilt lawnmower with a Honda engine. After a few years, I realized I hadn’t changed the oil. But, by then,…

PAGE 75 Sweet Protection Trooper MIPS Helmet Molded thermoplastic combined with carbon fiber. $320 Oakley Fall Line Prizm Goggles Anti-fog Prizm lens for increased contrast on white slopes. $190 Arva Airbag Reactor 32 Space for longer trips, avalanche airbag for bad ones. $700 PAGES 76–77 California Cowboy High Sierra Shirt Thermal-lined flannel with a pocket that fits an après-ski beer. $148 Flylow Handlebar Flannel Shirt Classic look, made with 100% polyester to wick moisture, dry quickly. $90 Fisher + Baker Passage Vest Down vest to throw on after a ski, or dress up at work. $278 K2 Trucker Hat Rep your ski brand, cover your helmet hair, and vent head heat. $25 Jack Wolfskin Grassland Hybrid Jacket Wind-resistant. Insulation wicks moisture and still works damp. $163 Cotopaxi Fuego LT Down…

IF A CAT has nine lives, then our family dog, Millie, has bragging rights few felines can match. She has already lived a few times nine, so much so that not long ago my children and I had to take on a project to keep her alive. Millie is a small yellow Lab, six years old. In keeping with her breed she is gentle, smart, and sociable—a fine addition to a family with five children. Her one tic is that she likes to wander, a trait that after a mild-mannered life as a puppy she developed late in her second year. About that time, our well-behaved dog began dashing out the door unleashed. This new behavior was maddening enough. It got worse. We live on a busy road, and Millie…

There was a time when a firefighter in a burning building got fresh air by smashing a window, sticking his head out, and gulping down a few breaths. Then someone developed a respirator, and the health and safety of the guys running toward danger took a big leap forward. We’re still making leaps like that, whether it’s refining fabrics to fend off cancer-causing particulates or using AR to render smoke transparent. Here’s the cutting edge. QWAKE C-THRU Uses infrared sensors and augmented reality to restore visibility in a smoke-filled room. Statistical analysis processes infrared sensor data to display edges of objects: walls, doors, furniture, and even people. In the future the masks will be able to collaborate, creating a floor plan of a building. This could mean things like Google…

p. 7 Bigfoot: Getty Images; Mars: Dusan Martincek/National Geographic; pp. 8–15 prop stylist: JJ Chan/Halley Resources & Nicole Louie; p. 16 furnace: Henry Gifford; Louis VIX: Getty; p. 24 Trunk Archive; p. 26 bike: Ian Collins; Spider-Man: Sony Pictures Animation; pp. 30–31 Attila Szvacsek; p. 34 girl: Chuck Kennedy; buckle: AP Photo; p. 36 Getty; p. 43 Getty; pp. 44–47 prop stylist: JJ Chan/Halley Resources; p. 48 Getty; p. 56 Bowie: Getty; p. 64 Zach DeSart; pp. 66–67 map: Alamy; bench: Graeme Stasyshyn; table: Derek Dudek; landscapes: Yale University; p. 68 cranberries: Getty; p. 80 Alamy; p. 82 lane: Alamy; beer: Getty; p. 89 fire: Getty; p. 95 McCandless: Tom Calvert; pp. 100–101 Apple HQ: Shutterstock; Cook: Getty; Oostdyk, pillows: Mermaid Pillow Co.; drone: Airhogs; p. 104 rocket, coders, meteors,…

Code! From December 3 to 9, millions of students all around the world will be coding, together. It doesn’t matter if you know how to code already or not. There’s something for everyone to learn—and to have fun doing it. Find an event near you or learn how to host one at your school at hourofcode.org/us. Check out a rocket launch! On December 15, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will deliver an Air Force navigation satellite from Cape Canaveral. Watch live at spacex.com. Go outside! December 11 is International Mountain Day, a great excuse to go hiking, skiing, snowboarding, or sledding. If you don’t live near a mountain, that big hill in the park still counts. Watch a meteor shower! If the skies are clear, head outside the night of December…

I’ve dreamt of being able to tell Alexa to turn on my TV, and now I finally can. Setting up the Amazon Fire TV Cube ($120) is super-easy. I told it my cable company, that I’m using a TiVo, my ZIP code. Once my passwords were in, which is still a chore, my voice replaced all my remotes. Instead of turning on the TV, selecting Input 2, picking up my Apple TV remote, and finally asking Siri to find Ozark, now I walk in the room, say, “Alexa, play Ozark” and the TV turns on right to the episode I was watching. It works on my cable box, too. It’s awesome. I love it. And it’s the beginning of something much, much bigger.…

Milwaukee Redlithium USB Heated Gloves As tough as any Milwaukee gear, with a built-in battery that keeps your hands warm for up to six hours. $179 Ridgid Pro Gear Cart Toolbox A convenient and easy upgrade to a classic toolbox, with the option to stack multiple toolboxes. Because the job isn’t always close to you. $59 Therm-a-Rest Uno Camp Chair A comfortable folding chair that folds down to the size of a Frisbee. $90 Big Agnes Bolten Sleeping Bag A mummy bag with flexible sides that let you actually move inside it. Good to 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Weighs less than three pounds. $289 Specialized Allez Bike For under a thousand bucks, you get a carbon-fiber fork, mounts for racks and saddlebags, Shimano shifters, and a name you can trust. $800…

Readers Helping Readers The photo of the “closet” furnace in the September issue (“Is Your House Bleeding You Dry?”) is an opportunity to emphasize an important safety issue. Your comments about sealing joints are appropriate. The louvered door for the closet is appropriate. However, as a fire investigator I have seen multiple instances of condo or apartment fires where this type of door is remodeled with a solid door. Even worse, I’ve seen original installations with solid doors. This mistake can lead to fires, carbon-monoxide poisoning, and inefficient operation. The same issue applies to gas-fired water heaters. —James Reddington, Middletown, Connecticut A Christmas Story ON A MID-FEBRUARY afternoon, a neighbor visited as I was finishing a toolbox for our youngest grandson’s fifth birthday, adapted from some Popular Mechanics plans I…

WHEN YOU’RE mountain biking, you’ll often manually adjust the suspension according to the terrain, same as a Range Rover or McLaren. FOX’s electronic add-on, called Live Valve ($3,000), does that automatically. It uses telemetry to figure out if you’re on rocks or pavement, going downhill or uphill, monitors terrain 1,000 times per second, and makes suspension adjustments in as little as three milliseconds—delivering the ideal ride.…

“YOU KNOW HOW Carl Sagan said that we have billions of stars? Well, we have billions of clocks,” says Carrie Partch. “Someday I think there’s going to be this palm-to-forehead moment where we all say: I cannot believe we didn’t understand that every form of life on this planet has a clock that links us to Earth and its terrestrial day.” Then Partch led a mindfulness meditation outside the temple at Burning Man while celestial gongs rang to celebrate a new day’s rising sun. Just kidding. Partch is a biochemist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who specializes in circadian rhythms, which is not only an actual research field, but one whose adherents won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In the 1980s and 1990s, the three…

Big questions. Answers you can’t find on the internet. YOU LIKELY DON’T REALIZE IT, but you’re holding a time machine in your hands right now. When you’re done reading this article, you will have traveled perhaps 90 seconds into the future—and maybe even more if you’ve misplaced your reading glasses. This may sound like a “joke” (indulge us), but the truth is that it is easier, theoretically speaking, to travel forward in time than it is to travel backward, and that’s partly because we’re all moving forward in time naturally. The possibility of time travel stems from Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity, which, loosely speaking, describes the relationship between space and time. An outgrowth is something known as “time dilation,” which suggests that time can move at different rates…

AS I WATCHED the guy unpack his Phantom 4 drone in the middle of a gorgeous valley in Mongolia, I thought: Part of the reason I blew out my checking account on this trip was to get away from people like this. Here we were, far from LTE reception, watching wild horses run. Beautiful stuff. Then the dude’s propellers started their power-tool whine and his drone was whipping around the sky so he could pretend to be David Attenborough for his Instagram followers. I’m saying, I kind of get why the Federal Aviation Administration and Congress are changing the rules for drone operation. The literature is a mess of initialisms (FAA, AMA, DHS) and legislation (Bill S.2836, Section 336, Part 107), but the proposals come down to restricting where people…

I’ve watched lots of instructional videos on removing popcorn ceilings. What’s your take? Edwin D., Olathe, Kansas Scraping a ceiling clean of popcorn texture is a big, messy job, which I’m sure you noticed in all those YouTube videos. Your most important tool in this one? Drop cloths. You can’t have too many. Be careful not to let the mess get out of hand or everything you just scraped off the ceiling will end up all over the house. What most of those videos don’t cover is what to do if the popcorn has been painted. If that’s the case, dampening the material first has little effect to soften it, and it doesn’t come off the ceiling without a fight. Thus the drywall surface takes a beating, and you’ve created…

THE MAKERS TED ESSELSTYN AND ZEB ESSELSTYN THEIR COMPANY CITY BENCH THE STORY of City Bench has long and winding roots. My brother, Ted, and I started the company in 2009 with the mission to transform urban trees into iconic furniture, and it was his idea to reuse trees that had to come down anyway and would otherwise become landfill, mulch, or firewood. Millions of trees are discarded from metropolitan areas across the country each year, and we wanted to transform as many as we could into beautiful objects. Nothing about our approach made practical sense. It was the height of the Great Recession, I had recently been to journalism school (among other careers), and my brother is a former M.D. But both of us had building experience, and Ted…

MODEL: YALE ASSURE LOCK SL CONNECTED BY AUGUST PRODUCED: SHANGHAI, CHINA TIME TO DISASSEMBLE: 1 HOUR, 12 MINUTES NUMBER OF PARTS: 115 NOTES: Has any renter in history ever heeded the “Do not duplicate” dictum on the face of an apartment key? What if you get locked out? Better make a copy for your neighbor. Plus a set for when you go running. And then your sister comes to stay for two weeks, so she needs one too. On it goes. And then one goes missing. Mechanical keys have been with us for a long, long time—at least since the Romans, and probably longer—and their biggest weakness has always been that they are objects, which can be broken, copied, lost, and found. Now comes the smart lock and a new…

WILDFIRES USED TO have a season. From May to October, much of California—plus parts of most states west of the Rockies—would be on alert for dry conditions. Cold, wet November meant the threat was over. Then 2018 happened. This year David Tikkanen, a twenty-year veteran of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, worked a thirty-four-day shift, from July 19 to August 21. “Back when I first started, it was the eleven-day mark,” he says. “When I started to cross the eleven-day mark on a regular basis, it was the twenty-one, twenty-three-day mark that I would start getting stir-crazy. And then after I did that for a long stretch of years, it was thirty-, forty-plus days.” His record is fifty-three. The fire season grows. California faced its biggest fire…

PROLOGUE MARCH 2016. On a sunny Bay Area Friday, Jamie Hyneman is alone at M5 Industries, a tinkerer’s dream of a workshop in south San Francisco that was for thirteen glorious years the de facto headquarters of Myth-Busters, one of the most successful reality shows in television history, of which he was the walrus-mustached cohost. He’s alone here a lot these days, now that the show is over and the crew cleared out. He owns the space, and a lot of the MythBusters stuff is still here, pieces and parts and gear stacked in neatly labeled boxes from floor to ceiling. He’s giving an impromptu tour to a couple of kids, showing them scary masks from his days doing Hollywood special effects and a mechanical spider that’s taller than they…

High-rise buildings are designed to make it very unlikely that a fire spreads beyond the floor it started on. Even so: Put 50 stories between the fire and the trucks on the ground, and things like water pressure and containing smoke get a lot trickier. Here’s how the FDNY fights fires in New York City’s highest skyscrapers, according to battalion chief Tom Richardson: 1. Fire trucks are equipped with high-pressure pumps capable of pressures up to 600 pounds per square inch, which get water from the ground to 30 or more stories up. 2. Giant positive-pressure ventilation (PPV) fans are strategically placed where their airflow will contain smoke on the floor of origin: They can create enough pressure in an internal stairwell that smoke cannot escape into the hallway or…

KID REPORTER! WHAT IT’S LIKE TO VISIT THE APPLE HEADQUARTERS SOMETIMES when I’m bored, I just go to the Apple Store and look at iPads, Apple Watches, iMacs, and iPhones. I watch YouTube videos of upcoming iPhones, or news about new software updates or beta versions. And now I got to go to the big event with my dad. When I first saw Apple Park—the infinity loop—it was awesome. I had no idea it was so open and futuristic and vibrant. They guided us up to the Steve Jobs Theater. We walked up this winding path surrounded by a lot of plants. It felt like we were in a humongous terrarium, and we were little insects. I was taking a lot of pictures and my dad was eating these little…

ONLINE! DO YOU BELIEVE in Bigfoot? Or is it Sasquatch? Whether you're a fanatic or a skeptic, you'll want to check out our history of the giant ape-man, who has been documented in the U.S. for centuries: www.popularmechanics.com/history-of-sasquatch. THE PODCAST! What will it be when humans finally get to Mars? Andy Weir, author of The Martian, joins us on the Most Useful Podcast Ever to teach us all about what our future life on the Red Planet will look like, wgile promoting season 2 of National Geographic's Mars. Find MUPE on Apple Podcasts. INSTAGRAM We're constantly updating our feed with products we're testing and adventures we're going on. Find us @PopularMechanics.…

A / Otterbox Yampa Dry Duffel YOU MAY BUY the Yampa for your canoeing trip, but you’ll use it for everything. The zippers on most dry bags need to be wrestled closed or open, which means when you’re in a hurry you won’t get a good seal. Boom, leaks. The Yampa’s zipper slides like the one on your favorite sweatshirt. The material is tough enough for anywhere you throw it, and the backpacking straps make carrying big loads easy. So far I’ve used mine in a boat, driven 400 miles with it in the bed of my truck, and strapped it on the back of my motorcycle across the Adirondack Park. Pretty sure it doesn’t care where we go next. $250 —J.L. IF THEY GOT… An iPhone XS GET THEM… the Logitech…

Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s last year, USPS, FedEx, and UPS together delivered around 2 billion packages, many of them composed of plastic and cardboard shipping material. We know one-use packaging has a big energy footprint. And a U.N. study found that if we don’t dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions, we could see severe food shortages, intense droughts, and more wildfires by 2040. So why isn’t this getting any better? PACKAGING WASTE IN PERSPECTIVE In 2015, ¼ of paper and cardboard made in the U.S. ended up in a landfill. Total Volume (Billions of Square Feet) Since ecommerce sales are growing at about 15% yearly, why is corrugated cardboard production only increasing at 2% to 3%? The simplest explanation: The boxes have shifted from the back rooms of retail stores…

FORMER FIRST LADY Michelle Obama’s Reach Higher initiative guided American students toward postsecondary education, and her Let Girls Learn program bolstered education for girls around the world. Oprah Winfrey recently visited Hearst Magazines with Obama to talk about this and many other topics. Popular Mechanics editor in chief Ryan D’Agostino got the chance to speak with Obama about how STEM education in the U.S. could better serve young women. An excerpt from that conversation: “With girls, one of the things when I talk to groups in education is that we have to think about how we teach math and science. I’ve seen in my own girls, they’re incredibly bright, they’ve gone to great schools, they’ll go to great colleges. But they lost interest in math so early because math is…

1 EAT ALL YOUR FOOD WITHIN TEN HOURS. Mice missing certain circadian clock genes are prone to obesity, but when they keep a tight eating schedule they remain lean. 2 ASK YOUR DOCTOR WHEN TO DOSE. The effectiveness of low-dose aspirin therapy, certain statins, and even chemotherapy can be greatly affected by when you take the medicines. 3 GET YOUR FLU SHOT IN THE MORNING. A 2016 study found that the immune system created four times the antibodies to a flu shot when it was given in the morning. 4 HAVE HEART SURGERY IN THE AFTERNOON. A 2017 study found that heart attacks were half as likely in patients who had valve replacements later in the day. 5 SKIP THE NIGHT SHIFT. The World Health Organization classifies circadian-disrupting shift work…

The Popular Mechanics Technology Department had a busy year once again. We visited Apple’s new HQ, we installed beta apps, we reviewed hundreds of prototypes—the whole time asking ourselves the questions you would: Is a $1,000 phone worth $1,000? Should I upgrade my camera before that vacation? Is it time to join the smart-watch revolution? Here are our picks for the technology we think will most improve your life. PHONES OF THE YEAR Samsung Galaxy Note9 The Note9 is a powerhouse, with industry-top specs, a huge battery, and, yes, a headphone jack. Our favorite: the X20 LTE modem, which means download speeds up to 1.2 gigabits per second. Real-world users won’t hit those numbers yet, but the speed bump is still noticeable with the right carrier. $1,000 OnePlus 6T Since…

Bottle Jacks Lift Sink I had to replace an under-mount sink recently, and I had to devise a process to do it for myself because none of the pros wanted the job. The sink store told me to talk to a plumber. The plumber told me to talk to the counter guy. The counter guy told me he’d do it, but would probably break my counters in the process. That seemed a little dramatic. Counter guys are such divas. The full install is a longer story—just know that every adhesive, even GE Iron Grip, the one whose label says something like “Want to glue bowling balls to a Teflon ceiling? Bring it on!” can be undone by the constant strain of a sink, a garbage disposal, and various pieces of…

IN 1957, MERCURY MARINE founder Carl Kiekhaefer bought a 1,440-acre body of water that he called Lake X. It was perfect for covert testing, close enough to his Orlando headquarters to be convenient, but far enough away to ensure that nobody outside the company would end up there by accident. In 1984, Mercury sold the property to the Kirchman Foundation, a nonprofit conservation group, ostensibly because Mercury’s racing program outgrew the confines of the three-mile lake. Now, Mercury is back at the compound, leasing the property from Kirchman to test production engines. Three miles is still plenty of water, it seems, as long as you keep it under 100 mph or so. Lake X is surrounded by 10,000 acres of forest and swamp. There’s a guard at a gatehouse, the…

AFTER LAST NIGHT’S STORM, it’s a good snow day. Every lift shack and snowcat, every delicate needle on every spruce, and every trail at Snowbird are covered with powder perfect for morning ski runs. It’s also the perfect conditions for an avalanche. In groups of two and three, the Snowbird Avalanche team hike in ski boots through fresh snow up to their knees, their backpacks full of two-pound hand charges the size of soup cans. Someone shouts, “Fire in the hole!” then pauses briefly before tossing the slurry of explosives, listening carefully for any hastily shouted objection. The two-minute fuse burns for what feels like a lot more than two minutes. Is it a dud? BOOOOOOM! Snow rushes down the empty chute, just as planned. It roars through trees, slows…

“7–10 Split” MEANING: Also called Bedposts, it’s one of the hardest splits to pick up as you have to get the corner pin to slide all the way over the lane. The Greek Church is the hardest split—Google it. “Anchor” MEANING: The person who bowls last on a team in league play. Usually the best bowler on team, cool under pressure. “Thank goodness for that Brooklyn.” MEANING: I wasn’t able to get a strike the traditional way. The ball had to cross over to the other side of the head pin opposite to how I threw it. “Nice hambone.” MEANING: You went the extra mile and got four consecutive strikes instead of being satisfied with a turkey (three strikes in a row). “Didn’t see that sleeper.” MEANING: I didn’t pick…

FIFTY YEARS AGO flashover—the point at which a room gets so hot its contents ignite, engulfing anyone inside—took twenty to thirty minutes. But changes in home design and the increased use of synthetic materials have dropped it to fewer than five minutes. The average arrival time for firefighters is six and a half. But a new set of technologically enhanced protocols—some already rolling out, others not far off—will help firefighters deploy more efficiently. THE CALL Present You notice a candle has toppled and lit the couch on fire. You call 911 and explain what you see, doing your best to describe the size of the fire, the type of couch, and anything else that might be relevant. Future You call 911. The dispatcher takes down your information. Then he accesses…

IN AUGUST, DURING THE CARR FIRE—one of northern California’s largest wildfires this year, which the Menlo Park Fire District, from the heart of Silicon Valley, helped fight—Jack McCandless managed to get a piece of drone-detection equipment hooked up to a statewide command center. A specialist with the police department had been unable to figure it out for a month; McCandless got it up and running within a few minutes. “Now we’re getting calls from members of the statewide system: ‘Oh, this is great, how did you make that work?’” battalion chief Tom Calvert says. “It was just having Jack.” “Drones are a cutting-edge technology, so there’s a lot of bugs,” McCandless says. “I help smooth that out. Firefighters expect it to work the first time, every time.” The nineteen-year-old, a…