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About Me
As a man thinks, so he is. Some people are never.
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Alternate Route
Turn off the nav system, crumple up that MapQuest printout, and let's find out where the next random turn may take us!
 Microsoft Inc. plans to unveil its latest version of Microsoft Auto 4.0, the software platform for Ford Motor Co.’s Sync technology, today at two information technology trade shows in Germany.
It should be available this spring.
It's not that I'm a Luddite or anything, and all the electronic gadgets we have are neat. But I'm of the school that when you're driving your car, you should be driving your car.
Inattention blindness is real and we really don't need to encourage it.
Read more about Auto 4.0 at freep.com and learn more about inattention blindness at safety.blr.com
 Dear Dub,
You probably have the automotive education to counter every argument I can come up with as to why HHO kits work, so I can only ask how you could be convinced. How do you know unless you try? I have heard that most people who think outside the box are a bit nuts. Maybe we are but we are in good company with all those people who were ridiculed when they tried something new. (In this case, it's not so new, but is ridiculed.) Self propelled carriage, flying machines, electric light bulb, radio, telephone, computer microchips, man on the moon, atomic bomb, splitting the atom. nuclear reactors, and HHO, All these inventions were ridiculed by highly educated people before they became mainstream. It is a shame that education is also a form of brainwashing. You are taught what to believe and the other teachings are always wrong.
You really need to take the concept and put it to practical test before saying it can't work.
John Calvin
Hey JC,
Would you like to ride
in my beautiful balloon?
Would you like to glide
in my beautiful balloon?
Powered by hot air of course!
 I'm sure that all these folks at the Consumer Electronics Show think this stuff is really neat, but I really question the wisdom of finding ways to make cars that supposedly alleviate drivers of the responsibility of doing what they're supposed to do behind the wheel... namely, pay attention and drive the car.
As soon as you tell a human being that they don't have to pay attention to something, they won't.
Look at the complete and utter dependence of some drivers on navigation systems now. I have relatives who cannot drive their car, even in their everyday driving, without using their nav system to tell them where to turn.
They should call it Tom Tom Doh!
That's why quotes from people like Carnegie Mellon director of technology Chris Urmson scare the heck out of me.
"We want to make it so you can get in to go to work, read the paper, drink your coffee and get there safely."
Aren't there things called buses, trains, and planes that allow you to do this already?
I'm sure their intentions are good, just like the inventors of daytime running lights. Yep, those first DRL's sure made you stand out from the crowd and people were less likely to pull out in front of you because they could see you. Only now everybody and their uncle has DRL's so you're just another set of lights in the crowd. And how many times have you seen someone running around in the pitch black with just their DRL's on?
Unintended and entirely predictable consequences are waiting just around the next corner as cars are turned into idiot boxes which turn out to be boxes filled with idiots who don't think they have any responsibilities behind the wheel.
Read the full story at AFP
 That ten year stretch of your life from age 8 to 18 is a time when you're really soaking in everything and developing a lot of impressions about the world. Everything is fresh and exciting, and some things leave a lasting impression on you. For me, some of those many things were the Chaparral race cars and Jim Hall.
My Dad was an engineer and was intensely interested in what Jim Hall was doing with his cars. Back around 1966 we even took my slot car version of the Chaparral and turned it into a front wheel drive beast by reversing the entire chassis to move the electric motor, and most of the mass, closer to the pickup which made the car take turns like it was absolutely glued to the track. It quickly broke all the track records at the hobby shop where we raced.
The cars themselves are still amazing. All the more so because this is over 40 years ago! If you've never even heard of Jim Hall or the Chaparral, then take the time to visit the Chaparral Official Web Site. Here are a few historical highlights:
In 1962 Jim Hall and Hap Sharp formed Chaparral Cars, Inc. and immediately began the design and construction of Chaparral 2, a mid-engined car with an aerospace inspired semi-monocoque fiberglass chassis. In it's first race at Riverside near the end of the 1963 season, Hall qualified Chaparral 2 on pole position with a new track record and after the first few laps of the race was a half mile ahead of the field when an electrical problem put him out of the race. Driving Chaparral 2, Jim Hall won the United States Road Racing Championship (USRRC) in 1964. With 25 starts in 15 events Chaparral 2 had scored seven overall wins, six seconds, and two thirds. In 1965 Chaparral 2 dominated United States road racing with 16 wins in 21 races, and its greatest win to date, the Sebring 12 hour race against top international competition.
In 1966 Chaparral introduced the 2E for the Can-Am series. With its high mounted wing it was the car that changed racing forever. It scored a one-two finish at Laguna Seca with Phil Hill and Jim Hall driving. 1966 also saw the Chaparral 2D in World Championship Endurance competition winning the Nurburgring 1,000 kilometers event, driven by Phil Hill and Jo Bonnier.
In 1967 Chaparral introduced the 2F, a high winged coupe for World Championship Endurance Racing. It set the fastest lap in five of its eight entries and won its final race at Brands Hatch.
In 1970 Chaparral introduced its most controversial car, the Chaparral 2J. This car had a separate engine to drive two fans that exhausted air from beneath the car to create suction down force. The car was quickly banned after sitting on the pole in three of its four starts.
In 1978 Chaparral won Indy with a Chaparral prepared Lola driven by Al Unser. For 1979 Chaparral decided to build its own Indy car, Chaparral 2K. Al Unser lead the race from the outside pole until 2K's transmission failed. In 1980 Johnny Rutherford won both the Indianapolis 500 and the USAC and Cart National Championships in 2K.
Visionaries like Jim Hall are very special. I wonder who is making impressions on young minds now.
Lasting impressions
Ideas that shape the future
Jim Hall, Chaparral
 There's a lot of speculation and discussion about ethanol and how it's going to save us going around these days. Myself, I'm a bit of a skeptic and feel that turning all of U.S. corn production into ethanol wouldn't even make a dent in our fossil fuel needs, and that we'd starve ourselves in the process. I've even seen some say that cargo ships are sitting idle because no corn is available due to corn being diverted to ethanol production. And commodity prices seem to be rising fast because of the increases in demand because of this rush to be "saved" by ethanol, at least if you can believe the things you hear. There seems to be plenty of spin and wishful thinking going around, and emotion seems to drive a lot of the debate over what's true about ethanol. The volume on this is starting to get loud and make my head spin, so I thought I'd ask a friend of mine who is a Professor of Agronomy in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at Penn State University and has some expertise in the field whether my thoughts on the whole situation make any sense. After all, there's nothing like facts to ruin a perfectly good argument! Here's the response I got from him:
Bob,
You are correct, corn ethanol is not going to meet our transportation fuel needs. Nobody is claiming that from the ethanol industry.
The vision of the National Corn Growers Assn. is that by 2015, we will be able to produce 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol using a 15 billion bushel corn crop. Of that 5 billion will be used to produce ethanol, and 10 billion will be available to meet food feed and export needs.
During the past few years, we have produced crops in the 10-11 billion bushel range and have been creating surpluses. This year we should make close to 13 billion bushels and again will have a large surplus. In fact, the corn price has declined significantly since spring. Many commodity traders are actually worried about our capacity to store this falls crop.
There are many good things about ethanol for the ag community and the Midwest. It’s a higher value use of the crop so farmers make more money. This allows them to buy more combines, tractors etc. and pay more rent to landowners in the Midwest. The ethanol plants have revitalized the economy of many Midwest towns that were depressed before. They have also created demand for stainless steel and rail cars so those industries are benefiting as well. And they are making about 5 billion gallons of fuel that we are not buying from Venezuela, Russia, or some other dubious source. Aside from the obvious balance of trade issues, there are also long term geopolitical issues from this dependence.
Ethanol is subsidized by the government and some have issues about this. The increase in corn price due to the ethanol demand has reduced farm subsidies about the same extent, however.
So the net effect of the ethanol issue for the federal treasury has been negligible. The higher price though has stimulated corn production in other countries that could not compete with us when we were subsidized production and selling it below the cost of production.
The other issue is the effect on food prices. Corn makes up a very small part of the retail price of food so increases in price have little impact on retail food prices. Corn sells for about 7 cents a pound, even with the higher prices. A 12 oz box of corn flakes sells for about 2.20. So corn could double again in price and you probably would not notice it in your corn flakes.
Some industries, like cattle and chicken feeding are spending a lot more on corn than they used to, but they also have access to dry distiller’s grain, an economical feed that can replace some of the corn, especially for cattle.
So in the end, corn is not the complete answer to our transportation fuel issues, and corn ethanol will not likely dramatically increase food prices. Some have said it is a good first bunt. We have a lot of unused capacity to grow corn. In fact, due to low prices in the past, we have paved over, built houses, and taken ag land out of production.
Cellulosic ethanol will likely come on in a few years and eventually will be producing much more than corn ethanol. The hope is that combining corn ethanol, cellulosic, biodiesel, hybrid vehicles, higher mileage standards and other technologies we may be able to reduce our dependence on imported fuels by 30-40% by the end of the next decade or so.
If your readers are interested in an economical high performance fuel, they might want to checkout E-85, which was featured on Jay Leno's website last week.
If all this has you aching to fill up with an E-10 blend or so, stop in at the Sunoco across from Wal-Mart.
If you need anything else or some documentation or links, let me know.
Not that that settles anything, but it does give me some ammo to counter the folks who seem to think that all we have to do is turn our corn into ethanol and we'll be able to watch OPEC try to figure out ways to enjoy crude oil soup. It's never as simple as those who see a simple solution think it is.
Boon, or boondoggle
Maybe it's a bit of both
Which way ethanol?
 It's hard to say how many people were affected by the late Don Herbert, more commonly known as Mr. Wizard, but he certainly turned on my scientific curiousity gene. "What if..." thinking leads to many breakthroughs and innovations and helps you avoid being added to this list of notable quotables:
"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
--Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil?
You're crazy."
--Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill
for oil in 1859.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
--Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.
Fortunately there always are those who are willing to push the bounds of knowledge and technology, or ignore them completely, and lead us into the brave new world.
GM has been working on a diesel-like gasoline engine for 30 years and apparently has demonstrated a working concept vehicle using homogenous charge compression ignition (HCCI).
With the way we're more focused on the mileage performance of our vehicles now, I've often wondered where the progress in fuel efficiency of the internal combustion engine has gone. My 1981 Sentra would get 54 mpg on the highway, yet my new and improved 1996 Sentra would only get 42 mpg. Safety and comfort improved, but economy seemed to be headed in the other direction.
So I'm always encouraged when I hear about those willing to swim upstream against the conventional wisdom. Perhaps HCCI doesn't turn out to be the next best thing since sliced bread, but you never know!
Thanks Mr. Wizard!
For opening up my eyes
Possibilities
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