Ace-Garageguy

AND...3D printing with wood waste-derived material:

Yeah, but they can take selfies, and post on Facebook, and use all manner of apps to order food and buy things and get directions and maybe even flush the toilet remotely. Technology wizards like that don't need to know how to tell if a schematic is for a wah-wah pedal or a linear accelerator, because by virtue of being able to do things with their thumbs and tiny little screens, they've proven themselves to be vastly superior to those of us who do and make physical stuff. Just ask one of 'em.

I once heard a twinkie at a car show pontificating on the virtues of electric cars, and how all the gas guzzling hot-rods were destroying the planet. I acted interested and asked him where the electricity came from. "Well, you, like, plug it in". So I asked him how it got to the plug. "It's in the wires." OK. How did it get in the wires? "It's just there"...said like I must be the dumbest guy on Earth..

You change the over- or under- drive ratio (and the pressure developed) on a Gilmer-belt setup by changing the relative diameters of the crank and blower snout pulleys (or the sprockets if it's a chain drive), sometimes requiring different belt or chain lengths. Not too difficult, obviously, because everything is right there in the open. Some of the front-mounted blower setups did actually have a provision for changing drive ratios by changing internal gearing; obviously a royal PITA because you have to take everything apart to get to it.

Air-to-air and air-to-water intercoolers can work in conjunction, but they have to be in the right order to achieve the desired charge-air cooling. Air-to-water usually needs to come first, as it usually uses engine coolant to remove heat from compressed charge-air. Air exiting the compressor can be around 250-300 degrees F. Coolant temp should be somewhere around 190. An air-to-water intercooler can not possibly get the charge-air temp any lower than the coolant temp...still pretty hot, and way too hot for maximum volumetric efficiency. Air-to-air usually needs to come second, where the pre-cooled but still hot charge-air dumps more of its heat to the ambient-temperature air passing through the core. BUT...as air-to-liquid heat exchangers are typically more efficient than air-to-air, you could conceivably run an air-to-water intercooler, that was circulating COOL water rather than engine coolant, just before the inlet ports . But this, of course, requires more complexity and more weight (pumps, tanks, and plumbing). I've seen one guy use his car's AC system to chill the working fluid in his intercooler. I've also seen ice-water circulated through an intercooler. How well these setups worked, I don't know. But the potential is certainly intriguing. EDIT: Methanol / water injection is also something to look into for charge-air cooling. PS: Good looking engine there.

I understand where you're coming from, exactly. Just remember...the mainstream media, for reasons we won't go into due to the ban on political references, likes to portray everyone living outside the anthill as mouth-breathing ignorant morons.

In simple terms, "intelligence" is the ability to acquire and retain knowledge (to learn), the ability to solve problems, and the ability to draw correct conclusions from available data. There are, depending on who is defining "intelligence", several subsets of abilities that come into play, like associative memory, facility with numbers, perceptual speed, reasoning, spatial perception and visualization, and verbal comprehension (the ability to actually understand the meaning of a string of words)...and that we all have varying degrees of innate ability in these areas (just as some of us are born with musical talent and some, not so much). But just having knowledge is not, however, intelligence. The world is increasingly full of "educated" people with heads stuffed with useless knowledge, who think they're highly intelligent but in truth can't figure out on their own that putting your hand in fire will hurt. Here's an overview of the current thinking and debate concerning intelligence: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-general-intelligence-2795210

+1

There's a lot of truth to that. The interdwerbs make it SO easy for the willfully ignorant and the fools to demonstrate to the entire planet their dumbness. But there's also well documented and convincing research demonstrating that, although "technology" is advancing and people can "do" more as a result (and sort of appear to be more "intelligent"), actual general intelligence is declining. Dramatically.

John Wayne is often credited with saying "life is hard; it's even harder when you're stupid". And it's much harder when so many are getting more stupid by the day.

The takeaway from the story is that the woman fearing the solar farm would inhibit photosynthesis of nearby plants was a retired SCIENCE TEACHER.

Yes. Scary, isn't it?

After seeing the XB-38 above, which is entirely new to me, I have the need to build it. What are you looking for in trade?

Looks like you didn't read the entire Snopes article. Snopes has a well known problem with reading comprehension, and spinning the facts to support the dogma du jour. According to Snopes own article... "Jane Mann said she is a local native and is concerned about the plants that make the community beautiful. She is a retired Northampton science teacher and is concerned that photosynthesis, which depends upon sunlight, would not happen and would keep the plants from growing. She said she has observed areas near solar panels where the plants are brown and dead because they did not get enough sunlight. She also questioned the high number of cancer deaths in the area, saying no one could tell her that solar panels didn’t cause cancer. “I want to know what’s going to happen,” she said. “I want information. Enough is enough. I don’t see the profit for the town. Bobby Mann said he watched communities dry up when I-95 came along and warned that would happen to Woodland because of the solar farms. “You’re killing your town,” he said. “All the young people are going to move out.” He said the solar farms would suck up all the energy from the sun and businesses would not come to Woodland." Perhaps the town didn't reject the solar farm entirely over the concerns of these particular morons, but the fact that one moron quoted by Snopes itself is a retired science teacher should be of sufficient concern. The American education system is on the decline, and getting worse by the day.

Waste not, want not...

I slipped the leash and got in a short hike at Kennesaw Mountain. It's just over a mile from the visitor center parking area to the summit, with a climb of about 800 feet. Got to the top in 25 minutes. Hardly a record, but not too far off my time several decades ago. And not bad for a 70+ year-old guy who broke his pelvis a few years back, and could barely climb the six steps to his front door for months afterwards. Sure is easier at 190 pounds than it was at 220, and by the time I get back down to 175, it ought to be a breeze.

Yessir. Supreme joy is a new engine, or engine parts, or just about any parts for a project, or tools, etc. I spent last weekend clearing out an old friend's basement, now that he's decided he's just not ever going to get to some of his projects. When I got some of the stuff home and really started going through it, I was like a little kid at Christmas.

If you are really concerned about what goes into your dogs, may I suggest a particular brand (and they're good hot dogs, too)...

Yup...the early mags and wide whites are definitely a good look on that little Bird. Roof scoop's cool too.

Of course...but you could also logically argue the groundwork was laid at the end of WW I, tying it to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. "I cannot imagine any greater cause for future war than that the German people…should be surrounded by a number of small states… each containing large masses of Germans clamouring for reunion." David Lloyd George, March 1919 “This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years”. Ferdinand Foch Still, the beginning of WW II is pretty much universally accepted to be Sept. 1939, with Germany's invasion of Poland, and England and France declaring war against the Germans 2 days later. I don't think there's much of a "trick" question there.

Yeah, I know that. But I spend most of my time these days getting way too much stuff to fit in spaces that "aren't big enough", so if little ol' me can do it consistently, day-in, day-out, why can't teams of ethnically- and gender-diverse engineers manage to? Modern life often baffles me...

Ummm...1939.

Nope. Sorry. But strawberry milk most definitely DOES come from pink ones.

Hmmmmm. When I found it difficult to get in and out of my friend's old Miata a few years back, rather than blaming the car for being "too small", I blamed myself for becoming fat and out of shape...which I've been on the very successful road to correcting. Now, ingress and egress is only mildly discomfiting, and driving the little car is a blast. I do have to wonder though...something as huge comparatively as, say, a recent Dodge Challenger...HOW can it be so cramped inside compared to a vintage Dodge Challenger? Even kit-car and hot-rod builders have been making an effort to accommodate the almost universal embiggening (which is a perfectly cromulent word) of people in the "civilized" world, and I remember eons ago when interior room was a significant selling point car manufacturers loudly touted. Maybe designing everything on a spiffy little screen in CAD isn't completely a substitute for GETTING A BIG GUY TO ACTUALLY SIT IN A MOCKUP OF AN INTERIOR...ya think?