This was a different world than we live in now to say the least. Now we have the high tech stuff that is designed to fail.

40.000 Cu Inch 2 Cylinder 4 carbs = 400 hp

Try to start that one without a can of ether….

Air starting a 80 hp Fairbanks

Some things just aren’t supposed to be easy………….

The recently passed energy bill includes the phasing out of the incandescent bulb. It’s just another example of knee jerk reactions from the so-called environmental movement and global warming crowd. More often than not these attempts to “go green” backfire on everybody and do more harm than good. It’s nothing other than feel good, nanny state politics run amuck.

Somewhere, Mr. Edison Gently Weeps The American Spectator

Kiss your bulbs goodbye WorldNetDaily

Popular Mechanics Lab Test

Read the comments section on the PM article for some insight as too how well CF bulbs work out in the real world.

H/T to bdfaith at Old War Dogs for the link. His daily “Politics and National Defense Roundup’s” are a good source for information in this brave new world we seem to have inherited.

The Ethanol Fallacy: Op-Ed. From Popular Mechanics

America needs smart alternative to oil, but the just-passed energy bill puts too much emphasis on the wrong alternative, PM’s editor-in-chief says.

The idea is so appealing: We can reduce our dependence on oil—stop sending U.S. dollars to corrupt petro-dictators, stop spewing megatons of carbon into the atmos¬phere—by replacing it with clean, home-grown, all-American corn. It sounds too good to be true.

Sadly, it is.

(More)

Check them out here…..

This is the mentality shared by most of the environmental protect us all crowd. They’ll ban incandescent bulbs in favor of energy consumption, but don’t realize the mercury in the fluorescent bulbs ends up in a land fill near them. This is the same bunch that keeps telling us we have do do everything possible to remove any trace of mercury from the stacks of our power plants.

Of course getting DDT outlawed made it possible for a lot of people to die from malaria but what the hell, they’re just trying to protect us, right? Heh, thanks but no thanks, I’ve got all the help I need…..

Whiskers

It was in May last year that we wrote, under the title The ultimate in fatuity, of a particularly damaging new EU law, Directive 2002/95/EC on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment.

This banned the use of lead in electronic equipment, thus prohibiting the use of lead-based solder, the stupidity of which we rehearsed in detail.

Now, it seems, chickens are coming home to roost, recounted in an AP report which tells of ruined missiles, silenced communications satellites and nuclear power plants to forced to shut down. Even pacemakers, consumer gadgets and a critical part of a space shuttle have fallen victim.

The culprits, says AP, are tiny splinters called whiskers, that sprout without warning from tin solder and finishes deep inside electronics. By some estimates, we are told, the resulting short-circuits have levelled as much as $10 billion in damage since they were first noticed in the 1940s.

Read More
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This whole concept of producing hydrogen on demand is something that fascinates me to no end. Is it Illusion or Reality? Hmmm… Let me think about it for a couple more years…
Anyhow, take time to watch this VIDEO

“Brown’s/Rhode’s Gas” Debunked HERE

There’s a lot of research being done and this may become a viable option for the creation of energy on demand using hydrogen at some point. But it can’t replace the other byproducts we get from our fossil fuels (oil). It could reduce our dependence on them at best.

While we’re on the subject, check this guy out. Salt Water To Fire Using RF energy to do the work. I wouldn’t bet on that happening either………

Jerry Woodall does have some interesting research going on over at Purdue however.

Breakthrough Process Generates Hydrogen from Aluminum Alloy

Either way; Nothing In=Nothing Out, right? Physics doesn’t play second fiddle when it comes to life. We’re one and the same; with a little help from God……..

Gotta run for now. I’ll be out back stacking up my carbon credits.

Hat tip to Nuke for keeping me on my toes.

Give me a break please!

This is rather interesting in a way though, (not you Dan, the other Rather), and does give me some pause for thought. An engine that runs on air only, and no fuel? Ouch! That makes my head hurt. Oil Well, I think I’ll need a little more information before I’d want to call this one.

The Video is HERE PESWiki has more HERE
Yikes! No more Internet for me today. I’ve already got more information than I can use. Can I trade some of it in for carbon credits?

On a related note, this is something that might be viable:

Thermal Electric

Here’s something Jerry Woodall is working on to create hydrogen on demand using gallium and aluminum to crack it from water. Heh, at least it works……..

Purdue Process Generates Hydrogen From Aluminum Alloy

Either way you look at it folk’s, you need a little oil to make it all happen…….

Getting rid of the cobwebs doesn’t mean the spider won’t be back. The rest as Rurik would say, is history………

This is one of my favorite desktop pictures. I call it my “tube top” and thought I’d share it with those of you that visit this site on occasion. It kind of reminds me of my favorite female bloggers; Deb H. at Right Truth, Velvet Hammer at Ironic Surrealism and BabbaZee over at The Outraged Spleen Of Zion. This ones for you girls and I hope you get my sense of humor! It’s not much, but it’s the only one I have left. And as Rurik would say; The rest is history………

Ahhh…… Those were the days when you could actually tell which part of the circuit had failed………… (the lights went out)
Anyhow, a good friend (Jackster) gave me these recently. The one on the right has a mogul base, which is a little bigger than that found on your standard light bulb. The filament acts as the cathode directly and is the emitter, no plate involved. The anode exits the top via a rather small pin, so my guess is that it’s a high voltage rectifier or diode in other words. Can’t tell for the masking how the other one is configured.

Click on the picture for a closer look.

Those that think we need to abandon the incandescent light bulb for tubes full of mercury (flourescent) have no idea how this stuff works in the first place. Why make a mess when you don’t have to?

For some reason this doesn’t surprise me.

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DHS Wants Cell Phones to Detect Chemical, Radioactive Material
By Rob Margetta, CQ Staff

American cell phones can already check e-mail, surf the Internet and store music, but they could have a new set of features in coming years: the Department of Homeland Security wants them to sense biological, chemical and radioactive material.

Putting hazardous material sensors in commercial cell phones has been discussed in scientific circles for years, according to researchers in the field. More recently, the idea gained support among government agencies, and DHS said publicly in May that it wants businesses to start coming up with proposals.

At the 2007 DHS Science and Technology Stakeholders Conference, S&T Director of Innovation Roger McGinnis outlined how the system could work. Cell phone sensors would continually test the air for harmful compounds and digitally relay any information to a central monitoring system if they find anything amiss.

“It’s a great way to get millions of detectors out there,” McGinnis said.

Like the built-in GPS function many cell phones now offer, customers would have the option of turning the sensors off, McGinnis said.

Link HERE

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