Real Engineering: The Climbing Lego Car

Real Engineering: The Climbing Lego Car

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If you’ve ever wondered how real engineering is done, this video is as good as any to explain the process. You see, TV and movies like to portray moments of insight leading directly to piles of riches and Nobel prizes. In the real world, you try, try, and try again, keeping what works while adding something new until you get what you want.

It’s currently quite popular on the internet to denigrate Thomas Edison, for instance, because he was exactly this kind of a plodder. His method was to identify a problem and painstakingly try one thing after another until he found the best combination of results to get the job done. The internet likes Tesla instead. A big thinker who died penniless.

I’m not sure there’s a big lesson in there, except maybe it’s smarter to invent Legos than go into engineering in the first place. That’s where the real money is, and Christmas is coming.

Can You, Indeed, Fight In The Shade?

Can You, Indeed, Fight In The Shade?

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In the offbeat movie 300, Stelios (patterned after a real soldier named Dienekes)  famously replied to the threat that the Persian army had so many archers that their arrows would blot out the sun with the witty riposte, “Then we will fight in the shade.” If you’ve been wondering if that’s even possible, the answer to the question appears to be: For a while you can.

That’s Entertainment: Jurassic Park With a Cat

That’s Entertainment: Jurassic Park With a Cat

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They probably should have gone with Jurassic Park with a cat in the first place. I mean, a T-rex is pretty formidable, but nothing is meaner than a house cat. Hell, T-rexes just bite you in half and get it over with, but a cat will smack you around for hours before he gets bored with you and claws you to bits. And of course a T-rex can’t grab you with his tiny front legs and give you the bunny feet treatment with his hind legs like a cat can. Case closed.

Beyond Fast: The V-10 Dallara SP1

Beyond Fast: The V-10 Dallara SP1

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Here we are at the Daytona Speedway. We’re watching a qualifying round for the Classic 24 race, so there are all sorts of vintage cars up to the usual chicanery and trying to stay on the ground and out of the bleachers on the straightaways.

Then there’s this thing. The V-10 Dallara SP1. The Dallara puts out around 700 horsepower, and spins up to 11,000 RPM if you’re braver than I am. The car’s something along the lines of 20 years old, so it’s hardly state of the art, but many of the cars he’s passing are substantially older. But hooboy, they look like pedal-powered cars compared to this thing.