Can't these liberal art guys consult an engineer before publishing this stuff?

From the Economist:

"Morris Technologies has invested heavily in 3D printing equipment and will be printing bits for a new range of jet engines. Morris Technologies uses a number of 3D printing machines, all of which work by using a digital description of an object to build it in physical form, layer by layer. Among the 3D printing technologies used by Morris Technologies is laser sintering. This involves spreading a thin layer of metallic powder onto a build platform and then fusing the material with a laser beam. The process is repeated until an object emerges."

"One of the attractions of printing parts is that it saves material. Instead of machining components from solid billets of metal, in which much of it may be cut away, only the material that is needed to shape the part is used. Printed parts can also be made lighter than forged parts, which promises fuel savings. 

Many manufacturers already use 3D printing to make prototypes of parts, because it is cheaper and more flexible than tooling up to produce just one or two items. But the technology is now good enough for it to be used to make production items too."

No, dammit!

That's not why the aviation industry uses sintering!

Think about the conditions in a jet engine: extreme heat, extreme stress. Any material that can withstand those types of conditions is going to be prohibitively expensive to machine. Sintered alloys are actually much weaker than cast alloys, which means the recipe is going to need to be all the more complex to get that strength back.

Aside from needing to melt substances that are explicitly designed to have an extremely high melting point, the problem with casting is that as the material cools, it shrinks from the mold, so it becomes impossible to cast parts with precision. That means the only alternative to sintering would be taking a big block of superhard alloy, and then trying to grind it down to a blisk or whatever you're making.

Forging produces even stronger materials (through stress hardening), but the logistical impossibility of forging a turbine blade should be obvious to anyone.

Sintering is used in mass production when there's no other choice.

If you're trying to make tank armour on the other hand, where precision is not so important, but strength and cost are..yeah, good luck selling the industry on your 3-D printers.

All aboard!

I've always found character shipping kind of strange and crazy, and doing it with real people just adds another dimension of creepiness to everything. But since I'm knee deep in this world of weirdness already, here is my appraisal of selected watercrafts:

TaeNy (Taeyeon + Tiffany): Clearly the most popular ferry by far. Also there are way too many ridiculous videos made on this that I don't want to click on.

SunYeon (Sunny + Taeyeon): Minor, TaeNy is strictly dominant.

JeTi (Jessica + Tiffany): This is just silly.

YulSic (Yuri + Jessica): I woke up and had an epiphany; there is subtle brilliance at play here.

StrawNy (Straw + Tiffany): The only acceptable ship in my mind.

"Kevin Durant is not a nice guy"

Said nobody ever.

Anyways, from the Times:

"At the Thunder’s training center, after a practice in early October, Kevin Durant and I sat on folding chairs at the edge of the gym. He was wearing a black tank top, black shorts and ridiculously colorful shoes. (Loud footwear is one of his few obvious vices.)" 

Really? I never would've guessed.

Dear Houston..

..don't know whether it is the coaching or the players,

But when it comes down to crunch time,

Can you have a play that isn't just Harden playing Hero Ball into all the defenders?

Or you know, going iso into Lebron fucking James?

Three times in a row?

Thanks.

You would twinkle even if wrapped in a veil..

Postscript.

I spent 50 minutes listening to Heart Station

And I ended up with this.

So who thought pairing an idol contestant with Taeny was a good idea?

Because they came on and stole the damn show.



Also, Tiffany as Lil' Kim made me smile.

Actually

The US military has more bayonets now.

WOW

That's some kind of Sandra Bullock bullshit right here.


I think she's cute with glasses. =3

Border push

I wonder which culture is really invading here..

What??

What if the original Arrow design was upgraded, taking advantage of 21st-century materials and technology? What if the result was an Mk 3 Arrow flying 20,000 feet higher than the F-35 and seeing it disappear in the rear view mirror as the new Arrow hits twice, yes, twice the speed — Mach 3.5 as opposed to the pedestrian F-35 at Mach 1.67?

...

A detailed feasibility plan regarding the production of such an aircraft in Canada has been in the government’s hands for over a year now. It has been seen by the Prime Minister’s Office, the offices of the minister of national defence, the associate minister of national defence, the assistant deputy minister (material) and the newly appointed chief of the defence staff while he was deputy commander of NORAD. 

I've got your feasibility study right here: IT'S NOT FEASIBLE

Legendary

Who are these 1500 people that clicked thumbs down??

On that note

Google Art is hella sick and everyone should check it out.

Modern Art

I was never one for modern art.

Part of the problem is that it is all so opaque and meta, that you can't really understand what's going on by just looking at a piece in isolation.

Like, Lynda Benglis is known for her feminist sculptures.

  

Why is this feminist? It's just a lumpy piece of shit. Except you have to know that her contemporaries were predominantly males making really angular lumpy pieces of shit in hard colours (how they got to that point is a whole other story). This has obviously more feminine characteristics in its soft curves and softer colours and served as her rebuttal to the masculinity of the art world. It's like a back and forth discussion in a secret language; they are saying things about their society, but you have to be in the know.

What happens if you try to make the same thing today? Well I guess you'd be full of shit, really.

Warhol and his likes are noteworthy not because of any sort of technical excellence but because nobody in their time would've thought about doing what they did. They were taking the lowest forms of consumer culture and trying to make it into art. Now that it's become accepted, what meaning is there today for you to do what he did? Now not only can anybody paint a terrible soup can, but anybody can think of painting a terrible soup can.

Which brings me to Damian Hurst, who I think is a total hack and people need to stop giving him bags of money for animal carcasses and crystal skulls. I think he derives a lot of success because his works are aesthetically pleasing in a way that many are not. So if you don't really know what the hell you're looking at but want to act sophisticated, why not at least pick up something that looks cool?

That is to say, I think some modern artists are full of shit.

But most of their appreciators are definitely full of shit.

Was this a Ke$ha reject song or something?

Axis powers revisited

BMW 328i xDrive

BMW is known for making Ultimate Driving Machines.

They are also known for their other portfolio...so full of those things that drove the British out of France and blitzed London. But that was a Bad Time, so let's forget about that part.

The 328i used to run a 300cc I6 228bhp/199lb-ft power plant. This year they are downsizing to a 200cc I4. Which is actually good news, because, with the help of TwinPower turbos, their performance has been boosted to an impressive 241bhp/258lb-ft.

"Hey roll your windows up, it's quite windy back here"

I didn't even notice. When you are throwing the car around, you really don't pay attention to much else. In Sport mode the throttle response feels great and the steering is sharp. In most other cars you have to contemplate the physics of a turn; this car is not like most cars: it is as nimble as you are. This is when the car is at its best, when you don't think, you just drive.

"Just don't go past 150"

Haha, that's funny. But in more than a good way. For all their engineering, 241 horsepower is 241 horsepower. At some point you've hit 6500 revs and you're ready for more but you glance at the tachometer and you realize there's just no more for it to give. And that's just a little disappointing.

My father mentioned after his drive that it felt like the Maxima had more power in it. I dismissed it out of hand initially, but it turns out that he's right. When you hit rock bottom in the BMW, there would still be some juice left in the Maxima.

There are some interesting questions here. For instance, what was I doing in a BMW at 6500 revs? And what the hell was I doing in a Maxima to have any baseline of comparison?

Those are good questions.

So now I am going to talk about the exterior: it looks great. I don't like much what they've done with the new headlamps but they still know a thing or two about making a pretty cars.

But don't let the outside fool you. The interior is just tragic. When you are driving it to the fullest and nothing fills your senses except the road, there's no problem at all. Except that you won't be driving like that for the vast majority of time. Else, you won't be driving at all for long because those license infractions will suddenly start appearing very quickly. For the rest of the time you can admire the cheap looking plastic panels, and the cheap looking steering wheel, and the terribly designed shifter and the terribly designed signal switch and a million other Minor Annoyances present in the vehicle. These are things you can put up with, but when the price tag is running close to $60k all-inclusive, why should you?

"You should move your seat back a little more"

No don't! Because it feels like a vice sitting back here! Second-class passengers indeed!

"Buy it for yourself, not the wife"

About sums it up actually, because this is a car for a lot of things, but it's not one for Real Life.


Infiniti G37

The G37 is in the same class, but it is actually not in the same class. This car is of a different pedigree altogether.

The inside is roomy and elegant, everything works as you expect it to, and they give you some amenities right off the bat. For instance, rear-view camera: standard. How many extra packages would you need to buy before you can get this in a BMW? Over five thousand dollars worth. The G37 treats you as you'd expect to be treated for the price.

And it stays together longer; the vehicle histories show it.

As for the engine? It is a beast. A 370cc V6 giving you 328bhp at 269lb-ft, and the torque comes earlier than in the VQ35 too. At 4000rpm it gives an audible but not overbearing low growl, suggesting that there is more power yet untapped should you need it.

You don't need it.

I put it in high gear to see how it would do for kicks and it effortlessly boosted me uphill.

No, it isn't as agile as the bimmer, nor would you want to drive it like one. But it is more maneuverable than what its girth suggests. Even with a 1" longer wheelbase than the old Maxima, it actually turns tighter, and of course the VQ37 gives you very little to complain about.

Except perhaps the gas prices.

Although the exterior isn't quite as exquisite as the BMW, it does a good enough job at looking its part. Besides, the exterior is for other people, but the interior? That's for yourself.


To sum, you can occasionally enjoy a BMW (and really enjoy it), but the G37 is the one that you can sit easy in on any day, at any speed.

Don't worry, I'm an engineer!

"Does it cost more pollution to create high octane gas?"

No, there's only a small amount of leeway in how a refinery fractionates its crude. Gasoline itself is a blend of different compounds.

One desirable characteristic of gasoline is how much it can be compressed before it auto-ignites (you don't want this to happen because it'll throw your engine timing off) and a specific band of compounds (known as the B-T-X fraction: benzene, toluene, xylenes) increases this property.

The reason high-octane fuels are more expensive is because there just isn't enough of this stuff to go around. You get your crude and when you separate it into components there is x amount of stuff you can make gasoline with and y amount of B-T-X additives where y is less than x. Supply and demand economics.

"Does it release more pollution when used in a car?"

This is a loaded question.

At high compression ratios, the fuel burns more efficiently so you get more complete combustion, more power for the fuel. So in the strictest sense, no. Let's say you have a VQ35, all else being equal you will have better combustion (so you get a higher CO2 to CO ratio with C being stoichiometrically limiting) and more importantly you get more power per unit of fuel so you need to burn less of it to do the same thing.

There are a number of caveats. First you need an engine designed for high compression, otherwise low or high octane will ignite all the same and you're just wasting your money.

Secondly, high compression engines are usually high power, high performance pieces of machinery. So yes, you will get to 300hp more efficiently with a high octane fuel versus a low octane fuel, but if you are getting to places with a 300hp engine instead of a 100hp engine, you're not really saving any fuel are you?

The corollary is that engines have very different sets of performance envelopes so what's most fuel efficient depends on your driving habits. If you do a lot of hard acceleration, a Nissan Sentra won't have enough torque to push it on the low revs, so your car is going to have to gear down and rev harder. On the other hand, a straight-6 BMW is going to be able to generate the same amount of power without breaching 3000 on the tachometer. An engine operates more efficiently in the 2000 - 3000 rpm band than, say, 5500. So in that case, yeah, you might actually save more fuel in that 300hp BMW than the 100hp Nissan. Jeremy Clarkson might be an ape but he got that right, it's more about how you drive than what you drive.

(I've simplified some things but the point is generally valid)

Why is this the last resort?

This would really be my first resort if I were in charge.

Thunk

At one time, Japanese autos were much better than what the North American makers were offering. They were more reliable, performed better and came at a great price. Ford introduced the assembly line, but Toyota brought Lean, TPS and 5S to the manufacturing world.

Also, their doors made a great thunk when you closed them.

Of course now, every car door makes that sound. Auto manufacturing has come a long way since then and quality has increased across the board from everyone. But back then American makers were struggling to replicate that sound, the sound of a perfect fusion of parts. Something that comes off a line that measures defects in PPMs. The intangible feeling of goodness.

I just want to say that I get a satisfying thunk every time I close my laptop lid; time to catch up, everyone else

Bloodlines

I am throwing down, Keyar.

We are going to do this Battlestar rematch.

Here is the setup: we're going to create a sentient race of robots who are going to force humanity to evacuate Earth and resettle in a system of 12 habitable planets. There the stage will be set for our descendants to do-over.

This sounds hard, but I know this guy who's really good with machine learning; he's like an expert, don't worry.

Oh yeah, and I guess your lineage is going to need to become androids at some point.

I will pass down a fortune cookie for all my future generations,

"Beware the Hoods"