Tag: learning

I apologize for posting later than normal.  Windows decided to perform an update when I sat down to finish this piece, so I lost around 45 minutes this evening.

The most important part of an automobile is how to power the wheels (or belt, if one talks of a snowmobile).  What ever device does this must fulfill several requirements, which we shall look into later.

A device to propel a car must do several things, depending on the complexity of the automobile.  It must produce enough power to overcome internal friction, to overcome air resistance, to overcome rolling resistance of the tires, and a couple of other things as well.  Because of differences in combustion engines and battery operated motors, each type will be discussed separately.

With the near release of the Nissan Leaf and the Chevrolet Volt, both 100% electric driven automobiles, I thought that it would be appropriate to reflect on the history and technology of the automobile.  Actually, the Volt also has an internal combustion engine on board, but that engine runs a generator, so both of these cars are exclusively driven by electric motors.

The engine to generator concept is not at all new, as practically all big Diesel locomotives are driven that way.  There are significant advantages in using electric motors to propel vehicles, even if they are powered by on board generators.  We shall get to that in future.

Many of you who read my posts regularly know that I am a very dedicated numismatist, and that I have written many posts about coin collecting.  I have also written about the history of United States coins extensively.

What you may not know is that I specialize in Lincoln one cent pieces, minted from 1909 to the present day.  This is the longest running series of all United States coins by a large margin, lasting 101 years now with little change on the obverse, but with some.

This post will let you know a bit more about them, and also some of my passion for what most people think of as something insignificant.  They are far from insignificant.

Scientific terms are often corrupted, and the wingnuts often do it.  They conflate hypotheses with theories, and theories with laws.  They also reduce the value of a theory to what they make out as just a guess.

This post is an attempt to separate the words and make the scientific method more sensible to folks who are not trained scientists.  As always, if I not clear, comments and questions are always welcomed.

Atomic Rooster was in interesting band.  They were certainly British, and very eclectic.  There are also connexions with other bands (some of which I have covered here) and with other, less well known ones.

This band came to be in much part between the collaboration betwixt the folks producing The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and several other bands, including The Who.  Their connexions include King Crimson, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, and a couple of other bands that I would rather folks mention in the comments.  Shall we see more about them?

OK, I admit that I got you to read this because of its title, but it is not too far from the plot of the old, classic horror flick.  In a nutshell, everyone turns against each other, except for the Living Dead that were united because they had no brain tissue of their own.

The classic line of the film was uttered by the Sheriff, who said, after being asked a question about the motives of the Living Dead, deadpan,, “They’re all messed up.  They’re dead.”

Thus is the performance of the entire cast of the unfortunate episode about the Shirley Sherrod episode, with everyone being brain dead except for her (who acted with dignity), the vile Breitbart, and the FOX “News” Channel.  Please read more.  This is more opinion than fact, but the film puts it in a sort of bizarre perspective.

Most of us have heard of zinc in passing comments.  Some TeeVee commercials tout the virtues of it in the diet.  Actually, it is an essential trace element, and part of some coenzyme systems, and so is essential for health.  Interestingly, it is more important for men than for women because the prostate gland needs lots of zinc to produce semen and to maintain health.

That does not mean that women do not need zinc, just that they do not lose lots of it in seminal fluid.  The requirements for zinc in the metabolism is the same betwixt the sexes, but, as females lose iron during menstruation, men lose it during ejaculation.  Please follow, and I promise not to be so graphic for a while.

I apologize for not including a post last week, but I suffered from a large amount of lack of motivation.  You see, this was the first wedding anniversary in 33 years on which the former Mrs. Translator and I were not wedded.  I poured out my heart the previous Friday night here, and was drained.

Saturday I went to the mailbox and found a parcel from her.  She had sent me one of the most authoritative and scholarly works about the American Civil War (I still have problems with the name of the war, because it was not, by definition, a civil war, but I am coming to understand that my previous preferred title, The War between the States, is quite inaccurate as well).  In addition to the wonderful book she sent a card that touched me, in a good way, so much that I guess that I was dumbstruck.  I will never mention anything about the contents of that card except to say that it was likely the most touching thing that I have known in many years, and the telephone conversation that followed made it even more so.

As you know, I get questions from time to time about things.  I keep the best ones until I have enough to post them.  Some of them are serious, some are funny, and some do not quite make sense.

This is a followup to the hugely successful (for me, making the rec list) post from a couple of weeks ago.  You have Keith Olbermann to thank or to curse for stimulating me to write in the Thurber tradition.

By the way, Docudharma.com gets the scoop on this one.  I will not post it to the big orange until tomorrow because of the severe time restrictions on comments, and you all know that the comments are the best part of my posts.

Contrary to some popular opinion, salt is an essential part of the diet.  Unfortunately, it is possible to get too much of a good thing, and that is true in the case of salt.

On the other hand, it is possible to become deficient in salt, although that is quite rare with a modern western diet.  However, vegans and other vegetarians can become deficient, especially when performing strenuous work in hot weather, since sweat is about 0.9% salt.