When I die I hope be buried in the English rural churchyard that has been my responsibility as churchwarden, after a funeral service that has been a celebration of my life. I am neither an Egyptian pharaoh nor a Viking queen though, so my grave will not contain all my tools and equipment to serve […]
Since Dick Tracy all the way back in ’46, smart watches have captured the public imagination. After several false starts, the technology has gone through a renaissance in the last 10 years or so. For the average consumer, there’s been a proliferation of hardware in the marketplace, with scores of different models to choose from. […]
Building new things in an existing city is hard. Usually, new development means tearing down existing structures. Doing so for apartment complexes or new skyscrapers is one thing, but infrastructure is much more complicated, both from an engineering perspective and an economical one. Not only do people not want to foot the tax bill for […]
Back in the good old days of carburetors and distributors, the game was all about busting door locks and hotwiring the ignition to boost a car. Technology rose up to combat this, you may remember the immobilizer systems that added a chip to the ignition key without which the vehicle could not be started. But […]
Diesel is a fuel that has had a mixed history, with varying levels of take-up by consumers around the world. In the world of transport, diesel engines have offered better fuel economy and torque than comparable gasoline engines. Particularly popular in Europe, diesel established a strong consumer base in both small commuter cars as well […]
Precision time is ubiquitous today thanks to GPS and WWVB. Even your Macbook or smartphone displays time which is synchronized to the NIST-F1 clock, a cesium fountain atomic clock (aka the ‘Atomic Clock’) that is part of a global consortium of atomic clocks known as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Without precise timing there would be train […]
It is said that Benjamin Franklin, while watching the first manned flight of a hot air balloon by the Montgolfier brothers in Paris in 1783, responded when questioned as to the practical value of such a thing, “Of what practical use is a new-born baby?” Dr. Franklin certainly had a knack for getting to the […]
Of all the things which are annoying about the modern World Wide Web, the need to create and remember countless passwords is on the top of most people’s lists. From dozens of passwords for everything from social media sites to shopping, company, and productivity-related platforms like Github, a large part of our day is spent […]
Humanity had barely taken its first tentative steps into space with primitive satellites when amateur radio operators began planning their first satellites. Barely four years after Sputnik’s brief but momentous launch and against all odds, OSCAR 1 was launched as a secondary payload from an Air Force missile taking a spy satellite into orbit. Like […]
By now you’ve almost certainly heard about the recent release of a high-resolution satellite image showing the aftermath of Iran’s failed attempt to launch their Safir liquid fuel rocket. The geopolitical ramifications of Iran developing this type of ballistic missile technology is certainly a newsworthy story in its own right, but in this case, there’s […]