Popular Mechanics USA 2013-10

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P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 3 05P

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CO LU M N SJay Leno’s Garage For car salesmen, Jay’s father was one tough customer. .......................... 54

NSA Data Mining: How It Works What the National Security Agency really does with your data. BY JOE PAPPALARDO .... 59

How Not to Die Accidents happen—especially to men below the age of 50, for whom they are the leading cause of death. Here are 20 familiar, seemingly controlled scenarios where danger stalks. Plus, the steps you need to take to come back safe, from the backcountry or the backyard. BY JEFF WISE ................................ 64

When Can I Let Go of the Wheel? Few things say “The future’s here!” better than the self-driving car. But we have some questions. Namely, just how safe are robotic drivers? And what do we do with our hands? BY ANDREW DEL-COLLE ........................................................................ 74Shark Shooter Photographer Andy Casagrande combines inventive camera rigs and unflinching nerves to capture unique footage of the ocean’s largest predators. BY BILL MORRIS ................................. 80

Photographer Bartholomew Cooke shot a timeless icon of survival preparedness for this month’s cover, as well as the pictures accompanying our cover story, beginning on page 64.

ON THE COVER I G N I T I O NLetters, Complaints, Events 06

T E C H WAT C HNews, Trends, Breakthroughs 15

U P G R A D EGear, Tools, Gadgets 25

AU TO I N T E LTest Drives, Top Tech, Hot Rides 41

Diving off the coast of Cat Island in the central Bahamas, Andy Casagrande captures footage of oceanic whitetip sharks with his Red Epic camera.

Woof! 25


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06 O C T O B E R 2 0 1 3 / P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M

What You Said( A B O U T O U R J U LY/AU G U S T I S S U E A N D M O R E )

We read all of your comments, tweets, and letters. And we’ve read a few smoke signals too.

Curated by Steve Rousseau

Email [email protected] mail300 West 57th St., New York, NY 10019Subscribe subscribe.popularmechanics.com

weekend22 Pages of DIY

88 HomeCut and split all that firewood for the fall? Great job. Now here’s how to stack it like a true woodsman.

Simple to set up and operate, these five portable generators can keep your home necessities running when disaster strikes.Halloween Special Build your own lawn zombie, conjure phantasmal holograms, spin monstrous spider webs, and more.Home Clinic Refurbishing worn, hand-me-down steel tools.

100 Tech How to take advantage of cloud-based Web services—such as document and photo sharing—to collaborate over the Internet.Digital Clinic Co-opt any ordinary speaker to amplify the nastiest guitar licks.

112 AutoFor old paint and rust that resists detergents and elbow grease, there’s media blasting. Car Clinic Debunking platinum-spark-plug myths.

124 A Brief History of the . . . Airship.

Our July/August feature “The Case for Alien Life,” details why current research suggests that life probably exists beyond Earth—somewhere. ● “Anyone who believes Earth is unique or important enough to have the only life in the universe has to be arrogant or delusional,” comments Rich Glover via Facebook. Elliot Ofsowitz of Sarasota, Fla., agrees that extraterrestrial life is out there but takes issue with the practical side of things, such as first contact. “Looking for aliens can be fun and exciting, but most people fail to take into account the enormity of space and the endlessness of time,” he writes. “The existence of other civilizations may be predicted, but if they are over 100 light-years away how would we contact them?” That’s a good question, Elliot, but perhaps it’s for the best: There may be ageless, cataclysmically hostile life out there

Members of Girls Get IT—a Hillsboro, Ore., high school program that encourages girls to get involved in tech—scan the June issue for project ideas.

Tool Test

Simple to set up and d operate,

Tool Test


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Senior news editor Joe Pappalardo discusses his July/August cover story, “The Range Is Hot,” on the future of Marine Corps tactics, and fields a bevy of defense-related questions from callers, such as the increasing use of drones, the emergence of cyber warfare, and the evolving nature of war, on C-Span’s Washington Journal.

that’s best left undisturbed. ● Rick Lowe of Leesburg, Va., “thoroughly enjoyed” our recent look into the revamp of Marine Corps tactics (“The Range Is Hot,” July/August) but thinks history might be repeating itself. “The future as revealed resembles the past except with new technologies,” he writes. “Today’s technology offers far better real-time intel, weapon delivery systems, and precise munitions, but the tactics described as the next generation are those used during the Vietnam War, tried and true.” ● July/August’s Car Clinic item on automotive kill switches (“Kill Your Car”) brought back some memories for Stuart Pardee of Gardner ville, Nev. “In the mid-1970s I owned a 1959 Jaguar XK-150 (which I sold in 1983 and have kicked myself in the butt every day since), and installed a toggle switch to thwart thieves. It worked perfectly,” he writes. “Then, one spring, I brought the car out and could not for the life of me get it started.” After 2 hours, Stuart suddenly remembered the toggle switch, flipped it, “and the Jag started right up.” ● Kate Sullivan of Philadelphia objected to the imagery in our June Fatherhood Issue. “I’m a Popular Mechanics subscriber. I’m also a woman and a former automotive journalist,” she writes. “The text itself was unobjectionable—your writers and editors made a valiant effort to be inclusive, but the visuals were notable for what they didn’t show—girls.” In particular, she points

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C O MPLA INTS DEPARTMENT The stuff about the military does not belong. I am not planning to invade a country anytime soon.NICK ERSKINE-SHAW, VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA

to the photos in the Weekend section. “Girls have to fight to get into the garage, to get our hands dirty; whereas boys are invited to join in as a matter of course. By not showing girls, you’re perpetuating the stereotype that girls aren’t gearheads.” ● Sebastian Frias points out a potential flaw in our online analysis of Pacific Rim, “How the Pentagon Could Destroy All Monsters.” “After killing the Kaiju with conventional weapons, you’ve splattered the city with highly toxic Kaiju blood, leaving the city uninhabitable. Congratulations!” he writes. Lord Byng of Vancouver, British Columbia, complains that the fight is rigged. “The worst part of fighting a fictional monster is that the writer can counter anything in the name of the plot,” he writes. “No wonder the Pentagon is helpless.”


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THE K ID WANTS TO K NO W

H E A R S T M A G A Z I N E S D I V I S I O N

Employee of the Month

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Are mechs effective, or even plausible, in a military setting? Mac W., 14, Port Orchard, Wash.

After watching Pacific Rim, we too pondered whether giant robots would ever grace our cities with wanton destruction. A few hobbyists are trying to make this a reality; but DARPA—the only government agency that might develop Jaeger-like titans—sees walking mechs as bots of burden. This year the U.S. Marine Corps will test the Legged Squad Support System, a robotic mule capable of lugging 400 pounds of gear through rugged terrain. — STEVE ROUSSEAU

Are you a kid with a question? Ask Steve! Email [email protected].

After mapping out the Milky Way galaxy (“The Case for Alien Life,” July/August), Kristie Bailey published a paper on the design process she used. Check it out in Parson’s Journal for Information Mapping.

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SCI-F I PREDICTIONS Earbuds, Google Glass, and the Apple iPad: These devices and many more were predicted by prescient authors such as Ray Bradbury, William Gibson, and Arthur C. Clarke. popularmechanics.com/7predictions

PRO CLEANING T IPS No one likes to clean. But armed with the right tools and using proven techniques from the pros, you can keep your home sparkling in half the time. popularmechanics.com/cleaningtips

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Tech W A T C HNEWSTRENDSBREAKTHROUGHS

Edited by RACHEL Z. ARNDT

1

If astronomers succeed in imaging the monster black hole at the center of the Milky Way, its gravitational vortex may look something like this.

“By capturing the light in tele-scopes scattered all around the world, freezing it electronically, and bringing it together in a supercomputer, we can mathe-matically create a virtual mirror as big across as the Earth.”

— SHEP DOELEMANMIT principal research scientist, assistant director at Haystack Observatory

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WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE BLACK HOLE AT THE CENTER OF OUR GALAXY ACTS UP. B Y J E F F W I S E

ASTRONOMY

The Galactic Core Is About to Explode


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News Brief

Telescopes in Arizona, Chile, and Hawaii (above, respectively, and below in Arizona), collect data for the Event Horizon Telescope project.

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A Fossil Rewrites EvolutionAfter 10 years studying tiny bones unearthed by a farmer in China, an inter-national team of scientists announced this summer that the fossil is the old-est known primate skeleton yet discovered. The earli-est human ancestors lived about 55 million years ago, new research suggests. That changes scientists’ view of primate lineage, shifting the origins to Asia, not Africa. The ancient fossils, 7 million years older than any other primate bones yet found, belong to the tarsier group of pri-mates. Because a split in primate lineage gave rise to tarsiers and anthropoids—the group that includes humans—the existence of a tarsier 55 million years ago means anthropoids existed then too. The animal, Archicebus achilles, has the small eyes, long slender limbs, and even longer tail of a tarsier, but its foot and heel bones are more akin to the anthropoids’. Living in a tropical environment, it was active during the day, leap-ing from tree to tree and munching on insects. — MARY B ETH G R IGGS

N othing is as tranquil as the expanse of the Milky Way floating in the summer night sky—or so you’d think. In reality, the center of our galaxy is a chaos of fast-whirling stars, super-

novae debris, and intensely magnetic neutron stars, all orbiting around a monster black hole 4 million times the mass of the sun.

And things are going to get even more violent. Astronomers have detected a blob of gas, called G2, that’s being ripped apart as it plunges toward the black hole. Later this year the hole will start to consume that cloud of gas. As the gas accelerates to terrific speeds, it collides with other incoming matter, heats up, and radiates energy at a ferocious rate. A similar flare-up 100 years ago created a burst of light as bright as a million suns; we know because the light echoes are still bouncing around the center of the galaxy. According to radio astronomer Shep Doeleman, the upcoming annihilation event could last for a year or more and rank as “a once-in-a-lifetime event.”

HOW TO SEE THE CENTER OF THE GALAXYHuge as it is, the central black hole is still a thousand times too small to be seen with the Hubble Space Telescope. Plus, it’s obscured by interstellar dust that blocks all visible light. But radio waves of about 1 millimeter wavelength can get through. Doeleman is organizing the Event Horizon Telescope, a project to create an international network of radio dishes that together will constitute a system with an effective diameter as large as Earth’s.

1 The radio dishes work like TV receivers: They gather the incoming microwave radiation, which is exactly like light but at a longer wavelength. It’s a one-way process: That is, the dishes passively receive the radio signals that are emitted by sources in the center of the galaxy.

2

There’s no physical connection among the dishes: Data are recorded simultaneously by dishes around the world.

3

A supercomputer at MIT aggregates the data, stor-ing them on huge hard drives and processing them to create, eventually—Doeleman says by 2015—an image of the shadow of the black hole itself.


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Photocopying Turns 75Above a bar in Queens, N.Y., 75 years ago, Chester Carlson cre-ated the first-ever xero-graphic images. Carlson worked as a patent attorney and was frus-trated that the only way to copy documents was to retype or rewrite them. He came up with a process, free of liquid chemicals, that takes advantage of photocon-ductivity, the tendency of certain materials

to become electrically conductive when hit by light. To make a copy, Carlson laid an image, held by a glass slide, on top of a photoconduc-tive surface and then illuminated it. Where hit by light, the surface became conductive, draining its charge to the plate below; where the image blocked light, the sur-face stayed charged. After removing the

Flying over the south of France in June, Eurocopter’s X3 helicopter (Tech Watch, January 2011) hit 293 mph, breaking the level-flight speed record, set in 2010, by 6 mph. The X3 has the speed of a turboprop aircraft with a helicopter’s vertical takeoff and landing ability. Two over-size Rolls-Royce Turbomeca RTM322 turboshaft engines each produce 2270 shaft horsepower, while two short-span fixed wings and propellers supplement the five-blade main rotor up top. Eurocopter plans to use the X3’s technology in helicopters designed for search-and-rescue, mili-tary troop transport, and possibly even intercity shuttle service. — W I LL D I ETR ICH - EG ENSTE I N ER

World’s Fastest Helicopter

plate, Carlson sprinkled on a negatively charged powder, which adhered to the areas of posi-tive charge, thereby re- creating the image. It was not until 1949 that the Haloid Company (later Xerox) released the first commercial machine. Now that photocopying is digital, Xerox has added tech-nology that enables law enforcement to track down counter-feiters. Serial numbers and other data can be encoded in nearly invisible yellow dots on copies. — RACH EL Z . ARN DT


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The Search for the House of the Future

SH ELTER SC I ENCE Every two years since 2002 college students show off the solar- powered homes they’ve created for the Solar Decathlon. The com-petition, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and set this year in Irvine, Calif., pits college teams against one another to design and build the most efficient and eco-friendly houses. In 2013, homes that respond automatically to inputs, such as weather data, are all the rage, as are shape-shifting structures. In most cases they look, function, and cost more like affordable homes than oversize science projects. Here are a few bright ideas from the 2013 Solar Decathlon. But credit to where credit’s due: These innovations have roots in past competitions. BY DAV I D AG RELL

The Bottom Line

Smart HVAC

Smaller Is Bigger

Concrete Ideas

Then Maryland poured a concrete floor in 2002, but it wasn’t until 2011 that New Jersey became the first team to use concrete for its walls. Now North Carolina’s 2013 entry, UrbanEden, has precast walls made of geopolymer concrete to create a tightly sealed envelope with a high thermal mass. The school says its material produces up to 90 percent less carbon pol-lution than portland cement.

Then Illinois in 2011 built Re_home, a rapidly deployable one-family emergency structure, in response to recent devastating tornadoes. Other houses that year had shades and privacy screens that turned into shutters during hurricanes. Now Team Kentuckiana continues the trend in 2013 with a home that can be assembled in a week and whose bricked-in bathroom doubles as a safe house.

Then Germany’s 2009 winner contained 290 PV panels and generated twice as much energy as it needed, but it reportedly cost close to $1 million to build. Since then teams have been dinged points for overspending. One way to reduce costs is to prefabricate parts—or even entire homes. Now Norwich’s 2013 structure is sold commercially through Vermont manu-facturer Huntington Homes, with prices starting at $150,000. “We aimed to design and build something that a household earning 30 percent less than the Vermont median income could afford,” says assistant professor Matthew Lutz.

Then Two Maryland computer engineering students kicked off the home-automation trend in the 2007 decathlon with their LEAFHouse, which allowed homeowners to track and control conditions from the Web. Now Missouri S&T’s Chameleon House gathers current weather data from on-site monitors and the Web to figure out the most efficient way to condition the space, whether that’s opening windows, closing shades, activating radiant heat or a/c, or using forced air.

Then Madrid’s 2005 entry, the Magic Box, featured a set of movable walls that could divide the house into three or five spaces or leave it totally open.Now All of this year’s entries have some kind of flex-space concept. SCI-Arc/Caltech’s house, DALE, is the most extreme, with interior rooms that change size at the touch of a button. Sliding rail-mounted modules turn exterior spaces into interior spaces, and vice versa.

Disaster Response

Team Kentuckiana’s

Phoenix House is entirely self-sufficient, pro-

viding power, food, and

water to its inhabitants.

competitions. BY DAV I D AGRELL

C t


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GO-GETTERS WHO INVEST EVERY DAY WITH PASSION. And know savvy strategies can help them invest today—and retire tomorrow—with confi dence. They’re THE INVESTIGETTERS—like real estate lawyer NELSON KONG.

Born to Korean immigrants in Buenos Aires, Nelson speaks three languages. But the language of investing is not among them. With a 5-week-old son and a jam-packed 3-year plan, he’s turned to TD Ameritrade to get started on a path to retirement.

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NELSON KONG, 33PARTNER, NELSON KONG LAW

MARRIED, WITH INFANT SON

3-YEAR PLAN: BUY A HOUSE, HAVE ANOTHER CHILD, EXPAND HIS BUSINESS AND INVEST IN A NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

GO-GETTERS WHO GET THE MOST OUT OF LIFE & INVESTING.

I’m always thinking about investing in new off ices or businesses. It’s time to invest in retirement, too. — Nelson

‘‘

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WHAT’S YOUR 3-YEAR PLAN? Visit www.investigetters.com for more life strategies —and find the one that works for you.

TD Ameritrade Investment Consultants off er 50 percent relationship/ 50 percent guidance—making investing a lot more pleasurable.— TD Ameritrade Investment Consultant

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All investments involve risk, and successful results are not guaranteed. TD Ameritrade, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC/NFA. TD Ameritrade is a trademark jointly owned by TD Ameritrade IP Company, Inc. and The Toronto-Dominion Bank. ©2013 TD Ameritrade IP Company, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

theINVESTIGETTERS


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Visitors’ Guide to

Antarctica

[ 1 ]Antarctica Exposed

Last spring the British Antarctic Survey put together the most detailed map of what Antarctica looks like beneath all its ice and snow. The map, which comes from seismic, bathymetric, and satel-lite data, reveals that a trough beneath Byrd

a shallow body of water buried under a half-mile of ice. In perpetual darkness and cold, the bacterial ecosystem likely has been isolated from the surface for thousands of years.

[4 ]Lab on Ice

As the Brunt Ice Shelf slowly migrates toward the sea, it has left the Halley V Research Sta-tion in danger of float-ing away on an iceberg. The new Halley VI sta-tion (Tech Watch, May 2013) is fitted onto skis so it can periodically be towed inland to safety.

[5 ]Cool Running

Every year people from all over the world don snowsuits to run the Antarctic Ice Marathon.

[6 ]Meltdown

With warm ocean currents streaming beneath it, and warm air above, Pine Island is sliding into the sea at 2.5 miles per year, making it Antarctica’s fastest melting glacier.

[7 ]Snowy Hotspot

The South Shetland Islands house research stations from a dozen countries. About 50,000 tourists also visit the islands annually to explore magnificent desolation.

Glacier is 1300 feet deeper than anyone had thought—at 1.8 miles deep, it’s the lowest point on any continent.

[2 ]Meteorite Mecca

Meteorites suffer less damage when they impact snow and are easier to find against the white backdrop, making the continent the top spot for space-rock hunters. Scien-tists are studying the 50,000 extraterrestrial rocks collected from the Transantarctic Mountains to learn about the materials that make up asteroids and planets, as well as what conditions were like in our solar sys-tem’s early days.

[3 ]Extreme Life-Forms

In January scientists discovered microbes living in Lake Whillans,

No one lives in Antarctica full-time. It has just two seasons: summer and winter. Only the world’s most dedicated researchers attempt to outlast the winter’s six months of darkness and temperatures that fall as low as minus 129 F. Still, thou-sands of tourists flock to Antarctica every year to catch glimpses of its beauti-ful frozen landscapes. “It’s a fascinating area because it’s so remote,” says Peter Fretwell, a geographer with the British Antarctic Survey. “It’s probably one of the least explored areas in the world.” BY SARAH FECHT


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● Despite the fast-moving fire inside Asiana Flight 214, hundreds escaped the crash.

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1.

Stay-Put Seats

Asiana Flight 214 went from flying at more than 100 knots to a dead stop in seconds, and yet photos show that its seats stayed in place. If the seats had come loose, the pas-sengers in them could have been killed, and those who survived the impact might have been

AV IAT ION SAFETY

How Airplanes Save Lives

Though it seems a miracle that all but three of 307 people aboard Asiana Flight 214 survived a July crash landing in San Francisco, the low number of deaths is the result of design improvements mandated by the FAA over the past 30 years. Those safety enhancements stemmed from hard lessons learned from earlier crashes. BY B EN IAN NOT TA

Fusion Blanket

Creating a plasma that’s 10 times hotter than the sun’s core—necessary if we are to realize the dream of fusion power—requires a serious containment system. Otherwise, dangerous levels of heat and radiation can escape from the reactor’s core. To prevent that, scientists at ITER, the international nuclear power project, designed a protective barrier. The shield will line the inside of a reactor to hold in heat, radiation, and electro-magnetic forces. That requires a specialized alloy, actively cooled by water pipes and protected by 440 4-ton modules with inner walls of radiation-resistant beryllium. Fabrica-tion begins at the end of 2013 and should be completed by 2021. — ALEX H UTCH I NSON

mined that some victims of the Air Canada Flight 797 fire at Greater Cincinnati International Airport failed to find the exits because of smoke, and mandated that emergency lighting be installed to guide pas-sengers to the way out.

3.

Fire Prevention

It took about 90 sec-onds for flight atten-dants to spot flames outside the Boeing 777 and decide to evacuate it. Passengers made up for lost time and got out before the fire engulfed much of the plane, whose parts are less flammable than in earlier models.● June 2, 1983: After the crew of Air Canada Flight 797 reported smoke in the DC-9’s aft lava-tory, pilots made an emergency landing at Greater Cincinnati International Airport. Moments after the crew opened the plane’s doors, a flash fire raced through the interior of the craft, killing the 23 passengers who were still onboard. To delay the onset of flash fires, the FAA introduced new flammability standards for seat cushions and baggage compartments.

too injured to escape the flames. ● August 2, 1985:In a crash at Dallas/Fort Worth Interna-tional Airport, some of those who died were ejected from the plane and struck the ground still strapped into their seats, according to the National Transporta-tion Safety Board. Three years later, the FAA required seats to be

able to withstand the force of 16 g’s.

2.

Floor Lighting

If the haze and dust in the Asiana cabin had been thick enough to obscure vision, pas-sengers could still have found their way to the exits.● June 2, 1983: Investigators deter-


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GEARTOOLS

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Your dog keeps watch over you con-stantly; the Whistle monitor ($100) lets you return the favor. The waterproof device records data such as time spent walking, playing, and resting, and even who’s with the pet at a given moment. The data is accessible via iPhone, allowing you to track trends, set goals, share informa-tion with your vet, and check in on your best friend no matter where you are. — JA I M E N ETZER

Dog-Tag Tech

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APP AID Friday Night

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beercloud app (free)We’re big fans of craft brew-ing. But it seems every bar has turned into a brewpub over-night—stocking shelves with trails of artisanal ales that can be difficult to navigate. The free app BeerCloud provides a directory of nearby breweries and retailers, arms users with tasting descrip-tions and brand history, and even suggests food pairings. It’s never been easier to become a can-noisseur. — JENN INGS BROWN

breathometer ($50)Had a few craft beers? Reach for the Breathometer, the first smartphone-enabled gadget that tests your blood alcohol level using only your phone and the portable device. Plug the box into your headphone jack, exhale into the vents on the gadget, then make smart decisions based on the data. The app interface is simple enough that even some-one with a righteous buzz can figure it out. — J . N .

pizza compass app ($1)Boy, are we glad you decided to take a cab, ride with a designated driver, or walk. Now you need carbs. Designer Dan Blackman was inspired to create the Pizza Compass (surprise) after a night of drinking—and the inability to find an open joint with a simple Web search. The app guides you to the nearest pie palace via a spinning slice (and slice-covered map) that points toward cheesy satisfaction. — RACHEL Z. ARNDT

hunter’s specialties i-kam xtreme ($110)No need to wait for Google Glass. Whether you’re skiing an epic slope or reeling in a lunker bass, document the adventure just as you see it with i-Kam Xtreme video sun glasses. The frame incorporates a mobile video recorder into a pair of lightweight glasses and offers 4 GB of built-in memory. — J . N .


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HUSQVARNA DAYS ARE HERE!October 1-31, 2013

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Purchase at least 3 bottles of 32oz Husqvarna

brand pre-mix fuel or 6 bottles of Husqvarna

brand 2-stroke oil, regardless of size and/or

type, at the same time as the product to qualify.

Both purchases must be on the same product

invoice/receipt to qualify.

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EXTEND YOUR WARRANTY

UP TO A TOTAL OF 4 YEARS


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rainy day // l.l.beanbean boot ($89)1 The Bean has been the quintes-

sential rain boot for more than a century, remaining largely unchanged except for the Gore-Tex membrane and Thinsulate inner lining.

office // danner jack hummus 7-inch casual boots ($230)2 Just because you want a

handsome boot for work doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be ready for action. You never know when you’ll need to respond to a disaster, and loafers won’t cut it to escape from Kaiju monsters. Danners start out stiff as concrete but ease into soft, supple perfection.

weekend // timberland earthkeepers original leather 6-inch boot ($180)3 On the weekend you need a boot

to wear around the house or while running errands. You’ll have to resole these after a few years of

tough love, but they look better with each additional scuff.

work // thorogood 6-inch steel toe wedge solework boot ($145)4 PopMech home editor Roy

Berendsohn says American-made Thorogoods stomp out competitors. “It’s not easy to find craftsmanship like this—especially at this price.”

adventure // asolotps 520 gv ($250)5 These sturdy behemoths of

Gore-Tex and leather are the gold standard for backpacking. Weighing in at 3 pounds 10 ounces, and about as comfortable as well-worn tennis shoes, the little tanks get you through any journey, no matter what the terrain or cargo.

woods // chippewa 8-inch redwood logger ($175)6 Logger boots are not purpose-

lessly flamboyant. The high heel helps prevent slipping when walking down a hill or over logs, and the replaceable kiltie prevents dirty, wet laces from cutting into the shoe.

armageddon // 5.11 recon urban boots ($150)7 A favorite of soldiers and

search-and-rescue experts, 5.11 boots are light and require no break-in period. Which means they’ll be good to go come judgment day.

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The PopMech man should be prepared for anything—be it a long winter, a friend in need, or the end of days. We understand if you make a quick detour to pick up the right tools or supplies, but you won’t always have time to find the perfect boot and break it in before a big project. We talked to experts, including woods-men, soldiers, search-and-rescue workers, and cobblers, to put the finger on the right boots for every situation. — J. B .

Seven Boots That Every Man Should Own

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“Saddle soap is an underappreciated weapon that should be in every man’s shoe-care arsenal. Grime and dirt can break down leather, but the lanolin or glycerin in saddle soap keeps it softer, more flexible, and as good as new.” — HENRY LINDER, 93-year-old cobbler and owner of Linder Shoe Service in Landrum, S.C.


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COOL WAVE DEODORANTDON’T MASK ODOR. ELIMINATE IT.


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makita x2 lxt lithium-ion cordlesschain saw ($360 for saw only)Gas-powered chain saws are the right tool for big jobs, such as felling trees or carving up logs larger than 8 inches in diameter. But a cordless electric model is the way to go for brushing and slashing. Recently, with piles of debris in my yard that could use this treatment, I got down to business with the cordless Makita. While gas-powered saws can scream louder than 110 decibels, the Makita generates just 89 but still produces the cutting power of 1650 feet per minute. That’s much less than many gas-powered saws but was sufficient for my job. With both batteries fully charged, I worked steadily for 90 minutes, reducing the debris piles to small stacks of logs and branches ready to be bundled or burned. — JOE BARG MAN N , SPEC IAL PROJ ECTS ED ITOR

olympus tough tg-2 ihs ($380)1 It’s handsome, sure, but it also performs. The TG-2 is

the only rugged camera on the market to include an ultrabright, high-speed f2.0 lens, strengthening the camera’s shooting capabilities, and it takes great photos anywhere, including underwater at depths of up to 50 feet. We were also impressed with the 3-inch, high-resolution OLED display, which was legible even in direct sunlight. The camera also lives up to its name: Drop it from 7 feet, crush it beneath 220 pounds, or leave it out in 14 F temps, and, still, the camera keeps on clicking. — J . N .

dci bbq branding iron ($17)2 Ever wish you could customize your cuts? The BBQ

Branding Iron allows you to stamp your grilled chops and steaks with a searing seal of approval. The iron comes equipped with the entire alphabet, plus extra letters and spacers, so you can really get creative with the ABCs of BBQ. — J . N .

EDITOR TESTED

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makita x2 lxt lithium-ion cordrddlelel sschain saw ($360 for saw only)Gas-powered chain saws are the right tool for big jobs, such as felling trees or carving up logs larger than 8 inches in diameter. But a cordless electric model is the way to go for brushing and slashing. Recently, with piles of debris in my yard that could use this treatment, I got down to business with the cordless Makita. While gas-powered saws can scream louder than 110 decibels, the Makita generates just 89 but still produces the cutting power of 1650 feet per minute. That’s much less than many gas-powered saws butwas sufficient for my job. With both batteries fully charged,I worked steadily for 90 minutes, reducing the debris piles to small stacks of logs and branches ready to be bundled oburned. — JOE BARG MAN N , S OR

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Were you there? Providers in the New York City area, and across the country, monitor and treat conditions related to the September 11th terrorist attacks – like asthma, heartburn, certain cancers, depression, and PTSD. These providers treat responders and volunteers who participated in rescue, recovery, or clean-up on or after 9/11, as well as those in the WTC dust cloud or who lived, worked, or went to school or daycare in lower Manhattan south of Houston or into parts of Brooklyn.

World Trade Center | Pentagon | Shanksville, PA

Learn More. Call 1-888-982-4748 or visit www.cdc.gov/wtc

WTC Health Program

Now I’m a member of the World Trade Center Health Program .

I WAS THERE.

Image is a model portraying an actual member of the World Trade Center Health Program.


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PHOTOGRAPH BY M O N T E I S O M

vapur eclipse anti-bottle ($12)Less wasteful than disposable plastic and more convenient than its hard-bodied cousins, the Vapur Eclipse Anti-Bottle can be rolled, flattened, or folded when empty. It’s freezable and made of three layers of durable, BPA-free plastic, so it’s perfect for picnics, outdoor sports, and concerts. And an attached cara-biner makes it easy to clip the bottle to your belt loop, purse, or pack, so you’ve got no excuse not to stay hydrated. — J . N .


mtm special ops silver warrior watch ($600)Here at PopMech we enjoy a challenge. So when MTM told us to try—by whatever means necessary—to destroy their Special Ops War-rior, we happily obliged and put it through three tests that no man or machine should ever have to endure. — J . B .

mHbrm

We hurled the watch onto pave-ment 75 feet below: The minute hand was slightly bent but com-pletely repairable. The rest of the watch was still in great shape.

After running it over with a lawnmower (uh-huh), it was still going strong. No sig-nificant blemishes.

Executive editor David Dunbar and his son Oliver used the survivor as a puck. It made it through dozens of wrist shots, but the links started popping off on the seventh slap shot. Once our players began firing the Warrior at the boards and plexiglass, the watch exploded into 18 pieces.

DROP THRASH SMACK

BOTTOM LINE If you’re willing to lay down six Benjamins for a watch that will outlast you, this stainless-steel timepiece, which is also visible at night and water-resistant up to 660 feet, is built so tough you can treat it like you hate it.

ABUSIVE LAB TEST


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Celebrity HeadphonesEver since Dr. Dre released his Beats headphones in 2008, it’s been the fashion for celebrities of all sorts to slap their names on headphones. But putting aside self-promotion, are they any good? We tested nine pairs, listening to everything from Bach to Britney Spears. — R . Z . A .

SOUND C O MFO RT LO O K BE ST FO R

tim mcgrawon-earhead-phones($80)

skullcandyroc nationaviator[jay-z]($150)

sony x[simoncowell]($300)

sol republicdeadmau5 head-phones($150)

house ofmarleyliberate[rohanmarley]($100)

sync by 50[50 cent]($400)

sy[5(

Crisp vocals and bass overshadow the flimsy midrange, but, overall, the quality suits most music, unlike the headphones’ competitor, Beats by Dre.

Making no particular fre-quency stand out makes all music sound mediocre, and anything acoustic seem as if it’s coming from dinky computer speakers.

Oppressive bass drowns out everything and makes even the twinkliest folk music sound as if it’s coming from speakers in a cavernous arena.

You’re far from the music, as if you’re listening to it a room away but getting the best of the rap vocals, some of the bass, and none of the treble.

The sound is decent generally, with nothing special at either end of the range, and a tendency toward muffled vocals.

The quality is pretty great overall, with strong bass, but when there are more than a few instruments playing simultaneously, the sounds smudge together.

The warm sound is more akin to an AM radio emula-tor’s than to an AM radio’s.

Still, the Liberate does produce a pleasing mid-

range, if not much else.

Too big but very comfort-able, with gen-erously large ear cups.

Rigid and sharp.

Like hav-ing half a cantaloupe attached to each side of your head.

Triangular ear cups fit non-triangular ears surprisingly well.

Very comfort-able; the ear cups bring to mind plush bath towels.

Good fit, but you have to remove the cord at the ear cup to turn them off.

Ear cups jut out; headband digs in.

Sleek, as you’d expect for the price tag.

Extremely minimalist, but with a nice splash of color.

Massive, like Simon Cowell’s ego.

Straightfor-ward and bold.

Kind of cheesy, with McGraw’s name just slapped on willy-nilly.

Less about conspicuous consump-tion than the first-gen Beats.

Like a Phish fan’s idea of reggae style.

Anything you want to play really loud.

Computer alert sounds.

American Idol auditions.

Jay-Z and, maybe, Kanye West.

Music whose lyrics you don’t want to pay attention to.

Lady Gaga, minimalist Kanye West, the hum of active noise cancellation.

Bob Marley.

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Introducing Campbell’s Chunky Philly-Style Cheesesteak Soup.Go for it like Clay Matthews.

OFFICIAL SOUP SPONSOR OF THE NFL

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KNIFE FIGHTSEPT 24 TUESDAYS 9 | 8 c

ESQUIRE’s 80TH

SEPT 23 MONDAY 9 | 8 c


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Introducing a new television network 80 years in the making.

STARTING SEPT23

To find the Esquire Network in your area go to EsquireTV.com/channelfinder©2013 Esquire Network

BOUNDLESSSEPT 25 WEDNESDAYS 10 | 9 c

THE GETAWAYSEPT 25 WEDNESDAYS 9 | 8 c

BREW DOGSSEPT 24 TUESDAYS 10 | 9 c


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geico.com | 1-800-947-AUTO (2886) | Local Offi ce

Some discounts, coverages, payment plans and features are not available in all states or all GEICO companies. GEICO is a registered service mark of Government Employees Insurance Company, Washington, D.C. 20076; a Berkshire Hathaway Inc. subsidiary. GEICO Gecko image © 1999-2013. © 2013 GEICO.

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I LLUSTRAT ION BY S I N E L A B P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 3 41

AUTO TECH

A Vending Machine for CarsTHE FUTURE OF PARKING IS AUTOMATED. BY BRETT BERK

OCTOBER

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vation and construction. In a city like New York, where space means serious money, the ability to park 700 cars in an area ordinar-ily occupied by 350 is a boon for developers.

The benefits of automated garages are not reserved just for big cities, either. Robotic lots are also starting to find support on suburban planning boards, where they’re seen as a means of foster-ing Main Street retail density and combating the draining sprawl of big-box stores.

In addition to space and materials savings, there are other advantages to automated garages. Removing the driving from parking yields environmental benefits through the elimination of engine idling and emissions. Automated garages also eliminate the need for ventilation systems, a fact that’s particularly salient in the Brooklyn project. “In a reg-ular garage, with cars driving underground, you have to create huge systems of mechanical ven-tilation to suck up the pollution and blow it somewhere else.” Milstein says. “The somewhere else in this case would have been a park with kids in it.”

By eliminating the possibil-ity of human error from the sys-tem, there’s also a reduction in collateral damage. The garage industry averages about one insurable incident for every hun-dred cars. Yet in parking more than 300,000 cars since 2007, AutoMotion maintains that it’s had zero claims. Milstein adds that every car in his underground lots remained undamaged in the high-water inundation of Hurricane Sandy, though after the city’s power failure, the vehicles were immobilized below street level.

Notwithstanding concerns about your car getting stuck

underground, the automated garage is likely to become more common for its sheer sensibleness and eco-friendliness. As for those drivers who might worry about finding themselves being shuffled about in the mechanical belly of a robot garage, Milstein insists that AutoMotion’s record is unim-peachable. “No one has gotten swallowed yet,” he says.


Metric tons of CO2

emissions saved annually

152

Projected number of cars in and out each year

A GREENE R GARAGEAnd you won’t have to navigate a labyrinthian maze of concrete. Instead, you’ll confront nothing but a bumper-level fish-eye mirror and a large flat-screen TV.

Connected to a quartet of laser guidance sensors, the mon-itor will help you position your vehicle on a pallet in the floor with tire-width ruts: MOVE TO THE

LEFT, INCH FORWARD. (The mirror pro-vides a visual assist.) After you set the parking brake and turn off and exit the vehicle, the screen will then walk you through a series of safety questions to ensure that you’ve closed your doors, removed your valuables, and verified the departure of all occupants (motion detectors confirm this last bit). As you exit the room to collect your retrieval receipt, a metal gate will roll down behind you, and your vehicle will, without a solitary human interaction, vanish into subterra-nean mystery.

Conventional parking garages are inefficient. They require ramps, driving lanes, room for doors to open and close, and sig-nificant chunks of concrete and metal between each level. Auto-Motion Parking Systems, a builder of automated garages and the company behind the Brooklyn project, will do away with all of this, replacing those bulky and disorienting double helices with a half-dozen 200-foot-long bays, each lined on both sides with car-size cubbies stacked three to five high. Via five automated hoists, vehicles will be whisked on metal pallets from the entry rooms to their temporary homes and back again. “It’s like a vending machine for cars,” Ari Milstein, executive director of AutoMotion, says.

Upon completion in 2016, this vehicular Funyuns dispenser will be the biggest automated garage in the country. And by condensing the space required for parking cars by half, the Willoughby garage will yield major savings in the materials and costs of exca-

AUTOMOTION ESTIMATES THAT ITS FUTURE

AUTOMATED GARAGE IN BROOKLYN WILL RESULT

IN BIG SAVINGS.

Gallons of fuel saved annually

17,000

Miles of driving eliminated annually

250,000


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PHOTOGRAPH BY B R E N T H U M P H R E Y S

P R IC E : $5 1 , 9 9 5 AVA I LABLE : NO W

MPG (C I TY /HWY ) : 1 7/2 9

T E S T D R I V E S

2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray

Rolling through the streets of Detroit, the new Corvette Stingray gets the kind of attention usually reserved for minor celebrities. At every red light pedestrians squeeze off smartphone photographs, while drivers in neighboring cars unleash a flurry of questions. But nobody asks what kind of car we’re driving. It’s clear that, despite entirely new bodywork, it is unmistakably a Corvette.

And yet the differences inside and out between the 2014 model and the old sixth-generation car are so stark that it’s hard to believe both versions rolled off the same assembly line only months apart.

As impressive as the Corvette looks, the way it uses technology to improve performance is downright stunning. Consider the electronic limited-slip differential that comes as part of the $2800 Z51 handling package. By constantly varying the amount of lockup every fraction of a second, the e-diff gives the Stingray the quick reflexes of an open differential with the surefootedness of a limited-slip rear. Driving the road-course track at GM’s Proving Grounds in

Milford, Mich., we found the new Corvette handles as if a hundred pounds had been removed from the front end; in reality, the car is about 100 pounds heavier. Old Corvettes gave the driver the feel-ing that a leery slide or spin could come at any moment as the car approached its limits. The Sting-ray, by contrast, is more respon-sive at low speeds and more predictable on the edge.

Under the hood, the venerable 6.2-liter pushrod V-8 now has 455 hp (or 460 hp with an optional exhaust) and adds direct injec-tion, variable valve timing, and cylinder deactivation as fuel- saving technologies. And in what Chevrolet claims is an industry first, the new Stingray monitors the temperature of the tires and adjusts the stability and traction control systems to take advan-tage of warm rubber’s extra grip. The new Corvette boasts performance figures that are unheard of for cars that cost less than $60,000: 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds, the quarter- mile in 12.2 seconds at 117 mph, 1.08 g’s of lateral grip, and 70-to-0-mph braking in 146 feet. It also over-delivers for the price range in its high-quality interior. Soft-touch trim surrounds the cabin, the seats are now sturdy and supportive, and the digital instrument cluster is as crisp as an Apple Retina display. Oh, and did we mention you can hit 30 mpg in real-world highway driv-ing? The shortcomings of the old car have all been fixed. Whereas the old Corvette offset its limita-tions with performance and an attractive price, the new Stingray requires no such compensations. If there’s anything missing in this car, it’s the feeling of compromise. — MICHAEL AUST IN

AUTO INTEL

A metallic or pinging noise that occurs when the air–fuel mixture in a gasoline engine self-ignites before the spark plugs fire. Espe-cially prone to happen in high-compression engines when using low-octane gas. Occurs less frequently in direct-injection engines, where the fuel spray helps cool the air–fuel mixture.

Engine Knock


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What’s different: At a glance, it’s hard to tell the new diesel Cruze from a gas-burning Cruze, but a tiny “2.0 TD” badge on the trunklid gives away the 151-hp, 264 lb-ft compression-ignition engine under the hood. What’s nice: Chevy engineers used extra sound insulation from the Buick Verano to make this the quietest Cruze in the lineup. What’s excellent: The torque, of course. And lots of it. All around, the Cruze rides like a more expensive car, and compared with other Cruzes, it is—$2390 more than an equivalent gas model. But the diesel pays back with eight more highway mpg than the Cruze Eco. What’s convenient: Diesel exhaust fluid fill-ups, oil changes, and tire rotations are free for the first two years or 24,000 miles. With or without incentives, though, the Cruze is good enough to convert buyers to the diesel side. — M.A .

2014 Chevrolet Cruze Diesel

P R IC E : $2 5 , 6 9 5 AVA I LABLE : NO W MP G (C I TY /HWY ) : 2 7/ 46

A note on the Note: The second genera-tion of Nissan’s Versa hatchback is now differentiated by its surname. In this iter-ation, fuel efficiency takes top priority, with new aerodynamic styling giving the Note a gutsier guise than its predeces-sor. In addition, the optional CVT ($1250) comes with active shutters in the grille. Under the Note’s hood, a more efficient 109-hp 1.6-liter—shared with the Versa sedan—replaces the old 122-hp 1.8-liter. The Note is also about 300 pounds lighter than the old hatchback, which further aids mpg and softens the blow of that lost horsepower. But what’s most impressive about the Note is how well the whole package comes together. This hatchback rises above econobox status with good steering and quick throttle response, and despite the modest power, it doesn’t feel slow. Our biggest qualm is with the CVT, which dampens the expe-rience with inconsistent responses to the gas pedal. Still, if you’re looking for a deal, the new Versa Note is that and a little extra. — JAMES TATE

2014 Nissan Versa Note

PR ICE : $ 14 ,780 AVA ILABLE : NOW MPG (C ITY /HWY) : 27–31 /36–40

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WHEELHOUSEAUTO ODDS & ENDS

2004: THE YEAR DRIVING PEAKED?Yet another study points to the declining driving habits of the American public. This one, from Michael Sivak at the University of Michigan, found that driving in four key categories peaked way back in 2004 and has been falling since.

Percentage drop-off in registered convertibles since 2006. Suspected reasons: recession, dwindling consumer options, more cars with large panoramic roofs, and an increase in eagle attacks.

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Sporting a host of engineering upgrades (including an air spring suspension) and fresh sheet metal, the new-and-improved Ram will live in Detroit, where we plan to give it plenty of work.

SPECS

THE LOWDOWN

2 0 1 3 R A M 1 5 0 0 S LT C R E W C A B

With a six-speed manual transmission and plenty of space inside the five-door hatchback cabin, the Elantra GT reminds us that fun-to-drive, fuel efficiency, and versatility can all be found in one car at an affordable price.

THE LOWDOWN

2 0 1 3 H Y U N DA I E L A N T R A G T

T E S T D R I V E S

2014 Fiat 500L What is that? It’s Fiat’s all-new Urban Utility Vehicle—a five-door hatchback to compete with the Mini Countryman. The good points? The cabin’s panorama of glass makes it airy and provides great rearview sightlines. This is also the first Fiat

SPECS

BASE PRICE/AS TESTED ▷ $19,170/$22,015

POWERTRAIN ▷ 1.8-liter I-4, 148 hp, 131 lb-ft; six-speed manual transmission; FWD

EPA FUEL ECONOMY (CITY/HWY) ▷ 26/37

BASE PRICE/AS TESTED ▷ $35,175/$44,125

POWERTRAIN ▷ 5.7-liter V-8, 395 hp, 407 lb-ft; eight-speed automatic transmission; RWD


-

-

. — BEN STEWART

2014 Acura MDX

to get Chrysler’s Uconnect infotainment system. How does it drive? The turbo-charged I-4 makes the L quite a bit peppier than the Countryman, but anemic electric steering and a lackluster interior make it feel cheaper. Which it is—by $3000. Who wins? The Mini by an English bulldog’s nose. But if your wallet’s hurting, you’ll still be happy with the 500L. — J.T.

2 0 1 3 H Y U N DA IE L A N T R A G T

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ickups just refuse to fade away. While electric vehicles and fuel-efficient compacts get plenty of attention in the news, half-ton trucks quietly remain the biggest sales category in the U.S.

automotive market. The popularity of trucks is bolstered by the fact that horsepower, hauling capacity, and crea-ture comforts increase year after year. Modern half-tons not only do things that used to take a heavy-duty pickup,

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WALMART’S ADVERTISED MERCHANDISE POLICY – We intend to have every advertised item in stock. However, we may not offer some items in all locations, and quantity or availability may vary due to unexpected demand or other circumstances beyond our control. Prices offered on Walmart.comSM may vary from prices offered in our stores. If an advertised item is out of stock at your Walmart store, upon your request, we will issue you a Rain Check so that you can purchase the item at the advertised price when it becomes available. In addition, we may offer to sell you a similar item at the advertised price or a comparable price reduction. “One-Time Offer” items, “Bonus” items, items identified as being available in limited quantities, and items that are not carried at your Walmart do not qualify for Rain Checks or offers of substitute items. “ONE-TIME OFFER” items are items that we carry at a special price for a limited time only. “BONUS” items are items that include a bonus amount of the same item or an additional bonus item at no extra cost. “ROLLBACK” means that the advertised price is even lower than the previously offered Every Day Low Price. In all cases, we reserve the right to limit quantities to normal retail purchases or one per customer or household, and to exclude dealers. Our advertising circular may vary by geographic region, and any particular regional circular will apply only to stores in that region. Offers and limitations void where prohibited by law. We apologize for, but will not be bound by, any errors in our advertisements. This advertised merchandise policy does not apply to our Prescription Program. Prices and/or items available only in the USA (may vary in Alaska, Hawaii, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Puerto Rico, or online at Walmart.comSM). For the store location nearest you, please call 1-800-881-9180 or check online at Walmart.comSM. The “spark” design , Walmart, and Save money. Live better. are marks and/or registered marks of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. ©2013 Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., Bentonville, AR. Printed in the USA. Event Dates: Monday, August 26 – Sunday, September 29.

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FEET

SECONDS


Base price/as tested: $40,525/$44,715

Powertrain: 5.3-liter V-8, 355 hp, 383 lb-ft; six-speed auto

L x W x H: 230.0 x 80.0 x 74.0 inches

Wheelbase: 143.5 inches

Curb weight: 5480 pounds

Max. payload (as tested): 1720 pounds

Max. towing (as tested): 9320 pounds

Likes: The dashboard layout, with easy-to-reach buttons for all the major controls and plenty of storage. The Chevy and the GMC set the standard for a quiet interior, especially on the highway, where wind noise is greatly reduced. It rides nice too.

Dislikes: The seats lack lateral support. Also, the steering wheel is slightly off-center to the driver’s torso, a weird ergonomic flaw. Fuel economy without a trailer was worse than the Sierra’s.


Powertrain: twin-turbo 3.5-liter V-6, 365 hp, 420 lb-ft; six-speed auto

L x W x H: 231.9 x 79.2 x 76.7 inches




Max. towing (as tested): 11,080 pounds

Likes: The turbo V-6 impressed us with its power and achieved the second-best fuel economy without a trailer. As equipped, the Ford offers the most towing and payload. We also liked the big towing mirrors.

Dislikes: Fuel economy in the F-150 suffered when the trailer was attached. And we derived little pleasure from the cheap plastics in the interior compared with the more luxe Ram and GM trucks’. A high dashboard gives the driver a tanklike driving sensation.

like towing more than 10,000 pounds, but they do so while giving back better fuel economy than ever before.

Since we last reviewed the category four years ago (January 2009), half of the truck models have been redesigned. The newest are the GM twins from Chevrolet and GMC, nearly identical except for the front-end styling. Close behind is the Ram 1500, which launched last year. Joining the Silverado, Sierra, and Ram are the Ford F-150, Nissan Titan, and Toyota Tundra. The Ford was the freshest truck in our previous test and took home top honors. Nissan first offered the Titan back in 2004 and has made few changes since; a new model is expected by 2015. Toyota, meanwhile, barely missed getting the new Tundra into our test—we’ll be driving the 2014 model shortly after press time. The 2013 Tundra we tested traces its roots back to 2007.

This time around we teamed up with PickupTrucks.com, the truck-obsessed arm of online shopping portal Cars.com, to help manage the massive task of testing all six half-tons currently on the market. From our base of operations in Ann Arbor, Mich., we spent four days and hundreds of miles driving both unladen and hauling trailers loaded with 8500 pounds of lead and steel. We recorded straight-line performance, peeked into every nook and cranny of the interiors, and even drove each truck through an autocross course. The results of the companion piece on the PickupTrucks website include test data too expansive to list here, so our star ratings are based on the subjective portion of the test.

In order to get similar equipment levels and mechanical trim, our test required a four-door crew-cab body style with four-wheel drive and a maximum price of $45,000. Five of the trucks came stuffed with V-8s under the hood. The outlier was the Ford F-150, equipped with a twin-turbo V-6 packing enough power and torque to make us forget about the missing two cylinders. In a similar bucking of conven-tional truck wisdom, the Ram sits on an option-al adjustable air suspension at all four corners instead of the traditional front-coil, rear-leaf-spring setup found on the rest of the field.

Looking at the group from oldest to young-est, it’s clear that trucks are getting faster, more comfortable, and more efficient, but, interestingly, not lighter (at least not yet). And while these trucks might be cushy on the inside, they can still get the job done. Read on to see which one handled the workload best.

2013 FORD F - 150XLT SuperCrew

2014 CHEVROLET S ILVERADO1500 Z71 LT Crew Cab

0–60 MPH ACCELERATION

BRAKING 60–0 MPH

NO TRAILER TRAILER (8500 POUNDS)


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10

12

14

16

18

20

22

11

13

15

17

19

21

23

MPG

130 135 140 145 150

7.0 8.0 17.0 18.0



L x W x H: 230.0 x 80.0 x 74.0 inches





Likes: Our favorite exterior styling and nicer interior plastics elevated our opinion of the cabin above the Chevy’s. Drives with the same quiet, solid feel as its twin. A cutout in the back bumper helps for stepping up into the cargo bed.

Dislikes: Small side mirrors make it hard to see the trailer and surrounding traffic at the same time. One difference from the Silverado was the Sierra’s uncomfort-ably hard headrests. Second-slowest 0–60 mph without a trailer.


Powertrain: 5.6-liter V-8, 317 hp, 385 lb-ft; five-speed auto

L x W x H: 224.6 x 79.5 x 76.9 inches





Likes: Despite its aged design the Titan is still sporty, with good brakes and a natural feel to the steering. Like the F-150, the Titan has big mirrors that include a convex view. A 400-watt AC power port in the cabin is a nice touch.

Dislikes: When towing a trailer, the back end sags and the ride gets choppy under the heavy load. The interior looks dated, with too much hard plastic trim. Lowest horsepower in the test, and the worst fuel economy without a trailer.


Powertrain: 5.7-liter V-8, 395 hp, 407 lb-ft; eight-speed auto

L x W x H: 229.0 x 79.4 x 77.9 inches





Likes: Boasts the best 0–60 time without a trailer. The way the engine and transmission combination work in perfect coordination. It narrowly beats the GM trucks in ride comfort. This was our favorite interior in the test group, especially the customizable digital instrument cluster.

Dislikes: With a loaded trailer the Ram returned the worst fuel economy. That cushy air-suspension ride comes at the cost of the lowest cargo and towing capacities by a considerable margin.



L x W x H: 228.7 x 79.9 x 76.0 inches




Max. towing (as tested): 10,000 pounds

Likes: Second place in towing capacity, due in part to an optional max 4.30:1 axle ratio for zippy acceleration and passing maneuvers. Low price in anticipation of the model redesign.

Dislikes: There’s nothing in the way of thoughtful convenience like the GM’s bed step. And the interior doesn’t work very well: Manning the radio and HVAC requires you to stretch across the dashboard, and most of the storage bins in the center console are too small or odd-shaped to be useful.

FUEL ECONOMY

2014 GMC S IERRA1500 SLE Z71 Crew Cab

2013 N ISSAN T ITAN Pro-4X Crew Cab

2013 RAM 1500 SLT Big Horn Crew Cab

2013 TOYOTA TUNDRA SR5 CrewMax

UNLADEN

WITH TRAILER


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As I got a little older, I saw how my dad would mess with the salesmen in the dealership. I remember in 1964 we went to buy a four-door Ford Galaxie 500XL from Shawsheen Motors in Andover, Mass. I still remem-ber the salesman. His name was Tom Lawrence. We went into the showroom, and, unfortunately for my dad but fortunately for me, a budding car enthusiast, this model had bucket seats, a 390 V-8, and the three-speed

C6 Cruise-O-Matic transmission with the shifter on the console.

My dad started right in: “Bucket seats! What the hell do we need bucket seats for?” He was trying to negoti-ate to get the bucket seats out of the car. Of course, you couldn’t just take the bucket seats out of the car, but my dad didn’t want to order a new car. So he tried to get a better deal by insisting he didn’t want the seats. Although I don’t remember the final details, whatever he said must have worked, because we drove off in that car.

By 1966 my dad was making good money as an insurance salesman for Prudential and felt he needed a Cadillac. So we went down to Wentworth Motors in Andover, where the price of the Caddy was $4850. Of course, my dad started arguing with the salesman. My dad said, “I’ll give you $4700.” When the salesman wouldn’t budge, my dad offered $4800. But the guy wouldn’t come down that $50! So Dad stormed out of

Driving a Hard Bargain JAY’S FATHER WAS A CAR SALESMAN’S WORST NIGHTMARE.

Some of my fondest memories are of buying cars with my father. My dad was the kind of guy who would buy whatever was on the showroom floor, and he didn’t care about options. He did no research of any kind, and once he’d decided he wanted a new car, he didn’t like to wait. My dad was not a great one for endless haggling, though he always started out by acting like it was his favorite pastime.

“How much is the car?” he’d ask, getting right to the point. When he heard the price, he’d counter, “Okay, I’ll give you this.” Then, when the salesman replied with his number, Dad would say, “All right, I’ll give you this.” He always had to have the best possible deal. Eventually he and the salesman would get to a number they both could live with.

the showroom and we didn’t get the Cadillac.

Back in those days, salesmen used all sorts of old-school tech-niques. One was the good guy/bad guy routine, like “I wanna give you a good deal, Mr. Leno, but my manager’s a tough guy.”

Another was the hidden microphone. The scenario would usually start with a salesman inviting us into an office and then leaving so that we were alone for a few minutes. He’d be in another room, listening to us talking, trying to figure out what we thought about the car.

I remember one time when the two of us were in a dealer-ship office, my dad put his finger to his lips and whispered, “Shhh.They’re listening in the other room. Tell me you hate the car.”

So I said loudly, “I don’t like the car, Pop.”


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“You don’t? Well, we’re not buyin’ it if you don’t like it.”

The salesman hurried back to the office and started hag-gling with my dad. He said, “Look, Mr. Leno, I know your boy doesn’t like this car, but it’s a terrific automobile . . .”

My dad cut him off. “How do you know my boy doesn’t like this car?”

And you could just see the guy start to choke because my dad knew he’d been listening in on us.

Then Dad said, “I’m gonna go find a car my son likes, ’cause if he doesn’t like it, I’m not gonna pay all this.” The guy, seeing a sale slip away, eventually low-ered his price. My dad always thought that was hilarious. He was sure the hidden micro-phone was a trick that all the salesmen used.

One time, when I was a kid and worked at a Ford dealer-ship, a guy drove in with a Chevy Impala that had 98,000 miles on it. He was buying a new Ford. They took his Impala

lac with the regular interior, but this car comes with the interior d’elegaaaance.” So, of course, being Italian, my dad had to have the extravagant interior d’elegaaaance. My dad was a self-made man. He used to call the Cadillac “the Rolls-Royce of auto-mobiles.” He didn’t quite get the irony of that statement.

I don’t like to bargain. So I said to my father, “You’re not pay-ing for this. I’m paying for this.” I told the salesman I wanted every option. Of course, my dad was thrilled. But my mother could not have been more embarrassed. She was from Scotland, and she believed anything that smacked of showing off or wealth or suc-cess was terrible. So she was always mortified to drive around in this Cadillac. When my par-ents would pull up to a light, if people alongside looked over at the car, my mother would motion to them to put their window down and say: “We’re not really Cadillac people. My son got us this car.”

And then my father would

Jay’s father refused to buy a 1966 Cadillac after a $50 disagreement with the salesman. Twenty years later Jay bought his father the bottom Caddy.

1986 Cadillac Fleetwood

1966 Cadillac Calais four-door sedan

out back to the service department. During the nego-tiations, something happened, and the guy demanded his car back. He got into his Impala and drove away. But the used-car department thought the Impala was theirs, and they’d already turned the odometer back to 15,500 miles for better resale value. Then the guy came back and said, “I’m ready to make that deal now. Look at the odometer.” Of course, now they had to make him a better deal because they’d been caught. We used to call that trick “odometer recalibration.”

I always promised my dad that when I made it big, I’d buy him a Cadillac. He’d say, “Yeah, yeah.” He never believed me. So when I started to make some money, I took my dad back down to Wentworth Motors to buy a brand-new 1986 Cadillac. And would you believe, the same salesman was there.

“Oh,” he says, “Mr. $50 is back.” My dad starts look-ing at the car, and the salesman takes out an aerosol can labeled bulls**t spray and starts spraying it over my father’s head—real old-time salesman stuff. Then he says, “Y’know what I’ve got here? It’s b.s. spray. I have to spray it every time someone like you comes in.”

My dad didn’t have a very good poker face. You could tell when he wanted a car. This Cadillac was white with a garish red tufted interior. The salesman said to my father, “Well, Mr. Leno, you can get a Cadil-

shout: “What the hell d’ya mean, we’re not Cadillac people? We’re drivin’ a damn Cadil-lac. Of course we’re Cadillac people.” The people in the car next to us would get so frightened, they’d take off. Then my mother and father would start arguing.

My mother was so embarrassed to ride around in a luxury automobile, she’d sit low in the seat, below the dashboard, so nobody would see her. Occasionally I would hear from people—remember, this is before cell-phones in cars—and they’d say, “I saw your dad driving down the street, and it looked like he was waving and yelling at nobody.” And I’d have to say, “No, no, my mom was in the car.”

When it was time to trade in the Cadillac, I bought my dad an ’88 Lincoln. By that time he was starting to slip a little bit. He’d insist that “they moved the damn post at the super-market” because he’d always dent the car when he backed up. I’d say, “Pop, they didn’t move the post.” But he’d swear that they did—the usual old-guy stuff.

That’s when I knew it was time for him to hang up the car keys. PopMech


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Milwaukee Makerspace | Milwaukee, Wisconsin

These brainiacs from Brew Town made a simple marble roller

coaster into something more by incorporating RadioShack’s

classic Armatron toy from the ‘80s. The joystick-controlled

robotic arm helps move a ball along a contraption full of

twists and turns. The structure was built using everything

IURP�VFUDS�PHWDO�WR�PDJQHWV�WR�D�SDSHU�FXS��6SHFLǌF�

materials were fabricated with a laser cutter and 3D printer.

Controlling everything is a programmable Arduino board,

which monitors the ball’s position with sensors and switches

built into the track.

Milwaukee Makerspace Morgifying Marble Manipulator (aka: M6) V


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The Tampa team’s project puts a fun spin on a classic arcade

game that allows a gamer to control a small spacecraft and

DWWHPSW�D�OXQDU�ODQGLQJ��,QVSLUHG�E\�D��V�SRSXODU�%ULWLVK�VFL�ǌ�

show, the team built a life-sized replica of a police call box and

installed an open-source clone of the game and all its controls

inside. What’s unique is that they also used EEG sensors (think

biofeedback machine), so the game essentially monitors your

“meditative state,” which controls the spacecraft’s thrust. The

challenge is trying to keep your cool as the noise, music and

UXPEOLQJ�ǍRRU�EXLOG�XS�WR�D�IHYHU�SLWFK�

Police Call Box Lander (A Biofeedback-Controlled Game)Inspiration Labs | Tampa, Florida

They could win $1000.And so could you.

It’s time to reveal–and vote on–the projects in this year’s challenge.

The theme: From something old, make something new.

Two teams are vying for bragging rights and $1000 in prize money.

And it all comes down to this: their ideas, and your appreciation for them.

Vote at popmechnow.com/radioshack and you could win a $1000 RadioShack gift card.*Let’s Play

S

* No purchase necessary to enter or win. RadioShack Hackerspace Challenge Sweepstakes. Sponsored by Hearst Communications, Inc. Beginning

September 1, 2013 at 12:01 AM (ET) through September 30, 2013 at 11:59 PM (ET). Open to residents of the U.S. and Canada who have reached the age

of majority. Void in Puerto Rico, Province of Quebec and where prohibited by law. See complete rules at www.popmechnow.com/radioshack.WorldMags.netWorldMags.net

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Give Us a Piece of Your Mind and Enter to

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I LLUSTRAT IONS BY K E L L I A N D E R S O N P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 3 59

NSA Data Mining:

How It Works

Most people were introduced to the arcane world of data mining when National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden allegedly leaked classified documents that detail how the U.S. government uses the technique to track terrorists. The security breach revealed that the government gathers billions of pieces of data—phone calls, emails, photos, and videos—from Google, Face-book, Microsoft, and other communications giants, then combs through the information for leads on national security threats. The disclosure caused a global uproar over the sanctity of privacy, the need for security, and the perils of government secrecy. People right-fully have been concerned about where the government gets the data—from all of us—but equal attention has not been paid to what it actually does with it. Here’s a guide to big-data mining, NSA-style.

The Information Landscape

Just how much data do we produce? A recent study by IBM estimates that humanity creates 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day. (If these data bytes were pennies laid out flat, they would blanket the earth five times.) That total includes stored information—photos, videos, social-media posts, word-processing files, phone-call records, financial records, and results from science experiments—and data

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y B Y J O E P A P P A L A R D O


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CONNECTING THE DOTS: PHONE-METADATA TRACKING

SaudiArabia Cluster

California Cluster

Call from Terror Supporter

Call to Terror Supporter

Person of Interest

The NSA collects metadata from phone records, enabling it to identify terrorists without examining the calls’ contents. Amid millions of calls, patterns can emerge, as our hypothetical scenario below demonstrates.

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y

that normally exists for mere moments, such as phone-call content and Skype chats.●

Veins of Useful InformationThe concept behind the NSA’s data-mining operation is that this digital information can be analyzed to establish connections between people, and these links can generate investigative leads. But in order to examine data, it has to be collected—from everyone. As the data-mining saying goes: To find a needle in a haystack, you first need to build a haystack. ●

Data Has to Be Tagged Before It’s BaggedData mining relies on metadata tags that enable algorithms to identify connections. Metadata is data about data—for example, the names and sizes of files on your computer. In the digital world, the label placed on data is called a tag. Tagging data is a necessary first step to data min-ing because it enables analysts (or the software they use) to classify and organize the infor-mation so it can be searched and processed. Tagging also enables analysts to parse the informa-tion without examining the contents. This is an important legal point in NSA data mining because the communications of U.S. citizens and lawful perma-nent resident aliens cannot be examined without a warrant. Metadata on a tag has no such protection, so analysts can use it to identify suspicious behavior without fear of breaking the law. ●

Finding Patterns in the NoiseThe data-analysis firm IDC estimates that only 3 percent of the information in the digital universe is tagged when it’s created, so the NSA has a sophisticated software program that puts billions of metadata markers on the info it collects. These tags are the backbone of

any system that makes links among different kinds of data—such as video, documents, and phone records. For example, data mining could call attention to a suspect on a watch list who downloads ter-rorist propaganda, visits bomb-making websites, and buys a pres-sure cooker. (This pattern matches the behavior of the Tsarnaev brothers, who are accused of planting bombs at the Boston Mara-thon.) This tactic assumes terrorists have well-defined data pro-files—something many security experts doubt. ●

Open Source and Top Secret The NSA has been a big promoter of software that can manage vast databases. One of these programs is called Accumulo, and while there is no direct evidence that it is being used in the effort to monitor global communications, it was designed precisely for tag-ging billions of pieces of unorganized, disparate data. The secretive agency’s custom tool, which is based on Google programming, is actually open-source. This year a company called Sqrrl commercial-ized it and hopes the healthcare and finance industries will use it to manage their own big-data sets.


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●

The Miners: Who Does What The NSA, home to the federal government’s codemakers and code-breakers, is authorized to snoop on foreign communica-tions. The agency also collects a vast amount of data—tril-lions of pieces of communica-tion generated by people across the globe. The NSA does not chase the crooks, terrorists, and spies it identifies; it sifts information on behalf of other government players such as the Pentagon, CIA, and FBI. Here are the basic steps: To start, one of 11 judges on a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court accepts an application

from a government agency to authorize a search of data collected by the NSA. Once authorized—and most applications are—data-mining requests first go to the FBI’s Electronic Communications Surveillance Unit (ECSU), according to PowerPoint slides taken by Snowden. This is a legal safeguard—FBI agents review the request to ensure no U.S. citizens are targets. The ECSU passes appropriate requests to the FBI Data Intercept Technology Unit, which obtains the information from Internet company servers and then passes it to the NSA to be examined with data-mining programs. (Many com-munications companies have denied they open their servers to the NSA; federal officials claim they cooperate. As of press time, it’s not clear who is correct.) The NSA then passes relevant information to the government agency that requested it.

What the NSA Is Up To

Phone-Metadata Mining Dragged Into the Light The NSA controversy began when Snowden revealed that the U.S. government was collecting the phone-metadata records of every Verizon customer—including millions of Americans. At the request of the FBI, FISA Court judge Roger Vinson issued an order compelling the company to hand over its phone records. The con-tent of the calls was not collected, but national security officials call it “an early warning system” for detecting terror plots (see “Connecting the Dots: Phone-Metadata Tracking”). ●

PRISM Goes PublicOn the heels of the metadata-mining leak, Snowden exposed another NSA surveillance effort, called US-984XN. Every collec-tion platform or source of raw intelligence is given a name, called a Signals Intelligence Activity Designator (SIGAD), and a code name. SIGAD US-984XN is better known by its code name: PRISM. PRISM involves the collection of digital photos, stored data, file transfers, emails, chats, videos, and video conferencing from nine Internet companies. U.S. officials say this tactic helped snare Khalid Ouazzani, a naturalized U.S. citizen who the FBI claimed was plotting to blow up the New York Stock Exchange. Ouazzani was in contact with a known extremist in Yemen, which brought him to the attention of the NSA. It identified Ouazzani as a possible conspirator and gave the information to the FBI, which “went up on the electronic surveillance and identified his coconspirators,” according to congressional testimony by FBI deputy director Sean Joyce. (Details of how the agency identified the others has not been disclosed.) The NYSE plot fizzled long before the FBI intervened, but Ouazzani and two others pleaded guilty of laundering money to support al-Qaida. They were never charged with anything related to the bomb plot. ●

Mining Data as It’s Created The slides disclosed by Snowden indicate the NSA also operates real-time surveillance tools. NSA analysts can receive “real-time notification of an email event such as a login or sent message” and “real-time notification of a chat login,” the slides say. That’s pretty straightforward use, but whether real-time information can stop unprecedented attacks is subject to debate. Alerting a credit-card holder of sketchy purchases in real time is easy; building a reliable model of an impending attack in real time is infinitely harder.

1

The phone records of a known terrorist sup-porter in Saudi Arabia form a cluster of pos-sible accomplices.

3

The phone metadata from the person of interest in the United States forms a clus-ter of associates in California.

4

Phone records show one of the associates in the California clus-ter called someone in the Saudi Arabia clus-ter. The NSA alerts the FBI to the connection, enabling the agency to obtain a wiretap.

2

A call from the known terrorist supporter is made to a person of interest in the United States, a U.S. citizen.



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2009 Global data output begins to double every two years.

2012 Emerging markets (Brazil, China, India) pro-duce 32% of global data.

2019 Emerging markets predicted to account for 62% of the world’s data.

2020 The amount of data will be 50 times greater in 2020 than in 2010.

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y


having a massive data set may be a liability. When a program examines trillions of connections between potential targets, even a very small false-positive rate equals tens of thousands of dead-end leads that agents must chase down—not to mention the unneeded incur-sions into innocent people’s lives. ●

Analytics to See the FutureEver wonder where those Netflix recommendations in your email inbox or suggested reading lists on Amazon come from? Your previous interests directed an algo-rithm to pitch those products to you. Big companies believe more of this kind of targeted marketing will boost sales and reduce costs. For example, this year Walmart bought a predictive analytics startup called Inkiru. The company makes software that crunches data to help retailers develop marketing campaigns that target shoppers when they are most likely to buy certain products. ●

Pattern Recognition or Prophecy?In 2011 British researchers created a game that simu-lated a van-bomb plot, and 60 percent of the “terror-ist” players were spotted by a program called DScent, based on their “purchases” and “visits” to the target site. The ability of a computer to automatically match security-camera footage with records of purchases may seem like a dream to law-enforcement agents trying to save lives, but it’s the kind of ubiquitous tracking that alarms civil libertarians. Although neither the NSA nor any other agency has been accused of misusing the data it collects, the public’s fear over its collection remains. The question becomes, how much do you trust the people sitting at the keyboards to use this information responsibly? Your answer largely determines how you feel about NSA data mining. PopMech

●

What is XKeyscore? In late July Snowden released a 32-page, top-secret PowerPoint presentation that describes software that can search hun-dreds of databases for leads. Snowden claims this program enables low-level ana-lysts to access communications without oversight, circumventing the checks and balances of the FISA court. The NSA and White House vehemently deny this, and the documents don’t indicate any misuse. The slides do describe a powerful tool that NSA analysts can use to find hidden links inside troves of information. “My target speaks German but is in Pakistan—how can I find him?” one slide reads. Another asks: “My target uses Google Maps to scope tar-get locations—can I use this information to determine his email address?” This pro-gram enables analysts to submit one query to search 700 servers around the world at once, combing disparate sources to find the answers to these questions.

How Far Can the Data Stretch?

Oops—False PositivesBomb-sniffing dogs sometimes bark at explosives that are not there. This kind of mistake is called a false positive. In data mining, the equivalent is a computer pro-gram sniffing around a data set and coming up with the wrong conclusion. This is when


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Pepper spray designed to stop a charging bear can save you, but for Pete’s sake, don’t wait until the animal is inches from your hand.


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B Y J E F F W I S E

P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 3

P H O T O G R A P H S B Y B A R T H O L O M E W C O O K E

Accidents are the leading cause of death among U.S. men 18 to 50 years old, accounting for 37,000 of the roughly 148,000 annual fatalities. Some instances of unintentional death, to use the official term, are unavoidable—wrong place, wrong time—but most aren’t. Staying alive requires recognizing danger, feeling fear, and reacting. “We inter-pret external cues through our subconscious fear centers very quickly,” says Harvard University’s David Ropeik, author of How Risky Is It, Really? Trouble is, even smart, sober, experienced men can fail to register signals of an imminent threat. Here we present 20 easy-to-miss risks, and how to avoid or survive them.

1 .OUTSMART WILDLIFE.If you come face-to-face with a wild animal, the natural response is to bolt, but that can trigger the animal’s predatory instinct. On July 6, 2011, Brian Matayoshi, 57, and his wife, Marylyn, 58, were hiking in Yellowstone National Park when they came upon a grizzly bear and fled, screaming. Brian was bitten and clawed to death; Marylyn, who had stopped and crouched behind a tree, was approached by the bear but left unharmed.STAT: Each year three to five people are killed in North America in wild animal attacks, primarily by sharks and bears. DO: Avoid shark-infested waters, unless you are Andy Casagrande (page 80). As for bears, always carry repellent pepper spray when hiking; it can stop a charging bear from as much as 30 feet away. To reduce the risk of an attack, give bears a chance to get out of your way. “Try to stay in the open,” says Larry Aumiller, manager of Alaska’s McNeil River State Game

AT

LEAST

N0T

T0DAY


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ings. But anecdotal evidence shows that ESD is widespread. ESD prevention groups have successfully urged some states to enact safety standards, including the installation of ground-fault circuit interrupters and a central shutoff for a dock’s electrical system. DON’T: Swim within 100 yards of any wired dock. But do check whether docks follow safety standards.

4 .KEEP IT ON THE DIRT.On the morning of July 14, 2013, Taylor Fails, 20, turned left in his 2004 Yamaha Rhino ATV at a paved intersection near his Las Vegas–area home. The high-traction tire treads gripped the road and the vehicle flipped, ejecting Fails and a 22-year-old passenger. Fails died at the scene; the passenger sus-tained minor injuries. STAT: One-third of fatal ATV accidents take place on paved roads; more than 300 people died in on-road ATV wrecks in 2011. DO: Ride only off-road. Paul Vitrano, executive vice president of the ATV Safety Institute, says, “Soft, knobby tires are designed for traction on uneven ground and will behave unpredict-ably on pavement.” In some cases, tires will grip enough to cause an ATV to flip, as in the recent Nevada incident. “If you must

cross a paved road to continue on an approved trail, go straight across in first gear.”

5 .MOW ON THE LEVEL. Whirring blades are the obvious hazard. But most lawnmower-related deaths result from riding mowers flipping over on a slope and crushing the drivers. STAT: About 95 Americans are killed by riding mowers each year. DO: Mow up and down a slope, not sideways along it. How steep is too steep? “If you can’t back up a slope, do not mow on it,” Carl Purvis of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission advises.

Sanctuary. “If you have to move through thick brush, make noise by clapping and shouting.”

2 .DON’T MESS WITH VENDING MACHINES.You skipped lunch. You need a snack. You insert money into a vending machine, press the buttons, and nothing comes out. You get mad. STAT: Vending machines caused 37 deaths between 1978 and 1995, crushing cus-tomers who rocked and toppled the dispens-ers. No recent stats exist, but the machines are still a danger. DON’T: Skip lunch.

3 .STAY ON THE DOCK. On May 20, 2013, Kyle McGonigle was on a dock on Kentucky’s Rough River Lake. A dog swimming nearby yelped, and McGonigle, 36, saw that it was struggling to stay above water. He dove in to save the dog, but both he and the animal drowned, victims of electric-shock drowning (ESD). Cords plugged into an outlet on the dock had slipped into the water and electrified it. STAT: The number of annual deaths from ESD in the U.S. are unknown, since they are counted among all drown-

Dockside water can become elec-trified by a short in an onboard appliance, a faulty wire connecting a boat to the dock’s power outlet, or exposed wiring in the dock’s power source. The current courses through a swimmer’s body and can lead to electric-shock drowning.


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Found on small or moderate-size streams and rivers, low-head dams are used to regulate water flow or prevent invasive species from swimming upstream. But watch out. “They’re called drowning machines because they could not be designed better to drown people,” says Kevin Colburn of Ameri-can Whitewater, a nonprofit whitewater preservation group. To a boater heading downstream, the dams look like a single line of flat reflective water. But water rushing over the dam creates a spin-ning cylinder of water that can trap a capsized boater. STAT: Eight to 12 people a year die in low-head and other dam-related whitewater accidents. DO: Curl up, drop to the bottom, and move downstream if caught in a hydraulic. “It’s a counterintuitive thing to do, but the only outflow is at the bottom,” Colburn says. Surface only after you’ve cleared the vortex near the dam.

7.DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH.If you want to take a long swim underwater, the trick is to breathe in and out a few times and take a big gulp of air before you submerge. Right? Dead wrong. Hyperventilating not only doesn’t increase the oxygen in your blood, it also decreases the amount of CO2, the com-pound that informs the brain of the need to breathe. Without that natural signal, you may hold your breath until you pass out and drown. This is known as shallow-water blackout. STAT: Drowning is the fifth largest cause of accidental death in the U.S., claiming about 10 lives a day. No one knows how many of these are due to shallow-water blackout, but its prevalence has led to the formation of advo-cacy groups, such as Shallow Water Blackout Prevention. DON’T: Hyperventilate before swimming underwater, and don’t push your-self to stay submerged as long as possible.

8 .KEEP YOUR FOOTING. One mistake is responsible for about half of all ladder accidents: carrying something while climbing. STAT: More than 700 people die annually in falls from ladders and scaffolding. DO: Keep three points of contact while climbing; use work-belt hooks, a rope and pulley, or other means to get items aloft.

9 .FORD CAREFULLY. A shallow stream can pack a surprising amount of force, making fording extremely dangerous. Once you’ve been knocked off your feet, you can get dragged down by the weight of your gear, strike rocks in the water, or suc-cumb to hypothermia. STAT: Water-related deaths outnumber all other fatalities in U.S. national parks; no specific statistics are

6 .

BEWARE LOW-HEAD DAMS.

Escaping the hydraulic requires swimming to the bottom and resurfacing beyond the boil point, just downstream from the vortex.

BOIL POINT


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68

available for accidents while fording streams. DO: Cross at a straight, wide section of water. Toss a stick into the current; if it moves faster than a walking pace, don’t cross. Unhitch waist and sternum fasteners before crossing; a wet pack can pull you under.

10 .LAND STRAIGHT.You have successfully negotiated free fall, deployed your canopy, and are about to touch down. Safe? Nope. Inexperienced solo jumpers trying to avoid an obstacle at the last minute, or experienced skydivers looking for a thrill, might sometimes pull a toggle and enter a low-hook turn. “If you make that turn too low, your parachute doesn’t have time to level out,” says Nancy Koreen of the United States Parachute Association. Instead, with your weight far out from the canopy, you’ll swing down like a wrecking ball. STAT: Last year in the U.S., low-hook turns caused five of the 19 skydiving fatalities. DO: Scope out your landing spot well in advance (from 100 to 1000 feet up, depending on your skill) so you have room to land without needing to swerve.

1 1 .STAY WARM AND DRY.Cold is a deceptive menace—most fatal hypo-thermia cases occur when it isn’t excessively cold, from 30 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Wet clothes compound the effect of the tempera-ture. STAT: Hypothermia kills almost 1000 people a year in the U.S. DO: Wear synthetic or wool clothing, not moisture-trapping cotton. If stranded, conserve heat by stuffing your clothes or shelter with dry leaves.

12 .LET LEANING TREES STAND. The motorized blade isn’t always the most dangerous thing about using a chain saw. Trees contain enormous amounts of energy that can release in ways both surprising and lethal. If a tree stands at an angle, it becomes

1.

2.

3.

4.

Descending on a straight path (1) becomes perilous when a parachutist attempts a turn too close to the ground (2). In midturn both the canopy and jumper are spiraling down rapidly (3). Without enough time and elevation to complete the turn and level out, the jumper hits the ground at a dramatically elevated speed (4).


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Increased awareness of

commotio cordis—a blow

to the chest that causes

ventrical fibril-lation—has

led municipali-ties and sports

leagues to require defibril-

lators at events including base-

ball, ice hockey, and lacrosse

games.

STAT: The registry recorded 224 fatal cases from 1996 to 2010. Commotio cordis is the No. 1 killer in U.S. youth baseball, causing two to three deaths a year. DON’T: Take a shot to the chest. Even evasive action and protective gear are not significant deterrents. Of note: Survival rates rose to 35 percent between 2000 and 2010, up from 15 percent in the previous decade, due mainly to the increased presence of defibrillators at sporting events.

America’s national pastime may seem a gentle pursuit, but it is not without its fatal hazards. The 2008 book Death at the Ballpark: A Comprehensive Study of Game-Related Fatalities, 1862–2007 cata-logs deaths that have occurred while people were playing, watching, or officiating at baseball games. Among the causes is commotio cordis, a concussion of the heart that leads to ventrical fibrillation when the chest is struck during a critical 10- to 30-millisecond moment between heartbeats. About 50 percent of all victims are athletes (and the vast majority of these are male) engaging in sports that also include ice hock-ey and lacrosse, the U.S. National Commotio Cordis Registry reports.

13 .

DODGE LINE DRIVES.


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OtherInfluenza Hepatitis

Anemia POISON

SUFFOCATION

Cerebro- vascular Disease

Heart Disease

HIV

Homicide

Respiratory Disease

LiverDisease

Suicide

18% 25%

4%

4%

10%

2%

12%

2%

7%

15% 13%

1%

Diabetes

CANCER

ACCIDENTALDEATHS

ALL DEATHS

DATA VISUALIZATION BY ONFORMAT IVE

REPORTING BY DARREN ORF

42%

38%

OTHER

DROWNINGFALLS

HOW IT ENDS.One-quarter of all fatalities among U.S. men ages 18 to 50 result from unintentional injury. Here, we break out the specific types of fatal accidents and show how they compare with all causes of death.

Prescription Drugs

Narcotics

Alcohol

Carbon Monoxide

AUTOPasse

nger Car

Light Truck

Motorcycle

Large Truck

Stairs

Ladder

Fire

Acts of Nature

PedestrianFirearm

2%3%

2%


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71

top-heavy and transfers energy lower in the trunk. When sawed, it can shatter midcut and create a so-called barber chair. The fibers split vertically, and the rearward half pivots back-ward. “It’s very violent and it’s very quick,” says Mark Chisholm, chief executive of New Jersey Arborists. STAT: In 2012, 32 people died felling trees. DON’T: Saw into any tree or limb that’s under tension.

14 .CLIMB WITH CARE. Accidental shootings are an obvious hazard of hunting, but guess what’s just as bad: trees. “A tree stand hung 20 feet in the air should be treated like a loaded gun, because it is every bit as dangerous,” says Marilyn Bentz, execu-tive director of the National Bow hunter Educa-tional Foundation. Most tree-stand accidents occur while a hunter is climbing, she says. STAT: About 100 hunters a year die falling from trees in the U.S. and Canada, a number “equal to or exceeding firearm- related hunt-ing deaths,” Bentz says. DO: Use a safety harness tethered to the tree when climbing, instead of relying on wooden boards nailed to the tree, which can give way suddenly.

15 .AVOID CLIFFING OUT. Hikers out for a scramble may end up on an uncomfortably steep patch and, finding it easier to climb up than down, keep ascend-ing until they “cliff out,” unable to go either forward or back. Spending a night freezing on a rock face waiting to be rescued is no fun, but

OTHER Eighty-two percent of the 238 people killed by light-ning strikes from 2006 to 2012 were male. Fish-ing, camping, and boat-ing, in that order, are the top three activities on the lightning-death list.

FALLS Men are more than 11 times more likely than women to die on the job, because men tend to have more dangerous occupations. Consider: In 2011 falls accounted for 541 working deaths, and most of those occurred in construction, a predom inantly male industry.

DUI More than 25 percent of all male drivers involved in fatal car accidents have a blood-alcohol content over the legal limit of 0.08 percent, compared with 13.7 per-cent of women drivers.

ROADKILL Deer-related auto acci-dents take 150 to 200 lives annually in the U.S., which makes the lovable animal also the nation’s most dangerous.

POISONAccidental overdose of prescription drugs—including synthetic opioids, such as oxycodone—kill more than 2000 more men than women every year.

CANCERCancer kills more men than women (301,037 and 273,706, respec-tively, in 2010), largely because men are more prone to malignancies of the lungs, esophagus, and liver.

P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 3

1. 2.

ICO

NS

BY

SP

EN

CE

RL

LO

YD


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Caused by excessive fluid intake, hyponatremia can make the brain swell like a dehydrated sponge soaked in water.

We all know that dehydration can be dangerous, leading to dizziness, seizures, and death, but drinking too much water can be just as bad. In 2002, 28-year-old runner Cynthia Lucero collapsed midway through the Boston Marathon. Rushed to a hospital, she fell into a coma and died. In the aftermath it emerged that she had drunk large amounts along the run. The excess liquid in her system induced a syndrome called exercise-associated hyponatremia (EAH), in which an imbalance in the body’s sodium levels creates a dangerous swelling of the brain.

16 .

STAT: Up to one-third of endurance athletes who collapse during events suffer from EAH. Between 1989 and 1996, when the U.S. Army mandated heavy fluid intake during exercise in high heat, EAH caused at least six deaths. DON’T: Drink more than 1.5 quarts per hour during sustained, intense exercise. But do consume plenty of salt along with your fluids.

DON’T DRINK TOO MUCH.


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SUBMERGED SAND BAR

while glissading. DON’T: Glissade, period. But if you ever do it, you should be an expert mountaineer with well-practiced self-arrest techniques. Glissaders should always remove their crampons and know their line of descent.

20 .BEAT THE HEAT. A rock formation in Utah called The Wave is remote and beautiful, but also arid and swel-tering. This past July a couple hiking the area were found dead after the afternoon heat over-whelmed them. Scarcely three weeks later, a 27-year-old woman collapsed while hiking The Wave with her husband and died before he could get help. STAT: An average of 675 peo-ple die each year in the U.S. from heat-related complications. DO: Carry lots of fluids, hike in the morning, and let people know where you’re going when trekking in the desert. PopMech

the alternative is worse. STAT: Falls are one of the top three causes of death in the wil-derness, along with cardiac arrest and drowning. Cliffed-out hikers account for 11 percent of all search-and-rescue calls in Yosem-ite National Park. DON’T: Take a shortcut you can’t see the length of. If you realize you’ve lost your way, either backtrack or call for help. Gadgets such as DeLorme’s inReach SE provide satellite com-munication to send a distress call from anywhere on the planet.

1 7.USE GENERATORS SAFELY.After Hurricane Sandy, many homeowners used portable gen-erators to replace lost power, leaving the machines running overnight and allowing odorless carbon monoxide to waft inside. The gas induces dizziness, head-aches, and nausea in people who are awake, but “when people go to sleep with a generator running, there’s no chance for them to realize that something’s wrong,” says Brett Brenner, president of the Electrical Safety Foundation International. STAT: Carbon monoxide from consumer products, including portable generators, kills nearly 200 a year. Of the Sandy-related deaths, 12 were due to carbon monoxide poisoning. DO: Keep generators more than 20 feet from a house.

18 .DON’T SLIP–SLIDE AWAY. Hikers on a glacier or in areas where patches of snow remain above the tree line may be tempted to speed downhill by sliding, or glis-sading. Bad idea: A gentle glide can easily lead to an unstoppable plummet. In 2005 climber Patrick Wang, 27, died on California’s Mount Whitney while glissading off the summit; he slid 300 feet before falling off a 1000-foot cliff. STAT: One or two people die each year

19 .GO WITH THE FLOW.The tourist season got off to a grisly start this year in Gulf Shores, Ala. During a two-day period in early June, four men drowned after being caught in rip currents. The unusually strong currents were invisible, not even roiling the surface. Rip cur-rents occur when water rushing back from the shoreline is channeled through a narrow gap between two sand bars, accelerating the outward flow. STAT: More than 100 Americans drown in rip currents each year. DO: Allow the current to carry you out beyond the riptide’s flow, then swim laterally until you reach a position where you can turn and stroke safely to shore.


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T H E S E L F - D R I V I N G C A R I S C O M I N G .

P H O T O G R A P H B Y J A M E S W O R R E L L

ILLUSTRATIONS BY VIGILISM


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A As soon as I hit the small black lane-centering button, I can feel the wheel stiffen in my

hands. Suddenly the light bar atop it begins glowing a soft green, signaling that the car has taken over the task of steering. I had already surrendered control of the acceleration and braking to the vehicle’s adaptive cruise control, and now with my feet flat on the floor,

I slowly unwrap my fingers and release the wheel. Sitting in the passenger seat is Jeremy Salinger, who works on General Motors’ semiautono-mous car program. He’s seen the car do this dozens, possibly hundreds, of times, but, if only to reas-sure me, he states the obvious: “The car is in control now.”

M y r e m a i n i n g sense of caut ion keeps my hands ner-v o u s l y h o v e r i n g above the wheel for a few seconds as our 2012 Cadillac SRX test vehicle hurtles forward at 60 mph, effortlessly bend-ing into one of the sweeping turns of the oval track at GM’s Milford Prov-ing Grounds in Mich-igan. In the rear of the heavily modi-fied SUV, an onboard computer collects data from an array of cameras and sensors to electronically read the road and deter-

mine the vehicle’s position. Using this information, the car controls the electrically assisted steering to keep the car perfectly centered in the lane.

“Let’s do something, like a lane change,” Salinger says. The light bar switches from green to blue as I grab hold of the wheel and signal right, indicating that I’m overriding the system. Once we are settled into the new lane, the light bar changes back to green and I let go of the wheel. We repeat the exercise, returning to the center lane of the five-lane track, and then my hands drop down to rest on my legs. Now

B Y A N D R E W D E L- C O L L E

H E R E A R E 1 2 Q U E S T I O N S T H A T N E E D A N S W E R I N G R I G H T N O W .

W H E N C A N

I L E T

G O O F T H E

W H E E L ?

Q


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fully at ease, I watch the wheel periodically turn and straighten as we speed around the track. The sight is both mesmerizing and unsettling—as if a ghost were driving. But this is no spooky apparition, this is GM’s Super Cruise technology, and it could be available in a production vehicle within five years.

Wait, how soon is this happening?

A Very soon. Although GM hasn’t confirmed a hard

date for deployment of the sys-tem, it hopes to have Super Cruise as an option by the end of the decade, possibly as soon as the 2017 or 2018 model year. Super Cruise is part of a trend that has sneaked up on the car-buying public. The active safety systems in many modern production cars—forward-collision warning, park assist, adaptive cruise control, bl ind-spot monitoring, and others—are inching the vehicles we buy toward autonomy. By using a combination of sensors, radar, GPS, and cameras, these systems enable a car to interpret its surroundings and issue warn-ings or even brake the car if a collision with another vehicle or a pedestrian is imminent. As these systems become connected, our cars become smarter.

Technologically, GM’s Super Cruise is similar to driver-assistance systems provided by Mercedes-Benz and other car-makers. But these other systems also require that the driver peri-odically touch the wheel to ensure he or she remains engaged in the driving experience. Where Super Cruise differs is that for the first time GM aims to allow the driverto completely let go of the wheel for extended periods of time. Functionally, this change is revo-

lutionary. By fully tak-ing over the task of highway driving, Super Cruise might represent the most important shift in the driver–car relationship in automo-tive history.

So, my next car will drive itself?

A N o t s o f a s t . First off, let’s

get some semantics out of the way. The Super Cruise–equipped SRX I rode in is a self-driving car, but it can’t do everything on its own. Super Cruise will only be available under select highway conditions and will have speed and turning limitations, so think of it more like autopilot for your car. By definition, this makes it semiautonomous (though much more capable, Google’s self-driving cars are also semiautono-mous). A fully autonomous pro-duction car—where you plug your destination into the GPS and set-tle in for a 2-hour movie—is still a long way off, but the technology is advancing fast. Recently Audi and Volvo demonstrated vehicles that can park themselves; Volvo says this feature could be available as early as 2014.

Still, systems such as Super Cruise challenge conventional notions of who or what is doing the driving, and this makes car-makers and regulators nervous. “I think the one thing we will always want to maintain, and the manu-facturers will likely tell you the same thing, is that the driver’s still responsible for the driving task,” David Strickland, admin-istrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, says. “That will never change.”

A Super Cruise and other similar systems do more than just see

the road. Using an array of sensors, lasers, radar, cameras, and GPS technology, they can actually analyze a car’s surroundings.

HOW DOES THE CAR SEE THE ROAD?

Q

Super Cruise is a combination of two technologies. The first is the increasingly common adaptivecruise control, which uses a long-range radar (more than 100 meters) in the grille to keep the car a uniform distance behind another vehicle while maintaining a set speed 1 . The second, lane-centering, uses multiple cameras with machine-vision software to read road lines and detect objects 2 . This information is sent to a computer that processes the data and adjusts the electricallyassisted steering to keep the vehi-cle centered in the lane. Because Super Cruise is intended only for highways, GM will use the vehi-cle’s GPS to determine its location before allowing the driver to engage the feature 3 . In addition, GM is also considering using short-range radars (30 to 50 meters) 4 and extra ultrasonic sensors (3 meters) 5 to enhance the vehicle’s overall

awareness. Cars with park-assist systems already have four similar sensors in the front and in the rear of the car. GM is also experi-


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Is any of this even legal?

A It is, but that’s mostly because laws regulating

self-driving cars didn’t exist until recently. Currently legislation is being considered on a state-by-state basis, with Nevada, Califor-nia, and Florida having passed laws for the testing of self-driving cars on public roads; Michigan is expected to follow. Generally these laws simply stipulate that someone must be in the car and be able to take control of the car in case of an emergency. In May the NHTSA released a set of suggested guidelines for the development of semiautonomous vehicles, but there are still no offi-cial federal regulations.

Bryant Walker Smith is a fel-low at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School and the Center for Automotive Research. He points out that along with creating new laws, we will also need to review our existing laws as semiautonomous systems proliferate. “New York state, for example, requires driv-ers to keep one hand on the wheel at all times,” Smith says. “Figure how that reconciles with Super Cruise.” He goes on: “Regardless of what the traffic codes, what the vehicle codes specifically say, when a crash happens, how will judges and juries decide what behavior was negligent? So even if you’re in a state that doesn’t expressly say you have to have your hands on the wheel, will not having your hands on the wheel, will not paying attention, be con-sidered negligent?”

This is a big issue and one that the NHTSA and carmakers are tiptoeing around by insisting that the driver will be responsible at all times. Nevertheless, semi-autonomous technologies have huge implications for insurance agencies. Loretta L. Worters is the

Are these autonomous—sorry, semiautonomous—cars decent drivers?

A Sure are. According to Nady Boules, a director

within GM’s R&D, semiautono-mous cars perform better than human drivers in many respects. Unlike people, they can continu-ously monitor all sides of the vehicle, can react almost instanta-neously, and are impervious to distraction. They’re also more efficient drivers. One recent paper presented at an Institute of Elec-trical and Electronics Engineers conference estimated that a fleet of cars with sensors could increase highway capacity by 43 percent. If the cars could also communicate with one another, that number jumps to an incredi-ble 273 percent.

The NHTSA and several car-makers are already testing vehi-cles that can talk to each other. I got a chance to stop by GM’s tech-nical center in Warren, Mich., for a demonstration of this vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication. In a large parking lot GM engi-neers had me run through a series of exercises with two cars, each equipped with GPS and a small Wi-Fi transponder. Using the GPS to determine its location and the transponder to talk with the other vehicle, my car warned me when the other vehicle braked hard in front of me, was in my blind spot, or was approaching from around a corner that had an obstructedview. Unlike with radar and cam-eras, line of sight isn’t required for V2V communication, and the transponders are relatively inex-pensive compared with the hard-ware required for most active safety systems. On its own, V2V technology is compelling, but once it is connected to the other active safety systems in a vehicle, it has powerful potential.


5

4

3

2

1

menting with cost-effective LIDAR units, which use lasers instead of sound and are more powerful and accurate than ultrasonic sensors. It’s unclear whether LIDAR will make it into the same vehicle as Super Cruise.


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vice president of communications for the Insurance Information Institute. According to her, sys-tems that improve safety are wel-comed by the insurance industry, but as our cars turn into semiau-tonomous vehicles, we are enter-ing new territory. “For example, it would also likely increase the potential liability of the manu-facturer and maintenance/repair business if an accident could be traced to a design or maintenance failure,” Worters says.

How safe is all this?

A Considering that semiau-tonomous cars rely on a

network of active safety systems to work, they’re pretty safe. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has found that we are already seeing the benefits of sys-tems such as forward-collision warning in the reduction of acci-dents. That said, they’re not 100 percent fail-proof. Chris Urmson leads Google’s self-driving car program and is an adjunct profes-sor at Carnegie Mellon University, where he also worked on DARPA’s autonomous car challenges. Although Google’s test fleet has logged more than 500,000 miles without a major mishap, Urmson admits that the technology will never be flawless. “I think we can make vehicles that are better than human-driven vehicles, but something that won’t fail is just an impossibility,” he says.

Aside from the possibility of a system failure, semiautono-mous technologies also have gen-eral limitations. My Super Cruise experience was actually my sec-ond attempt at seeing the system in action. On my first trip to the proving grounds, a snowstorm thwarted my mission. The SRX’s cameras were unable to read the lines on the snow-covered track,

NEAR-TERM

Once enough cars on the road are able to drive themselves, the first major change we will probably see is an HOV-style self-driving lane on highways. Just enter the lane, set your vehicle to the recommended speed, then leave your monotonous 3-hour haul to the car.

MIDTERM

As semiautonomous vehicles advance, expect them to start com-municating with one another and eventually even with infrastructure. At intersections, smart stoplights could automatically turn to green if no other cars were approaching—which would smooth out traffic flow, reduce idling, and decrease accidents.

LONG-TERM

When the majority of the vehicles on the road are semiautonomous and also able to talk with one another, high-speed motoring (we’re talking triple digits here), forma-tion driving, and seamless merging could be possible.

A Semiautonomous cars and vehicle-to-vehicle communication

could profoundly change how traffic flows and even highway design. Here are three likely scenarios.

leaving Super Cruise ineffective. That’s no small hindrance.

No napping behind the wheel, then?

A Nope. No mat-ter how capable

the vehicle might be, a semiautonomous car cannot be left unat-t e n d e d . A n d t h e chance of someone falling asleep is a seri-ous concern for car-makers. Eric Raphael also works on Super Cruise and gave me a technical walk-around of the modified SRX on my visit. “We can’t let someone crawl in the back seat and take a nap, but we know they might try that,” Raphael says. To prevent a driver from spacing out or worse, GM has developed a monitoring sys-tem that will use audial, visual, and possibly haptic feedback to prompt the driver to take over if it detects an emergency or that the driver is too distracted. For exam-ple, the light bar at the top of the steering wheel turns bright red when the driver needs to take control of the car.

Of course, at 60 mph and in the middle of heavy traffic, the system can’t physically force the driver to reengage—and that’s more than a little worrisome. Bryan Reimer is a research scientist at MIT’s AgeLab and the associate direc-tor of the New England UniversityTransportation Center. “Man, who’s saying you’re going to be awake when you actually need to put your hands back on there?” Reimer says. “All the literature in psychology tells us that we are terrible overseers of highly auton-omous systems. We fall asleep. We get bored. We’re inattentive.”

WHAT WILL DRIVING BE LIKE IN THE FUTURE?

Q

WHAT W


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Will people become worse drivers? Is that even possible?

A Generally speaking, the more we use autonomous

systems, the more we come to rely on them. So it stands to reason that the less we drive, the rustier we’ll get at it. Citing examples such as the pilot error responsible for the crash of Air France 447, MIT’s Reimer stresses the need for caution as we integrate these technolo-gies into our cars: “If we look at other domains, and I think the aviation world is a great example of this, it is now a well-accepted fact that autopilot is decreasing pilot skill.”

What if I want to drive?

A The most important ques-tion of all. As long as there

is a traditional steering wheel in your car, you’ll be able to drive. Now, things will get interesting if these semiautonomous systems become so safe and reliable that a human driving is actually viewed as irresponsible by insurers. That won’t happen any time soon, but eventually it could.

In one exercise during my Super Cruise demonstration, a Chevy Volt darted in front of our SRX as the car was driving itself. Still traveling at 60 mph, the SRX immediately braked, adjusted its speed to maintain a safe dis-tance behind the Volt, and slightlyshifted the wheel to stay centered in the lane. In a situation where a person might overreact and jerk the wheel, causing the car to careen into another vehicle or off the road, I didn’t do a thing. I just sat there. I don’t think I even flinched. I love driving, but who wouldn’t want that as an option in their next car? PopMech

something GM is currently devel-oping. Even the possibility raises an important issue: If a split-second steering decision needs to be made, would you want to leave this up to your car? Say the decision comes down to hitting a child in the road or swerving and potentially hitting a tele-phone pole. Would the car put passengers in danger in order to avoid hitting the kid? A techno-logical issue swiftly becomes a moral one.

NEAR-TERM

MIDTERM

LONG-TERM

Can the car avoid something in the road?

A Most forward-collision warning systems today

can identify another car, a pedestrian, an animal, or a bike, and some can even activate the brakes in low-speed to midspeed situations. But as for avoiding an obstacle, no system out there does that yet. Salinger says cars in the future could have this ability, though it’s not


Dedicated lanes

Smart stoplights

Formation driving


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“My parents told me not to believe every-thing I saw on TV, so I thought the shark was fake! But I soon real-ized the sharks were real. From that point, sharks became my life’s passion.”


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S H A R KS H 0 0 T E R

C A M ERA M AN AND Y B R AND Y CASAGR AND E B U I LD S H IS OWN R IGS AND F I LMS FEA RL ESSLY TO CAP TU R E SHOTS L I KE NO ONE ELSE .

B y B i l l M o r r i sP h o t o g r a p h s b y N a t h a n i e l W e l c h


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ANDY CASAGRANDE HAD DREAMED of swim-ming with sharks ever since he was a kid growing up in a small town near Pittsburgh. He finally got his chance in 2005. Armed with nothing but a Sony Handycam in a DIY water-proof case and his own nerve, Casagrande slipped over the side of a boat and into the waters known as Shark Alley, off South Africa’s Western Cape province.

Within seconds Casagande’s dream was coming all too true: A great white shark came gliding toward him. The sleek, 4000-pound beast slid past, close enough to touch. Casagrande calls the moment “surreal,” but it was more than that. “The biggest struggle is the mental battle,” he says. “You’re looking at a prehistoric predator, and everything in your body tells you to flee. But you just need to Zen out, slow down your breathing. Never swim away: If you act like prey they’ll treat you like prey—chase you, catch you, and eat you.”

The shark turned and made another pass. Then another. Casagrande was winning the mental battle. His breathing remained slow and regular. He began to relax. “When the shark made the third close pass and didn’t eat me, I figured we were cool.”

HIS FULL AND PROPER NAME IS Andy Brandy Casagrande IV, an unusual moniker that befits an unusually talented person. His camera

work for the National Geographic series Great Migrations won him the 2011 Emmy Award for Outstanding Cinematography—Nature. But his defining work is his innovative—and, frankly, harrowing—filming for Shark Week, the Discovery Channel’s annual programming extravaganza featuring shows such as Into the Shark Bite and Impossible Shot. Casagrande has become a sort of poster boy for Shark Week. What sets him apart is his hacker ethos and methodology, which he has been honing since the day, more than a decade ago, that he made a waterproof housing for a video camera, attached it to a telescoping mop handle, and dangled it over the side of a boat to get eye-level footage of great whites. Among the dozens of other rigs he’s invented and handcrafted since then is the bite cam, which snapped the now iconic closeup of a shark’s gaping, razor-toothed jaws. His tinkering continues to evolve and has gone high-tech. For a 2012 episode of Impossible Shot, for instance, Casagrande captured the first-ever “seagull’s perspective” (his words) of a breach by a great white, using a rig with a 3000-frame-per-second

camera carried aloft by a massive helium balloon tethered to the photographer’s boat; the shark attacks a seal-shaped decoy positioned below the camera and thrusts skyward, 12-plus feet of fish getting airborne. For Shark Week this year he created a fin c a m — e s s e n t i a l l y a GoPro camera attached to a pair of barbecue tongs—to record the shark’s point of view. All of this work (in addition to other wild-life footage he’s taken with homemade rigs) places Casagrande at the forefront of the DIY adventure video genre. It’s the stuff of millions of YouTube clips and has become a mainstay of extreme-sports TV.

“He’s known as the shark guy, but his work is much more diverse than that,” Travis Pynn, a GoPro engineer, says. “He’s incredibly inven-tive and resourceful. He has unique vision.”

A N D Y ’ SI N V E N T I O N S

Casagrande builds many of his rigs using common items. (Cam-era costs not includ-ed in prices here.)

a ROV E R C A M Built on the chassis

of a Traxxas 4x4 (about $400), this rig uses its fat, nobby tires to crawl over rough terrain to get closeups of lions, hyenas, and other preda-tors feasting on a kill. One of three cameras sits in a takeout sushi box covered in camo duct tape and reinforced with bungee cords. “It’s not really much of an invention, if you ask me,” Casagrande says. “But it gets the job done!”


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PHOTOGRAPHS BY N AT H A N I E L W E L C H P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 3 83

CASAGRANDE, 35, DESIGNS AND BUILDS his rigs in the garage of his rambling two-story home on a quiet street in Naples, Fla., where he lives with his Swedish-born wife, Emma Walfridsson, 30. When I visit there earlier this year, the famous cameraman pops out of the front door and bellows, “Dude!”

Welcome to Andy Casagrande’s world.Eager to demonstrate how he makes a bite cam, he

suggests a trip to the local Ace hardware for parts. (I assume he’ll drive—surely an accomplished, high-energy guy like Casagrande would have a killer ride—but we end up in my Chrysler 300 rental. He doesn’t own a car, getting around instead on an Electra Townie bicycle with balloon tires.) “Basically,” he says, “I go to the plumbing department, or I go to a sporting goods store or Walmart, and I gather materials.”

Today he’s acquiring some plastic nuts and a length of rubber fuel line, both of which are pliable enough to prevent a shark from harming its mouth and teeth when biting the camera housing. “I like to protect the animals that give me my livelihood,” Casagrande says.

His shopping list is short but our time at Ace grows long. Casagrande bounces around the store on fast-forward, picking up and inspecting a vast array of items, and providing a running narrative of what exotic contraptions he might build with them.

At the checkout, clerk Sandra Rainey lights up when she learns that Casagrande is a Shark Week cameraman. “I love it because it shows sharks for what they are,” she

says. “Don’t mess with them; you’re in their element.” Then, with a wry smile and a nod toward Casagrande, she adds, “I think he’s crazy, but somebody’s got to do it.” The bill for the nuts and the hose comes to $11.77.

Back at the house we enter his shop, which is like the laboratory of a mad wizard. There are cameras mounted on remote-control cars—using such MacGyver-esque materials as take-out sushi boxes and camouflage duct tape—which Casagrande deploys to get intimate shots of lions gorging on prey. There are tiny helicopters and wing cams for aerial shots. On one shelf sits the fin cam, which he designed to slip over a shark’s dorsal fin. It has a flotation device and is secured via a dissolving fastener that releases the apparatus after about 24 hours. A VHF-tracking pinger locates the camera after it floats to the surface—and Casagrande collects it and the unprecedented footage it contains.

It’s time to build the bite cam. Using a Stihl drill press, Casagrande bores a large hole in a pair of Styrofoam swim boards ($19.99 each at the Sports Authority), then four smaller holes for the plastic bolts that hold the boards together. Into the larger hole he inserts a foot-long length of 4-inch-diameter PVC pipe. Into each end of the pipe he places a GoPro

$111

b

b F I N C A MCasagrande had his

aha moment for the fin cam when he picked up a pair of barbecue tongs. The $11 item is the back-bone for what eventually became a very high-tech piece of handiwork. It includes a $1500 satellite tag, a $250 VHF pinger, and buoyant foam for retrieval. For Shark Week this year Casagrande slipped the assembly over a tiger shark’s dorsal fin, camera facing for-ward, to get “the ultimate hunting POV footage,” he says. Fasteners dissolve in salt water to release the fin cam, which floats to the surface. “Kinda expensive, since you might [expletive deleted] lose it!“ he adds.

c B I T E C A M Protected by a high-

density foam body, cam-eras shoot out of the top

eraman.are,” she Int

$1766

and bottom of a water-proof housing made of PVC pipe and plexiglass to get shots just inches from a shark’s gaping jaws.

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Clockwise from near right: Casagrande’s wife Emma is also his safety diver and video editor; Casagrande kicks back while filming a kill in Tanzania; with the bite cam in his Naples, Fla., shop.


Hero3 Black Edition camera ($400 apiece); the cameras are held in place by a length of Styrofoam tubing. Plexiglass discs glued to O-rings seal each end of the pipe. A protective rubber sleeve covers the tube. Stainless-steel cable is fed into the rubber fuel line, then wrapped around the PVC pipe, forming a loop for tethering to the boat. Voilà! A masterpiece of low-budget DIY engineering is born.

MEANWHILE, UPSTAIRS, EMMA GAZES into a computer screen, editing footage of one of her husband’s shark dives. The couple met while he was filming lions in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park in 2007. A hairstylist visiting from Sweden with girlfriends, Emma arrived unannounced at Casagrande’s campsite. They hit it off and, after an international courtship, wed in 2010. In addition to editing, Emma works as her husband’s still photographer and safety diver. But that’s on hold for now—she’s pregnant and expecting their first child.

Emma makes her way downstairs and takes a seat with us in the Ikea-outfitted liv-ing room. On the wall is a photo of the couple in a passionate lip-lock in front of a sandstone arch in Utah’s Arches National Park. “I used to have pictures of Swedish supermodels on my wall,” Casagrande says. “Then I married one.”

She giggles and smiles, flattered but maybe a little embarrassed by her husband’s praise. “He’s fun and wild, but he’s also very grounded,” Emma says. “He’s open to everything in life. With him, it’s always work and it’s always vacation.”

The conversation takes on an earnest tone, and I realize that the couple shares not just a home, but also a mission. “The point of our work is to teach people more about sharks and other animals, so they’ll care more about them—and the planet,” Emma says.

“I have two motives while filming wild-life,” Casagrande chimes in. “One is to film it while it’s still here. Two is to show people that it’s mind-blowingly beautiful. I do this for the millions of people who will never go to the Serengeti or the Arctic.”

AS A BOY, CASAGRANDE obsessed about sharks, rode horses and mountain bikes, played gui-tar, tinkered with engines, and competed on his high school wrestling team. He’s still very fit—ripped, in fact—175 pounds packed onto a 5-foot-7-inch frame. “He was always very competitive, very focused,” his father Dan Casagrande says. “You have to have balls to wrestle—it’s just you and your opponent.”

The kid with the shark fixation decided at an early age that he wanted to become a marine biol-ogist. After briefly attending the Florida Institute of Technology in 1996, he transferred to the Uni-versity of Pittsburgh and entered the Semester at Sea program, where he circumnavigated the globe and photographed wildlife nonstop. It was a formative expe-rience, a hint of things to come.

In 2000 the itinerant student graduated from California State University, Long Beach, with straight A’s and a degree in abnor-mal psychology. Casagrande then worked as a tech-support engi-neer at a data-mining company in Silicon Valley, and in his spare time he created a website with the photos and videos he’d shot during his semester at sea. He started research-ing great white sharks, learning as much as he could, feed-ing his boyhood passion. He even composed “The Great White Shark Song” and shot a video of it; the clip shows Casagrande singing underwater in a wetsuit, twanging a guitar: “If I was a great white, I wouldn’t bite you/But I’d swim right next to you/And ask you, How do you do?”

That lighthearted ditty helped change Casagrande’s life. In 2002, after two frustrating years behind a desk, he sent an MP3 file of the song, along with a job applica-tion, to the White Shark Trust, a research and conserva-tion group in South Africa. After hearing the song, Michael Scholl, who was then head of the trust, offered Casagrande a position without even looking at his application. Scholl says Casagrande’s passion for sharks, clearly shown in the song, mattered more than anything he could put on paper. At the trust Casagrande studied great whites and filmed their behavior, merging his twin passions for photography and sharks. “Andy showed an ability to adapt quickly to different situations,” Scholl says. “He was always trying new rigs, new camera angles, new attachments.”

AND, OF COURSE, HE SWAM WITH the sharks. In fact, he was the first person in the program ever to do so, in 2005. That same year a crew from the National Geographic Society arrived in Cape Town, South Africa, to film a documentary on great white shark research, including that of the White Shark Trust. When the head cameraman, Andy Mitchell, learned that Casagrande had swum outside the protec-tive confines of a shark cage, Mitchell hired him as an assistant. On their second shoot together they were both swimming with the sharks. Mitchell admits that he was “scared to death.”

Now a freelance cameraman and producer based in Vermont, Mitchell recalls being impressed by Casagrande’s inventiveness. “He probably has the steepest learning curve of anyone I’ve worked with,” Mitchell says. “He has pushed


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the boundaries of the gear and what it can do—building stuff, cre-ating things, always tweaking. He became an A-list cameraman in a third of the time it usually takes.”

Casagrande accomplished this feat, in part, by applying the GoPro DIY style and tech to wildlife pho-tography. He may not have been the first person to do so, but he was early to the game and, argu-ably, has been the most successful.

Casagrande’s collaboration with Mitchell led National Geographic to offer him a staff job in Washington, D.C., as a field pro-ducer and cameraman. He quickly became known as the gadget guy: “National Geographic wanted unorthodox ways to capture wildlife killing, mating, and migrating. So I made rigs that could get motion-controlled time-lapse footage, shots at night via infrared cameras—I made all sorts of stuff.”

After seeing one of Casagrande’s National Geographic documentaries in 2008, GoPro came calling and has been providing him with cameras ever since. “Andy’s a GoPro fanatic because our cameras are tools that enable him to get shots he could never get before,” Travis Pynn says. “Our cameras are small enough and cheap enough to put in a spot you wouldn’t be able to justify with a more expensive camera.”

This proved to be true in the Bahamas, where Casagrande’s Shark Week shoot in March 2013 was a success: He managed to attach the fin cam to a tiger shark’s dorsal fin, capturing hypnotic sequences.

BACK IN NAPLES WITH EMMA, THE COUPLE has no time to rest. In the Casagrande home on a Sunday afternoon the clothes washer is churning, the dryer tumbling. While Emma is upstairs packing for a trip to Sweden to see her

family, Casagrande is in his shop, organizing gear for a shoot in the South Pacific. The cou-ple are leaving tomorrow on their trips.

Casagrande chatters away as he darts around the shop, selecting and packing equip-ment—and then unpacking and repacking it, again and again. “My kit has to be dialed in,” he says. “My gear is my lifeline. It not only keeps me making a living, it literally keeps me alive, whether it’s my underwater rebreather or my Red Epic camera housing. That can be handy for warding off a not-so-happy shark.”

As he fusses with his stuff, Casagrande muses on how he went from being a little boy watching sharks on TV to an award-winning cameraman. “I dreamed of swimming with sharks,” he says, “and now, I think, maybe I can inspire people to live the lives they dream.”

If he falls short of his goal, well, he’ll have to settle for being the gutsiest shark photographer ever. PopMech


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new wallsI just put up

WITHOUT TEARING THEOLD ONES DOWN.

Some of the ugliest walls imaginable can be given a new lease on life with a little prep and a fresh coat of KILZ® primer. By blocking stains and unwanted colors, KILZ primer lays the foundation for a successful room transformation. It’s like a fresh start for your walls.

Find your priming solution at solutions.kilz.com or scan here

www.kilz.com


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http://www.kilz.com



P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 3 87P O P UUUUUUUUU L AU L AL AL AL AL AL AL AL AL AL AUUUUUUU L AL AL AL AL AAAAAUUUUUU AUUUUUUU L AL AAAAUUUUU L AL AAAAAAUUUUU AUUUUUUUUUUUUUU AUU AAA RRRRRRRRR M ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR MMMM C H A N I C S . C O M / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 3 87

W

Schlepping firewood can be tedious. Get a canvas log sling and ease at least one of life’s petty burdens.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY S T E P H E N L E W IS

You’ve felled trees and split logs; now it’s time to turn that lumber pile into a sturdy stack of firewood. p. 88

D I Y HO ME


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HomeT O O L

R E PA I RH A L L OW E E N

P RO P SP O R TA B L E

G E N E R AT O R S

diy

PROPERLY STACKED WOOD LOOKS GOOD AND BURNS WELL.BY ROY B EREN DSOH N

PHOTOG RAPHS BY STEPH EN LEW IS

BRING THE HEAT

When it comes to preparing fire-wood, stacking may be the most pleasant part of the job. The hard and sometimes dangerous work of disassembling a tree with a chain saw is done. The tedious split-ting is over. Now comes the time to convert a loose, messy pile of wood into an orderly stack—a satisfying transformation that appeals to the builder in me.

But, unlike real construction,

The key to making this classic stack is to save the most uniform pieces for the pillars and to fit them tightly. This increases the pil-lars’ weight and helps to reduce their ten-

dency to topple over as wood is stacked between them. It’s also important to plumb each pillar like a post. That further increases its stability and strength.

END-PILLAR


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This stack is coun-terintuitive in that the wood inside the “house” is not exposed to drying sun or wind. It is, however, exposed to interior air move-ment. It’s crucial to

build the holzhaus in a sunny location so that when it’s baked by summer heat, a convection current of warm air moves through the base and out the top.

The stack is made in three stages. First, build a ring of split pieces, bark side fac-ing out, split surface facing in. Next, stack wood on the ring with each piece sloping

downward. Inside the ring, stack wood on end to produce a cone-shaped pile. Rain that gets inside rapidly drains down. Last comes the tightly arranged conical roof.

there’s no noise or heavy lifting. You don’t need tools. You just take each stick and fit it with another while enjoying the wood’s pun-gent, earthy smell and the way its freshly split surface reflects light. Give me a quiet afternoon and a pile of wood to stack and I’m a happy man.

Dry Is GoodWell-stacked wood is attractive, but its real virtue is that it will be dry by the time you need it. Seasoned wood burns efficiently, doesn’t require constant atten-tion to stay lit, and creates less pollution in the form of smoke (unburned wood vapor).

There are a number of stack-ing strategies that put the com-bustion odds in your favor. If you have trees on your property that are about 13 to 16 feet apart, you can use them as end posts and stack split wood between them in what’s called a hammock span. This can work just fine for a few seasons, but in the long term it can damage the trees’ bark.

Another approach is to build a wood rack, which is fast, easy, and inexpensive (see “The Stock Solution,” June 2008; “How to Build a Cheap, Good-Looking Fire-wood Rack: 2-by-Guy” at popular mechanics.com/firewoodrack plans). On the other hand, split wood itself can be used as a building material. My two favorite stacks are the utilitarian end-pillar and a decorative German type known as a holzhaus, or wood

HOLZHAUS


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PHOTOGRAPHS BY V I C T O R P R A D O90 O C T O B E R 2 0 1 3 / P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M

INDOOR STORAGE

1

Victor Log Holder This rack’s designers chose forged steel. Good decision. It’s built to resist heat, impact, and abrasion. (potterybarn.com, $60–$100)

2

Log Cabin If I were to build a steel rack, it would look like this: rust-resistant zinc finish, band-iron supports, bolts, and square nuts. (cb2.com, $80)

3

Paxton Copper Bucket It looks distressed, but on closer inspection you’ll find sheet steel and a verdigris finish. With a 26-inch diameter, it takes wood standing up or lying down. (potterybarn.com, $200)

4

Ascende This engineered lumber bench and rack melds modern design with good old steel reinforcement. (crateandbarrel.com, $200–$250)

house, which makes a smaller footprint than the end-pillar stack with the same volume of material.

They’re both reliable ways to dry wood to about 20 percent moisture content by weight. Scientific research has found that you don’t need to get wood much drier than that. Wood releases most of its moisture through its end grain, and both types of stacks expose the wood to capitalize on the heat of the sun and desiccating breezes.

After six to eight months in the stack, your wood is ready to be moved inside. If your stove or fire-place is small, you can lug a few sticks at a time in a simple canvas tote like the Custom LeatherCraft C390, shown on page 87. It’s rug-gedly built, with three rivets hold-ing each leather handle to the can-vas body. If you need to transport an armful or more, consider an efficient two-wheel caddie; Brook-stone and Landmann both make sturdy models. But garden carts,

dollies, or a well-built children’s wagon can serve just as well.

As for the indoor stack, sure, you could toss the kindling in a 5-gallon bucket and dump the firewood in a corner, but if you want to extend the order and aes-thetics of the exterior stack into your living room or den, there are plenty of attractive wood-storage systems available from suppliers such as Pottery Barn. Or, peruse their offerings for inspiration and then build your own.


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BEST OVERALL

PHOTOGRAPHS BY G R EG G D E L M A N94 O C T O B E R 2 0 1 3 / P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M

Lift a garage door in the suburbs and you’ll likely find a portable generator next to the lawnmower. It seems that fewer people these days are willing to put up with power outages. We tested five recent models that can handle 5500-watt loads or more, analyzing them for ease of use, electrical output, and noise. All the generators in our test were simple to set up and operate, and they delivered adequate power. The output from some models was consistent enough for sensitive electronics. The best also offered convenient refueling, oil checks, and oil changes. Lubrication is critical in any machine that runs for days at a time. BY ROY B EREN DSOH N

RIDGIDRD905712

Price: $700

Fuel/weight: 6 gal/190 lb

Starting/running watts: 7125/5700

Decibels (A scale): 87, at idle

Likes: Ridgid chose high- quality silicon steel for the alternator laminations, and a 36-slot stator versus the usual 24-slot type. The result: stable power (see “Power Quality”). Portability also helped nail the top spot. “The foldup handle is outstanding,” PM contributing editor and tester Joseph Truini says. “You can move the generator like a hand truck.”

Dislikes: Needs a gas gauge.

Power Quality

It’s important to understand how a generator and its load interact with each other. The generator sends electricity to the load, and the load distorts the electrical energy sent to it, reflecting back energy waves called harmonics. A measurement of this electrical interaction is known as total harmonic dis-tortion (THD); the lower the THD, the more consistent the power. To measure it, we used each generator to power a laptop computer and a table saw as it cut oriented strand board. Then we measured voltage THD using a Fluke 345, a handheld oscilloscope and power-quality meter. All the generators proved to be electrically competent, but the Ridgid had the lowest THD.

PORTABLE GENERATORS

Tool Test

Briggs & Stratton

Champion

Generac

Ridgid

Troy-Bilt

TABLE-SAW TEST

14.2%

17.1%

14.6%

5.4%

16.7%

COMPUTER TEST

3.8%

6.4%

5.1%

1.8%

3.8%


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BRIGGS & STRATTON030468

Price: $763



Decibels (A scale): 85.4, at idle

Likes: A top-mounted gas gauge and a large gas cap make the Briggs a snap to fuel. We also liked its comfortable fold-down handle and the layout of its control panel, complete with a timer that helps you track hours of operation so you can change the oil and perform service at proper intervals.

Dislikes: Needs a dipstick and a larger oil-fill port.

CHAMPION41135

Price: $700




Likes: It may be a no-frills machine, but the Champion gets the job done. It is equipped with a handy volt meter on its side, a well-positioned gas gauge on its top, and a low-oil shutoff switch. It also has a large oil-fill cap and port.

Dislikes: These are small gripes, but it needs covers for the outlet receptacles, and a more comfortable folding handle.

GENERACGP5500

Price: $690

Fuel/weight: 7.2 gal/170 lb



Likes: “Look! A dipstick and a large oil-fill opening,” Truini says, noting the model’s ease of service. ”Every generator should have them.” He’s right. Lack of lube can lead to failure, as many homeowners learned the hard way after Hurricane Sandy. The Generac also has thick vibration dampeners, a heavy frame, and a comfortable foldup handle.

Dislikes: None.

TROY-BILT030431

Price: $700




Likes: It doesn’t cost a fortune—it’s just a basic generator. What more can you ask for? We liked the gas gauge built into the gas cap. And its controls (on/off switch, choke, fuel valve) are located on the end, so starting is quick and easy, as with lawnmowers.

Dislikes: Could use outlet covers and better oil-fill access. Otherwise, there’s not a lot to complain about.


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D I Y H O M E / H A L L O W E E N


The Creepiest House on the BlockHalloween is the one night of the year when frightening children is not only tolerated, but encouraged. Yet building Halloween props can be a chilling experience—especially if they end up looking crappy, not creepy. PM teamed up with instructables.com, where DIYers share ideas, to unearth some hair-raising ghoultide projects. After all, if trick-or-treaters are going to hit you up for free candy, you may as well make them work for it. BY DAV I D AG RELL

over 3-foot-long pieces of rebar pounded 12 inches into the ground.

Cute can often be unsettling. To make Elec-tric_piano_5k’s delightfully deranged Floating Glowing Ghosts, attach battery-powered LED lights—the puck-shaped kind used for under-cabinet lighting—to both sides of the lid to a large jar. Draw a face on the jar with a black marker, screw on the lid, and throw a white sheet over the assembly. Make a few—

COOL HOLOGRAM ILLUS ION

Glass or Acrylic Sheet

Window

Old Computer

Monitor

Decorate with cobwebs and novelty skulls for extra-nightmarish effect.

Who doesn’t love Yard Zombies? Lots of people, which is why life-size cutouts of the undead make excellent Halloween props. Use a jigsaw to fashion them from ½-inch plywood or oriented strand board. Or, better yet, do what Lime3D did: Take a VCarve digital vector file of your design to a local TechShop, where a ShopBot can fabricate zombies for you. Glue lengths of ¾-inch PVC pipe to the mon-sters’ legs, and slip them

Spook the neighborhood kids before they even reach your property with a Halloween Cemetery Fence from Instructables user Spiderclimber. Cut ½-inch PVC pipe to various lengths for the pickets, and cap them with plastic finials. Drill holes in 2 x 2 furring stock for the rails, assemble the pieces, and spray with flat black paint.


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more is better—and hang them from trees in swarms.

Turn your well-kept home into an eerie wreck with professional-looking sets. Briansierra built his Halloween Mausoleum from rigid foam insulation boards, which are light-weight, easy to shape, and available in large sheets up to 3½ inches thick. Carve the pieces with a Dremel rotary tool, and glue them together with foam adhe-sive. For a creepy Gothic look, add decorative mold-ings and coat everything in latex paint.

Don’t be scared off by the freakish number of knots in Nolte919’s 20 x 12–foot Gigantic Halloween Spider Web. If you’re game, you’ll need more than 500 feet of braided clothes-line rope. Anchor the outer frame to the ground with trucker’s hitches wrapped around bent rebar. Complete the web with a combination of bowline

knots, overhand knots, taut-line hitches, double-sheet bends, and literally hundreds of clove hitches.

Rotting corpses emerg-ing from the ground will bring life to any Homemade Halloween scene. To build anatomically correct skel-etons, Garnoft suggests wiring together ½-inch and ¾-inch PVC pipe. Create putrid-looking flesh by cov-ering the bones in papier-mâché. Use off-the-shelf Halloween skulls as heads.

Create a classic graveyard effect with low-hanging fog. But to get the fog creeping slowly across the lawn, you need to chill it first. Why? Warm air rises, leaving the cooler stuff hugging the ground. Achieve this with Adman-rocks’s Super Cheap and Easy Fog Chiller. Start with a 3-foot length of 4-inch dryer vent. Grab a Styro-foam cooler and cut 4-inch

holes near the bottom of each end. Pass the vent through the cooler, and cover it with ice. Attach your fog machine to one end of the vent.

If the local kids make it to your front door, you’ve got to step up your game. A floating apparition should do the trick. NK5’s Cool Hologram Illusion reflects phantasmal images seen through a large window. You’ll need an old computer monitor—the older the bet-ter; in fact, a CRT monitor works best. Lay it on its back in front of a window, and position a sheet of glass or clear acrylic at an angle above it so the moni-tor’s reflection can be seen from outside the window. Finally, play back a spooky CGI movie—a floating skull is ideal—and dim the lights.

If all this sounds like work, why not have the beasts of the night do it for you? And by beasts

we mean squirrels. Though Igough calls his project a Self-Carving Pumpkin, it’s actually your local rodents that do the carving. Start by drilling ⅛-inch holes into a pumpkin around the areas where you want your jack-o’-lantern’s eyes, nose, and mouth to be. Drill right through the skin and the flesh, but don’t bother opening up the pumpkin to scoop out the guts. “The squirrels do that for you,” Igough explains. Next, spackle peanut butter into the holes, and leave the gourd outside for a few days for the squirrels to gnaw away at its face. Yes, it’s as horrific as it sounds.

For detailed plans and photos of each project, head to instructables.com and search for the projects highlighted in bold type.

Jar

LED Light

LED Light

Lid

SELF-CARVING PUMPKIN

Pumpkin

Peanut Butter

Squirrel

FLOAT ING GLOWING GHOST


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A bench grinder is all you need to turn rusty old hardened-steel tools into usable workhorses. Just take your time, and don’t overheat the metal.

Home Clinic

B Y R O Y B E R E N D S O H N A N D D AV I D A G R E L L

My dad gave me a big box of cold chisels, punches, and other stuff. Most of the tools are in pretty rough condition, with a mushroomed face on one end and a chipped edge on the other. Can I grind these tools back into shape?

Grinding Hardened Steel

and hard plastics—cold chisels and punches are usually in the range of Rockwell C57–59. That degree of hardness allows the tools to cut and strike metal, yet their edges are soft enough to be refreshed with a grinding wheel, file, or sharpening stone. For a point of reference, the steel of an ordinary woodworking chisel is rated around Rockwell C62, which means it’s harder than any-thing in the box. Given that grind-ing a woodworking chisel is pretty straightforward, whipping any of your dad’s old tools into shape shouldn’t be a problem.

For the ones that seem lightly damaged, first try recondition-ing their cutting edges with a mill file and sharpening stones. If the damage is too extensive, use a bench grinder with a 6-inch or 8-inch wheel. It’s important to get a grinding wheel that easily removes the chipped metal but will not overheat the tool and ruin its hardness. Try a 60-grit alumi-num oxide wheel with a medium hardness rating.

Before you start, soak the tools in an oven. This gradual heating will help prevent the metal from cracking under stress when you grind them, according to Scott Mackenzie, a metallur-gist and heat- treating technical service manager for Houghton International, a Pennsylvania-based manufacturer of quench oils and lubricants. Heat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and then place the tools inside for 2 hours. Once they cool to room temperature, carefully start

With the right equipment, you should be able to refurbish these tools because they’re likely made of metal that’s soft enough to grind. According to the Rockwell scale—a rating system that classifies the hardness of metals

“Sharpening chisels and other metal tools heats the cutting edge. Don’t quench it in cold water, as this can create microscopic cracks and stresses in the metal. Instead, use a fast-quench oil available from industrial supply houses. If that’s not available, use canola, vegetable, or peanut oil. Heat it to 212 degrees Fahrenheit to remove moisture, and then allow it to cool to about 140 F. After quenching a hot tool, wipe it dry before you continue grinding.”

— SCOTT MACKENZIE, metallurgist and heat-treating technical service manager for Houghton International


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the repair work. To get a feel for grinding,

first work on the mushroomed ends, and be sure to wear safety glasses and a face shield. Touch the mushroomed surface against the edge of the grinding wheel (never grind on the face of the wheel), and slowly turn the tool against the direction in which the wheel is spinning. As you grind away the mushroomed surface and work around the bar, you’re liable to produce large, loose chips of red-hot metal, so pay close attention and take your time. Don’t try to remove everything in one pass. Once the metal is off, grind a small bevel around the butt end of the tool.

Got the hang of it? Good. Now try repairing the chipped or blunted surfaces on the business end of the tool.

Don’t overheat the tool—grind a little at a time, and either let the metal cool on its own or quench it in oil (see “Expert Tip”) before returning its edge to the wheel. When you’re done, use a wire brush to remove any rust, shoot some spray lubricant over the refurbished tools, and give them a place of honor in your tool kit.

Cold ShowerI have a 50-gallon gas water heater that’s only four years old. Lately, though, the water runs cold before the end of the first shower. It used to last for two or three showers. What changed?Your heater probably has a Flammable Vapor Ignition Resis-tant (often referred to as FVIR) safety feature, which became standard in gas-fired residential water heaters in 2003. This pre-vents flammable vapors, such as those from a nearby container of paint thinner or gasoline, from entering the combustion cham-

ber and igniting. Unfortunately, the filter screen that protects the f lame arrestor can get clogged with dust, lint, and oil, restricting airflow to the com-bustion chamber, says Kenny

Hart, a master plumber, HVAC expert, and founder of the web-site theplumbingandhvacguy .com. “When this happens, heat builds up in the combustion cham-ber, which causes the heater to

Any surface treated with NeverWet repels water com-pletely. The two-part coating employs nanotechnology that makes it super-hydrophobic, meaning it sheds water molecules at a contact angle of 165 degrees—more than three times that of an untreated surface. This wide angle keeps droplets in complete spheres that glide off the surface. Conversely, a nonhydrophobic coating causes droplets to flatten and ultimately saturate the surface.

In the past we’ve only seen this technology used for industrial purposes. It’s not a permanent finish, but it’s effective. Spray it on work boots to prevent mud and ice from sticking, or coat your 4x4’s wheel arches and hubcaps to keep them clean.

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Lennon and McCartney’s songs, Pound and Eliot’s poems, Hanna and Barbera’s cartoons—many of the world’s greatest works of art are the result of collaborations. But if the collaborators aren’t in the same room, working together on a project can be a hassle. If you’re send-ing material back and forth through the mail or email you can end up with multiple versions of the same file, and plenty of confusion about who is doing what. Recently, though, there’s been an explosion of new cloud-based services that let you do everything from basic docu-ment sharing to elaborate group music creation. Whether you use a

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Send your questions to [email protected] or to Home Clinic, Popular Mechanics, 300 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019-5899. While we cannot answer questions individually, problems of general interest will be discussed in the column.

shut down,” Hart explains. “Some units automatically relight once the temperature cools, but if this is happening, the output of the heater will obviously be dimin-ished.” To fix it, first turn off the appliance and allow it to cool for 15 minutes. Remove the screen (check your heater’s service man-ual for instructions), and then clean it with a vacuum cleaner and, if needed, warm, soapy water. Replace the screen and reignite the pilot light.

If the problem persists, the thermostatic gas control, the tem-pering valve, or the recirculating system may be malfunctioning. Or, worse still, your home’s plumb-ing is leaking hot water, which is then being replaced in the tank by cold water. If that’s the case, it’s time to call a plumber.

Coating ConcreteIs there a clear coating for garage floors? I want to seal my floor against dirt, but I don’t want to paint it.Use an acrylic sealer, which will resist the strongly alkaline chem-istry of concrete. A good fit would be H&C Concrete Sealer Wet Look. It appears to be milky when applied but dries clear.

Before applying the sealant, scrub the floor with a heavy-duty degreasing detergent. After rins-ing, dry the floor by using a fan to blow air from the back of the garage to the front. PopMech


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specially designed website or app, or just a file- sharing site such as Dropbox, these tools all provide convenient access to project files or assets in one location, near-instant updates and notifications of changes, and control over who can contribute to or edit the files. And online communities allow you to tap into the expertise of people you may have never met. The tools are so abundant that the biggest challenge is selecting the ones that make the most sense for the project.

Because almost all online col-laboration requires storing files in the cloud, the first thing you should do is grab as much free cloud storage as possible. Most services, including Dropbox, Box, SkyDrive, and Google Drive, give a few free gigabytes—and sometimes as much as 50—just for signing up. See “How to Get a Ton of Storage” for strategies that will help you rack up the most gigabytes.

Set Up a Group WebsitePerhaps the most straightforward way to turn multiple people’s ideas into one cohesive whole is a group blog or website. Many years ago, a few of my friends and I used an easy tool to create a website for an independent movie we had collaborated on. Called Mambo, the now-defunct content-management system basically let us all be webmasters through a very simple interface. Our pro-cess worked like this: At the start we decided what we wanted the site to do (showcase the movie and offer clips and a discussion area) and the kinds of pages it would have. After I created the templates for the main page and other sections, the other users could upload assets such as video clips and music files to the sys-tem’s shared storage space. We could all create or edit pages, but,

as a fail-safe, there were only two administrator accounts.

Today we would likely use a free, template-driven service, such as Moonfruit and Weebly. Because of the template styles they offer, these website-creation tools are best used when building an entire site, such as one for a movie or business, rather than a more blog-like page. The two ser-vices support multiuser accounts, and they also both operate under the freemium model, offer-ing bonus features, such as site search and larger file uploads, for a fee. But the free versions have plenty of customizable templates. Weebly’s interface is a bit cleaner and easier to use, and Moonfruit offers slightly more control over page layout, but, overall, you’ll get essentially the same level of fine-tuning with either.

For a place to post straight-forward photos, videos, and text entries, you’ll be better served by a blogging service, such as WordPress, Google Blogger, or Tumblr. These sites all have multiauthor capabil it ies and administrator hierarchies, though the paid version of WordPress (found at wordpress.org) offers more control than the others. If you have a self-hosted WordPress blog, you’ll need to use a multiuser plug-in, such as Co-Authors Plus or Advanced Access Manager. One of the benefits of using plug-ins like these is you get more con-trol over user rights and can set up editorial calendars, group com-menting systems, and more.

The most collaborative plat-form of all is the wiki. With their almost infinitely malleable design, wikis are sites that let multiple people add, edit, or delete sections from a simple browser-based text editor. They’re useful for creating a knowledge-based, community web-site or an internal, private site—anything for which the entire


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Before you dive into cloud collaboration, you’ll want online storage—lots of it. Snap up as many free accounts as you can, and keep your eyes peeled for limited-time deals, when sites offer as much as 50 GB just for signing up.

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organizational structure of all the information on the site might have to change often. So, while a blog displays a chronological account of everyone’s contributions about a topic, a wiki’s treatment of a topic reflects the thinking of who-ever last modified the text. The most famous wiki of all, Wikipedia, is a crowdsourced encyclopedia, but there are wikis dedicated to travel (Wikitravel), medical refer-ence (Ganfyd), and even network names (Naming Schemes).

To start your own wiki, you could use a wiki hosting service (aka a wiki farm), such as MyWikis, which offers free, personal host-ing using MediaWiki, the soft-ware behind Wikipedia. The DIY approach is to install your desired wiki engine, such as Media Wiki or the compact TiddlyWiki, on your own server or computer. Also, many Web hosting services come with a control panel where you can easily install programs on your site, including wiki soft-ware. Once installed, all you have to do is grant people (or the whole

world, if you wish) editing abil-ity for your wiki. With so many cooks in the kitchen, so to speak, you can make sure your wiki stays organized and relevant by regularly discussing the wiki and its content with your team and by making sure someone is in charge of reviewing the wiki—maintain-ing style consistency and deleting out-of-date information.

Being a webmaster may not be your thing—maybe photography is your passion. We all have pho-tos to share with friends, family, and colleagues. With the tremen-dous number of photo-sharing sites on the Web (Flickr, Picasa/Google+, Shutterfly, Snapfish, Instagram, and Facebook, to name a few), the problem isn’t find-ing a place to share your photos online—it’s consolidating every-one’s photos and turning them into meaningful stories.

Avital Fryman, a multimedia specialist at a medical supplies company, works as part of a


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creative team that collaborates on photo presentations for cli-ents. Both Fryman and his clients use a variety of consumer ser-vices, including SmugMug, Snap-fish, Shutterfly, and Flickr for their professional presentations. The same tools and methods Fryman uses can help with personal proj-ects. For example, he uses the starring systems—which allow users to easily mark the photos they like—on sites such as Smug-Mug, Snapfish, Shutterfly, and Flickr to let clients and other team members submit their choices for which photos to use for a proj-ect. Those stars crowdsource and simplify the task of selecting everyone’s favorite photos.

If everyone in your circle oper-ates within Apple’s walled garden of devices and software, they can create a shared Photo Stream, which syncs photos through iCloud to iPhoto accounts and multiple iOS devices. With Photo Stream various people can upload, and comment on, photos in the same stream. In general, I favor Flickr, which makes it easy to invite members to a group so they can upload their own photos directly to the site or via Apple’s iPhoto on Macs or Microsoft’s Photo Gallery on PCs.

After choosing the best pho-tos, any of the collaborators can download the selected photos and turn them into a slide show with desktop software such as iPhoto or Photo Gallery. These programs let you add transitions, choose themes, and put the whole thing to music. For those who prefer to stay in the cloud, Google’s Picasa can do all this too.

Make Music in the CloudThere’s nothing like recording in the studio with others, but you can still get great results over the Web (or even in the mail, as the aptly named band the Postal

Service did in 2001, sending CD-Rs between L.A. and Seattle to com-plete an album bit by bit).

With specially designed music-sharing sites you can avoid resort-ing to the USPS. Some sites serve as central locations onto which you can upload projects, leaving them for collaborators to work on, and other sites offer live online recording sessions—no need to rent a studio, clear out your garage, or even ever meet fellow band members.

To tap into the energy and expertise of musicians online, join a service that’s specifically music-focused, such as Kompoz, Indaba Music, Scratch Audio, or Sound-Cloud; upload a recording; and invite sidemen to contribute to it. Alternatively, you can browse open projects and submit your own tracks for possible inclusion.

If you already have a collabo-rator in mind, the simplest way to work together may be to use an online storage service such as Dropbox. Ben Fowler, a pro-ducer, composer, and musician, describes the process like this: Save an early draft of a track to a shared Dropbox folder, then your collaborator can record different tracks over it and save each sepa-rate stem (a grouping of specific musical elements, such as percus-sion or background vocals). You might edit or record new tracks based on what you hear, adding an instrument, for instance, or modifying what’s already there. Finally, piece the best of these snippets together into its full ver-sion. All the while, participating musicians can bounce ideas off each other through instant mes-saging or set up synced listening sessions via Skype. You can also upload versions to SoundCloud, where listeners can tag specific parts of songs with comments.

To collaborate with people you don’t know, try kompoz.com.


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I just got a new electric guitar, but I don’t have a guitar amp, so I tried plugging it into some computer speakers. I could barely hear it. Am I doing something wrong?

Shredding Through Speakers

Digital Clinic

B Y R A C H E L Z . A R N D T P H O T O G R A P H B Y W I L L I A M B R I N S O N

Electric guitars work because of electromagnetism: The pickups on a guitar, which are transducers, receive the mechanical vibrations of the strings and turn them into an electric current. Dynamic microphones work in much the same way, picking up the vibrations of sound waves and converting them into electric signals. These signals are weak, so they have to be highly amplified to be heard. Guitar amps do this; computer speakers do not. You can hear the guitar faintly through powered computer speakers because, though they don’t boost the signal enough, they do still receive it. But they’re designed to play audio coming from a powered line-level source, such as an MP3 player or a computer, not

Singer and guitar ist Steve Bird, who goes by the alias chilledStrings on the site, has collaborated on 33 songs since joining last May. Based in Mel-bourne, Australia, Bird has con-tributed tracks or started projects with members in Alaska, Idaho , the Netherlands, and beyond, playing guitar, singing, and mix-ing. He says the biggest attrac-tions of sites such as these are the supportive communities and other members’ “pure desire to just make music together,” with-out pushing any commercial inter-ests. Like other online music col-laboration sites, such as Scratch Audio and Hyped Sound, kompoz .com is both a social tool and an online work space for musicians. Members upload or download song tracks under Creative Commons licensing (so anyone can use and expand on the tracks) and com-ment on songs in progress.

If music is more than just a hobby for you, though, some sites can also help build a career through networking and more exposure. On Indaba Music, for example, artists upload their music for fellow musicians and record labels to notice. Winners of Indaba contests have recorded with Yo-Yo Ma, created a remix for Linkin Park, and, in Fowler’s case, worked with Grammy Award– winning producer Rob Fusari (the guy behind Lady Gaga and other stars).

As with website building and photo sharing, the main limita-tion in cloud music collaboration is analog: how dispersed team members communicate about the shared project. Fowler recom-mends that when seeking new collaborators on the Web, try to find like-minded people with sim-ilar creative styles, at least at first. As in the real world, one per-son will probably take the lead to get the project moving—and as in the real world, that’s just fine.


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a real guitar amplifier. The tiny Pignose Legendary 7-100 costs $80 and provides a satisfyingly dirty classic rock sound. And for under $200, you can find a small amp, such as a 15-watt Marshall, that includes digital modeling to replicate various amp characteris-tics and effects.

But if you already have decent speakers, you should give them a shot. To get sound from your guitar (or microphone) to come out of com-puter speakers at the same rela-tive volume as a regular input, you need a preamp—something that brings the signal up to line level before sending it on its way. The best way to set this up is to use an audio interface designed for the job, such as the Korg Pandora Personal Multi-Effects Processor ($230) or the Korg Pandora Mini ($100). A preamp is a more expensive solu-tion than a cheap guitar amp, but combined with good speakers, it’ll give you much better sound. And it can come in handy for more than just shredding through computer speakers; both Korg models come with distortion styles, such as those created by effects pedals, and drum loops.

Connect your guitar to the inter face with a regular ¼-inch guitar cord (or your microphone with an XLR-to-¼-inch adapter),

and plug either a guitar cord with ⅛-inch adapters on the ends or a ⅛-inch male-to-male headphones cord into the headphone line out (not the regular line out). Plug the other end into the line in of your speakers. Turn the audio interface on and your speakers should be transformed into an amp. It’s worth trying more than one set of speak-ers, if you can; when I plugged my Telecaster in, some, such as the Libratone Zipp ($400) and the Audioengine 5+ ($400), sounded better than others.

Automation in WordI’m constantly writing letters in Microsoft Word in which I have to italicize, indent, and adjust the font size of certain parts of the text. Can I apply a style to cut down on the number of steps?You need to create a macro, short for macroinstruction, which is a scripted sequence of commands that can make tedious computing tasks a bit less wearying. Macros can automate nearly any process in Microsoft Word, from something as simple as typing the word “Hello” at the beginning of every document (for which a macro would arguably take longer than the old-fashioned typing-it-out way) to more complicated tasks, such as completing multiple find-and-replace searches and creating specifically formatted tables.

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You can find the Record New Macro option in the Tools menu. Give the macro a name with no spaces (Microsoft says this is what you must do; oddly, it still allows spaces in the name field), and define whether it will be accessed by clicking a button in a toolbar or with a keyboard command. You’ll also be prompted to choose where the macro is available: in all documents or just the one you’re working in. Presumably, if you’re going to the trouble of creating a macro, you’ll want to use it in more than one document. When you’re ready to start recording your ev-ery move in Word, highlight the text you want it to affect, hit OK, and, in your case, begin formatting. When you’re done, head back to the Tools menu to stop recording. Now whenever you want to auto-matically format text in the same way, highlight, press the macro button or keyboard shortcut, and the program will do the dirty work.

Mystery GoPro FilesAlong with the movie files on the SD card from my GoPro camera, I’ve also noticed files that end in .thm and .lrv. What are these files? Can I delete them?Yes, though you may not want to. The .thm files are photo thumb-nails, used for displaying miniature versions on the optional GoPro LCD-screen attachment. The .lrv files are low-resolution versions of videos, similarly used for the on-camera screen. If deleting these

GOT A TECHNOLOGY PROBLEM?ASK RACHEL ABOUT IT.

Send your questions to [email protected]. While we can’t answer questions individually, problems of general interest will be discussed in the column.

files is a matter of keeping the card clutter-free, by all means, get rid of them. But if you’re just concerned about these files taking up pre-cious memory-card space, don’t waste your time—they’re tiny and, in some cases, useful. For instance, GoPro mobile apps use them for previews when beaming over Wi-Fi. Also, because the files are low-resolution—the thumbnails

are 160 x 120 pixels, and the LRV movies are 432 x 240—they’re easy to use on sluggish computers. Before you work with them, though, you’ll need to trick your computer into recognizing them. Change the .thm extension to .jpg and open the photo as you would any other; change the .lrv extension to .mp4 and you’ll be able to watch and edit the miniature videos. PopMech


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Granulated plastic makes

a gentle but effective media-

blasting mate-rial. It’s also 100 percent

recycled from things such as

detergent containers and water-

bottle caps.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY B R E N T H U M P H R E Y S

diyS T U C K S PA R K

P L U GC H I P P E D

T O O T HC O N C R E T E

C L E A N U P

AutoMEDIA BLASTING IS A GREAT WAY TO STRIP RUST OR OLD PAINT IN NO TIME AT ALL. BY B EN WOJDYLA

Saturday Mechanic:

HAVE A BLAST

There are some cleaning and res-toration jobs around the garage that are too tough for deter-gents and elbow grease. A rusty leaf spring on a vintage vehicle, a wheel ravaged by road salt and

brake dust, a dingy accessory on an otherwise sparkling engine—when it comes to this kind of hard-core work, savvy DIYers bring in the heavy artillery of media blast-ing. (It’s also called sandblasting, but sand is no longer used due to the health risks of inhaling silica particles.) Media blasting can strip paint without damaging the base material, even if it’s plastic and wood, and smooth out pitting on the hardest of metals. The tech-

DEGREE OF D IFF ICULTY : 7/ 10



WorldMags.net



Vault bags loaded with U.S. Gov’t issued coins are up for grabs as thousands of U.S. residents stand to miss the deadline to claim the money; now any U.S. resident who finds their zip code listed below gets to claim the bags of money for themselves and keep any valuable coins found inside by covering the Vault Bag fee within the next 7 days

State zip codes determine who gets free Silver coins

The phone lines are ringing off the hook.

That’s because for the next 7 days Vault Bags containing valuable U.S. Gov’t issued coins are actually being handed over to U.S. residents who find their zip code listed in today’s publication.

“Now that the bags of money are up for grabs U.S. residents are claiming as many as they can get before they’re all gone. That’s because after the Vault Bags were loaded with over 100 U.S. Gov’t issued coins the bags were sealed for good. But we do know that some of the coins date clear back to the early 1900s, including: a 90% pure Silver Walking Liberty Half Dollar, an Eisenhow-er Dollar, some of the last ever minted U.S. Dollars, Kennedy Half Dollars, Silver Mer-cury Dimes, rarely seen Liberty ‘V’ Nickels, nearly 100 year old Buffalo Nickels and un-searched currently circulating U.S. Gov’t issued nickels, dimes and quarter dollars, but there’s no telling what you’ll find until you sort through all the coins.” said Timo-thy J. Shissler, Chief Numismatist for the private World Reserve.

The only thing residents need to do is call the National Claim Hotline before the 7-day order deadline ends.

Everyone who does is being given the 90% pure Silver Walking Liberty coin for free just by covering the fee for each Vault Bag loaded with over 100 U.S. Gov’t issued coins for only $99 as long as they call before the deadline ends.

So, if lines are busy keep trying, all calls will be answered. N

SSB1910

How to claim the bags of U.S. Gov’t issued coins: Read the important information below. Then call the National Claim Hotline at: 1-866-646-2717 I keep calling and can’t get through: This announcement is being so widely adver-

tised because each Vault Bag is guaranteed to contain a free Silver Walking Liberty coin and just that one coin alone could be worth $15 to $325 in collector value. So thousands of residents are calling to claim as many Vault Bags as they can get before they’re all gone. In fact, since the Vault Bag fee is just $99 everyone is claiming as many bags as they can before the deadline ends. So if lines are busy keep trying, all calls will be answered. How much are the Vault Bags worth: Coin values always fluctuate and there are never

any guarantees, but here’s why U.S. residents are claiming as many Vault Bags as they can get before they’re all gone. After the Vault bags were loaded with over 100 U.S. Gov’t issued coins including: Silver, scarce, highly collectible, and a big scoop of unsearched currently circulating U.S. Gov’t issued coins the bags were sealed for good. But we do know that some of the coins date back to the 1900s. That means there’s no telling what you’ll find until you sort through all the coins. So you better believe at just $99 the Vault Bag fee is a real steal since the free Silver Walking Liberty coin alone could be worth from $15 to $325 in collector value. Are the Silver Walking Liberty coins really Free: Yes. U.S. residents who beat the

7-day deadline are getting a Silver Walking Liberty coin minted between 1916-1947 free with each Vault Bag they claim. Why is the Vault Bag fee so low: Because thousands of U.S. residents have missed

the deadline to claim the money the World Reserve has re-allocated Vault Bags that will be scheduled to be sent out in the next 7 days. That means the money is up for grabs and now any resident who finds the first two digits of their zip code on the Distribution List below gets to claim the bags of money for themselves and keep all the U.S. Gov’t issued coins found inside. Each Vault Bag fee is set at $149 for residents who miss the 7-day deadline, but for those who beat the 7-day deadline the Vault Bag fee is just $99 for as long as they call the National Claim Hotline before the deadline ends at: 1-866-646-2717.

FREE: RED BOOK COLLECTORVALUE $15 to $325

VALUABLE: 90% PURE SILVER

N�LOADED WITH OVER 100 COINS

THE WORLD RESERVE MONETARY EXCHANGE, INC. IS NOT AFFILIATED WITH THE U.S. MINT, U.S. GOV’T, A BANK OR ANY GOV’T AGENCY. IF FOR ANY REASON WITHIN 10 DAYS (OR 30 DAYS FOR NV RESIDENTS) OF RECEIVING YOUR PRODUCT YOU ARE DISSATISFIED WITH YOUR PURCHASE, RETURN THE ENTIRE PRODUCT FOR A REFUND LESS SHIPPING AND RETURN POSTAGE. NO RETURNS IF SEAL IS BROKEN. INSURED MAIL IS STRONGLY RECOMMENDED. THE WORLD RESERVE IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR LOST RETURN SHIPMENTS. OH & FL ADD 6% SALES TAX.* 8000 FREEDOM AVE., N. CANTON OH 44720

ENLARGED TO SHOW DETAIL. YEAR

VARIES 1916-1947

P6469A OF17392R-1

Alabama35, 36

Alaska99

Arizona85, 86

Arkansas71, 72

CaliforniaN/A

Colorado80, 81

Connecticut06

Delaware19

Florida*32, 33, 34Georgia

30, 31, 39

Hawaii96

Idaho83

Illinois60, 61, 62

Indiana46, 47

Iowa50, 51, 52

Kansas66, 67

Kentucky40, 41, 42

Louisiana70, 71

Maine03, 04

Maryland20, 21

Massachusetts01, 02, 05

Michigan48, 49

Minnesota55, 56

Mississippi38, 39

Missouri63, 64, 65

Montana59

Nebraska68, 69

Nevada88, 89

New Hampshire03

New Jersey07, 08

New Mexico87, 88

New York00, 10, 11, 12

13, 14

North Carolina27, 28

North Dakota58

Ohio*41, 43, 44, 45

Oklahoma73, 74

Oregon97

Pennsylvania15, 16, 17, 18, 19

Rhode Island02

South Carolina29

South Dakota57

Tennessee37, 38

Texas75, 76, 7778, 79, 88

Utah84

Vermont05

Virginia20, 22, 23, 24

Washington98, 99

West Virginia24, 25, 26

Wisconsin53, 54

Wyoming82, 83

Washington DC20

STATE ZIP CODE DISTRIBUTION LIST

SPECIAL ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE

RESIDENTS CASH IN: Pictured above are the Overstuffed Money Bags containing 10 individual Vault Bags full of money

that everyone is trying to get. That’s because each Vault Bag is known to contain over 100 U.S. Gov’t issued coins some dat-

ing back to the early 1900s.

UNITEDSTATES

2013

DISTRIBUTION NOTICE:SSB1910


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nique’s utility extends to otherhome projects, including stripping old bike frames and metal lawn furniture, and even removing cal-cium deposits from tiles.

The operation uses pressurized air to shoot tiny pieces of mate-rial (media) out of a nozzle to strip off the surface of a target. It’s like

THE NITTY-GRITTY

pressure washing, only at lower pressures and with projectiles that are a lot more abrasive than droplets of water. The most com-monly used media include plastic beads, ground-up walnut shells, glass beads, and aluminum oxide.

To media-blast at home, buy a blasting cabinet to contain the

mess and to avoid covering your entire garage with a fine dusting of walnut shells. The cabinet usu-ally consists of a closed box with a blasting gun and a pair of heavy-duty gloves built into the struc-ture. For less than $200 you can get a bench-top unit with a work-ing area of about 22 x 18 x 12

This rusty piece of steel from a truck leaf spring shows exactly how a few different types of common blasting media produce very different results. Plastic beads and walnut shells yield almost identical

results. Walnut shells are dirt cheap and eco-friendly (per-fect if you’re doing work outdoors) but only last for one use. Plastic beads can be used multiple times. Both are gentle enough to strip paint and remove minor

blemishes on metal, although they aren’t abrasive enough to remove all the rust shown here. To do that you need to use glass beads, which stripped away enough of the metal on our bar to make it look fresh again. The last section shows why aluminum oxide is the 800-pound gorilla of blasting media. If you want something clean, it’ll be clean right now, and aluminum oxide can even smooth out scratches and gouges. The extreme hardness of alumi-num oxide means that its effects last a long time, and it’s generally pretty inexpensive. It also leaves a coarse fin-ish, as shown by the dullness on the right end of the steel bar, compared with the middle section.

SAFETY FIRST! Microscopic dust that results from blasting is bad for your health, so when working on large projects, be sure to cover up. We recommend: a face shield and/or safety glasses ( 1 ) , ear protection (2) , and a breathing mask (3) . A handheld blasting gun (4) requires gloves (5) , and an apron (6) is a good idea. The blasting cabinet (7) is downright tidy in comparison, but it limits your work space.

Untreated Plastic Beads/Walnut Shells Glass Beads Aluminum Oxide

D I Y A U T O / M E D I A B L A S T I N G


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inches. Larger self-standing cabi-nets with about 6 cubic feet of covered space are more expen-sive—as much as $1500 and higher. The media generally cost less than $50 for a 5- gallon bucket, and most media can be reused repeatedly. The other requirement is an air compres-sor that can handle a minimum of 80 psi at 5 cubic feet per minute (at least $200 if you don’t already have one). For larger objects, such as wheels or body panels, you can build a simple enclosure with 2 x 4s and plastic sheeting, although that also requires a handheld gun and personal pro-tective equipment (see page 114). For bigger projects, such as a car frame, it’s best to hand the job off to a professional shop.

Even though media blasting can strip the chrome off a bum-per, it’s not very good at remov-ing grease. Before you blast, make sure anything sticky or oily has been cleaned; otherwise, you’ll end up immediately fouling the media you just bought. The rule of thumb for media blasting is to use the lightest abrasive and lowest pressure necessary to get the job done. Don’t forget that the softer the target material, the gentler you need to be. Always test your material and pressure setting first on a section of the part that isn’t seen. Heavy media often leave a rough finish, so keep in mind that further polishing steps after blast-ing may be required.

You also need to watch out for flash corrosion, which can occur when moisture in the air rapidly oxidizes a newly exposed piece of metal. If this is a risk (don’t do anything when the humidity is above 75 percent), be ready to treat raw metal with primer paint or another protectant as soon as possible. You don’t want your shiny new surface to vanish under a fresh coat of corrosion.

Car Clinic

I’ve heard platinum spark plugs can get stuck in engines. Is this true? If so, is it possible to prevent?

Plugged Up

There has been a long-standing rumor, longer than the promised 100,000-mile lifetime of platinum spark plugs, that these plugs tend to get stuck in place. The concept behind the rumor is that because the plug is made of platinum, con-tact with the steel or aluminum of the engine’s head results in gal-vanic corrosion—surface degrada-tion that happens when dissimilar metals are in contact with each other in an electrolyte, in this case, water. The theory is that this process fouls the threads of the plug and fuses it in place.

The problem with this logic is that the threaded end of the plug that contacts the engine’s head isn’t made of platinum, it’s made of plated steel just like any other plug (and that plating should resist galvanic corrosion

B Y B E N WO J DY L A P H O T O G R A P H B Y J E F F R E Y W E S T B R O O K

with an aluminum head). The platinum component is the cen-ter electrode nestled at the core of the ceramic insulator. It never comes into contact with the rest of the engine. That being said, spark plugs of all types can be tough to remove after a few years in place. Whenever checking or replacing a plug, we like to dab a bit of antiseize on the threads, to aid later removal, before putting it in the plug hole. As always, never crank a plug tight with a socket wrench. Plugs on most cars and trucks should be torqued to about 20 foot-pounds.

Concrete Topcoat Apparently I drove my 2005 Dodge Ram 1500 Quad Cab pick-up through some wet concrete,

When you buy a platinum spark plug, it is the core that is made from precious metal, not the entire plug.

p


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POPULAR MECHANICS (ISSN 0032-4558) is published monthly except for combined July/August and December/January, 10 times a year, by Hearst Communications, Inc., 300 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019 U.S.A. Steven R. Swartz, President & Chief Executive Officer; William R. Hearst III, Chairman; Frank A. Bennack, Jr., Executive Vice Chairman; Catherine A. Bostron, Secretary; Ronald J. Doerfler, Senior Vice President, Finance and Administration. Hearst Magazines Division: David Carey, President; John P. Loughlin, Executive Vice President and General Manager; John A. Rohan, Jr., Senior Vice President, Finance. © 2013 by Hearst Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. Popular Mechanics is a registered trademark of Hearst Communications, Inc. Periodicals postage paid at N.Y., N.Y., and additional entry post offices. Canada Post International Publications mail product (Canadian distribution) sales agreement no. 40012499. CANADA BN NBR 10231 0943 RT. POSTMASTER: Send all UAA to CFS. (See DMM 707.4.12.5); NON-POSTAL AND MILITARY FACILITIES: send address corrections to Popular Mechanics, P.O. Box 6000, Harlan, IA 51593. Printed in U.S.A.

EDITORIAL AND ADVERTISING OFFICES: 300 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019-3797.

SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES: Popular Mechanics will, upon receipt of a complete subscription order, undertake fulfillment of that order so as to provide the first copy for delivery by the Postal Service or alternate carrier within 4 to 6 weeks.>>> Subscription prices: United States and possessions: $24.00 for one year. Canada and all other countries: $40.00 for one year.>>> Should you have any problem with your subscription, please visit service.popularmechanics

.com or write to Customer Service Department, Popular Mechanics, P.O. Box 6000, Harlan, IA 51593. Please enclose your mailing label when writing to us or renewing your subscription. >>> Popular Mechanics is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or art. None will be returned unless accompanied by a self-addressed stamped envelope.

MAILING LISTS: From time to time we make our subscriber list available to companies who sell goods and services by mail that we believe would interest our readers. If you would rather not receive such mailings, please send your

current mailing label or exact copy to Popular Mechanics, Mail Preference Service, P.O. Box 6000, Harlan, IA 51593.

AS A SERVICETO READERS, Popular Mechanics publishes newsworthy products, techniques, and scientific and technological developments. Because of possible variance in the quality and condition of materials and workmanship, Popular Mechanics cannot assume responsibility for proper application of techniques or proper and safe functioning of manufactured products or reader-built projects resulting from information published in this magazine.

which left a thin coat of dried concrete on the fenders behind the passenger-side front and rear wheels. Is there a way to remove it without damaging the paint? You could just leave it on for that “contractor’s truck” look, but there are several ways to address removal. If any of the concrete is thick, it’s best to start by gently tapping the surface with a rub-ber mallet. This will mechani cally break up the concrete and it will fall off. You may leave a few nicks in the clear coat, but those can be polished away. If it’s a thin layer that won’t break off, you’ll need to use weak acids to work on the chemistry of the con-crete. Begin with regular white vinegar and brush it on, letting it sit for a few minutes, then rinse away the slurry that comes up. Repeat as necessary. If you need to scrub any of the concrete, do so gently to make sure you don’t scratch the paint. If that doesn’t work, try using a concrete and mortar dissolver. It’s more expen-sive, but it also chemically breaks down concrete and does not con-tain a harsh acid that will create collateral damage. Once all the concrete is removed, you’ll prob-ably need to restore the surface with a light polishing compound followed by a good waxing. Don’t worry, it’ll look like new.

Wobbly WhoaI have a 2009 Lexus ES 350 with 55,000 miles on it. Lately when I hit the brakes, the car trem-bles. I looked at the front brake pads and they’re still good. What could be the cause and how should I fix the problem? It sounds like you have a classic case of warped rotors. Braking removes material not just from the pads, but from the discs as well. As rotors get thinner, they are more susceptible to warping because of the heat generated during braking. Although some-times you can’t see any irregular-ity, that’s what is causing shudder when a caliper clamps down. You can solve the problem in one or two ways. Remove the brake rotors and have them turned at a brake shop. This is a machining process where the surfaces are smoothed using a special lathe. First, though, the shop will mea-sure the thickness of the rotor. If it’s too thin, legally they aren’t allowed to turn the rotors.

The other (and probably more time-effective) option is to buy new rotors and replace your old ones. It’s a good idea to swap out the pads at the same time. At 55,000 miles, if you haven’t done a front brake job on your car, you’re not far off from having to do one anyway.

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Send your questions to [email protected] or over Twitter at @PopMechAuto or to Car Clinic, Popular Mechanics, 300 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019-5899. While we can’t answer questions individually, problems of general interest will be discussed in the column.

GOT A CAR PROBLEM? ASK BEN ABOUT IT.

Grinding TeethI drive a 2004 Ford Taurus and every once in a while turning the key to start the car results in a very loud and sharp grinding noise. Whenever this happens I take the keys out, put them back in and try to turn it over again. Sometimes it will hap-pen a second time, and other times the ignition turns over like normal and the car starts. This seems bad; what could it be? Your problem could be that the solenoid on the starter is giving out. To crank the engine, a small gear on the starter turns the large ring gear attached to the engine’s flywheel. To avoid spinning the starter when the engine is running, the starter gear by default doesn’t engage the electric motor—the solenoid makes that happen when you turn the ignition. Or maybe one of the gears associated with the starting process has worn down. The starter gear is usu ally made of softer metal than the ring gear and wears down first, so it’s unlikely anything is wrong with the flywheel. In either case, a new starter is in your future, and it’s better to do the job now before you get stranded. If you have the time and the starter is easy to get to, it’s a straightforward job. You just unhook the car battery, dis-connect the wires leading to the starter, remove the bolts that hold it in place, and replace it. Or take it to a shop—you should be in and out in a couple of hours. PopMech

WANTEDINVENTORSWe are gathering the finest minds in invention to solve some of the biggest problems in the world – water purification / desalination, efficient power / energy generation & distributed power, biofuels and any invention which helps the poor of the world.

We have the infrastructure (25 acres with 10 buildings), equipment and capital. The group will be comprised of several teams working independently and together (no politics). Currently, we have working prototypes in several areas. Limitations: work will only be done in areas which have significant effect on the world’s poor. There will be no long term research. Preferably using current technology to make new invention.

If you enjoy work, this is a great place. Decent compensation with interesting bonuses. Degree not required. Tell us what you have actually done (invented). The Board is comprised of Manoj Bhargava, Founder and CEO of 5-hour ENERGY® and Tom LaSorda, former CEO of Chrysler.

visit: www.hansinvention.comLocated in Farmington Hills, Michigan

Manoj BhargavaFounder and CEO of

5-hour ENERGY®

Tom LaSordaFormer CEO of

ChryslerWorldMags.netWorldMags.net

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WHO NEEDS A STAIRWAY? I’VE GOT AN

AIRSHIP!

EEDS WAY?WW

OT AN HIP!

AirshipA B R I E F H I S T O R Y O F T H E . . .

From glorified balloons to high-tech military vehicles, we look up the flighty past of dirigibles. BY AMANDA GREEN

1937: The Hindenburg, the world’s largest passenger zeppelin, bursts into flames while landing in New Jersey after a trans-Atlantic flight. The disaster kills 36 people as well as the luxury-airship travel industry.

1852: Henri Giffard flies full steam ahead—17 miles at 6 mph—in the first steam-powered, steerable airship.

1968: Keith Moon, drummer of The Who, predicts that guitarist Jimmy Page’s new band will “go over like a lead balloon.” Inspired, Page calls the group Led Zeppelin.

2013: More than 75 years after ending their partnership during World War II, ZLT Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik and Goodyear reteam to replace Goodyear’s blimps with a fleet of quieter, faster zeppelins that are still called Goodyear blimps.

1960: Televised sports gets a blimp’s-eye view when the Goodyear blimp films its first game at Miami’s Orange Bowl.

2012: Big Blimp is watching you. The U.S. Army launches a hybrid airship that can provide surveillance of an area for 21 days nonstop. The program is killed within six months.

2009: In the Disney–Pixar animated film Up, a cranky widower ties thousands of balloons to his home and takes flight. Three years later, cluster-balloonist Jonathan Trappe tries the stunt himself and soars 20,000 feet in the air.

1989: In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana and his father flee Germany on a commercial zeppelin. A Nazi tries to stop them, but his plans are deflated when Indy throws him out the window.

1895: Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin patents a rigid airship that combines balloon gas cells with a structural framework.

VON ZEPPELIN,

AWAY!

1785: Inventors Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries are the first to cross the English Channel in a hydrogen balloon. After nearly crashing, they lighten the load by bidding adieu to supplies, decorative oars, and even their pants.

enger ew Jersey

gg

6 people as J yJ

1925: After years of providing rubber envelopes for other airships, Goodyear launches the Pilgrim, the first in a fleet of iconic helium-filled blimps. The company soon goes on dirigible duty for the U.S. government.

VZEP

A

ors Jean-

NO TICKET.

AND BEYOND: Igor Pasternak, president and CEO of Worldwide Aeros, plans on building a 500-foot-long airship that can carry 66 tons of cargo.


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Documents

Popular Mechanics USA 2013-10