I have 2001 cummins n14 435+ hp engine. I got an engine tune up done about 4 months back. Now I got one injector dead about a week ago. And after it was fixed after a day another one is gone. Is it to do with bad tune up? or bad workmanship? fuel? I am just trying to figure out the reason.
Light Shows, Ray Guns and Blades: The Laser is 50 [Lasers]
The original "solution looking for a problem," the laser is now 50 years old. This gallery charts the evolution of a technology that underpins everything from the fibre-optic backbone of the internet to the search for clean fusion energy. More »
Laser - Physics - Business - Optoelectronics and Fiber - Electronics and Electrical
Keeping A Cancelled Rocket Alive
Obama's NASA plans in peril?, Orlando Sentinel
"NASA itself also appears to be hedging its bets that the president's vision might not pass muster with Congress. KSC officials and contractors, under direction from Johnson Space Center and NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, are pressing ahead with plans for test flights of a multibillion-dollar Ares I rocket that Obama wants to cancel. Meanwhile, big aerospace contractors are trying to sell members of Congress on a new $8 billion rocket that could be fashioned from pieces of the space shuttle, which is supposed to be retired later this year. Last week, a group of contractors led by aerospace giant Boeing Co. met Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., to push the new rocket idea. Nelson previously has backed more Ares test flights."
Volcano shocker | Bad Astronomy
This is amazing footage of shockwaves erupting a week or two ago from the volcano Eyjafjalajökull (which I believe is pronounced Gugliucci):
Amazing! There is a lot of gas trapped inside the rising magma under the volcano. When it gets near the surface, the gas can escape violently, exploding and creating shock waves. These waves travel through the smoke and ash already in the air, compressing them, and you can see this as a darkening in the plume. This volcano is still erupting and still causing massive screwups in air traffic over Europe. The last big eruption lasted for two years, so we may need to sit back and think about that for a while.
Tip o’ the lavabomb to Fark.
Florida Legislature Acts To Support Space Sector
Unanimous Support by Florida Legislature Facilitates Competitive Space Industry in Florida
"Florida's space industry remained a forefront issue for legislators throughout the 2010 legislative session, which concluded on April 30. Faced with the impending Shuttle retirement (expected to result in 23,000 direct and indirect job losses, contributing to significant economic impact across the state), the legislature voted to unanimously support critical legislation designed to stimulate economic development and promote aerospace industry jobs."
Apple Wants Your Heartbeat to Unlock Your iPhone [Apple]
Hey Baby, Wanna Come Over and Try My New iPad? | Discoblog
If the mere mention of an iPad sets your pulse raising and your heart thumping, if there's nothing you like better than gliding your fingers over the sleek screen of an iPhone, then you should know that there will soon be an online dating site just for people like you. A new site called Cupidtino promises to help Apple fans find each other, and find happy geek love.
The site will launch in June, but rabid Apple fans can sign up now to be included in the beta version, and can follow Cupidtino on Twitter.
Why start a dating site for such a narrow slice of humanity? According to the site:
Diehard Mac & Apple fans often have a lot in common – personalities, creative professions, a similar sense of style and aesthetics, taste, and of course a love for technology. We believe these are enough reasons for two people to meet and fall in love.
To mark this fine occasion, Flavorwire brainstormed some pickup lines that might work on a Cupidtino participant. A couple of our favorites:
“Is your daddy Steve Jobs? ‘Cause your case is lookin’ finer than a new MacBook Pro’s.”
“Baby, I’m all the AppleCare you’ll ever need.” Related Content:
Discoblog: Video: Google ...
ET-137 Heading to KSC
ET-137 being loaded into Pegasus. Click for a larger version. Image credit: Lockheed Martin / Michoud Operations
The next to the last External Tank for the shuttle shown here being loaded into a barge after leaving at the Michoud Assembly Facility and bound for the Kennedy Space Center.
The External Tanks are way too large to be moved over the highway or rail systems so they are moved by an enclosed barge called the Pegasus. The tank was actually loaded on the first of the month but high winds delayed the departure. The journey is about 900 miles and will take six days to accomplish. The tank will arrive on May 9, 2010 and will be mated to the shuttle Atlantis for the scheduled May 14 launch date.
The final ET is being built and is scheduled to be completed next month. Another tank called ET-122, damaged in Hurricane Katrina, is being constructed and it is a “spare launch on-need” tank. These will mark the end the tank building activities for Lockheed Martin after building 133 tanks over 29 years.
There is a website for Michoud Operations with more (and larger) images and links to some pretty interesting PDF files. One of the files, titled: Space Shuttle External Tank Statistics and Comparisons, I found to be especially interesting.
Here are some highlights:
- The tank is 154 feet (46.9 m) long with a diameter of 27.6 feet (27.8 m).
- The tank supplies propellant (liquid Oxygen and Hydrogen) at a rate of 1,035 gallons per second.
- The propellant temperature: Liquid Oxygen -297oF (-183 C) / Liquid Hydrogen -423oF (-253 C)
- The foam covering the tank is only about one inch thick (2.54 cm), yet it protects the super cold propellant insulated from the aerodynamic friction that can heat some parts of the tank to 1,800oF (982 C)
- The aluminum skin of the tank is less than 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) thick. Of course it’s a special alloy of aluminum and not like a soda can.
- The ratio of the tank weight to the weight it can carry is 1:27 compared to a “standard” pickup of 3:1.
So, I wonder what is to become of the employees at Michoud? I wish them the best of luck.
Linear Motors
Can anybody help me about designing a linear motor with maxwell v.10?
Or is there anybody who design a linear motor?Need help!!
Star Wars Pregnancy Announcement [Image Cache]
Few of mankind's inventions have approached the sheer geekiness of this well-edited Star Wars pregnancy announcement. Also, I always suspected that targeting an egg with my seed would be no harder than bullseyeing a womp rat in a T-16. [NeatoBambino] More »
starwars - Science fiction - Games - Roleplaying - Recreation
Harvard Kennedy School Write-Up of Science Blogging Event | The Intersection
See here. It is a good summary of last week's blogging conference, with commentary from sponsor Sheila Jasanoff, head of the science and technology studies program at the Kennedy School:
Throughout the day, panelists touched on topics including blogging as a business, the perks and pitfalls of the Web as a medium to distribute scientific information, what makes responsible blogging, how to handle false information spread through the blogosphere, and the norms and expectations of the science blogging community. The final panel explored the issue of “what needs fixing” in the blogosphere during which panelists discussed the responsibility and mechanisms by which the science journalism and law communities have to address these problems.
“It was interesting to see that speakers with law backgrounds were generally extremely reluctant to impose any controls on speech in the blogosphere, whereas some science writers felt that there was a need for stricter standards, and maybe even a system of independent ratings of the reliability of science blogs,” said Jasanoff. “Another interesting insight was that blogging under an assumed identity — ‘pseudonymous’ blogging — may allow socially valuable information to be conveyed that a blogger with a known identity might not risk communicating. This runs contrary to ...
NFPA 70E
I have a generator room and was wanting to set the Instantenous portion very high or not at all to coordinate better with my downstream devices and the alternative to that is very high arcflash. So here is my thought I tie the door contacts and motion sensor for the room into the instantenous porti
Netboooks Are Dead, Baby, Netbooks Are Dead [Chart]
Full, ultra-light notebook computers prices falling quickly. The arrival of the iPad and other tablets. Underpowered to the point of uselessness. Cramped designs. All reasons for the death of the netbook. So long, netbooks—you won't be missed. [Fortune] More »
Hardware - Baby - Notebooks and Laptops - Netbook - Shopping
Conveyor Zero Speed Switch
In conveyor system using ZSS in tail pulley for detecting low spped when low spped occurs(problem in belt, belt cut) it sence the low signal and gives to PLC, PLC trip the conveyor. We using KANA ZSS relay sensor.
I want to know a proper interlock in PLC by logic. Presently no interlock in our
PTFE FLUOROGOLD – Joining sheets
Hello, I'm a Mechanical Engineer from Australia. I am involved in a project that requires the use of a very large PTFE slide plate, basically a large pipe support with stainless steel plate welded to the pipe support and slides on PTFE. The support is exposed to sun light, dusty dry conditions and v
Gulf Oil Spill: Do Chemical Dispersants Pose Their Own Environmental Risk? | 80beats
The storm of news about the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has reached a relative lull today, as the oil company preps for its containment dome project that it will try to execute over the next several days. With a moment to take a break from the constant news updates, reports are starting to ask: What’s with all that chemical dispersant responders have been dumping on this spill?
The stuff is called Corexit, made by the Nalco Company, and BP has now dumped about 160,000 gallons of it in the Gulf (as well as pumping 6,000 gallons more all the way down to the leak location). The dispersant particles bind to oil, sink, and are carried away by ocean currents. But while that could help keep a spill from reaching the shores en masse, it means the oil isn’t actually “cleaned up,” but rather diluted. And the dispersant chemicals themselves can be dangerous, as Nalco’s own documents (pdf) show.
The 10-page documents go into detail about compounds that must be handled with great care in their original form, that should not touch the skin and can damage lungs. Although the documents state that the potential environmental hazard is “moderate,” they say that when used as directed at sea in the recommended amounts the potential environmental exposure is “low” [The New York Times].
The company says Corexit contains no toxic metals or carcinogens. But it has refused to divulge the full chemical composition, calling it proprietary information. That’s annoyed environment groups that want to know exact what we’re putting into the sea in such mass quantity. Still, with the number of options dwindling and oil continuing to gush into the Gulf, some of those groups have come to accept chemical dispersants as the lesser of two evils.
“It’s basically a giant experiment,” said Richard Charter, a senior policy adviser with Defenders of Wildlife. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t do it; we have no good options” [AP].
Another eyebrow-raiser is the choice of chemical. While the United States is familiar with Corexit from having used it previously, Wired.com reports that there are better alternatives on the market, like Dispersit.
Both Corexit and Dispersit were tested by the EPA, and according to those results, Corexit was 54.7 percent effective at breaking down crude oil from the Gulf, and Dispersit was 100 percent effective. Not only did Corexit do a worse job of dispersing oil, but it was three times as lethal to silverfish – used as a benchmark organism in toxicity testing — and more than twice as lethal to shrimp, another benchmark organism and an important part of Gulf fisheries [Wired.com].
Previous posts on the BP Oil Spill:
80beats: BP Will Tow a Containment Dome to the Oil Leak Site Today
80beats: Is the Gulf Oil Spill Headed for Florida & North Carolina?
80beats: Gulf Oil Spill: Fisheries Closed; Louisiana Wetlands Now in Jeopardy
80beats: Gulf Oil Spill Reaches U.S. Coast; New Orleans Reeks of “Pungent Fuel Smell”
80beats: Uh-Oh: Gulf Oil Spill May Be 5 Times Worse Than Previously Thought
80beats: Coast Guard’s New Plan To Contain Gulf Oil Spill: Light It on Fire
80beats: Sunken Oil Rig Now Leaking Crude; Robots Head to the Rescue
80beats: Ships Race To Contain the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
Image: U.S. Coast Guard / Petty Officer 2nd Class Andrew Kendrick
Pad Abort 1 Test Successful
"NASA successfully tested the pad abort system for the Launch Abort System developed for the Orion crew exploration vehicle at 9 a.m. EDT. The 97-second flight test is called the Pad Abort 1 test, or PA1. It is the first fully integrated test of the Launch Abort System developed for Orion. The test took place at the U.S. Army's White Sands Missile Range near Las Cruces, N.M."
25 Ideas Show How To Survive Climatic Disasters [Disasters]
When the apocalypse hits, how do you plan on surviving? A German exhibition is exploring ideas from 25 artists, the best of which are below—take your pick of how you're going to continue existing. More »
Disaster - Philanthropy - Disaster Relief and Recovery - Emergency management - Preparedness
Do Scientists Value Teaching? | The Intersection
There have long been complaints that teaching gets relatively short shrift in academe--especially at major research universities--and that what everybody really values is research. Well, there's some new data out on the topic--a survey by Nature Education, reported on by Times Higher Education:
The analysis is based on a survey of 450 university scientists from more than 45 countries who have both undergraduate teaching and research responsibilities.
It states that while in theory most consider teaching to be as important as research, their actions suggest otherwise.
While 77 per cent say that teaching and research are equally important and only 7 per cent say that research takes precedence, when asked to select a candidate for a role involving both duties, 48 per cent chose a star researcher with no significant teaching experience.
The report says that the respondents believe that this is the appointment their institution would want them to make, adding that despite missions to educate, most top-level universities are "far more interested" in pursuing a research than a teaching agenda.
It notes that such institutions tend to "direct more funding, awards and job security to outstanding researchers than outstanding teachers". You can read the full report on the Nature Education study here. My take: We ...
Barbie as Engineer?
Talk about gender egalitarianism: here's a Barbie doll, that 50-year old cultural icon that has manifested herself in more than 100 versions, now to appear (autumn, 2010) as an engineer. Reasonably liberated males who don't dwell on gender stereotypes will no doubt welcome this addition to the colle