Swing da bat

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Swing da bat


Click to make the penguin jump and then click again in time to make the polar bear swing the bat to hit the penguin across the ice! Can become addictive !

The Wizard has scored 316.6 on the 14th try. Record your high scores under the comments...

mmmmuffins

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Did You Know.....

Locomotives are actually driven by ELECTRIC motors?

GM Electromotive SD70M

The diesel engine makes 3,200 horsepower, and the generator can turn this into almost 4,700 amps of electrical current. The four drive motors use this electricity to generate over 64,000 pounds of thrust. There is a completely separate V-16 engine and generator to provide electrical power for the rest of the train. This generator is called the head-end power unit. The one on this train can make over 560 kilowatts (kW) of electrical power.

This combination of diesel engine and electric generators and motors makes the locomotive a hybrid vehicle. In this article, we'll start by learning why locomotives are built this way and why they have steel wheels. Then we'll take a look at the layout and key components.

By going with a hybrid setup, the main diesel engine can run at a constant speed, turning an electrical generator. The generator sends electrical power to a traction motor at each axle, which powers the wheels. The traction motors can produce adequate torque at any speed, from a full stop to 110 mph (177 kph), without needing to change gears.

Steel Wheels

Ever wonder why trains have steel wheels, rather than tires like a car? It's to reduce rolling friction. When your car is driving on the freeway, something like 25 percent of the engine's power is being used to push the tires down the road. Tires bend and deform a lot as they roll, which uses a lot of energy.

The amount of energy used by the tires is proportional to the weight that is on them. Since a car is relatively light, this amount of energy is acceptable (you can buy low rolling-resistance tires for your car if you want to save a little gas).

Since a train weighs thousands of times more than a car, the rolling resistance is a huge factor in determining how much force it takes to pull the train.

The steel wheels on the train ride on a tiny contact patch -- the contact area between each wheel and the track is about the size of a dime, which isn't a whole lot larger than a tick:

The downside of using steel wheels is that they don't have much traction.

Traction

Traction when going around turns is not an issue because train wheels have flanges that keep them on the track. But traction when braking and accelerating is an issue.

In front of each wheel is a nozzle that uses compressed air to spray sand, which is stored in two tanks on the locomotive

This locomotive can generate 64,000 pounds of thrust. But in order for it to use this thrust effectively, the eight wheels on the locomotive have to be able to apply this thrust to the track without slipping. The locomotive uses a neat trick to increase the traction. In front of each wheel is a nozzle that uses compressed air to spray sand, which is stored in two tanks on the locomotive. The sand dramatically increases the traction of the drive wheels. The train has an electronic traction-control system that automatically starts the sand sprayers when the wheels slip or when the engineer makes an emergency stop. The system can also reduce the power of any traction motor whose wheels are slipping.

The Engine and Generator

The main engine in this locomotive is a General Motors 4,300 THP and the locomotive is equipped with EMD's 16-710G3C-T2 engine. The "710" means that each cylinder in this turbocharged, two-stroke, diesel V-16 has a displacement of 710 cubic inches (11.6 L). That's more than double the size of most of the biggest gasoline V-8 car engines -- and we're only talking about one of the 16 cylinders in this 3,200-hp engine.

The main engine in this locomotive is a General Motors EMD 710 series engine.

So why two-stroke? Even though this engine is huge, if it operated on the four-stroke diesel cycle, like most smaller diesel engines do, it would only make about half the power. This is because with the two-stroke cycle, there are twice as many combustion events (which produce the power) per revolution. It turns out that the diesel two-stoke engine is really much more elegant and efficient than the two-stroke gasoline engine.

You might be thinking, if this engine is about 24 times the size of a big V-8 car engine, and uses a two-stroke instead of a four-stroke cycle, why does it only make about 10 times the power? The reason is that this engine is designed to produce 3,200 hp continuously, and it lasts for decades. If you continuously ran the engine in your car at full power, you'd be lucky if it lasted a week.

Here are some of the specifications of this engine:

* Number of cylinders: 16
* Compression ratio: 16:1
* Displacement per cylinder: 11.6 L (710 in3)
* Cylinder bore: 230 mm (9.2 inches)
* Cylinder stroke: 279 mm (11.1 inches)
* Full speed: 904 rpm
* Normal idle speed: 269 rpm

This giant engine is hooked up to an equally impressive generator. It is about 6 feet (1.8 m) in diameter and weights about 17,700 pounds (8,029 kg). At peak power, this generator makes enough electricity to power a neighborhood of about 1,000 houses!

Here is the ELECTRIC part:

So where does all this power go? It goes into four, massive electric motors located in the trucks.

Propulsion

The traction motors provide propulsion power to the wheels. There is one on each axle.

Each motor drives a small gear, which meshes with a larger gear on the axle shaft. This provides the gear reduction that allows the motor to drive the train at speeds of up to 110 mph.

The traction motors provide propulsion power to the wheels. There is one on each axle

Each motor weighs 6,000 pounds (2,722 kg) and can draw up to 1,170 amps of electrical current.

...So now ya know!

*Howstuffworks.com

Remembering Matthew

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Coming Out Is Not Easy... When You're Married!

The Wizard's Coming Out Story
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Ever wonder what popping a water baloon in zero-gravity looks like?

Mis - Fortune Cookie

Fred Dingaling

A cop stops a car for traveling faster than the posted speed limit. So he asks the man his name.

"Fred," he replies.

"Fred what?" the officer asks.

"Just Fred," the man responds.

The officer is in a good mood and thinks he might just give the fellow a break and write him out a warning instead of a ticket.  The officer then presses him for the last name.  The man tells him that he used to have a last name but lost it. The officer thinks that he has a nut case on his hands but plays along with it.

"Tell me, Fred, how did you lose your last name?"

The man replies, "It's a long story, so stay with me."

"I was born Fred Dingaling. I know -- a funny last name. The kids used to tease me all the time. So I stayed to myself, studied hard, and got good grades.  When I got older I realized that I wanted to be a doctor. I went through college, medical school, internship, residency, and finally got my degree, so I was Fred Dingaling, MD."

"After a while I got bored being a doctor, so I decided to go back to school. Dentistry was my dream! Got all the way through school, got my degree, so then I was Fred Dingaling, MD, DDS."

"Got bored doing dentistry, so I started fooling around with my assistant and she gave me VD. So now I was Fred Dingaling, MD, DDS, with VD.

Well, the ADA found out about the VD, so they took away my DDS.

Then I was Fred Dingaling, MD with VD. Then the AMA found out about the ADA taking away my DDS because of the VD, so they took away my MD leaving me as Fred Dingaling with VD.

Then the VD took away my Dingaling, so now I am Just Fred."

The officer walked away in tears, laughing.

"I'd Like To Teach Dolphins To Sing...

 ..In Perfect Harmony...."

Dolphins sing 'Batman' theme

Scientists have taught dolphins to combine both rhythm and vocalisations to produce music, resulting in an extremely high-pitched, short version of the Batman theme song.

The findings, outlined in two studies, are the first time that nonhuman mammals have demonstrated they can recognise rhythms and reproduce them vocally.

"Humans are sensitive to rhythms embedded in sequences of sounds, but we typically consider this skill to be part of processing for language and music, cognitive domains that we consider to be uniquely human," says Professor Heidi Harley, lead author of both studies.

"Clearly, aspects of those domains are available to other species."

The studies will be presented at the joint meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and NOISE-CON 2005, which runs from 17 to 21 October in Minneapolis.

Learning to sing

Harley, who is associate professor of social sciences at the New College of Florida in Sarasota, says that both studies tested dolphins at Disney's Epcot Center in Florida.

The researchers first had an adult male bottlenose dolphin position itself in front of an underwater sound projector, called a hydrophone, that produced six different 14 kiloherz, 4 second rhythms.

The dolphin was rewarded for performing a certain behaviour to each rhythm. For example, when rhythm 1 played, it waved its pectoral fin and when rhythm 2 played, it tossed a ball.

The various rhythms were played at different frequencies and tempos to ensure the dolphin was recognising rhythms instead of just frequencies or sound durations.

Another adult male was trained to produce similar rhythms using a pneumatic switch, essentially a small, air-filled ball connected to a computer that then generated sounds whenever the dolphin pressed the switch.

"The dolphin was reinforced for producing a specific rhythm to a specific object," says Harley.

"For example, when we presented him with a Batman doll, he received a fish for producing a specific rhythm, in this case, a short sound and then a long one."

"If you recall the original Batman TV series musical intro you'll probably remember the way they sang 'Bat-maaaaaaaan'," she adds.

The dolphin spontaneously vocalised to the rhythms, so the researchers started to reward the male with fish whenever it matched its 'singing' to the rhythms.

By the end of the studies, the sientists could show an object, such as the Batman doll, which represented a certain rhythm-vocalisation combo to the dolphin, and it would create the correct sounds both vocally and using the switch.

Batmaaaaaaan

Gordon Bauer, associate professor of psychology at the New College of Florida who did not work on the studies, says, "This is the first report, to my knowledge, of a nonhuman mammal's ability to discriminate rhythmic patterns."

But Bauer doubts that dolphins realise they are producing what people consider 'music'.

"I think music is a human construct," he says. "I doubt that it has pertinence to animals, although the elements of music, such as pitch, time, timbre, rhythm, etc, may be incorporated into animal communication."

Harley agrees, and hopes the everyday vocalisations of dolphins will be analysed in terms of their rhythmic content.

In the near future, she and her team are planning to test the dolphins on their ability to recognise recordings of their own rhythms by having them associate their own sound creations with identifying objects similar to the Batman doll.

*Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

Why God made Mothers

 Answers given by 2nd grade school  children to the following questions.

 Why did God make mothers?
 
 1. She's the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.
 
 2. Mostly to clean the house.
 
 3. To help us out of there when we were getting born.
 
 
 How did God make  mothers?
 
 1. He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
 
 2. Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring.
 
 3. God made my Mom just the same like he made me. He Just used bigger parts.
 
 
 What ingredients are mothers made  of?
 
 1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.
 
 2. They had to get their start from men's bones. Then they mostly use string, I think.
 
 
 Why did God give you your mother and not some other mom?
 
 1. We're related.
 
 2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people's moms like me.
 
 
 What kind of little girl was your mom?
 
 1. My mom has always been my mom and none of that other stuff.
 
 2. I don't know because I wasn't there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.
 
 3. They say she used to be nice.
 
 
 What did mom need to know about dad before she married him?
 
 1. His last name.
 
 2. She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get drunk on beer?
 
 3. Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?
 
 
 Why did your Mom marry your dad?
 
 1. My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my Mom eats a lot.
 
 2. She got too old to do anything else with him.
 
 3. My grandma says that Mom didn't have her thinking cap on.
 
 
 Who's the boss at your house?
 
 1. Mom doesn't want to be boss, but she has to because dad's such a goof ball..
 
 2. Mom. You can tell by room inspection. She sees the stuff under the bed.
 
 3. I guess Mom is, but only because she has a lot more to do than dad.
 
 
 What's the difference between moms and dads?
 
 1. Moms work at work and work at home, & dads just go to work at work.
 
 2. Moms know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.
 
 3. Dads are taller & stronger, but moms have all the real power 'cause that's who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friend's.

Moms have magic, they make you feel better without medicine.
 
 
 What does your Mom do in her spare time?
 
 1. Mothers don't do spare time.
 
 2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.
 
 
 What would it take to make your Mom  perfect?
 
 1. On the inside she's already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.
 
 2. Diet. You know, her hair. I'd diet, maybe blue.
 
 
 If you could change one thing about your Mom, what would it be?
 
 1. She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I'd get rid of that.
 
 2. I'd make my Mom smarter. Then she would know it was my sister who did it and not me.
 
 3. I would like for her to get rid of those invisible eyes on her back of her head.

Jeff Foxworthy on Saskatchewan!

If you consider it a sport to gather your food by drilling through 36 inches of ice and sitting there all day hoping that the food will swim by, you might live in Saskatchewan.

If you're proud that your region makes the national news 96 nights each year because Regina is the coldest spot in the nation, you might live in Saskatchewan.

If your local Dairy Queen is closed from September through May, you might live in Saskatchewan.

If you instinctively walk like a penguin for six months out of the year, you might live in Saskatchewan.

If your dad's suntan stops at a line curving around the middle of his forehead, you might live in Saskatchewan.

 

If you have worn shorts and a parka at the same time, you might live in Saskatchewan.

If you have had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you might live in Saskatchewan.
 

YOU KNOW YOU ARE A TRUE SASKATCHEWANIAN WHEN!

1. "Vacation" means going South past Estevan for the weekend.
2. You measure distance in hours.
3. You know several people who have hit a deer more than once.
4. You often switch from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day and back again.
5. You can drive 65 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard, without flinching.
6. You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.
7. Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.
8. You know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter and road construction.
9. Your idea of creative landscaping is a statue of a deer next to your blue spruce.
10. Down South to you means Portal.
11. Your 1st. of July picnic was moved indoors due to frost.
12. You have more miles on your snow blower than your car.
13. You find 0 degrees "a little chilly." But it is still t-shirt weather
14. You actually understand these jokes, and you forward this post to all your Saskatchewan friends.

Polar Bears Can't Read!

Helping hand!

A little girl asked her mom, "Mom, may I take the dog for a walk around the block?"

 Mom replies, "No, because she is in heat."

 "What's that mean?" asked the child.

 "Go ask your father.  I think he's in the garage."

 The little girl goes to the garage and says, "Dad, may I take Belle for a walk around the block?  I asked Mom, but she said the dog was in heat, and to come to you."

 Dad said, "Bring Belle over here."

 He took a rag, soaked it with gasoline, and scrubbed the dog's backside with it to disguise the scent, and said "OK, you can go now, but keep Belle on the leash and only go one time round the block."

 The little girl left, and returned a few minutes later with no dog on the leash.

 Surprised, Dad asked, "Where's Belle?"

 YOU'RE GONNA' LOVE THIS!!!!!!!!!

 The little girl said, "She ran out of gas about halfway down the block, so another dog is pushing her home."

Ever Seen a New Zealand Hooker?

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Furby Autopsy

The Wizard just purchased a previously enjoyed Furby at the bargain price of $4.99. (Sells for $30 on eBay). Name of Toh-Lu. Got interested in how they work. This site is great! The Easter eggs are fun! I got Toh-Lu to hum "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star"!!!

Furby Easter Eggs:

1. Feed 3 times (waiting to finish talking each time)
Then pat his back
He will then burp 8 times

2. Another easter egg: Clap 3 times (so he hears and waiting to finish talking each time)
Then pat his back. he will then sing twinkle twinkle little star

3. Another easter egg: To find out your furbys name tickle 3 times
Then pat his back and he will tell you his name (it might not work the first time)

4. Another easter egg:Cover his eyes three times (waiting for him to respond each time)
Then pat his back. he will then say cocka-doodle do (x2) me love you

Click on the picture above to go to the Furby autopsy

Time Gets Better With Age

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Quiz Me!!

At the end of this, you are asked a question. Answer it immediately. Don't stop and think about it. Just say the first thing that pops into your mind.

This is kind of spooky!

Do not go to the next calculation before you have finished the previous one. You do not need to write or remember the answers, just do it using your mind. You'll be surprised. Handle each calculation seperately...

How much is . .
15 + 6
3 + 56
89 + 2
12 + 53
75 + 2
25 + 52
63 + 32
I know! Calculations are hard work, but it's nearly over..
Come on, one more..
123 + 5

QUICK! THINK ABOUT A TOOL AND A COLOUR, then Click here!

Giddy-up!

 

Surfer Dolphins

31 Signs the computer has taken over your life

1. Your stationery is more cluttered than Warren Beatty's address book. The letterhead lists a fax number, e-mail addresses for two on-line services, and your Internet address, which spreads across the breadth of the letterhead and continues to the back. In essence, you have conceded that the first page of any letter you write *is* letterhead.

2. You have never sat through an entire movie without having at least one device on your body beep or buzz.

3. You need to fill out a form that must be typewritten, but you can't because there isn't one typewriter in your house -- only computers with laser printers.

4. You think of the gadgets in your office as "friends," but you forget to send your father a birthday card.

5. You disdain people who use low baud rates.

6. When you go into a computer store, you eavesdrop on a salesperson talking with customers -- and you butt in to correct him and spend the next twenty minutes answering the customers' questions, while the salesperson stands by silently, nodding his head.

7. You use the phrase "digital compression" in a conversation without thinking how strange your mouth feels when you say it.

8. You constantly find yourself in groups of people to whom you say the phrase "digital compression." Everyone understands what you mean, and you are not surprised or disappointed that you don't have to explain it.

9. You know Bill Gates' e-mail address, but you have to look up your own social security number.

10. You stop saying "phone number" and replace it with "voice number," since we all know the majority of phone lines in any house are plugged into contraptions that talk to other contraptions.

11. You sign Christmas cards by putting :-) next to your signature.

12. Off the top of your head, you can think of nineteen keystroke symbols that are far more clever than :-)

13. You back up your data every day.

14. Your wife asks you to pick up some minipads for her at the store and you return with a rest for your mouse.

15. You think jokes about being unable to program a VCR are stupid.

16. On vacation, you are reading a computer manual and turning the pages faster than everyone else who is reading John Grisham novels.

17. The thought that CD could refer to investment finance or music rarely enters your mind.

18. You are able to argue persuasively that Ross Perot's phrase "electronic town hall" makes more sense than the term "information superhighway," but you don't because, after all, the man still uses hand-drawn pie charts.

19. You go to computer trade shows and map out your path of the exhibit hall in advance. However, you cannot give someone directions to your house without looking up the street names.

20. You would rather get more dots per inch than miles per gallon.

21. You become upset when a person calls you on the phone to sell you something, but you think it's okay for a computer to call and demand that you start pushing buttons on your telephone to receive more information about the product it is selling.

22. You know without a doubt that disks come in five-and-a-quarter and three-and-a-half inch sizes.

23. Al Gore strikes you as an "intriguing" fellow.

24. You own a set of itty-bitty screwdrivers and you actually know where they are.

25. While contemporaries swap stories about their recent hernia surgeries, you compare mouse-induced index-finger strain with a nine-year-old.

26. You are so knowledgeable about technology that you feel secure enough to say "I don't know" when someone asks you a technology question instead of feeling compelled to make something up.

27. You rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile tires.

28. You have a functioning home copier machine, but every toaster you own turns bread into charcoal.

29. You have ended friendships because of irreconcilably different opinions about which is better: the track ball or the track pad.

30. You understand all the jokes in this message. If so, my friend, technology has taken over your life. We suggest, for your own good, that you go lie under a tree and write a haiku. And don't use a laptop.

31. You email this message to your friends over the net. You'd never get around to showing it to them in person or reading it to them on the phone. In fact, you have probably never met most of these people face-to-face.