DashCams and Space Pens . . .
I spent the afternoon finishing up a couple of things on our truck for our trip tomorrow.
After I filled up the windshield washer fluid tank with the Rain-X washer fluid I got at Wal-Mart yesterday. I’ve used this stuff for years and it really works. During light to medium rainstorms you don’t even have to turn the wipers on. The water just beads up and rolls up the windshield.
Then I installed my latest new toy.
A week or so ago I found this article on Road and Track’s site about the Top 5 Best Dashcams. And their favorite was the cheapest one at around $50. Then in one of those serendipitous things, a few days later I got an online ad from Amazon listing the $50 cam for $30 so I ordered one. Amazon DashCam
It was quickly installed and configured. I like the bigger screen and larger, easier to use buttons. We’ll give a good try-out on our trip tomorrow and I’ll let you know.
Well it was a lot of work but we now have all our Christmas lights up in the rig.
I think the one most impressed with them was Karma. After I put them up, she got on the kitchen counter and just stared up at them for about 20 minutes.
Over the years we slacked off our decorating. This was what we did in 2009, our first Christmas in our rig.
Talking about Karma, this afternoon she jumped up on the back of the sofa and was chasing something in the front end of the window, pawing at it. Then I heard a ‘yelp’ and Karma started licking her left paw. Looking down in the window track I found a honey bee. Don’t know how it got in, but I got rid of it.
Karma only licked at her paw for a few minutes and then it didn’t seem to bother her any more. I looked at it awhile later and it wasn’t swollen and didn’t seem to be tender, so I guess she’s OK.
This afternoon I came across this graphic on Facebook and couldn’t resist making a comment correcting all the misinformation in it.
And here was my comment.
Having spent 10 years at JSC on the Shuttle program, I can tell you why NASA didn’t use pencils. Pencil ‘lead’ is graphite. And graphite is electrically conductive.
When you use a pencil in space the tiny graphite particles shed by the pencil float off around the cockpit, coming to rest everywhere, inside instruments, electronics, etc., causing random shorts and problems. With the wrong short at the wrong time, you could lose a spacecraft.
While the part about the Russians using a pencil is true, the rest is just completely wrong.
Paul Fisher of the Fisher Pen Co. spent $1 million of his OWN money to develop the Fisher Space Pen for sale to the public. In 1968 Fisher sold 400 pens to NASA for $2.39 a pen, a 40% discount from the retail $3.98 because they bought in bulk.
In 1968 the Russians saw the light and ordered 100 pens and 1000 refills for their space program.
Then in 1969 the Apollo 11 crew used parts of a Space Pen to fix a broken rocket engine arming switch, letting them make the return trip back to Earth
A pretty good deal for $956 of Fisher Space Pens. And a lot better than the fictitious $12 Billion.
Oh, yeah. The pen won’t work at 300°Celcius either. That’s 572°F. The pen would melted long before that. As well as the person using it.
Thought for the Day:
If life hands you lemons, you’re less likely to have scurvy.
adsfasdf
