The best a man can get?

I've got a pretty tough beard and find shaving uncomfortable. However, I just got a new razor, a Gillette M3 Power.

It's got a battery and vibrates as you shave. It's great! It's made shaving a breeze. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Headspins after drinking

You know how the room spins after you've been drinking? Well, have you ever noticed that after a while it stops spinning, then starts spinning the other way?? Ever wondered why?

Balance is handled by a small blob of jelly called the cupola. It is in a small chamber and is attached to the chamber walls by lots of tiny hairs. When you move your head, the ball of jelly moves a bit slower than the chamber which bends the tiny hairs and indicates to the brain that you've moved.

When you drink alcohol, because it's such a terrific solvent, it gets just about everywhere, including in the cupola. The shape of the cupola is distorted by the alcohol, bending the hairs. Your brain interprets this as a rotational force (ie: you're spinning around).

In time the alcohol diffuses out of the cupola. However, by then your brain has gotten used to the the fact that your head is spinning and adjusted it's interpretation of the signals coming from the cupola. So it interprets your normal signals as seeming to spin in the opposite direction!

Quasiturbine engine

We've all driven piston internal combustion engines, right?

I've driven a Mazda RX-4 with a less common engine type, a wankel rotary engine.

One of the things that prevents a standard piston engine from revving harder is that the pistons have to accelerate and decelerate with every stroke. The momentum of the pistons is a major limiting factor. A rotary engine removes this limit by having all moving parts spinning, no acceleration and deceleration required. I can tell you, those engines rev like mad! The main downside of a rotary is that it doesn't completely burn the fuel, so it's not as clean.

Also, each piston only produces a power stroke once for every 2 revolutions of the driveshaft.

Welcome to the next step in this evolution, the Quasiturbine engine. It is far more efficient (it produces 4 power strokes for every revolution of the driveshaft! 8 times more than piston combustion engines) and burns the fuel more completely.

Can't wait until this is in a car... it will be fun to drive.