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Newly News (Lying Awake With John Newly #9)

1 May

May 1, 2015

Strange Theremin music plays in the background and continues for 45 long seconds. Music fades.

ANNOUNCER: This is Lying Awake with John Newly. Lying Awake airs seven nights a week across the country and spans the globe via the internet. Here’s your host, John Newly.

Hello, hi, and how are you? This is Lying Awake with John Newly and I’m John Newly, and you’re listening to Lying Awake with me, John Newly.There’s a lot going on in the news and we’ll jump right in to the big stories of the day, right after this.

-Commercial for Albert Moss Prepared Gourmet Survival Meals and Fine Wines.

-Promo for WKAT-AM charity Bootblack Blowout and BBQ Brunch. Bootblacks will be on hand to blacken your boots and baste your BBQ for a small donation.

ANNOUNCER: We’re back with more Lying Awake with John Newly. Here’s John Newly.

Radio_Times_5_Dec_1954

OK, let’s get right to today’s top headlines from around the country and around the world and even around the cosmos. NASA says that a meteor will pass so close to the Earth this week that it will actually be closer to Earth than the moon. With me now is our Lying Awake science professor-at-large, William C. Bogey. William, should we be alarmed about this meteor hitting the Earth?

-Hello John. Let me tell you and the audience that NASA has been LYING TO YOU! There is NO meteor heading for Earth! This is all a plot to cover up the secret alien moon bases. They’re distracting us with all this meteor nonsense to keep us from talking about the real space discoveries, like the cowboy hat the Mars rover photographed last week, or the fossilized painting of William Shatner that Neil Armstrong found on the moon. There are alien bases all over the solar system and let me tell all your listeners, John, that NASA will NEVER tell you the truth!

Wow, I always learn something new when we have William C. Bogey on. You can find his website at BigWillieStyle.com. Also in the news, a new study shows that that eating too much sugary candy can be bad for you. On the line is nutritionist Zelda Rumstock. Zelda, is it true what they say, that too much sugary candy can be bad for you?

-Yes.

In Missouri, a man panning for gold in a lake behind his house found something better than gold. He found a fossil of a rare clam. Gosh, I wonder if there was a whole prehistoric seafood dinner down there. Wouldn’t that be something? You can see all the pictures on our website. LyingAwakeOnline.com. While you’re there, take a look at my tour schedule. Next week, I’m going to be in Osaka Japan, Alberta Canada, The Falkland Islands, and someplace called “update your passport.” Oh, that’s a note to myself.

Coming up in our second hour, my guest will be Otto Mullich, a professor of psychology who claims that he has perfected the safest way to travel beneath the ocean without using expensive and bulky submarines. I’ll be back after the break. I’m John Newly and this is Lying Awake with John Newly.

Unpopular Science

15 Apr

April 15, 2015

A couple of issues back, Popular Science (their motto: we’re not really popular, we just have a big ego) published an article about how to build a DIY hovercraft. For those of you not in the know, DIY means “do it yourself,” which is what I plan to tell my kids someday.

So “Hey,” I thought. “I always wanted to ride around in a hovercraft.” So I read a little further and found that it was an article about how to build a DIY hovercraft out of a pair of paper plates.

Clearly I was not going to do much hovering on that.

But hey, I kept reading and for sure, I learned a few things.

1- I would need to go out and buy three small fans (with particular wiring requirements)
2- I would have to use a drill and attach the fans with certain screws that I would also have to buy somewhere to the paper plates.
3- I repeat- I would be using a power tool to put a tiny hole in a paper plate. Isn’t a safety pin good enough?

I already had the paper plates, but I did not have the fans with the particular wiring requirements, the right size screws, a bracket to hold the batteries, or the technical ability to follow the directions.

Making the “hovercraft,” and I use the term loosely as it is made of paper plates, required following a complex schematic and some precision drilling. And what did the article say I would end up with? I am paraphrasing, but it more or less said that I’d end up with an expensive paper plate that hovered an inch or two off the ground.

I’d get better results with a Frisbee and a dog in the park.

The month before, Popular Science had the directions to build some DIY electronic thing that had more warnings than your average Fukushima reactor. And what did it do? It was an umbrella stand that lit up when it was rainy out. Seriously.

Here is the actual hovercraft diagram from the magazine:

supplies-hovercraft

Helpful, isn’t it?

And here’s an actual step from the directions:

Saw two corners off each fan case, leaving the wired corner and the one opposite attached. Arrange the fans inside the top plate as in step 1, and pass nylon screws, from below, through the eight mounting holes in both the top plate and the fans.

Note that I have to use a saw to lop off part of the fans. For a paper plate toy!

I’m not sure this is worth losing a thumb over.

On their site you can also find an article on, and I swear I am not making this up, how to build a laser-sighted blowgun for only $3. What could possibly go wrong?