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The modern news consumer ignores Weblogs and online citizen journalism at his own peril. But not everyone has the time to keep track of what's going on the Web. With this blog we hope to track the highlights of what's being discussed online so when news breaks from the Web, we're ready.

Will Femia is a Weblog enthusiast who, through good fortune and dumb luck, was introduced to the form as his position as chat producer for MSNBC.com careered into obsolescence. On any given day, Will can be found having already spent an unhealthy amount of time squinting at a computer screen.

Send a message to Will at spotter@msnbc.com



Must-read of the day

Posted: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 9:58 AM by Will Femia

I read this article over my morning Cheerios and I can't recommend it highly enough:

Motorhead Messiah
Johnathan Goodwin can get 100 mpg out of a Lincoln Continental, cut emissions by 80%, and double the horsepower. Does the car business have the guts to follow him?

For Clicked readers with science interests it describes the creative ways this guy changes the car/truck engines to make them more powerful and efficient.

For Clicked readers with political leanings, it's a compelling story of our country's self destructive addiction to oil.

For Clicked readers who like human interest items, this guy dropped out of school in the 7th grade.

For Clicked readers who look for stories about the environment, this article is the kind of drug that keeps your hopes vested in the cause.

Good stuff. My one criticism is that turning a 9 mpg Hummer into an 18 mpg Hummer might be doubling its efficiency but really, that's still pretty bad - but then again, it's biodiesel.

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Comments

Thanks Will, I'm the "all of the above" clicked reader.

Luz, Florida (Sent Wednesday, October 31, 2007 10:39 AM)

It's worth noting the math on the Hummer example.  Going from 9 mpg to 18 mpg is still a low-mileage car, yes.  But if Hummers are still going to be on the road, then doubling its mileage makes far more sense than doubling a Prius' mileage.

Say you're picking between a 50 mpg Prius and a 9 mpg Hummer, driving 10000 miles a year.  Double the Prius' mileage to 100 mpg and over the year you save 100 gallons of gas.  Improve the Hummer's mpg by just one -- to 10 mpg -- and you save even more (about 111 gallons).  *Double* a Hummer's mpg and you'd be saving about 500 gallons.

Yes, yes, the Prius is the better option either way.  But so long as low-mileage cars are common, they're the ones to improve first.

Stephen Rochelle, Huntsville, AL (Sent Wednesday, October 31, 2007 11:26 AM)

Great read, thanks!

Reminded me of the Dirty Jobs episode with the biodiesel guy (maybe it's the same guy?).  All home grown stuff, efficent and non polluting.   Wish I was that clever.

Oz (Sent Wednesday, October 31, 2007 11:28 AM)

How big was that bowl of Cheerios?

Earlier this year a man using alternative fuel was fined by the government for using the highways withoug paying gas taxes. http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/599471.html




Bill, Raleigh, NC (Sent Wednesday, October 31, 2007 12:06 PM)

Great article... there must be some way for this guy to patent and distribute a basic conversion kit and franchise it out to a 'jiffylube' type engine conversion 'store'. It seems this can be done without waiting for Detroit to respond... they never will as long as their priority is profit margin and shareholder value... there is no reason not to see something become an option for 'regular joes/janes' in the next 5 years!

mark g, long beach (Sent Wednesday, October 31, 2007 12:16 PM)

A very good article. I hope this is required reading for all the engineers at the big three.

Don Osborn Loveland Colorado (Sent Wednesday, October 31, 2007 12:41 PM)

It's nice to have a forward thinker here in my perenially backwards thinking state.

Alex, Lenexa, KS (Sent Wednesday, October 31, 2007 1:14 PM)

Will - Sorry old chap but you didn't read the article.  He is turning the Hummer into a 60 Mpg (not an 18 Mpg) machine.  The 0-60 in 5 seconds doesn't hurt either.  

Don - Wheaton IL (Sent Wednesday, October 31, 2007 1:41 PM)

Wow. Thats the most inspiring article I've read in quite a while. Wonder how long before GM sues or Big Oil tries  dirty tricks to ground this before it really takes off...  

John T, Salt Lake City, UT (Sent Wednesday, October 31, 2007 2:24 PM)

Mark g, I don't want to feed conspiracy theories but the lore is that Detroit buys up these kinds of patents and shelves them.


Don, I meant the story of the H1 farther down the article: "After five days' worth of work, the Hummer was getting about 18 mpg--double the factory 9 mpg--and twice the original horsepower."

Will Femia (Sent Wednesday, October 31, 2007 2:57 PM)

We live on a lot of theory these days...not much practical work. This goes to show you what happens when take action and TRY.

Ingenuity is our American Dream. Getting behind something like this is what will transform our cynical down-on-America attitudes into real national man-on-the-moon pride.

Have you seen Joseph Newman's energy machine? Saw it on Discovery, I think, this weekend--very interesting. http://www.josephnewman.com

Stacy, Seattle (Sent Wednesday, October 31, 2007 3:38 PM)

Will,

The only concern I have is that this guy is "tweaking" existing hardware and that instead of encouraging this, Detroit will pull a "Verizon" and litigate the guy ala Vonage into an untenable position in which survival is less likely... it sounds like the engineers in Detroit are amazed by his skill and have embraced his mods... but the bigger question is how Big Wigs responsible for shareholder value view this guy... if they embrace him, will his ideas ever hit the market (or get buried by said conspiracy)?

Here's to reverse engineering!

mark g Long Beach (Sent Wednesday, October 31, 2007 4:11 PM)

None of this article seems credible to me. There's no reference to any actual data from "testing". I smell nothing but exagerations and nice round-number guesses at alleged performance improvements. BTW, I am a Mechanical Design Engineer who works in the Automotive Industry. If you share my scepticism, check this out... http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/30/153528/46

M. Kaijala, Elkhart, IN (Sent Friday, November 02, 2007 1:09 PM)

Thanks Mr. Kaijala, if the refutation hadn't come from a Daily KOS page, I doubt many would believe it (and judging from some of the comments on that page, many still don't).  It seems whenever the price of gas goes up, these stories come out of the woodwork because (like anything else) people *want* to believe them.  Then when the stories quietly disappear because they were BS in the first place, a "conspiracy" theory pops up to explain what happened to them.  Why would Detroit, with all its problems losing market share not want to jump on any technology that improves gas mileage by a significant degree?

KRW (Sent Friday, November 02, 2007 2:19 PM)



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