WD-40 Origin
Thanks to Chris Forbes at Knovel Corporation for explaining what the 40 in WD-40 means. He says, “It took them 40 attempts to get the water displacing formula worked out”. Chris also says that the name came from “Water Displacement perfected on the 40th try”. They obviously did a really good job because the original […]
Anyone Remember Heathkits?
In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, when I was a teenager, building electronic kits from Heathkit was my favorite hobby. During the Heathkit era which lasted from the late 1940’s through the mid 1980’s, it was possible to build a wide range of things from hi-fi/stereo and ham radio to computers, radio control, and […]
USB – What Next?
There is no end to the creativity of the technology industry. The USB (universal serial bus) had the primary goal of creating a more compact, instant, hassle-free way to connect a keyboard, mouse, printer, digital joystick, scanner, set of digital speakers, digital camera, or PC telephone to a PC. Prior to the sleek and simple […]
How To Fill A Pepper Ball
Of the many subjects I have written about on patrickWeb, the one thing that continues to elicit the most feedback is The Pepper Ball. I first wrote about it in the gadgets section of patrickWeb. For some unknown reason, it seems I have become the technical support department to the world’s pepper ball users! I have […]
Wind Chill (2003)
It was supposed to be a warm and sunny day. I had a long ride ahead of me from Pennsylvania through New York to Connecticut on Interstate 84. The temperature barely got above 55, and there was no blue sky or sun to be seen. A slight drizzle was in the air, although fortunately, I […]
