I saw this post on Make Magazine’s Blog while sittingn Portland Brew with Daryl and Carolyn from the Mid TN SORBA (southern offroad bicycle association). We met today to discuss rebuilding the www.sorbamidtn.org website in Wordpress.

The Make Magazine article states that the scientists had attempted to calibrate the fusion reactor using a stationary neutron emitter, but it wasn’t accurate enough, hence the toy train, which increased the accuracy ten fold! This is genius at work. The ability to go fr0m high level technological work (calibrating a fusion reactor) to a decidedly low-brow solution (toy train). Sometimes the simplest solution is indeed the best.

Frequently when I find myself stuck looking for a solution to a difficult problem, I need an outside perspective to help crystallize the solution. I wonder if something similar happened here.

Read the original article here: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/01/toy_train_used_to_calibrate_fusion.html

Buell understands technology, and has generated some of the most innovative designs in the motorcycle industry. Zero-Torsional Load (ZTL) brakes, underslung exhaust, fuel-in-frame. These are only a few of the innovations that make Buell unique in the motorcycle world, and more recently, envied and copied. Look at where many motorcycle manufacturers are moving exhausts these days (under the bike).

When Buell released the XB12X Ulysses in 2006, I knew that eventually I would have one. I test drove one on three separate occasions. In October of 2007, I brought one home. Most of the bikes I have had before have lost their appeal within a year or so of ownership, but not this one. I’m just getting started with it.

I originally saw this video on the Motorcycle.com blog, and had to repost it here. It captures a lot of the reasons why I ride one.

Buell Motorcycles – :30 Advertisement – Patents from paul on Vimeo.