Blogging is a useful way for me to record my
thoughts and digital travels every so often. Hope you enjoy my digital stream of consciousness. 
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February 28, 2009 
So there are two different types of solar hot water heaters: panels and evacuated tubes. The tubes are more expensive but give more heat and are easier to maintain. Here's a cool installation video for evacuated tubes. They are installing the OverTrop model solar collector I think.
I'm interested in solar collectors as a way of augmenting my geoexchange system. The idea would be to have solar collectors which use the geothermal well as additional head storage capacity. More on this later
February 23, 2009
More information about putting wind turbines on homes. They mostly talk about the Swift Wind Turbine sold at this home energy site which looks sort-of interesting.
The American Wind Energy Association, a trade group in Washington, recommends placing the turbine at least 30 feet above anything in a 500-foot radius, said Ron Stimmel, a specialist in small wind turbines at the trade group American Wind Energy Association, in Washington. “That way the wind can stretch its legs a bit.” For these taller towers, homeowners should be aware that they may have to deal with local rules prohibiting structures higher than 30 feet or so.
State and federal incentives will whittle down the price tag for many prospective buyers. For instance, about half the states have some sort of incentive, Mr. Stimmel said. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, for instance, covers up to half of the homeowner’s initial cost for a wind turbine.
Even though the governor is Ms. Drill Baby Drill, Alaska is installing wind turbines along its blustery tundra since although oil is nearby, the refinery and delivery costs to diesel generators are much higher than power produced by the turbines. Good for them.
In remote villages like this one, where diesel to power generators is shipped by barge and can cost more than $5 a gallon in bulk, electricity from renewable sources like wind is already competitive with power made from fossil fuels. In urban areas along the state’s limited road system, large wind and hydroelectric projects are also becoming attractive.
Alaska produces more oil than any state except Texas, but most of it leaves the state. Small markets and high transportation costs have kept local fuel prices high. As oil prices spiked last year, the state’s coffers overflowed with oil tax revenue, but the rising cost of diesel and other fuels became a local crisis.
February 22, 2009
A couple of great links courtesy
of Boing Boing: February 19, 2009
Scaled Composites has announced that it is one step closer to delivering to
Virgin Galactic its commercial space vehicles. They've announced that White
Knight Two has been completed. Looks like an amazing plane -- almost like two planes flying next to each
other. Other sources: Virgin Galactic. Christened "EVE" in honor of Sir Richard's mother, who performed the official naming ceremony, WK2 is both visually remarkable and represents ground-breaking aerospace technology. It is the world's largest all carbon composite aircraft and many of its component parts have been built using composite materials for the very first time. At 140 ft, the wing spar is the longest single carbon composite aviation component ever manufactured.
Driven by a demanding performance specification set by Virgin Galactic, WK2 has a unique heavy lift, high altitude capability and an open architecture driven design which provides for maximum versatility in the weight, mass and volume of its payload potential. It has the power, strength and maneuverability to provide for pre space-flight, positive G force and zero G astronaut training as well as a lift capability which is over 30% greater than that represented by a fully crewed SpaceShipTwo. The vehicle has a maximum altitude over 50,000 ft and its U.S. coast-to-coast range will allow the spaceship to be ferried on long duration flights.
There is increasing research that says that our drive for biofuels is doing more harm than good. Not only does the push into the forests to find farming land for biofuel crops destroying the tropical forests but researchers now believe that the the overall carbon footprint in the process is larger. This underscores (again) the need for us to find better energy sources. Solar and wind sure but ethanol and biofuels are a mixed bag at best. I still firmly believe that we will need to throw money at nuclear fission and fuison before we solve this. Sources: AFP, Woods Institute.
While the general consensus is clear that corn ethanol isn't as great as once proclaimed, biodiesel has somewhat escaped the criticism swarm (palm plantation biodiesel being the big exception). That may change now that a new study from the Woods Institute for the Environment has found that crop-based biofuels, any of them, will likely speed up global warming rates. The study found that, overall, biofuels pump "far more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than they could possibly save as a replacement for fossil fuels," according to the AFP. The study authors looked at 20 years' worth (1980-2000) of satellite photos of tropical areas and discovered that half of the biofuel cropland came from virgin rainforests. The imbalance of this deforestation means that it'll take somewhere between 40 and 120 years to pay back the "carbon debt." Algae and cellulosic biofuel sources can not get here soon enough.
I really feel that we are poised on the brink
of the electric car age. I'm not sure which year historians will pick when they look back to determine the
start of the era -- but it will be in the next 5 years. Here are 3 articles about the dawn of the next age of
automobility:
Charleston: ... here's the latest news on electric cars: The Smart ForTwo's electrical-power model will start sales here in 2010... The Chrysler 200C EV concept vehicle was shown at the Detroit Auto Show... The [GM] Volt has been scheduled for introduction in 2010... Toyota has announced it intends to start selling a brand new electric passenger car in 2012... rumors were flying last week about Magna International Inc. assembling Ford's upcoming electric model.
SFGate: [Ford] further announced plans for a battery electric commercial van next year, followed by a battery electric passenger car in 2011... Consumers are clamoring for General Motors to offer its eagerly anticipated Chevrolet Volt electric car, and the company promises that its engineers are toiling around the clock to meet a December 2010 deadline for that car's availability... Electric enthusiast darling Tesla was on hand, showing off its very limited production $109,000 two-seat sports car derived from the Lotus Elise... Chrysler showed electrified versions of several of its current production models and revealed a concept car called the Chrysler 200C, which forecasts the company's thinking for the styling of future midsize sedans while promoting the idea of electric drive... Daimler rolled out a trio of electrically powered Mercedes-Benz minicars, called Concept BlueZero...
Kiplinger: A confluence of technologies is giving plug-ins a big boost. Advanced batteries and new electronics are ready for prime time after years of research and dead-ends, says Aaron Bragman, an auto analyst with IHS Global Insight, a business consultancy. "Ethanol as a fuel to totally replace gasoline has been pushed aside as impractical for a while and hydrogen is the 'fuel of the future' and always will be," says Bragman.
February 18, 2009
The state of Oklahoma have signed legislation that demonstrates their interest in building nuclear power plants in the state. They want to streamline their regulatory processes and they provide incentives for companies to build plants there. Good for them.
Two bills were approved by the House Energy and Utility Regulation Committee Tuesday after nuclear power proponents warned that other alternative energy sources alone, like solar, wind and geothermal energy, will not be enough to meet future power needs as the state and nation reduce their reliance on foreign oil.
"Solar and wind will not cut it," said Raman P. Singh, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. Singh said nuclear energy production must be considered as the state and nation work their way out of an energy crisis.
February 17, 2009
Interesting piece from the 538 folks about the growth of household incomes over the past couple presidential administrations. Another black mark on Bush's legacy as it shows lower income folks losing while median and upper rise slightly. The Clinton administration looks balanced but that is easy to say during the false economic boom of the tech bubble.
Under Clinton, by contrast, the economy was a rising tide that lifted all boats. The poor, finally, did quite well for themselves, their incomes appreciating at about 2.5 percent annually, but the rich did just about as well -- in fact, the rich did better under Clinton than they had under Reagan and Bush. The rich/poor gap, if measured as a ratio, did not increase appreciably under Clinton. The 10th percentile saw their incomes increase by about 17 percent during his tenure, and so did the 90th percentile.
Finally, we get to #36, George W. Bush. Bush is getting a bit of a break here, in fact, because the Census Bureau does not yet have data online for 2008; the numbers will be even worse once it does. Nobody did especially well under Bush, but it was the poorest quartile or so who actually saw their incomes decrease.
February 16, 2009
I find this report by the DOE on Lithium battery packs for cars actually promising instead of depressing. According to the DOE we are somewhere between 2x and 3x of appropriate cost before we have wide adoption by the market. Given that we are at the start of the electric car age, I find this perfectly acceptable. More sources: DOE.
Cost – The current cost of Li-based batteries is approximately a factor of two too high on a kW basis. The main cost drivers being addressed are the high cost of raw materials and materials processing, the cost of cell and module packaging, and manufacturing costs.
...
Life – The calendar life target for hybrid systems (with conventional engines) is 15 years. Battery life goals were set to meet those targets. A cycle life goal of 300,000 cycles has been attained in laboratory tests. The 15-year calendar life is yet to be demonstrated. Although several mature electrochemistries have exhibited a 10-15 year life through accelerated aging, more accurate life prediction methods need to be developed.”
Professional cycling teams are starting to adopt the latest electronic shifting systems put out by Shimano and other manufacturers. The big improvement in technology is that you do not have to adjust the front derailleur while you shift the back, something that experts say disturbs a racer. In time trials especially, not having to move out of your tuck to shift is a real advantage.
The gains are more obvious, however, with the front derailleur, which moves the chain between the two large, toothed rings on the bicycle’s crank.
That is partly because the electronic front derailleur is able to make constant readjustments to reflect changes in the chain’s position caused by shifting with the more frequently used rear derailleur. That allows the electronic front derailleur to use a more efficient shifting mechanism, one that would drive riders to the point of distraction with fiddly readjustments on a mechanical system.
Interesting piece about how Dubai is struggling as the international financial collapse has hit it bad. What once seemed like a never ending place of growth and opportunity is now in crisis.
With Dubai’s economy in free fall, newspapers have reported that more than 3,000 cars sit abandoned in the parking lot at the Dubai Airport, left by fleeing, debt-ridden foreigners (who could in fact be imprisoned if they failed to pay their bills). Some are said to have maxed-out credit cards inside and notes of apology taped to the windshield.
The government says the real number is much lower. But the stories contain at least a grain of truth: jobless people here lose their work visas and then must leave the country within a month. That in turn reduces spending, creates housing vacancies and lowers real estate prices, in a downward spiral that has left parts of Dubai — once hailed as the economic superpower of the Middle East — looking like a ghost town.
French and British nuclear submarines collided early this month at the bottom of the Atlantic. It is an interesting glimpse into the cat and mouse games that nuclear submarines play at depth. I remember a friend who was a sonar operator on a hunter sub (think Hunt for Red October) implying that they bumped Russian vessels on occasion. Scary.
HMS Vanguard and Le Triomphant were badly damaged in the crash in heavy seas earlier this month. First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Jonathon Band said the submarines came into contact at low speed and no injuries were reported. Both the UK and France insisted nuclear security had not been compromised.
BBC defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt said the incident was "incredibly embarrassing" for the Ministry of Defence (MoD). She said HMS Vanguard, with "very visible dents and scrapes", had to be towed back into its home base at Faslane on the Firth of Clyde.
February 15, 2009
Interesting review of the Honda FCX hydrogen car. The author ends with the line "Just bring me one that I can plug in". Exactly right. For some reason Honda's CEO is against electric cars. Not sure if this is just fundamentally wrong thinking or some sort of view that the car companies cannot lose indirect control over the automobile power plant -- electric motors don't have many patents and associated Intellectual Property that corporations have a lock on. Electric cars have simple engines, no transmission, no coolant or emissions systems. Their simplicity also means a shocking lack of wear parts -- just about the only thing left is the brakes. Ultimately, this is what killed the GM EV1 and other electric cars IMO.
Face it: Fuel-cell technology has been eclipsed by vastly cheaper, here-now advances in batteries and plug-in electric vehicles. To knit together even the barest network of H2 refueling stations would cost billions. And, in any case, the fuel itself, whether produced by cracking natural gas or hydrolyzing water (consult your freshman chemistry texts), represents a horrible energy return on investment.
Some illustrative math: It takes about 60 kilowatt-hours of electricity to gin a kilogram of hydrogen from water. The FCX Clarity's tank holds about 4 kilograms of H2 and that gives it a range of about 270 miles on 240 kWhs. The all-electric Tesla Roadster has a 53-kWh lithium-ion battery and a range of 220 miles. So the Tesla's per-mile costs in electricity are roughly one-quarter what they are in the FCX Clarity.
February 12, 2009
Here's a cool little EV from Norway that is, unfortunately, only available there. It's a demonstration, however, that EVs are viable and there are few hurtles to making them available and reasonably affordable soon.
What should one do during the cold Norwegian winters? How about take an all-electric car out for a test drive, cruise on up the mountains and then spin out on a frozen drag strip? That's what our friends at Electricaid did with a Think City recently. Over three days, the crew got some beautiful shots of the car in action and then added their dry Norwegian humor, including a discussion of whether or not there is enough room in one of these zero-emission cars to get intimate with another person. Their verdict: yes, but you will be seen.
The review comes from the ElectricAid guys who have a bunch of cool content on their pages. They are also anti-hydrogen so they must be smart fellows. :-)
Two old satellites have collided over Siberia creating a cloud of pieces that may damage other satellites, the International Space Station, or future manned flights. Space monitoring has to track about 17,000 objects above 10cm in size that orbit Earth.
Richard Crowther, an expert on space debris and near-Earth objects, told BBC News: "It is unfortunate but inevitable, first that we would see such a collision in Low Earth orbit, and secondly - given the number of Iridium satellites in its constellation - more likely that the Iridium system would be affected rather than single satellite systems."
The commercial Iridium satellites comprised a network of 66 spacecraft up until the accident. According to Dr Crowther, from the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), the group also occupies "a very crowded altitude of low- Earth orbit".
So it was the 200th anniversary
of Charles Darwin's birth yesterday. Of all of the major educated/industrialized countries, only the US is
struggling with the theory of evolution -- how embarrassing. Back in 2005, during the height of the Bush
administrations' attack on evolution and increasing popularity of intelligent design, I wrote a rant entitled
Intelligent Design is not
Intelligent. I think it is a pretty good piece where I hoped to be somewhat balanced in my arguments.
The image on the right is from a great comic by Gary Larson which I've always loved -- click for larger.
Here's another piece on the struggle against
evolution here in the US. Happy birthday to Charles! Religious pundits brush off scientific evidence of millions of years of earth history and astronomical knowledge as "tests of faith". I think it is at least as likely that the bible is a test of faith -- that Christians must fine the nuggets of the word of god in the midst of a book mostly about the opinion of man. So much of our modern religious texts and thought has been created by men in a time when the religious institutions were the power brokers of the world having domain over all governments, wealth, and knowledge. Maybe the test of faith is in the rejection of the religious institutions born of man.
Either chaos or some intelligent power has put extensive evidence that supports theories of the foundation of our universe: eons of tectonic formation, ancient fossil records, redshifted light from distant and ancient galaxies, and evolution of the species. Maybe they are tests of faith but which way? Is it our challenge to believe in the wonders of the universe -- of infinite time and space -- or is it to treat them as an illusion designed to confuse us? Is it god who is asking us to refute the evidence of our own insignificance or is it the human religious power-brokers who controlled the religious texts and belief systems for millennia?
February 11, 2009
In a [good-ish] sign that electric cars are in the near future, there are hucksters who are selling cars reported to be electric but are most undoubtedly ''not'' on Ebay. Here's the auction in question which is over since there were no suckers. But this is a good sign that electric cars are enough on people's radar to attract the goons too.
Why do we think these cars aren't being offered by some ingenious entrepreneur type? For one thing, amongst all the pics shown, there are none showing what's under the hood or in the trunk. Another clue is that the "Lifepro 4" batteries the Toyotas are claimed to be upgraded with sound suspiciously like a bad over-the-phone translation of an actual battery formulation, LiFePo4 (lithium iron phosphate). We were totally convinced, however, by the seller's explanation that the exhaust pipes on the cars were due to the need to "vent the gas generator i use to charge the batteries." Had us totally fooled.
February 10, 2009
Here's an amazing video that someone put together of amateur
video from the ground with NASA audio during the Space Shuttle Columbia breakup over Texas as it was coming in
for a Florida landing. A piece of foam had broken off of the external fuel tank during launch and NASA
management had stifled engineering requests to examine the shuttle from spy satellites. A hole in the leading
edge of the shuttle wing resulted in her burning and breaking up. This was the 2nd time management had
directly been responsible for the demise of a shuttle craft and her crew. Other sources: chrisvalentines.com, newsday.com. KLING:
FYI I've just lost four separate temperature transducers on the left side of the vehicle, hydraulic return
temperatures. (pause) Two of them on system one and one in each of systems 2 and 3.
CAIN: Four hyd
return temps?
KLING: To the left outboard and left inboard elevons.
CAIN: OK, is there anything
common to them, DSC or MDM or anything? I mean, you're telling me you lost them all at exactly the same time?
KLING: No, not exactly. They were within probably four or five seconds of each other.
CAIN: OK,
where are those? Where is that instrumentation located?
KLING: All four of them are located in the aft
part of the left wing, right in front of the elevons, elevon actuators. And there is no commonality.
What is also spooky is that they found the video tape from inside of the cockpit shot from Columbia by one of the astronauts a couple of minutes before it broke up. Here's the story about the video. In a video about the crash, I remember them talking about how they found the video. They had been to a woman's house in Texas who reported finding a piece of Columbia on her property . The item was not a piece of the shuttle but on the way back to the car, they found a video cassette sitting on the site of the road. It was in perfect condition with no sign of the camera. Bizarre. The analysis of crash information was helped by the discovery by searchers of a data tape containing information from the shuttles Modular Auxiliary Data System.
The team concluded the foam broke away from the left bipod ramp 81.7 seconds after liftoff and hit the underside of Columbia's left wing two-tenths of a second later. The foam measured 21 to 27 inches long by 12 to 18 inches wide. It was tumbling at 18 revolutions per second. Before the foam separated, the shuttle -- and the foam -- had a velocity of 1,568 mph, about twice the speed of sound. Because of its low density, the foam rapidly decelerated once in the airstream, slowing by 550 mph in that two-tenths of a second. The foam didn't fall on to the leading edge of the left wing as much as the shuttle ran into it from below. The relative speed of the collision was more than 500 mph, delivering more than a ton of force.
A new comet has been discovered by Japanese star gazers back in June 2007 and will be visible with binoculars and may even the naked eye as it passes close to earth on 2/24.
The discovery was part of the Lulin Sky Survey project to explore the various populations of small bodies in the solar system, especially objects that possibly could pose a hazard to the Earth. As such, the comet has been christened Comet Lulin, more formally known to astronomers as Comet C/2007 N3.
This comet is the brightest since the surprising outburst of Comet Holmes more than 15 months ago and in the coming weeks will become favorably placed in the evening sky. During mid-to-late February it will probably be about magnitude 5 or 6, making it perhaps visible to the naked eye in dark, rural locations and easily observable in binoculars or small telescopes.
Fivethirtyeight.com is a cool left leaning political website which I frequented in the run-up to November and now watch their RSS feed. Here's a very interesting piece as they analyze previous recessions and try to forecast where our GDP and unemployment numbers are going.
One of the more persistent trends in the United States' postwar economic history is that the volatility in the performance of the economy has decreased over time. For example, from 1948 through 1969, the median change in the real GDP growth rate from one quarter to the next was 4.0 percent. Since 1987, however, it has been just 1.8 percent. A similar, although slightly less dramatic trend can be observed in the behavior of the unemployment rate. The economy, over time, has become increasingly sticky, stubborn, robust, stable, or whatever synonym you prefer. It has more inertial momentum than it once did.
Decreased volatility -- momentum -- is generally thought of as a Good Thing. And it is a Good Thing -- if the economy is expanding. Right now, however, the economy is not expanding -- it is contracting. And when the economy is contracting, reduced volatility may be an altogether different thing. It may mean that contractions are longer as well.
Wow. I knew that 1TB SATA drives were down below US$100 but here is one with an enclosure for US$80. What a deal. It would be a very nice Mac OSX Time Machine backup disk
for someone. I guess the drive is also "green" although I'm not sure what that really means these days. Fantom Drives GreenDrives yield average drive power savings of 4-5 watts over competitors' drives while maintaining solid performance. That power savings equates to reducing CO2 emission by up to 60 kilograms per drive per year - the equivalent of taking your car off the road for 14 days each year.
- Sustained Data Transfer (Maximum) : 68 MB/S
- Access Time : 8.5ms
- Bus Transfer Rate (Maximum) : 60 MB/S (USB 2.0), 300MB/S (eSATA 300)
- Form Factor : External Unit
- Connectors : 1 x USB 2.0, 1 x eSATA 300
- Host Interface : USB 2.0, eSATA 300
You probably have seen this before but here's a HUGE image of President Obama's Inauguration courtesy
of the robotic Gigapan System. Here's the guy's blog entry about the shot. The guy used 220 images from his Canon G10 and then stiched them
together to form a gigapixel image with the Gigapan software. The resulting file is 59,783 x 24,658 pixels or
1,474 megapixels. Very cool! The revolutionary robotic camera mount captures gigapixel images. The Epic allows you to capture brilliant high resolution panoramas with most point and shoot cameras.
The GigaPan Epic makes it easy and fun to create incredibly detailed panoramas, and works seamlessly with the GigaPan Stitcher and GigaPan.org.
This was in my "to blog" folder from July 2007 about the foreclosures happening in Atlanta 18 months ago. I think it is worth talking about now as the economy continues to call and foreclosures continue to happen. Obama's speech last night was good but the progress made an the lake of consensus in DC is frustrating -- as expected.
The real estate slump (in Atlanta) and elsewhere is likely to worsen, given that most of the adjustable rate mortgages written in the last three years will be reset with higher interest rates, said Christopher F. Thornberg, an economist with Beacon Economics in Los Angeles. As a result, borrowers of an estimated $800 billion in loans will be forced in the next 12 months to 18 months to make bigger monthly payments, refinance or sell their homes.
A big reason the fallout is occurring faster here is a Georgia law that permits lenders to foreclose on properties more quickly than in other states. The problems include not just people losing their homes, but also sharp declines in property values, particularly in lower-income and working-class neighborhoods.
Google is doing an initiative called Power Meter to have people post their electricity usage online. It's a program designed to have people be hyper sensitive about what they are using and to be able to affect their bills and they drain on the grid (and the world) by turning off appliances, computers, etc.. Very cool!
Our lack of knowledge about our own energy usage is a huge problem, but also a huge opportunity for us all to save money and fight global warming by reducing our power usage. Studies show that access to your household's personal energy information is likely to save you between 5–15% on your monthly bill, and the potential impact of large numbers of people achieving similar efficiencies is even more exciting. For every six households that save 10% on electricity, for instance, we reduce carbon emissions as much as taking one conventional car off the road (see sources and calculation).
At Google we're committed to helping enable a future where access to personal energy information helps everyone make smarter energy choices. To get started, we're working on a tool called Google PowerMeter which will show consumers their electricity consumption in near real-time in a secure iGoogle Gadget. We think PowerMeter will offer more useful and actionable feedback than complicated monthly paper bills that provide little detail on consumption or how to save energy.
February 9, 2009
Interesting piece about how VW is experimenting with putting heat recovery systems in the exhaust pipes of a car which is able to produce 30% of the electricity needed by the car when running. It uses the Seebeck or Peltier Effect to generate current from a heat differential.
Purportedly the thermoelectric generator is able to gain about 600W from a car running on a highway, meeting about 30% of the car’s electrical consumption requirements. For the moment, the thermoelectric generators haven’t been embedded in a hybrid car, although VW says with the current setup it can save about 5% of your fuel consumption (not 5L/100km, but 5% of 5L).
BMW and DLR (German Aerospace) also competed with Volkswagen by showing a system with a 200W output. They say it has been used for more than 12,000 km. They are both integrating TEGs with future gasoline powertrains. BMW even has them in their plan for the 2010 - 2014 Series 5 cars.
Went looking for the music that was in a Johnnie Walker ad
and found out that they have a whole line of really cool ads out there. Their android ad is very interesting and compelling from a
couple of angles. Not sure what this has to do with liquor but it certainly would grab my attention if I saw
it on TV. Their fish ad is also cool. I'm faster than you. I'm stronger than you, Certainly i will last longer than you. You may think that I am the future, but you're wrong. You are. If I had a wish, I'd wish to be human.
Stumbled
across this cool digital movie camera somehow. A lot of
directors are switching to shooting all digital with hard drives replacing film. In addition, they can throw
it up on a screen and immediately see if they got the shot. They preview, shoot, review, and edit in the same
format as they will be releasing the footage -- for movies, TV, or HD. February 8, 2009
Here are some details from the auto-bailout that was done in December. More good money after bad. One of the particular details that was noted by the AutoBlogGreen guys is that the car makers are no longer allowed to sue the states to block clean air laws. Kudos to Congress on this one!!
I thought GM had some balls to sue California to stop the state mandates on car companies and clean air while at the same time it was crushing their EV-1s.
The terms of any financial assistance under this Act shall prohibit the eligible automobile manufacturer from participating in, pursuing, funding, or supporting in any way, any legal challenge (existing or contemplated) to State laws concerning greenhouse gas emissions.
The dudes from Make have hacked up a Kill-A-Watt unit to wirelessly squawk power usage information so you can monitor the usage of a line
remotely. The Kill-A-Watt units are very good and produce interesting information about power usage. For
example, we figured out that our DVD player when on uses 95% of the power as when it is playing. It may seem odd to want to let everyone following you on Twitter know your power consumption, and yet, it's still kind of a neat experiment. If you're wanting to cut back on power use, having the information be public might help inspire you to keep up the good work. And a specially tweaked "Tweet-A-Watt" just might help you accomplish that without your needing to update your Twitter feed yourself.
The Tweet-A-Watt is a modified Kill-A-Watt. It has been entered by MAKE into the Greener Gadgets competition and will be an open-source project.
Here's a funny comedy piece
from the Letterman show reviewing what George Bush said he would accomplish during his presidency. Easy to
laugh about now but painful over the past 8 years. I firmly believe that Bush will go down in history as one
of the worst administrations ever -- the wrong guys in power at the wrong time. We'll see how Obama does in
retrospect.
Here's a cool little Linux client which costs less than US$100. They are low power and would make a nice little server or monitoring box for applications. I need to replace some DNS servers with these.
Bangkok-based Norhtec has unveiled a sub-$85 mini-PC claimed to be the most affordable Linux thin client system to date. The "ultra-low-power" MicroClient JrSX is based on a 300MHz x86-compatible SoC (system-on-chip) and includes both CompactFlash and 2.5-inch hard drive storage options, along with 10/100Mbps Ethernet networking.
Back in June 2007, Business week published a pretty cool analysis of who is doing what tasks on the Net. They've divided folks into creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators, and inactives.
So the story about USAir flight 1549 who hit birds and lost both engines while climbing out of NYC and then landed in the Hudson with no loss of life and minimal injury is a great one. I can't get over the movies and pictures of the incident. I guess the fact that so many of these end so badly that when things do go right, it's a miracle. Here's my copy of the air traffic audio. Other sources: FAA, ABC news, BBC.
Whenever they talk about the life jackets, I always turn to my wife and make a joking comment because successful water landings of jumbos are very rare -- almost unheard of. But after 1549, I think I'll pay more attention. Also, I really don't think that the crew of the plane are heroes. They were doing their job. They are, however, experts in their craft (both on the flight deck and in the cabin) and certainly deserve recognition for that. I think that the word heroes is over used and it lowers the meaning of the term when someone really does something heroic.
A very popular ap for the iphone is a digital ocarina by smule. It produces fabulous sounding music and only costs $1 for goodness sake. I must admit that I am tempted (time and again) to get an iphone but the $75/month for data/voice is way more than I want to pay these days. That's close to $1000/year for cellphone service. Bleah.
The ocarina is an ancient family of instrument (believed to date some 12,000 years), and one of the easiest instruments to learn. The Smule Ocarina both preserves this instrument and extends/transforms it for your iPhone. Blow into the phone/instrument. Control pitch with different fingerings. Learn to play countless melodies. Find out more about the history of the ocarina at Wikipedia.
Interesting hybrid engine which stores potential energy in compressed air instead of batteries like the Prius. There have been a bunch of alternative energy system that promised compressed air drive. This one seems more realistic although in the test-bed phase only.
The concept is simpler than that of an electric hybrid: the new hybrid engine has a compressed air tank connected to the engine instead of a battery unit. When required, e.g. when starting from rest or after changing gear, compressed air flows into the engine through an electronically controlled valve. If fuel is also injected, the engine responds quickly. Although the system used to control the valve is also technologically complex, this challenge can be mastered nowadays thanks to powerful algorithms and computer systems.
2021:
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