Lost in Space

add water in your gas tank

Published on 17 Aug 2008 at 1:19 pm. No Comments.
Filed under green.

Is this shit for real?

Supposedly, for the price of a $50 kit, I can get 60% better mileage from my car.

The following site claims to evaluate 3 different manufacturers that do similar things…

Finding a site that tells it how it is seems a struggle on google, but i finally bumped into an article on popular mechanics that seems to tell some truth. However, the article suggests that people are seeing improved mileage as a result a placebo effect combined with changing their driving habits. Hang on…I could see a 10% improvement, perhaps, by people driving differently, but 60%? That can’t explain it all…

I’m thinking that for $50 it might be something worth experimenting with. If nothing else, it might be fun and then I can post my own results. All my cars have everything controlled by computer, though, so I may have to add a computer to control some of the engine specifics, and even then I might not be able to tweak the right things. From the additional reading that I’ve done, the best results have come from older cars…cars that don’t have everything run by computer. The jeep forum suggests that tweaking the fuel mix to lean alone won’t do it, that you need slightly adjust the timing as well.

Anyway, I have another energy project to focus on today…namely, I suspect there is a leak in my downstairs cooling system somewhere. Perhaps I’ll ponder spending $50 on the car kit if I can save $50 in electricity next month on my cooling bill.

a different nick-nack for the executive desk

Published on 16 Aug 2008 at 10:01 am. No Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.

Something like this would make a great birthday or christmas present for a geek like myself.

http://www.ltd-stirling.de/id48.htm

I’ve recently gotten interested in stirling engines as a way to make electricity from solar heat. Seems like it would be a much better solution than the idea I had to make a steam turbine…the problem is that it seems hard to find a commercial-grade Stirling engine like the ones they use at Stirling Energy Systems.

Carbon nanotubes != tubes of Carbon Fiber

Published on 22 May 2008 at 6:37 pm. No Comments.
Filed under Sci Fi.

From the sdmb mailing list

On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 05:30:38AM -0700, Paul Pineo reportedly typed:
Carbon nanotubes found in bikes likened to asbestos
By Mark Appleton
According to research conducted at the University of Edinburgh and published in the Nature Nanotechnology Journal this week, current assumptions about the safety of carbon nanotube technology may be dangerously wide of the mark. The material is widely used in the cycling industry as part of frames, forks steerers and seat tubes, which are regularly cut to size by professional and even home mechanics. But the potentially worrying news for those who work with the substance is that the needle-like structure of nanotube molecules mean they could behave in the same way as similarly shaped asbestos particles once inside the human body.

In practice this means that if inhaled, when for instance a frame is being manufactured, or a stem or seatpost is cut to length, their presence could lead to mesothelioma, a cancer affecting the lining of the lungs. Asbestos particles are known to be dangerous because they are small enough to be ingested deep inside the lungs and yet their shape does not allow the organs to get rid of them as it would with dust or other suspended particulate matter we regularly breathe in. In the Edinburgh experiments, when mice were exposed to nanotube molecules the result was ?asbestos-like pathogenic behaviour? which saw the animals developing inflammations and the formation of lesions known as granulomas. The scientists involved in the tests have called for a more cautious approach to the introduction of the material to the general market and suggested there is a pressing need for further research into the effects of exposure. “This is a wakeup call for nanotechnology in general and carbon nanotubes in particular,” said Dr. Andrew Maynard, Chief Science Advisor to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies and a co-author on the paper. “As a society, we cannot afford not to exploit this incredible material, but neither can we afford to get it wrong as we did with asbestos.”

I am more than a little suspicious about some of the factual content in this article.It all looks potentially correct as far as carbon nanotubes are concerned. It is a fairly new material invented only a few years ago and there was quite a bit of safety and health testing to be done on the material when I last read about it. See this recent article.
There is a secondary problem, though, and that is that no one has yet figured out how to manufacture carbon nanotubes in sufficient quantity to use them in normal manufacturing processes. An article from February of this year mentions a company finally able to make 3′x6′ sheets of the stuff.

I suspect the author of the article probably took journalistic liberty or just got confused when stating that carbon nanotubes are used in frames, fork steerers and seat tubes…I suspect they got carbon nanotubes mixed up with tubes of carbon fiber, which is not the same thing!

Just to give you an idea of what carbon nanotube technology offers, imagine your current bike frame weighing ounces rather than a whopping 4 lbs. Imagine all your bike parts being made out of a material that is 200 times as strong as steel but 1/30th the weight. The stuff is so light and strong that it could be the material we’ve been waiting for to realize Arthur C. Clarke’s prediction of an elevator to space, although current tests have failed in that regard…

Enjoy…

Dave “science geek” Siegel

Dear Santa

Published on 10 Dec 2007 at 4:16 pm. No Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.

Since I have wanted this stuff for a couple years now and you haven’t been able to read my mind, here is my christmas wish list.

Music stuff

POD X3 Live: a cool floor modeller/effects processor. The older model (POD XT) only did guitar, but this one has bass and vocal stuff built in now as well.

BOSS Loop station: a little floor unit that lets you record a rhythm riff, play a guitar solo over the top and/or sing with it.

New Video Card: the Nvidia 8800 GT is a great video card, and is finally coming down in price a bit (was over $600 a year ago) to be a reasonably good deal.

july 4th pictures posted

Published on 10 Jul 2007 at 10:34 am. No Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.

I am just tickled pink with how some of these pictures of fireworks came out.

the full gallery is here

7 deer stumbled across our property

Published on 20 Mar 2007 at 5:32 pm. No Comments.
Filed under photography.

and I caught a few pictures

proof that girls are evil

Published on 20 Mar 2007 at 11:05 am. No Comments.
Filed under jokes.

emotion in photography

Published on 19 Mar 2007 at 1:18 pm. No Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.

It’s not very often that I see a photo that makes me want to cry.

I just can’t imagine being that hungry…that near death.

Sorry for the downer on a Monday.

taking star wars to a whole new level

Published on 8 Mar 2007 at 12:28 pm. No Comments.
Filed under Sci Fi.

Was the Death Star attack an inside job?

hat tip to lippard blog

hey mom, leave me alone, I’m practicing to be a surgeon

Published on 21 Feb 2007 at 11:56 am. No Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.

Recent research shows that playing video games (first person shooters in particular) helps you develop better eyesight and motor skills that carry over into a number of professions, including but not limited to, certain kinds of surgery!

Just hope that during your next surgery you don’t hear your surgeon mutter something about needing a BFG.

fresh pool pics

Published on 3 Feb 2007 at 10:38 am. No Comments.
Filed under home improvements.

It was a sunny day yesterday, so I grabbed a few pics. The gallery is updated with about 10 new pictures…here’s a couple for the blog.

two blind pilots

Published on 1 Feb 2007 at 12:11 pm. No Comments.
Filed under jokes.

Two Blind pilots both are wearing dark glasses, one is using a guide dog, and the other is tapping his way along the aisle with a cane.

Nervous laughter spreads through the cabin, but the men enter the cockpit, the door closes, and the engines start up. The passengers begin glancing nervously around, search ing for some sign that this is just a little practical joke. None is forthcoming.

The plane moves faster and faster down the runway and the people sitting in the window seats realize they’re headed straight for the water at the edge of the airport. As it begins to look as though the plane will plough into the water, panicked screams fill the cabin. At that moment, the plane lifts smoothly into the air.

The passengers relax and laugh a little sheepishly, and soon all retreat into their magazines, secure in the knowledge that the plane is in good hands.

In the cockpit, one of the blind pilots turns to the other and says, “ya know, Bob, one of these days, they’re gonna scream too late, and we’re all gonna die.”

OMG, there’s water in the pool!

Published on 1 Feb 2007 at 10:29 am. 1 Comment.
Filed under home improvements.

Yes, it’s hard to believe after all this time. Oh ye of little faith.

these are just to wet your appetite. more pictures to come.

There’s still quite a punch list for the pool company to go through, but it’s getting close. It’s too cold to swim right now, but we can just the spa in another couple of days after the filter does it’s thing and cleans the grit out of the water from the pebble sheen.

The full album is available here.

Technorati Tags: falcon pools, pool

make up your mind

Published on 3 Jan 2007 at 11:26 am. No Comments.
Filed under jokes.

A husband in his back yard is trying to fly a kite. He throws the kite up in the air, the wind catches it for a few seconds, then it comes crashing back down to earth. He tries this a few more times with no success.

All the while, his wife is watching from the kitchen window, muttering to herself how men need to be told how to do everything. She opens the window and yells to her husband, “You need a piece of tail.”

The man turns with a confused look on his face and says, “Make up your mind. Last night, you told me to go fly a kite.”

Cool Haircut

Published on 4 Dec 2006 at 4:53 pm. No Comments.
Filed under jokes.

Pretty wild…

trackback test

Published on 4 Dec 2006 at 12:07 pm. No Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.

actually, just testing global crossing test site from here to see if it sees this trackback.

plzz red my blawg thanx

Published on 29 Nov 2006 at 5:52 pm. No Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.

I ran across an interestig article about writing on the web. I am going to prove that I know how to write a terrible blog post by just dropping the link here.

A List Apart: Articles: How to Write a Better Weblog

Notice the article was written in 2002. Dennis says:

In 1994, you could hook a thousand readers if you wrote about the mold underneath your refrigerator. Now, you’re lucky to get a hundred regulars, even if your work is excellent.

If that was true in 2002 it is even more true in 2006. I’m pretty sure I have barely more than a handful of people that read this blog, (not that I’m trying to build a readership, per se) and the Global Crossing blog is getting about 700-800 unique visits a day, which is not too bad for 5 people (oops, 6 now) posting content building a readership for 9 months.

Dennis also makes a crack about “kreative” spelling, which really strikes a nerve after reading my 14 yr old’s myspace page today (by the way Conner, you’re in BIG, no HUGE, trouble). He writes

i will ove u forever
if u coment my new pic
plzz
thanx

I read the comments on his page, and all of his friends talk the same way. Is it proof of our poor educational system in this country or have they invented a modified version of the english language?

Regarding my first paragraph, nevermind. I got carried away. I’ll keep working on the other advice. Honest.

can you resize an image

Published on 29 Nov 2006 at 4:40 pm. No Comments.
Filed under gadgets.

cool picture I took (this is resized just by using the handlers on the image after it was inserted into blog post in performancing)

this is a cool blog about personal space flight.

Personal Spaceflight

I want to test technorati automatic tagging, but I better not over do it because this post really isn’t about anything in particular.

I’m also not quite sure what this ping enabling thing is. Never heard of Ping-O-Matic before.

Technorati Tags: performancing, firefox extension

blog tools

Published on 29 Nov 2006 at 3:06 pm. No Comments.
Filed under gadgets.

this is a test post from performancing, a blogging extension fore firefox.

image upload seems pretty easy so far.

a link to the corp blog

bulleted
list
of items

ordered
list
of
items

bigger text

smaller text

quoted text
Performancing for Firefox from version 1.2 onwards now has support for
FTP and uploading images. From the right-click menu you have simple FTP
interface and from within WYSIWYG editing interface there is a more
integrated two-step image upload facility that will upload an image
then insert it into your post at the current cursor location.