End the War on Freedom

I saw a Pontiac Solstice on the way to work this morning. Nice-looking convertible roadster. $20,490.

overtone at zpenergy.com - Magnetic Power, Inc, expects to have commercial zero-point energy devices by the end of next year. Hype? Don't know. Their life expectancy if true? Short. [jomama]

United Nuclear, besides selling chemicals, was building a hydrogen fuel system for automobiles. Their conversion allowed the engine to automatically switch between hydrogen fuel, from a metal hydride tank, and gasoline. They were near commercialization, with systems planned for sale for $7,000 - $10,000, when they had to switch their efforts to fighting the feds, which I blogged last Friday. Part of their system is a solar hydrolysis machine, allowing you to make your own hydrogen, from water and sunlight, for nearly free. Unfortunately, the machine isn't very efficient yet, so it takes two days to fill one tank with hydrogen. Read details about their system on the Hydrogen Fuel Basics page. [clairefiles]

Associated Press via Wired - Goran Jovanovic of Oregon State University has created a device that greatly simplifies the conversion of vegetable oil and alcohol into biosiesel fuel. [wired]

I pass my first half century on the planet tomorrow. My mom gave me some money. I bought a toy tonight. Click for hi-res version (1161x327, 51K).

It came with two books:

The Russians do like their stamps:

Willem Steenkamp at IOL - 10 years of research have led to a new, more efficient, solar panel, based on a thin film of Copper-Indium-Gallium-Diselenide (CIGS), instead of silicon, the conventional solar cell material. More articles and links here. Useful Google Search. The new solar panels are being mass produced by IFE Solar Systems (German language web site). Watch for the oil companies to buy the patent and shut down production. Or maybe we'll get lucky... [clairefiles]

Elizabeth Svoboda at Wired - they've restored function to injured spinal cords in rats by inserting a gel impregnated with stem cells. No tests on humans yet. Hope it works for us. Another reason not to block stem cell research. [wired]

Wikipedia on your ipod! Installs an iPod Linux as a dual boot on your iPod, enabling browsing of Wikipedia on its tiny screen. I haven't tried it. [picks]

Spencer Reiss at Wired - the M1 battery, from A123 Systems, will greatly increase the power and time between charges of portable electric tools. It will be good for automobiles, too. They're safer, more environmentally friendly, provide five times the peak power (more than a typical 110 volt electrical socket), and have over twice the power density of existing Lithium Ion batteries. And they recharge to 90% in five minutes. [wired]

Deutsche Presse-Agentur via Monsters and Critics - far out! They're also going to sell a Home Energy Station (HES), a fuel cell for the home. Don't know where you're going to buy the hydrogen, though. Hopefully, the solar hydrogen generators will be available by then, so you can do that at home, too. [root]

Erick Schonfeld at CNN Money - Dean Kamen, the inventor of the IBOT mobility device (too amazing to be called a "wheelchair") and the Segway, has announced that he has the technology working for third-world power generation, using dung as the fuel, and for water purification. Doesn't appear to be commecialized as yet, and isn't mentioned on the DEKA Research web site, but knowing him, he'll get there.

I saw Dean Kamen demonstrate the IBOT back in 2001 in Washington DC. Report here.

Click here for Clairefiles discussion. Click here for Slashdot discussion. [clairefiles]

ComputerGeeks.com - I ordered this through Amazon, which charged fifty cents more. $17.50 plus shipping for a radio transmitter for the iPod. Works good for me. It comes with a playlist of tuning tones. You play one to change the transmitted frequency or turn the LED on or off. Neat.

My Aerobie® Aeropress™ coffee maker arrived yesterday. It makes a small cup of very strong coffee, which you can drink as espresso or dilute to standard Coffee Americano potency. And what a tasty cup it is! Not a hint of bitterness. Available for mail-order from Locals Only Coffee, where I got mine and from Aeropress Coffee, and likely others. Recommended.

Here's everything set up to add the water.

You use the supplied scoop to measure out one to four scoops of ground coffee. The supplied micro-filters will work with a fine espresso grind, or a regular grind. Then you measure the hot water in the plunger, pour it in with the grounds, stir for twenty seconds with the supplied wand, and push the water through with the column of air below the plunger. The result has no grounds whatsoever. Aerobie® says that it will keep for a couple of days and still be good.

Here's the cup after plunging, ready to dilute (or not) and drink. Yum.

Michael Golembewski builds a "scanner camera" by attaching a cheap flatbed scanner to the back of a large format camera. The results are surprising. Slashdot discussion here. His site is slashdotted at present, so loads will be slow or time out until later in the day or tomorrow. And though he can show the scanner distortion on the web, the incredibly high resolution (over 100,000,000 pixels) would only be viewable through a hard copy. [/.]