End the War on Freedom

The Economist - neat new desalination technology uses much less energy than former methods. [grabbe]

I received today from C. Crane my first GeoBulb. It's a GeoBulb II in cool white. Standard Edison socket, 60 watt equivalent light, draws 7.5 watts, 30,000 hour life, $50 plus shipping. The bulb is quite heavy, relative to the incandescent bulb it replaced. It's cool to the touch when illuminated. Nice white light. It buzzes softly, but I only hear it if I put my ear within a few inches. Won't be able to fully judge it until the sun goes down, and when I discover if it really does last for three years, but so far I'm happy with it.

GeoBulb Box


Made in China


Well-packaged


With my old full spectrum incandescent bulb


In my 35-year-old desk lamp

Robin Barooah at The Quantified Self - Mr. Barooah has, as I have, gone through cold turkey on coffee a number of times, but each time he started again, because he thought coffee would help him concentrate better. He started his most recent withdrawal at the beginning of August, deciding to withdraw slowly, 20ml per week, to allow the psychological withdrawal to track the physical withdrawal. He also tracked his ability to concentrate, from June into October, so that when he started to think that starting coffee again might improve his concentration, he had objective proof that it wasn't so.

Interesting. I've now been off the brown stuff for 3 weeks. Laid in bed the first week, was slightly-less-than-usually productive the second week. Could hardly work at all this past week, though I was vertical for most of each day. Hope it gets better soon.

Disposable safety razors were a pretty new idea, when I started shaving, in 1972 or thereabouts. I've been through their evolution, from one to two to three, and now, to four blades. I've tried Gillette and Bic, but have always preferred Schick razors. They pull less on my whiskers and stay sharp longer. I ran out of my latest disposable Schick blades, so I looked for some new ones yesterday. They didn't have any, but they did have the Schick Quattro Titanium, a couple of choices, one with batteries, which I didn't get, and the one pictured below, which I did. It has four blades on the main shaving side, plus a single edging blade, which I doubt I'll ever use, on the other side. It's metal, not plastic; there's a nice heft to it. The razor, with two blades, cost $9. It came with a coupon, worth $5 off a purchase of two packages of blades, so I got those, too. Total price: $25 for a razor and 10 blades, which will likely last me a year or more.

I tried it for the first time this morning. Smoothest shave ever. Not a hint of pull. And it trimmed my whiskers well. Big win!

[note to FTC and other worthless eaters: I received no compensation for this review, now go jump off a bridge]

Paul Hudson at BBC - as it turns out, the Earth is no longer getting warmer. The warmest year on record was 1998. [lew]

Babak A. Parviz at IEEE Spectrum - a University of Washington researcher describes contact lenses he's working on, which superimpose an electronic image on the natural world image. The Cyborg is born! Well, not quite yet. They've done trials on live rabbits, but aren't yet ready for human subjects. And at present, the electronic image is only 8x8 pixels in size. The world's smallest banner ad.

Patrick Di Justo at Wired - some of the contents of your cup of joe: Caffeine, Water, 2-Ethylphenol, Quinic acid, 3,5 Dicaffeoylquinic acid, Dimethyl disulfide, Acetylmethylcarbinol, Putrescine, Trigonelline, & Niacin. Who'd-a known?

Cerec Online makes the MC XL and MC L CNC milling machines for dentists. These allow a dentist to mill a crown himself, in his office, while the patient waits.

It appears from the "Return on Investment Calculator" on this page at Patterson Dental, these machines cost $2,000 or $2,700 per month, depending on which configuration you pick.

Keith Barry at Wired - The Riversimple Urban Car is a 700-pound, two-person, fuel-cell electric automobile. Its makers plan to lease it for 200 pounds ($330) a month, including hydrogen. It has a 50 mph top speed and a 200 mile range. It gets the equivalent of 300 miles per gallon. Cool. Hope they're successful.

Tim Ferriss at Four Hour Work Week - a review of Vibram Five Fingers Shoes. Go barefoot with protection. Neat idea. I may spend the $75 it costs to try out (for the Classic model. The other three retail for $80-$90). That second link has a store finder and on-line buying, and Amazon has some sizes and models for slightly cheaper. [grabbe]

Gene Logsdon of Chelsea Green Publishing via AlterNet - why you should grow your own grains, and how much space you need to do it.

I turned on our new window air conditioner yesterday and was soon assaulted by a loud vibration from the window above it. Pressing on the center of the window made the noise stop, so I taped a rock there. Not quite as good as my finger, but a definite improvement.

Boston Dynamics has built BigDog, "The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth". Amazing. Frightening, too, when you imagine what the War Department is likely to do with it. Video at the link, and here on YouTube, embedded below. [grabbe]

Christopher Monckton at The Science and Public Policy Institute - Mr. Monckton describes 35 major scientific errors in Al Gore's movie.

Dale Amon at Samizdata - yesterday's unplanned water landing of US Airways Flight 1549 was not a tragedy due to one man, the pilot who put it down intact on the Hudson, and ensured that all the passengers got out, Captain C.B. "Sully" Sullenberger. Thank you, Sully.

CNN has lots of video here.

Powermat is a new recharging technology that uses magnetic induction instead of wires to charge electronic devices. They claim 90% efficiency and equal time to charge. Very cool. There are video demos at their site and at Wired's CES Gadget Roundup. Slated to ship this fall. $100 for the charging mat. $30 for a device receiver. Their site also mentions wireless syncing as a future feature. Cool. [wired]

Priya Ganapati at Wired - Wired's top ten technologies for 2008. Flexible displays, edible chips, Speedo LZR, Flash memory, GPS, the Memresistor, Video-capable SLRs, USB 3.0, Android, Apple's App Store. I'm looking forward to USB 3.0, flexible displays, and memresistors. I'm hoping that USB 3.0 will finally get rid of the plethora of incompatible battery charger connectors.

Science Daily - thanks to nanoscale piezoelectrics, someday soon your cell phone, could be charged by your voice. Cool. [/.]

John H. Richardson at Esquire - Mr. Richardson and a bunch of others visit Dean Kamen's private island nation, off the coast of Connecticut. Dean Kamen builds cool machines. He's trying to figure out a business plan to get his stirling engine and filter-free water purification machine into third world countries. His water purification system could wipe out water-borne disease.

We live out in the boonies, at least 25 miles from the nearest TV station. We've had an amplified rabbit-ears antenna, with which we could get CBS, most of the time, and ABC, occasionally. We got one of those gummint coupons for $40 off of a digital TV converter box. So I got one at Radio Shack. With the rabbit ears, it was pulling in CBS and sports on channel 6, barely, ABC, weather, and Retro TV on channel 10, and three public tv offerings on channel 17, again barely. On Saturday, I bought an outdoor UHF antenna and 30db amplifier, again at Radio Shack, and got a 4 foot aluminum pole and some wire at a hardware store. The photo below shows it assembled. The amplifier has two parts, one on the antenna, pictured, and one that goes at the other end of the wire, near the TV. It works well. The 6 & 17 channels come in well now, and I've got two more stations with 6 more channels. Still no NBC or Fox, however. Hopefully those will come in when I get some grounding wire and move the antenna to the roof. No more ghosts! Digital is great. When it works.

Note: digital TV is all broadcast in the UHF part of the spectrum. VHF is going to be cleared of TV broadcasts when analog transmission goes dark in February of 2009.