wireless electric vehicle (ev) charging?

automobile innovators believe that the eventual future of electric vehicles (ev) will be a far cry from extension cords and finding an outlet.  the vision is for wireless inductive charging.  this method seems very plausible for market induction, as it would increase user convenience dramatically.  

i would be curious to learn more of cost of the technology, implementation/construction of the infrastructure, and energy loss as a result of the technology operations.

closed-loop biomass energy generation (no, don't yawn--this is cool)

a major player in the organic/natural foods industry in japan, koiwai farms, has developed a zero-waste, methane capture energy generation system on their main growing facility in northeastern japan.  the biomass and composting facility is a closed-loop system--taking the organic debris from the agricultural production and integrating it into a fuel source--biomass for biofuel.

the biofuel is created using an active process of methane acceleration and capture.  the methane is then utilized to generate electricity and heat for the farm operations.  the residual bio-products following the methane capture process are nutrient-rich matter that can be further composted and, in a total closed-loop process, be directly applied back into the soil of the farm itself, as rich fertilizer.

the japanese are making some headway on a few model program installations such as this, in the biofuel realm.  very interesting and could be raised to large scale to create larger impact.

jidohanbaiki

convenience is everywhere in japan.  one can find virtually everything one needs within a short walking distance.  among these tools of convenience are the jidohanbaiki--a.k.a. vending machine.  usually found in multiples with dangling signs to catch your eye, this gem was straight-away outside of my door in a recent hotel.  so i could slip out of my room in robe and slippers, clink-clink a couple of coins, and relish the beverage of my election.

you can find a good number of other goods in such convenient machines on streets, alleys, and public corners.  sure, you can find a necktie!  or some pepperoni slices!  or a flower bouquet!  never fear, the judohanbaiki is here.

drop of water in slow-motion

discovery channel video slowing down a droplet of water to reveal how the meniscus is like a trampoline for the water droplet.  fascinating.

resourced and repurposed architecture

some innovative and fantastic examples of creative homes.

international path of the olympic torch

grandpopsicle

as the story goes, a norwegian... ahh, wikipedia sums it up fine (good times!): in 1989, a norwegian citizen named trygve bauge brought the corpse of his recently deceased grandfather, bredo morstøl, to the United States. the body was preserved on dry ice for the trip, and stored in liquid nitrogen at the trans time cryonics facility from 1990 to 1993.



in 1993, bredo was returned to dry ice and transported to the town of nederland, where trygve and his mother Aud planned to create a cryonics facility of their own. When trygve was deported from the United States for overstaying his visa, his mother, aud, continued keeping her father's body cryogenically frozen in a shack behind her unfinished house.



aud was eventually evicted from her home for living in a house with no electricity or plumbing, in violation of local ordinances. at that time, she told a local reporter about her father's body, and the reporter went to the local city hall in order to let them know about aud's fears that her eviction would cause her father's body to thaw out.



the story caused a sensation. in response, the city added a broad new provision to section 7-34 of its municipal code, "keeping of bodies", outlawing the keeping of "the whole or any part of the person, body or carcass of a human being or animal or other biological species which is not alive upon any property". however, because of the publicity that had arisen, they made an exception for bredo, a grandfather clause. the local tuff shed supplier built a new shed to keep him in. in honor of the town's unique resident, nederland holds an annual celebration.



frozen dead guy days is celebrated from friday through sunday on the first full weekend of march. coffin races, a slow-motion parade, and "frozen dead guy" lookalike contests are held. a documentary on "grandpa bredo", called grandpa's in the tuff shed, is shown. a newer version of the film, grandpa's still in the tuff shed, was premiered in nederland on march 7, 2003.

louise crawford elementary school

i dreamt about elementary school last night. although i don't recall many specifics about the dream, the picture of the school in my mind is clear.

the red brick rectangle where i spent my k-6 tenure from 1979-1986 sat juxtaposition the obligatory blacktop playground and grassy lot. countless hours of socialization were impressed upon me during those years.

how to sit, how to raise your hand, how to remain orderly, one person to the bathroom at a time, no running in the halls...

and more importantly, the socialization of meeting other schoolmates. at the time, it was all that i knew and everyone seemed pretty normal. i had a great collection of friends and we seemed to laugh and play a lot. my elementary school experience was most joyful. however, looking back now at some of the odd things that some of them chose to do--it makes me raise an eyebrow and wonder what ever became of them. highlights of odd behavior i witnessed in those years include the following:

-in 2nd grade, a boy took off his shorts in the spring and walked home in his underwear

-in 3rd grade, a quiet kid slipped on the ice during recess in the winter and managed to get a laugh out of a few people. the quiet boy proceeded to jump up into the air and put is feet out straight, repeatedly doing this and landing smack on his ass on the snowy pavement for continued laughter. even at that age, i looked on in worry as to why someone would do this.

-in 5th grade, in the fall, a boy peed into an electric heater in the bathroom--when the weather got cold enough to turn on the heat, we all quickly became aware of the pee incident as a musty urine smell wafted through the halls.

now, these are not the challenges of knives and guns that some elementary schools face, but these are the strange oddities of behavior that i recall from a little 2-story school house in the middle of iowa.

internal hard drive

i'm reading this fascinating article on memory in national geographic.

it has always been raised by others that my memory is strong compared to their recollections. although i am not a savant (up for debate), the lucid visions of precise moments, sights, and sounds of the series of events in my life is within quick recall.

however, i do feel that in recent months, my occupied thought is so much in the present that i have not revisited the synaptic links of the past. this cloud of necessity to make sense of the present time period fogs and outweighs the leisure of reflecting. i have confidence that this opaque haze will become more routine and will empower the free will of my wandering mind to be able to weave together and revisit the days since gone.

the mind is such a beautiful thing. uh, wait...what was i saying?

daylight saving time

a good explanation of why we monkey with the clocks twice a year.

can bar soap get dirty?

occasionally, this question comes to mind. is seems wholly possible for bar, and liquid for that matter, soap to become dirty itself. how then do you clean dirty soap... with more soap?

i found one article that explained a bit of the resolve to this inquiry:

"according to a series of tests conducted in the early 1980s, bars of soap are often covered with bacteria and carry a higher load than you'd find inside a liquid dispenser. But no one knows for sure whether this dirty soap will actually transfer its germs to your hands during a wash. in fact, what little clinical evidence there is suggests that dirty soap isn't so bad. a study from 1965 and another from 1988 used similar methodologies: researchers coated bars of soap in the lab with e. coli and other nasty bacteria, and then gave them to test subjects for a vigorous hand-wash. both teams found no transfer of contamination from the dirty soap. however, both studies were tainted by potential conflicts of interest: the first was conducted by proctor and gamble, and the second came from the dial corp. still, there's no good evidence to contradict these studies, and it's likely that the bacteria on a dirty bar would just wash off when you rinsed your hands. in other words, you'd be cleaning the soap as you cleaned your hands."

very interesting. the study from 1988 can be found here.

the article continues and notes that "recent hand-hygiene studies in the developing world have found that washing with soap and water reduces infections even when the water supply might be contaminated. dirty water, like dirty soap, might not make washing less effective. even under the best conditions, washing your hands can actually increase the number of microorganisms present on your hands, thanks to contaminated surfaces near the sink, splashes of contaminated water, or improperly dried hands. (in general, it's safer to leave your hands unwashed than to leave them wet.)"

i find this fascinating and disturbing all the same.

kinetic jumping machine

this was the most fantastic thing that we saw at artscape last weekend.

without question, artscape (the u.s.'s largest free public arts festival) is high on the list of reasons why baltimore is cool.

i used to have dreams about jumping 15 feet in the air much like this guy. i hope to have a go on such an apparatus someday.

murmur

is the applause "roar" that an american crowd makes different than one of comparable size and purpose from another country? let's take an example, say a group of 20,000 people at a paul simon concert in three different locations: prague, cleveland, and new delhi. paul simon plays the exact same songs, in the same order in all three locations on independent wednesday nights, all with a mild and comfortable temperature.

my question then is this: at the end of the concert, when the crowd shows appreciation by vocalizing (hooting and hollering), whistling, and clapping-- standing from afar, are you able to ascertain any noticable differences between the three different crowds' respective applause and murmurs?

now, i am aware of certain events or sports teams that have special claps or chants both domestically and the world over--but i am curious just about the general crowd uproar.

in the natural world, it may be a comperable situation to say three trees, each full with three different types of birds. one solitary bird can be compared with solitary birds from the other two groups, and subtleties and qualities can be weighted. but taken as an amass of birds perched on every square inch of a tree's real estate, each of the three trees sounds just like a lot of squawking. it is my hunch that human crowds, likewise from afar, sound like a general murmur of human noise regardless of language and culture.

also sprach zarathusa

phish...

i was inspired to search for this vid after reading about the hammer of the chimps.

roti and avam

last week, on our trek home from the gym, we stopped off at trinadad gourmet to give it a shot. dispite having to peek through the safety glass window to order, we had a nice conversation with the owner as our veg roti was being prepared. mr. owner gave us a sample of his homemade side sauces: green mango chutney, tamarind chutney, a medium habenero sauce, and a super hot habenero sauce.

the roti came out and was an amazing mountain of varied flavors that we took home and ooh'ed and ahh'ed as we dove in. super good eats and with a six buck price tag that can't be beat. 9.3/10.

this weekend we went down to the visionary arts museum. we browsed through the permanent collection, which has a series of quite moving pieces created from all untrained artists. the cornerstone piece being a carved apple tree limb that is fashioned into a tall thin man with shoulders that jet out and a spooned out chest. the narrative states that it was carved by a man who long suffered from tb and was made while in a rehabilitation facility. he had never been known to create any art previous to this piece.

much of the raw art at avam can be described as art therapy. each piece brings a sense of the creator straight into your being. it is accessible, it is real. not the pretentious canonical stuff that we're supposed to savor at a museum. the works at avam are unique and real.

when sysadmins ruled the earth

not sure why this short story captivated my attention the way it did, but it is worth a read if you've got a few minutes to dedicate to a post-apocalyptic reality where the survivors are all knowledge management administrators.

looking down

guess where. international? domestic? rural? hmmm... nope.

it's santa fe from the landsat satellite. truly fascinating. for a bit of click-around fun, check out this image gallery or this one.

day off

i took the day off work today to focus on making progress on
my thesis project. i have clacked away most of the morning at the
school library and pecked at my packed lunch with sprouted whole grain
bread. i loves me some sprouted grain!

anyway, my
brain was all a fizzle, so i decided to take a short bike out to a
nearby business district. i stopped at acarribean market and let my eyes and curiosity
wander the shelves for awhile. i spied my favorite coconut water
tallboy and then i sought out a snack. nothing too fun crossed my eyes.
but then a bottle that said href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ital">ital herbal
tonic. now, there is one href="http://www.baltimorecollegetown.com/asp/activity_detail.asp?activityID=339">sweet
restaurant in baltimore that proclaims the glory of ital
food, which is a might vegan friendly.

after this
tiny bottle caught my eye, i spied that there were several other brands
of herbal tonic alongside it. after careful deliberation, i choose
the baba
roots potent drink (dig the soundtracks on each sub-page). it went down with a strong tamarind tangy-sweet flavor. still waiting for the herbal kick, though. ah, here it
comes...

the magic of flash

if you like stella, or even if you don't-- this interactive challenge is educational and entertaining. be sure to click on the pouring ritual at the bottom of the opening page before entering the bar for the challenge. cheers!

symposium

it seems uncertain if my question was asked or answered at this dropping knowledge event.

and yes, i am aware of the grammatical error.