Better Things For Better Living Through Chemistry

Al Fin Blog: Cool Revolution: A New Way To Keep Your Beer Cold.

The breakthrough system, which is projected to be 20 percent more efficient than current refrigeration technology, could be inside your fridge by the end of the decade.

The system is using a water-based fluid flowing through a series of magnets to transfer heat, rather than a chemical refrigerant and a compressor. This significantly lowers any harm to the environment and makes the recycling of old refrigerators simpler.

“This is a big deal,” says Venkat Venkatakrishnan, a leader of the research team. “We are on the cusp of the next refrigeration revolution.”

Google Glass Goes Pew Pew Pew!

It very nearly did, anyway.

Smart Binoculars?

Maybe you don't know who you are looking at, but possibly your binoculars do.

What if everyone you're looking at is wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, though?

Can I Interest Anyone In a Buggy Whip?

The demise of Wolf Camera.

Remember the process for taking a picture with a manual 35mm camera? It was like the goddamned Spanish Inquisition, if you ask me:

Transparent Aluminum!

Once again, life imitates Star Trek.

In a remarkable case of science fiction becoming science fact, it seems scientists have been able to invent transparent aluminium.

The fantastically strong material was mentioned in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home by Enterprise engineer Mr Scott.

With the crew of the Enterprise stuck in the 20th century, Scotty barters his knowledge of 24th century technology with an engineer in exchange for having a tank built.

It appears that now that the future has arrived. Sort of.



I wonder if you can make guns out of the stuff?

The Heartbreak of the Buggy Whip Maker

Or, in this case, the heartbreak of the pay-phone owner/distributor.

ST. LOUIS -- At 62, Jim Nesselhauf is not sure which will come first, retirement or the demise of his business - pay phones.

Three years ago, Nesselhauf's company, Joltran Communications Inc., had 1,000 pay phones scattered around the St. Louis area.

Today, he's down to about 400. And he expects to soon lay off one of his four remaining employees.

Technologies come, and they also go. Do you remember the last cassette music tape you bought? Your last LP record? I purchased "the" Amazon Kindle last year, and now it's old technology already, somewhat derogatorily labeled "the Kindle Keyboard" so as to distinguish it from more advanced models.

Some Amazon Kindle Notes

I acquired an Amazon Kindle e-reader during my hiatus. Before acquiring it, I had downloaded Kindle For PC, which allows you to read your Kindle acquisitions on your PC; there are also versions for Apple, various phones, etc.

Well, I went nuts downloading free e-books onto the Kindle For PC, thinking that I could transfer them over to the Kindle when I acquired one. When I did acquire the Kindle, I discovered that the process wasn't all that intuitive, really. And, once I did manager to figure it out (Amazon Kindle phone support was next to useless), I discovered that for some reason the books I transferred over often times weren't recognized as mine, thus I could not read them in the Kindle.

So, on Monday night I reset my Kindle to factory specifications, which basically wipes out everthing you have in it. Then I accessed the Kindle Store via wi-fi, and, as if by magic, all of my 400+ books magically appeared in the "archived books" section of the Kindle. Hey ho, I thought to myself, this is better.

It wasn't. What was in the "archived books" section of the Kindle was a record of the books I had previously downloaded, and if I wanted to actually read them, I had to download them again.

And no, there is no provision for downloading 400+ books in a single swallow. You have to do it one at a time. Which sucks, but, most of an 8-hour work shift later, the job was done.

Tonight I've been organizing the books into "collections," which means less scrolling through pages in order to find a book among the 400+. I have them mainly organized by author name, but have one collection titled Desert Island Books for those ones that I want to keep handy.

I haven't really done much with the Kindle, but I like having such a plenitude of books available, many of them old favorites. I'll comment more as I become more familiar with this new (to me) technology.

Ready For Yer Iron Man Suit?

Here it is:



From Raytheon, via UK Telegraph.

The articulation and movements of the suit remind me of the immortal Humpbot:



Still, it's a good start.

They Trusted Their Little Machine Friend...

...and it betrayed them.

Didn't they watch Star Trek when they were children?

Catching Criminals - - Via Driver's License Photos

Sophisticated face-recognition software has resulted in at least one criminal, a murderer, being arrested after moving to another state and acquiring a new driver's license.

Yes, it's Orwellian, but it's one of those cases where many people will be willing to surrender a little bit of freedom/privacy in the name of safety/lower crime.

What do you think, friends? Should government be searching the DMV photo databases, which comprises mostly law-abiding citizens, to search for criminals?

A Ghastly Silence, And Then Those Awful Screams

In Japan, electric cars run so quietly that pedestrians often don't realize that they're in danger of being struck.

So, naturally...

Want.

Flying car.

The Goofy Little Air-Powered Car

Story.

Pic:



I'll say that there are a lot of Americans, myself included, who probably would have a hard time fitting into a car that small.

Around The World In A Solar-Powered Car

Story.

Some limitations to the technology in the car; no air conditioning, no doors, range of only 200 miles, with a 6-hour period to fully recharge the batteries. It's a good start, though.

Here's what it looks like:

How About A Compressed Air Car?

They've been around in France for a few years now. For pootering around in town without driving a lot, they'd be a great solution to air pollution problems; for that reason, Mexico City has ordered thousands of them.

Story here.