For those who DON'T live in L.A. and own a home:
How to Beat the Big Energy Chill
This winter's soaring heating bills will be a painful reminder that we're living in an age of expensive energy. But there's an upside: the business case for renewable sources of energy is warming up quickly.
Nov. 21, 2005 issue - Gina and Ron Martin's home in mentor, Ohio, is just plain big. It has six bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms, a cavernous basement, a spacious patio and a pool in the backyard. But the last thing the self-employed housing contractors suspected when they bought their dream house in 2004 was just how big the heating bills were going to be. Last winter their utility bills averaged $400 a month. Although the price of heating oil has inched down in the past two weeks, the Martins are anticipating bills of $700 a month this winter. They expect the price of energy to keep rising—and many experts agree with them. Once their three teenage kids leave for college, the couple plans to downsize. "We loved this house, now we hate this house," Gina says. "We are a hardworking middle-class family that is freaking out about a gas bill. Something is very wrong with that picture."
'Dungeons & Dragons' goes virtual
When Turbine Games releases "Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach" early next year, executives there are hoping the new creation can reach the untold millions who played and loved the original, paper-based role-playing game.
Turbine's game developers say D&D Online is designed to stay as true as possible to the paper-based version and offers a reasonable online alternative to the more than 4.6 million people still playing D&D just in the United States. The game--in which players create imaginary characters and adventure through fantasy forests, castles and other environs--has been around for more than three decades.
The company has built the online version specifically around the teams of fantasy adventurers that made the original D&D so popular. John Foster, Turbine's director of public relations, said D&D Online requires players to quickly find others with whom to join forces and set out to complete quests.
http://tinyurl.com/8dzlt
For those of you who read virtual light by william gibson, here is another item of fact following fiction: http://tinyurl.com/dnank it is the story of a man who appears to have been 'cured' of HIV. Unconfirmed so far, but very interesting all the same.
Google Analytics launches
There were some rumblings last night, but today it's official: Google Analytics is live. Google purchased Urchin, a web analysis company, back in March. Looks like they managed to bust that $199 a month service fee down to nothing. That's right, the tools are free! Sprinkle the JavaScript tracking code across your pages, then get access to a full suite of analytical tools: track adwords ROI, track keywords from any search tool, track incoming links from anything... Better still, Google's implementation is quite good at massaging the data, so you have a accurate and complete view of your site traffic, and what's driving people to or from your site. As an added bonus, Google adds the "Conversion University" site, with a bunch of articles on optimizing your site for converting visitors into customers and driving traffic to your site.
One thing that has people concerned is Analytics' ability to track keywords from other search engines. Google promises they will not be using competitor info to their own advantage, which is all based on trust I assume. But since you could be exposing that data, is there any guarantee they won't? Google's And what does this mean for companies like StatCounter and Web Side Story? Will the freely available tools from Google displace them, or usher in a new era of free web analysis?
FROM SLASHDOT:
A Flu Pandemic?
from the run-for-the-hills dept.
Pedrito writes "Scientific American is running a story in this month's issue about preparing for a flu pandemic. What this article tries to convey is that a pandemic is definitely coming. Whether it's from the H5N1 strain (which would likely cause hundreds of millions of deaths) or another strain a few years down the road. There have been 3 other flu pandemics in the past 100 years. The 1918 strain being the worst, with 40 million killed. The reason H5N1 is being followed so closely is because it's already spread to people and because it's incredibly lethal (a roughly 50% fatality rate at th moment). Even if the fatality rate dropped to 5% when and if it mutates into an easily communicable form, it would be twice as deadly as the 1918 virus."
WAS THERE NO BETTER OPTION?
This thing is cool, but.......
from engadget:
The FLIP floating instrument station is 300 feet long and takes 28 minutes to complete a controlled capsize, during which time the built-in furniture rotates along with the vessel and the crew hangs on for dear sweet life above the cold, unforgiving abyss below. All in the name of the science of testing sound waves underwater, dear friends. You may commence aghast chuckling… now.
not the first or even the best version of this idea but here it is all the same (from gizmag):
The VirtuSphere: full body immersion Virtual reality at last
November 12, 2005 The VirtuSphere is a new platform that is a breakthrough in the science of Virtual Reality and one we are convinced will take VR into the broader community. It is that significant and more because it is the solution for a million problems offering more compelling, convincing and relevant VR experiences than any device yet conceived, and with VR advancing rapidly in its other constituent areas (graphics, sound, touch, and to a lesser extent, smell and taste), we believe the VirtuSphere will be the device to make VR relevant to the world – this is a killer app. Inside the VirtuSphere, the virtual explorer can physically navigate the virtual world with genuine human movement, - the headset is wireless, and senses 360 degree movement, but unlike any existing virtual reality or gaming peripheral, the floor moves and each virtual step is accompanied by a real one of the same dimensions. It promises to be the ultimate computer games peripheral, the ultimate treadmill at the gymnasium, the ultimate educational resource with remarkable flexibility and offer the most realistic virtual experience of almost any kind - enabling you to walk through the house you’re hiring across the world for your holidays or explore the Daintree Rainforest. It also has major occupational training implications as it offers experiential learning for everyone from athletes to fire fighters and is already being developed by the military for training crack troops and saving lives on the battlefield. Like we said, this is significant!
‘Blended wing’ craft passes wind-tunnel tests
A futuristic "blended wing" plane developed by NASA has passed crucial wind-tunnel tests. These reveal that engineers may have overcome some of the controllability challenges associated with the revolutionary aircraft design.
Designs for blended wing planes are a dramatic leap from that of today's passenger jets – instead having a tube-like fuselage. They look more like paper aeroplanes with engines mounted on top and at the rear.
The unusual shape is much more aerodynamic than a normal plane, which means it could use 20% less fuel. And it should also be much quieter for people on the ground because the engines sit on top of its wings instead of hanging below.
But the extremely sleek design means doing away with a tail – a crucial control element – so engineers have had to come up with other ways to make the aircraft pitch, yaw and roll. For a blended wing plane, this means relying on curved flaps along the edge of each wing and rudders on each wingtip.
Lift drop
NASA engineers have struggled to find the perfect configuration for the design but the latest tests suggest they are getting closer. They took a 5% scale model of their latest blended wing design to a wind tunnel at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, US, for a free-flying test.
"We were kind of concerned early on that it was going to be difficult to fly,” says Dan Vicroy, head of the project at NASA. "The bottom line from the test: this particular configuration flew great."
The engineers were particularly keen to see what would happen when the aircraft approached maximum lift and then lift suddenly dropped, as can happen when an aircraft hits turbulence. Unlike previous designs, the aircraft did not start to roll or pitch backwards.
During wind tunnel tests, a model is normally mounted while wind flows around it, allowing engineers to measure forces on the static design. This time, however, three "pilots" remotely controlled the scale model's movement during the test. It was the first time anyone has tried such a test of a blended wing design.
Renewed interest
The other design challenge presented by a blended wing body is structural. A tube-shaped fuselage is easy to keep pressurized because pressure is distributed evenly inside. When you squash the tube down into such an irregular shape, it places more stress on the structure. NASA researchers hope to combat this by using composite structures and by adding pillars inside to add strength.
NASA has been researching the flying wing design since the early 1990s and has tested concepts with McDonnell-Douglas, which was taken over by Boeing in 1998. Next summer, Boeing and Cranfield University in the UK will test another blended wing design, the X-48B, at Dryden Flight Research Center in California, US.
Aircraft companies, such as Boeing, have discussed using such an aircraft for both commercial and military purposes. If a company were to start building a blended wing body aircraft today, it could hit the market in about seven years.
"With today’s gas prices, it’s getting renewed interest," Vicroy told New Scientist.
(go look at the pics, very cool)
http://tinyurl.com/b6kkw
That which we already knew:
Exercise good remedy for arthritis pain
By Shannon Russell
Enquirer staff writer
Tom Keuper tried to pick a dime off the floor and regretted being idle for a year.
The Union resident's back and joints ached as he stooped over months ago. He wasn't surprised when his doctor later said discs were degenerating in his back - it's "part of getting old," the 72-year-old said - or that he had arthritis in his lower back.
But he was surprised to hear part of the prescription: exercise.
"I'd worked out my whole life except for last year. I got lazy and started to gain weight," Keuper said. "My doctor suggested I work out, and I thought it might help my back pain."
Did it ever. Keuper has been exercising at Sports of All Sorts recreation center three times a week on strength-building machines and on a treadmill. Not long after starting a fitness regimen, his back pain disappeared.
http://tinyurl.com/8fhls
Is green tea a miracle drink?
By Kathie Sutin
SPECIAL TO THE POST-DISPATCH
11/14/2005
To hear the hype, you might think it's the Holy Grail of the quest for health.
The list of the purported benefits of this drink goes on and on. It's been said
to:
* Prevent cancer or help fight it
* Stave off heart attacks
* Reduce cholesterol
* Prevent dental cavities and promote gum health
* Enhance memory
* Protect the skin from ultraviolet rays
* Reduce the inflammation of arthritis
* Help with weight loss
* Increase mental alertness
* Improve airflow to the lungs therefore alleviating asthma
* Increase fertility in women
So what is this behemoth of beverages?
It's green tea, a drink relatively new to the American palate but one the
Chinese have been enjoying for more than 5,000 years ago.
The problem is despite all the great press green tea has received in recent
years, can we be sure it really does half of what its proponents claim?
No one can say for sure
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