ilicon is easily converted into glass
The Tire Ball prevents flat tyres
(link to this article)
June 15, 2006 The pneumatic tire has been one of the stand-out
commercially-successful inventions of history, with around 1.2
billion car and truck tires sold each year, and an indeterminate
number of bicycle, motorcycle and RV tyres on top of that. Whatsmore,
the better it works, the quicker it wears out, ensuring that
there’ll be a market next year because 75% of the tires sold will be
replacements. Quite remarkably, despite such ubiquitous usage, the
pneumatic tire has a massive Achilles heel – lose the air and it
stops the vehicle.
http://tinyurl.com/mb3l8
Volvo Multi-Fuel high performance prototype that runs on five
different fuels
(link to this article)
Page: 1 2
June 15, 2006 The Michelin Challenge Binendum finished in Paris on
the weekend, completing yet another showcase of the world’s most
interesting clean technologies and energies for motorized vehicles.
Each Bibendum sees a who’s who of the world’s automotive
manufacturers put their latest concept vehicles on the park and this
year some concept vehicles were actually rolled out for the event.
One that really caught our attention was the Volvo Multi-Fuel
prototype, which is optimised for running on five different fuel
types; hythane (10% hydrogen and 90% methane), biomethane, natural
gas, bioethanol E85 and petrol. The idea, according to Volvo, is to
make use of the fuels that are produced locally. This means that less
fuel needs to be transported between continents, and you can fill up
the car on the fuel that is available wherever you are.
http://tinyurl.com/pe7ns
Dry ice creates toughened glass A form of solid carbon dioxide that
could be used to make ultra-hard glass or coatings for
microelectronic devices has been discovered The material, named
amorphous carbonia, was created by scientists from the University of
Florence in Italy. Writing in the journal Nature, the team say the
material was theoretically possible but had never been created. It
was made by squeezing dry ice, a form of carbon dioxide used to
create smoke in stage shows, at huge pressure. Scientists are
interested in the new material because of the potential applications.
Also they believe it could give them clues to the processes that
happen in the centre of huge gas giant planets like Jupiter.
http://tinyurl.com/pajbw
Firms 'to waste £500m of energy' UK businesses will waste more than
£500m worth of energy over the summer months, a report has said. The
study for the Carbon Trust says the "staggering" £570m wastage will
result in more than eight million tonnes of CO2 being released into
the atmosphere. Firms could cut their emissions and bills by 15% if
they used energy more wisely, the trust suggests. The report
coincides with the launch of a £4m campaign to encourage businesses
to become more energy efficient.
http://tinyurl.com/naut5
Report fuels spy plane theories The UK knows more than it is saying
about top secret American aircraft projects, recently declassified
documents reveal. Deep inside a previously secret Ministry of Defence
report are a few pages which will reignite one of the biggest
internet conspiracy questions - Is the US Air Force building secret
spy planes which can cross the sky at 3,000mph? The plane, which is
often referred to as Aurora, is supposed to be a follow on from the
U2 spy plane and the 2,000mph SR71 Blackbird, both of which were
first developed and flown in secrecy as 'Black' projects. The MoD
report from 2000 says the USAF plans to produce "highly supersonic
vehicles at Mach 4 to 6" and hypersonic unmanned craft which will fly
in the upper atmosphere and in space. In 2003, the USAF revealed it
had been working on a hypersonic unmanned craft - the Falcon - but
denied building an Aurora-like Mach 4 to 6 aircraft. The Aurora has
100,000 web pages devoted to it - a lot for an aircraft which may not
exist. According to Jane's Defence Review a third of USAF spending
on research and development and procurement goes on classified
projects. Some of that helps pay for the development of spy
satellites and intelligence activities. But a sizable proportion goes
on the development of secret manned and unmanned aircraft.
http://tinyurl.com/rjg3x
Filson
Traditional wool wear

Filson's gear is made in Washington state and is superior to almost
all of the winter/outdoor gear I've used. They are a bit spendy but
spectacularly well made, and they wear like iron. I imagine my Filson
Mackinaw will be handed down to my daughter and then to her children
before its usefulness has departed. The woolen gear is quiet in the
woods, keeps you warm even if damp or wet, and smells just fine to
boot. Thumbs up.
-- Tex
Filson's Mackinaw Cruiser
$265
Available from Filson
http://tinyurl.com/pnbkz
Solar Powered Air Conditioning: an Overview June 15, 2006 06:22 AM -
Lloyd Alter, Toronto Some concepts just make sense- like when the
developer of a solar powered pontoon boat pointed out-"Since most
recreational boating is done when the weather is nice, solar power is
particularly well adapted to the task." We were thinking that way
while looking for a solar powered air conditioner- when do you need
it? When it is hot and sunny.We looked at Justin's SolCool but we
knew that natural gas fired AC units or propane fridges existed and
thought heat is heat- there must be one somewhere, and put google to
work. This is the first of a series- the Direct-Fired Absorption
system.(DFA) Gas fired air conditioners work on the absorption
principle. "The distinguishing characteristic of absorption cooling
equipment is that it produces cooling by using heat energy as an
input, rather than by using mechanical energy. For this reason,
absorption chillers were once common in facilities that had large
boiler plants with excess capacity during the cooling season.
Unfortunately, absorption cooling is inefficient, and absorption
chillers appeared destined for extinction." ...In large absorption
machines, the actual refrigerant is water at very low pressure. An
absorber, usually the salt lithium bromide, is used to move water
vapor through the system. Crystallization of the salt is a major
operating problem that the design of an absorption chiller seeks to
avoid." Direct Absorption (DFA) was developed in Japan in the 60's
and now the world's largest maufacturer is Broad Air Conditioning in
China. "To power our absorption cycles, BROAD absorption chillers use
a wide range of energy sources: oil, gas, as well as solar power,
steam, hot water and exhaust. As our chillers do not use electricity
as an energy source, they have the potential to dramatically reduce
investment in electricity infrastructure in both public and private
sectors." They now appear to be extremely efficient and save lots of
electricity.
finally, we find on their site: " BROAD strives to be like our
ancestors that mastered the miracle of fire, like James Watt who
harnessed the power of steam, like Thomas Edison with his devotion to
testing and retesting. Our goal is to limit the use of fossil fuels
and exploit the use of renewable energies such as solar energy to
provide cooling and heating needs. Two years ago, BROAD provided an
American customer with our first solar energy powered air
conditioning system. This system has performed exceptionally well to
date. BROAD's solar energy engineers and salespeople have drafted an
ambitious plan to commercialize the solar energy air conditioning
system worldwide." We did not find the home-sized unit we were
looking for, but the peak loads in North America are driven by air
conditioning in summer- this looks like a good way of taking much of
that off the grid. Visit the surprisingly complete and thorough
website at ::Broad Air Conditioning and read their ::environmental
manifesto here
http://tinyurl.com/lgov5
GTD® on MindManager Template
My GTD® on MindManager template is now available for download as a a
zip file.
All feedback most welcomed.
For more information on Getting Things Done ® visit the website of
the David Allen Company, read his books and attend his seminars.
There were problems with the file download earlier, but it now seem
to be solved. If not please leave a comment. Many thanks in advance.
http://tinyurl.com/rqlf8
New LCD Technology Outperforms CRT This is something we’d thought
would happen eventually, but not this soon. eCinema Systems announced
that they’ve developed an LCD that surpasses CRT display quality,
and is planning to launch it it by Q4 of this year. The previous
shortcoming of LCD monitors was that they couldn’t support deep
blacks and real dark colors compared to CRT monitors. To solve this
problem, the new technology supports “deep color”—compatible
with the HDMI 1.3 spec we talked about yesterday—and can go up to 48-
bit colors. That’s the point at which humans can’t distinguish
onscreen color artifacts. Their DMC40HDR 40-inch LCD boasts these
features:
Darkest black level output of any TFT in the market
Can be used for professional color grading — previously done using
only CRTs
Can be used for professional critical picture evaluation —
previously done using only CRTs
Allows accurate viewing of intra-field motion on interlaced standards
Video displayed at true frame rates for all standards
Rugged shock mounted components for field operations
eCinema is also looking to make a 57-inch 1920x1080 LCD and a 82-inch
1920x1080 LCD. – JASON CHEN
eCinema Systems announces new LCD technology [SyphaOnline via Daily
Tech]
http://tinyurl.com/nfgbx
FOR THOSE BUYING HOUSES IN LA
Make a Quake Scientists have been working to uncover safer methods of
construction and new structural technologies that “mitigate” the
effects of earthquakes. And they’re finding that where a building is
erected is just as important as how it’s engineered

Discovery Channel has a cool earthquake simulator in which you are
able to pick from 2 options - type of ground and prevention - that
your building will have, and then pick the magnitude of the
Earthquake (tremor, quake or superquake) to make take the simulation.
Try it out and think twice before picking your next house ;P
Make a Quake at Discovery Channel
http://tinyurl.com/rm3xd
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