tingilinde

wifi heatmap

A wireless signal strength "heatmap" ... cute!

(thanks for the link Mike)

a grand challenge

California goes after urban sprawl.

(thanks for the link Fred)

branding and design in olympics past, present and future

Interesting - I like Barcelona best and London ... well .. let's just say ouch and jarring

i'm sure they know they're worth every penny

RIAA's top executives have nice salaries -- about $1.5M a year

snip

RIAA chairman and chief executive Mitch Bainwol pulled an annual salary of nearly $1.5 million in 2006, according to IRS documents obtained by Digital Music News. The filing covers the annual period ending March 31st, 2006, and specifically reveals a Bainwol salary of $1.46 million, plus $17,175 in benefits. The payout was easily rivaled by president Cary Sherman, who pulled a base salary of $974,231, plus benefits totaling $584,287.

The salaries represent a significant raise from 2005, according to an earlier filing. During that period, Bainwol was paid $1.23 million in base compensation, and $117,522 in benefits. Sherman received a similar bump from a base of $920,000, and benefits of $104,482.

it is difficult to offer a comment... one wonders what performance goals were met?

commuter bikes on npr

npr on commuter bikes ... very spiffy A.N.T bikes mentioned

more useless usb accessories

but neat if you like plasmas next to your keyboard. from thinkgeek

wind power from kites

Several groups are working on the problem - there are excellent power densities to be found as you go up. Kites do away with the mast problem, but add a few of their own.

Greg points out KiteGen - lots of interesting information and neat movies.

early stuff....

don't mention green

Marguerite talks about getting people to do green things by appealing to their pocketbook rather than the approach used by most greens.

I agree that the "green" approach has largely failed. The message of is viewed as both shrill and confusing by many. There is confusion about the issues, poor education, political confusion -- in short it is a mess. (the actions of both parties reacting to high oil prices are shameful and is driven by polls rather than rational thought)

I don't think the pocketbook approach works well unless potential solutions and the concept of return on investment are made clear. An economist friend has been doing research on the level of ROI required to convince a consumer to make an energy saving choice. Consumers don't think in these terms, but his early work (not published yet) indicates that it has to be over thirty percent before people get interested. I don't think we're there yet -- look at the reaction to weather stripping, oil and food prices, etc. People need to be convinced there is a crisis if large numbers are to move - we are seeing single digit percentage reductions in driving, but it isn't clear if that represents behavioral change.

People should work at this approach, but most of us (myself included) are not rational actors. Pip Coburn would say people won't change until the perceived benefits outweigh the perceived pain of trying to learn something new. Change has to be very attractive and/or there needs to be a national emergency. Perhaps a path is to emphasize fun and (for young people) sex appeal...

Colleen and I talk about this a lot and our belief is one approach is to get people enjoying cleaner activities. The savings part is great, but if somehow you can have fun and perhaps improve your health and physical shape, you may have accomplished a behavior change. Our focus is on young people, but that is just a convenient entry point for Colleen as she is the primary mover in our collaboration.

Reducing car use is a good thing for the pocketbook, energy consumption, pollution and global warming. Displacing it with biking (for example) can be good for your health. Perhaps convincing kids that using a bike gives them a bit of freedom and can improve their strength and physical appearance is useful. At some point they can displace car use. Maybe, just maybe, a teen will see herself as being sexier and others might be convinced to try the same. If enough kids use bikes again, perhaps we will see action on bike paths (my experience is that it is much easier to move city councils and politicians towards projects that improve safety for kids than adults).

But fun and the implication of sexy is important if you are working with teens.

A pro beach volleyball player can be an outstanding motivator for a kid.

when being green is black and white

For year some of us (hi Greg) have been talking about tapping large man-made surfaces to extract or avoid heat. Two very promising ideas are collecting heat from blacktop and roofs that are white in the hot summer and dark in the Winter.

Asphalt parking lots are dandy solar collectors. On hot summer days they can get hot enough to soften the asphalt. They also stay warm for hours after sundown. Solar collectors that happen to have storage capacity. Rather than worrying about turning this heat energy into electricity, the most efficient approach is to use the heat directly. Heat buildings, water, industrial processes - whatever can make efficient use of energy in the form of heat.

Doing this on the scale of a home may or may not make sense, but the gut feeling is doing it on the scale of a neighborhood or building may be about right. Communities in Denmark already use distributed heat for groups of homes - this is just another source for something like that.

WPI is investigating the idea. Getting it right will take work, but the idea is fundamentally sound.

The other idea that many talk about is cutting AC load with white rooftops and/or cutting heating loads with dark roofs. Ideally what one wants is a roof that is dark in the Winter, white in the Summer and something in between at other times. By white and dark I mean the infrared as well as visible portions of the spectrum. Some years ago Greg asked the question of the cost effectiveness of spending money on white paint for roofs in hot areas that require expensive AC rather than spending an equivalent amount on solar cells. The problem isn't straightforward and it is possible to find situations where paint is better than solar arrays. It turns out, in many areas of the US, AC is so expensive that a white roof alone makes sense.

A fundamental issue is that any conversion of energy from one form to another is inefficient. Finding heat and using it directly can be a great strategy. Heat pumps and exchangers are sometimes neglected technologies, but they are often extremely cost efficient.

amish bike baskets

Very stylish in its own way

on pronouncing beijing

(thanks Ted:-)

candle powered hot air balloons

I used to make them in college out of the lightest dry cleaning bags you could find. Get one made for dresses, seal the hole in the top and attach a cluster of birthday candles by thread. Very effective at night. You can experiment with holes on the sides to make them more stable . I strongly recommend attaching a thread so they don't get away, unless you fly in a desolate and/or wet area.

Checking around to see if other people do this, I found an updated version as well as a link to something very similar to what I did in college.

interesting shuffle play juxtaposition

On the noon walk Combat Rock by Sleater-Kinney (lyrics) came up followed by the 7th section of Copland's Appalachian Spring (the variations on a Shaker theme). At one jarring and very hopeful.

Combat Rock is one of the best summaries of the Bush Administration. Written shortly after 9/11, it gets to the heart of America as Amerkia. And of course the Copland speaks for itself.

freedom to tinker

this is *very* important There is no substitute for working with things in the real world if you have to live in the real world. I can't tell you how many undergrads I've run into who don't have a basic feel for "stuff". If you want to produce scientists and engineers you have to have people watching, tinkering, asking questions and thinking about all of it.

green flying

We are decades from airplanes fueled by liquid hydrogen that is extracted by clean energy sources. A recent New Scientist had an overview piece on the problem of what to do in the meantime - it is behind their paywall, but appears here.

Dealing with ground based transportation is much easier -