tingilinde

water is about 800 times as dense as air

I love this!   (thanks for the link Yann)

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micro exercising

What is the minimal amount of exercise you can get away with?  Bob McDonald chats with Jamie Timmons on this week's Quirks and Quarks (mp3) -- would you believe four thirty second sprints twice a week?

the abstract

Background
Classic, long duration aerobic exercise reduces cardiovascular and metabolic disease risk but this involves a substantial time commitment. Extremely low volume high-intensity interval training (HIT) has recently been shown to cause similar improvements to aerobic performance, but it has not been established whether HIT has the capacity to improve glycemic control.

Methods
Sixteen young men (age: 21+/-2 y; BMI: 23.7+/-3.1 kg * m-2; VO2peak: 48+/-9 ml * kg-1 * min-1) performed 2 weeks of supervised HIT comprising of a total of 15 min of exercise (6 sessions; 4-6 x 30-s cycle sprints per session). Aerobic performance (250-kJ self-paced cycling time trial), and glucose, insulin and NEFA responses to a 75-g oral glucose load (oral glucose tolerance test; OGTT) were determined before and after training.

Results
Following 2 weeks of HIT, the area under the plasma glucose, insulin and NEFA concentration-time curves were all reduced (12%, 37%, 26% respectively, all P<0.001). Fasting plasma insulin and glucose concentrations remained unchanged, but there was a trend towards reduced fasting plasma NEFA concentrations post-training (pre: 350 +/- 36 v post: 290 +/- 39 mumol * l-1, P=0.058). Insulin sensitivity as measured by the Cederholm index was improved by 22.5% (P<0.01). Aerobic cycling performance was improved by ~6% (P<0.01).

Conclusions
The efficacy of a high intensity exercise protocol, involving only ~250 kcal work each week, to substantially improve insulin action in young sedentary subjects is remarkable. We feel this novel time-efficient training paradigm can be used as a strategy to reduce metabolic risk factors in young and middle aged sedentary populations who otherwise would not adhere to a classic high volume, time consuming exercise regimes.

and the paper

does it come with a keychain?

Minicar is an understatement. 

The T10 is a single seater with a 600W motor (which is classified as a motorized four wheel bicycle -- 600 watts is less than one horsepower). Lead acid batteries and other things from the last century. 

Dimensions in English units are L 88" W 46" H 53" weight 638 pounds. Top speed 34 mph 

It can get a bit smaller, but this is still extreme.  Somehow I don't think this is the ideal car for Colleen I would bet a lot that she couldn't get in.  

When you get in this size class, perhaps the ideal vehicle is a bike.  Speaking of which, a reader sent mail saying that his family (husband, wife, ten year old son) have just downsized to a new Honda Fit.   His ten year old car died and when they were looking at a replacement, they decided to get rid of her almost-as-old car.  They're learning how to juggle, but think it is very workable.   They realized they only needed something large (his old car was a Ford Explorer) three or four times a year, so they'll rent.

I wonder how many families are looking at getting rid of a car?  It may be the most direct way to free up a lot of money for most families. 

a really bad idea

Bringing back the idea of nuclear powered aircraft.  

A really bad idea.  As the article mentions, working out next generation biofuels for aircraft makes much more sense.

note:  The air cooled reactor flown in the NB-36H was only 3 megawatts - about 4000 horsepower ... about the same as one of the B-36's piston engines (the B-36 had six piston and four jet engines.  The tests were to evaluate shielding and flight operation of a nuclear reactor.  It was never used to provide propulsion.   More detail on the program here.

sweet

Google continues to push for more efficient data centers.

but a suggestion

They really need to publish in terms of  kg CO₂e per unit computation.  Some of their data centers are largely run on hydropower (there are issues of how much extra CO₂ is emitted in the lakes behind the dams, but those are complex issues and can probably be ignored for existing dams) and others are probably in regions with a high percentage of power from the burning of hydrocarbons. 

Efficiency is great and Google is a fantastic example, but power sourcing can be even more important.

cars and automotive software complexity

I have no way of verifying a number like 100 million lines of code in a car (how much of that is replicated), but it is clear there is a lot of complexity, not to mention reliability issues.

snip

The avionics system in the F-22 Raptor, the current U.S. Air Force frontline jet fighter, consists of about 1.7 million lines of software code. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, scheduled to become operational in 2010, will require about 5.7 million lines of code to operate its onboard systems.

And Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner, scheduled to be delivered to customers in 2010, requires about 6.5 million lines of software code to operate its avionics and onboard support systems.

These are impressive amounts of software, yet if you bought a premium-class automobile recently, “it probably contains close to 100 million lines of software code,” says Manfred Broy, a professor of informatics at Technical University, Munich, and a leading expert on software in cars. All that software executes on 70 to 100 microprocessor-based electronic control units (ECUs) networked throughout the body of your car.

Alfred Katzenbach, the director of information technology management at Daimler, has reportedly said that the radio and navigation system in the current S-class Mercedes-Benz requires over 20 million lines of code alone and that the car contains nearly as many ECUs as the new Airbus A380 (excluding the plane’s in-flight entertainment system). Software in cars is only going to grow in both amount and complexity. Late last year, the business research firm Frost & Sullivan estimated that cars will require 200 million to 300 million lines of software code in the near future.

inefficient conversions and our food

Energy can be converted from one type to another, , but the process of moving from one specific type to another is usually inefficient.  Sunlight falls on green plants and photosynthesis does some chemistry that stores some of the energy in sugars (among other things) that animals and people can use.  The process is usually less than one percent efficient.  

We can eat the plants directly or we can eat animals that eat the plants.  The conversion process from plant to growing animal is also inefficient.  Not only is the animal inefficient at turning plant into animal, but food and animal must be transported.  The economics of farming attempts to optimize the growth rate of the animal - grow them fast and slaughter them as soon as possible, use foods that are optimized for growth, make sure they don't exercise too much, etc - but the process is still very inefficient.  (optimizing animal growth and lowering cost diminishes the quality of life of the animal too, but most people ignore that.  It is strange that the most energy efficient methods may be the least humane).

There are other problems when you make a lot of certain types of animals.  Some of them emit large quantities of methane - a green house gas that is much more potent that carbon dioxide.  Processing, refrigerating and moving the meat around adds other ocsts. The February, 2009 issue of Scientific American has a short article (online version here) that quantifies some of the environmental costs of eating different types of meat.  Beef is particularly bad (cows emit a lot of methane).

snip

Pound for pound, beef production generates greenhouse gases that contribute more than 13 times as much to global warming as do the gases emitted from producing chicken. For potatoes, the multiplier is 57.

Beef consumption is rising rapidly, both as population increases and as people eat more meat.

Producing the annual beef diet of the average American emits as much greenhouse gas as a car driven more than 1,800 miles.

You can work the numbers, but the average meat consumption of people in the US yields a greenhouse gas footprint by itself that is too large to stabilize greenhouse gases at current levels even if we stop using other forms of greenhouse gas emitting energy,  Moving to environmentally more friendly meats and eating less seems reasonable, but beef consumption is rising rapidly worldwide.

The FAO report Livestock's Long Shadow is referenced.  We've mentioned it here before.  Fascinating reading.  I have serious doubts people will make serious changes to their diets.  I have a difficult time dealing with more inhumane treatment of our food supply, but that is more efficient.  This may be a case where lower prices from efficiency increase total consumption and erase the benefits of lower emissions.

slight change in apple's drm free policy

-- I tried and about three albums were nuked - no update and the old album erased.  Also some singlet tracks are gone

Apple recently let you convert your iTMS purchases to DRM free/256kbps AAC for thirty cents a track.  The trick was it was all or nothing.  Now you can do it one at a time.  The interface could be a bit better and it is something of a tax to pay extra, but a move in the right direction.

update

WARNING!  DO NOT UPGRADE

snaptell

Neat iPhone app.  Take a photo of a book or CD cover and get reviews, prices and online stores.  It doesn't have the store selection I favor, but it works well in store lighting and poorly positioned covers.  The price is right - free

move over palins .. this is a real snow machine

Greg points out the work of the Armstead Snow Motors Company - screw propulsion


Armstead Snow Motors from Seeking Michigan on Vimeo.