Welcome to my totally "UNBIASED" (yeah, as if that will ever happen) commentary on some of the funnier (as in "haha", but also as downright "weird") changes Canada has undergone in the past few decades.
1) A Spectrolab solar cell recently set a world record by converting more energy from the sun into electricity than any other ground-based solar cell without solar concentration. The cell converted 37.8 percent of solar energy using a new class of high-efficiency multi-junction solar cell, created from two or more materials and leveraging Boeing technology that makes semiconductor materials more reliable. The record was set without concentration, the common practice of having lenses or mirrors focus solar rays on the cells. "We expect this solar cell technology will have significant benefits for space, ground-based, and sensor applications," said Troy Dawson, president of Spectrolab. Spectrolab believes this solar cell technology can attain higher levels of efficiency, "possibly more than 45 percent even under low concentrations," according to Nasser Karam, the company’s vice president for advanced technology.
HARNESSING WIND ENERGY
A. Wind farms
- In London, England, 175 Siemens wind turbines each with a capacity of 3.6 MW, the
massive energy project has been under construction since March 2011. A
peak output it is expected to generate 630MW, finally putting Britain’s
notoriously bad weather to good use. Located
nearly 18 miles offshore on the outer Thames Estuary, the London Array’s 175
turbines are spreadacross 90 square miles.
Building an array of this size on
the open seas was no small feat. Even setting aside its sheer scale, the Array
had to be built in the notoriously rough winters of the English Channel, which
while wonderful for powering a wind farm, but not so much for building one.
This is the world’s largest operational offshore wind farm and iscapable of generating enough energy to power nearly half a million homes and reduce harmful CO2 emissions by over 900,000 tonnes a year. It plans to expand the Array to produce 870MW.
B. Other major wind farms:
While the London Array may be the world’s largest wind farm today, several projects are under development to create offshore wind farms in the UK, Sweden and Japan that will eclipse the capacity of the London Array. Chief among these projects is the Bleking Offshore wind farm being considered by Sweden’s environmental court. If approved, the Swedish wind farm could one day generate 2.5GW from the winds of the Baltic Sea.
D. No moving parts Dutch researchers have developed the EWICON, a bladeless windmill with no moving parts, that produces electricity by pushing charged water droplets into the wind.
Wave Glider Ocean Robots
Liquid Robotics is revolutionizing our understanding of the oceans with its unmanned sensor with advanced capabilities such as a hybrid propulsion system.
The new model can use solar power for propulsion. The earlier models used wave energy for propulsion and solar power for sensors and communications. The new solar cells for the robot are 50 percent more efficient, allowing them to power the propulsion system. Liquid Robotics gained a spot in history when it announced in December that Papa Mau, one of its data-collecting second-generation Wave Gliders, had floated more than 9,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean. Wave Gliders can collect data on weather in remote locations. They can be used to monitor hurricanes, predict tsunamis, and monitor rare marine life. Wave Gliders collect data on temperature, winds, humidity, wind gusts, water temperature, water color, and water composition. They can also take pictures. These robots are gathering a lot of observational data about climate change, ocean acidification, fisheries management, hurricane and tsunami warnings, and exploration — but in a green way.
Does your golf game need help?
"FORE!! Three - Two - One - Fire!" called Doug Frost, inventor of
Rocketry Golf and Manager of the Rocketry Golf Organization. Then he
launched his ball (on the nosecone of a model rocket) from the tee of
the par-five 433-yard first hole at the Ridge Golf Club in Auburn,
California. Not fazed by the uphill approach shot to the green, he
placed his tee shot
...err...launch... only 23 feet from the hole.
Unfortunately, Doug isn't much of a regular golfer, and two-putted in
for a birdie. Frost's rocketry golf replaces your golf clubs with a
selection of rockets and a putter. The rockets are used to launch the
ball onto the green, where the traditional putter comes back into play. Check this new way of "golfing" GizMag,com.
This information was obtained (according to the website) from second hand sources and I list it here only for interest - not as factual information nor personal experience ( I wish ) or how the cars were equipped.
Car website Auto Blog revealed Robert Kirkman's latest creation: a custom Hyundai Elantra Coupe modified for zombie slaying. Set to debut around The Walking Dead's 100th issue at San Diego Comic-Con, a real, physical car was turned into the "Zombie Survival Machine" by Design Craft, modeled after a sketch done by Kirkman. It also features a vinyl wrap of The Walking Dead #100 cover.
2) Or maybe you worry about being attacked by supersonic tennis balls?
New radar, developed for the British Royal Navy’s Type 23 Duke-class frigates, is designed to simultaneously detect 900 targets smaller than a bird, against background noise equivalent to 10,000 mobile phone signals at ranges from 200 meters (656 ft) to 200 kilometers (124 mi).
It could detect a tennis ball traveling at Mach 3 (1,980 mph, 3,186 km/h) from a distance of 25 kilometers (15.5 mi).
3) If you like the Swiss Army Knife you might like this "wallet"
- screwdriver (flat or Phillips) - nested wrench (in SAE or metric) - two-inch ruler, - bottle opener - twist top opener - wing nut wrench, - smartphone tablet stand - can top popper - box opener - keychain - holds credit cards, etc
This item is NOT available (no matter how much you fell you can't live without one) because the creator needed money to fund its production. And this is the interesting part for me. It is being funded by "crowdfunding" using a program called Kickstarter. There are several similar programs that raise money by "donations" to fund innovative products like CD's, films, games, music, art, design, technology etc. If this piques your interest (as in, you have ideas but no money) use Google to search for "crowdfunding" sites. Also see "Stompy" at the end of this posting for a $97,817 pledged for a project. 4) Realistic April Fool's jokes:
a) Early on Monday, (as a joke), Google promoted a new service called Google Nose that would enable users to scan a 15 million "SCENT-BYTE" database of smells from around the world. Their idea was scooped by the "smelling screen", invented by Haruka Matsukura at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology in Japan, Smells appear to come from the exact spot on any LCD screen that is displaying the image of a cup of coffee, for example. It was demonstrated at the IEEE Virtual Reality Research Demonstration in Florida, March 16-23rd.
(b) Twitter announced a new plan (called "twttr") to increase user efficiency by eliminating the use of vowels in their 140 character allocation. The vowel-free plan would be free with vowel plans costing $5 per month. The character "y" would be free even when used as a consonant. "Y trd th nw Twttr yt? Mr rm fr twts." Maybe they are onto something ????? 5) Physicists make breakthrough on 'invisibility cloak'
Physicists at the University of Texas in Austin took a new approach to the tantalizing challenge. Instead of the method widely pursued until now, where scientists used a "meta-material" to hide an object from view by bending visible light around it, the team managed to apply a "mantle cloaking" technique that cancels out waves bouncing off the shielded object. "We have experimentally verified a new route to render a 3D object standing in free space invisible to radio waves, without requiring a bulk meta-material cover," said the study, published in the New Journal of Physics.
A little two-inch device meant to be worn on a keychain. The blade "can be used to quickly cut yourself out of a piece of clothing, seatbelt or other safety strap." $11 and it might, and it might save a life even it is never used if it makes the person feel safer to buckle up.
7) Now this is something I really need - a Mantis walking machine:
(turn on your sound - rofl)
The robot weighs a massive 1,900 kg (4,188 pounds), stands 2.8 meters (9.18 ft) tall, and is powered by a Perkins 2.2 liter turbo diesel engine and hydraulics. It's outfitted with a variety of sensors (including force transducers, angle sensors, and an inclinometer) that help it walk. A Linux PC running HexEngine – software designed to control hexapod locomotion – takes care of the 18 hydraulic actuators in its legs, while a panel PC puts you in the driver's seat. Or maybe Stompy:
NOTE: Stompy has been funded through kickstarter: 1,571 backers pledged a total of $97,817.
The 1,600 kilometre Journey of Nishiyuu began with a vision of a wolf facing a bear and ended its epic climax Monday with a final march on Parliament Hill.
David
Kawapit, 18, says the walk has helped him and others deal with
personal
struggles including depression and suicidal thoughts. (CBC)
I, for one, am immensely proud of these six young Canadians from the Cree Nation at Whapmagoostui (on Hudson Bay): Stanley George Jr, Johnny Abraham, David Kawapit, Raymond Kawapit, Geordie Rupert, Travis George and their guide Isaac Kawapit.
They have been an example to all of us in their dedication and personal sacrifice to demonstrate their cause.
Whapmagoostui
is the northernmost Cree village in Quebec, located at the mouth of the
Great Whale River on the coast of Hudson Bay in Nunavik. Years ago, I lived several weeks in Moosonee which is on James Bay south of their community of about 750 people, and I know how cold it can be (like minus 50 degrees) and how desolate it is. I only walked from my cabin to the weather station twice a day and that was long enough trek for me.
I am not impressed with our Prime Minister who chose to fly from Ottawa just before their arrival for a photo-op with two Pandas.
Thousands gathered in front of Parliament
Hill to hear the six
youth
who began the journey speak.(Andrew
Foote/CBC)
THIS PAGE OF MY BLOG IS DEDICATED TO THESE FINE YOUNG MEN AND TO THOSE WHO JOINED THEM ON THEIR TREK.
My hat is off to you guys - I hope you don't have to walk home.
I am also proud of the people in Vancouver who were deemed to be the darkest city in the world on Earth Hour day.
People in more than 7,000 cities and towns across the planet turned off lights for an hour from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. local time. It may not actually DO much for the enironment, but it does show that most of the people in the world DO CARE.
But then there are a few people, not to mention Ezra Levant (of Fox/Sun News) specifically, who seem to live on a different planet. Local conservative commentator Ezra Levant says he was
“very proud” of Calgary city’s Earth Hour indifference - there was no drop in power use.
“Calgary loves energy, and
isn’t ashamed of it,” he tweeted.
On January 16th, 2013 (a national day of action for INM) six Cree men under the age of 20 (with an experienced guide) left from Whapmagoostui (Great Whale) on Hudson Bay in minus 50 degree weather.
They are walking an estimated 1500 km (even Google Maps can not calculate the actual distance, but it is like Winnipeg to Ottawa) along traditional Cree/Algonquin/Mohawk trading routes to Ottawa. They are snowshoeing through the wilderness and are camping along the way.
They are expected to arrive at Victoria Island Monday, March 25th, for a welcoming ceremony between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. and then walk to Parliament Hill. Theirs is not a "walk in the park". They have a vision and a manifesto and they are putting their feet where their mouths are.
Residents of Iqaluit may see pedestrians carrying some strange-looking equipment on their backs until Sunday.
They’re members of a team working for Google Maps to photograph the city for Google Street View.
Google missed a big chance to add to the Internet sites of unusual street views when they didn't have one of the Cree INM walkers wear a "trekker" on their hike. Oh right - 69 days of snow might make a boring video.
GOOGLE SHOWS US MOUNTAIN VIEWS
"Google Maps is the first place most internet users look to for views of the world that might be otherwise unreachable. Google is expanding that service, with detailed views from the tops of mountains. Most of us will never be able to climb any of the world's tallest peaks, but with Google Maps Street View, at least we can see what it would be like if we did.
Google's team captured the images using a simple tripod and a digital camera with a fish-eye lens. The team cataloged their adventures while taking the photos on Google's Lat-Long blog. This offers a little more insight into what it took for the team to capture these impressive photos. - quoted from Gizmag.com SOME INNOVATIVE THINGS TO THINK ABOUT(or not)
1) The National Hockey League is testing a heated skate blade that cuts
more smoothly through the ice than traditional blades, helping skaters
go even faster. As with the science behind their ill-advised "uniform system,"
the science underlying the new skates — called Thermablades — is solid.
Skating is possible because a thin, friction-reducing layer of water
forms between blade and ice; heat generated by the battery-powered
Thermablades makes that lubricant layer thicker.
But just because something is possible, should it be done?
2) Snow Skates? skates for "skating" on packed snow or ice.
3) Childbirth
teaching apparel for a user to demonstrate birth techniques. The pants have a doll-containing portion; and at least one side
abdominal opening allowing access to the doll-containing portion; and a
crotch between the leg portions where the leg portions meet the
abdominal portion; the crotch having a secondary opening radially
expandable to simulate a human vagina. A user can insert a doll simulating a human
baby into the doll-containing portion; via one of the side abdominal
openings; and push the doll through the secondary opening to simulate
childbirth.
4) The ORIGAMI condom is the first non-rolled, injection- molded, engineered, silicone condom. It comes in male, female and "other" types. Can be installed in 2.8 seconds (so they say). Best you click on the link and read about it if you are interested.
5) After 35 years in spacethere is evidence Voyager 1 spacecraft may have has become the first vehicle to venture beyond the heliosphere (the magnetic bubble created by the Sun) or maybe not.
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Tuesday, March 19, 2013
FORWARD LOOKING IDEAS
Electric tilt-rotor can be self charging
AgustaWestland has sold tilt-rotor AW609 craft for several years. It recently unveiled the world’s first electric tilt rotor airplane. It’s known simply as Project Zero.As with other tilt rotor aircraft, Project Zero’s two rotors can be tilted
up to 90 degrees. This allows it to take off and land vertically and to
hover, like a helicopter, while also flying forward with the speed and
efficiency of a fixed-wing aircraft. Each of the rotors are driven by
their own electric motor, which is powered by rechargeable batteries. When parked on the ground,
those rotors can be tilted to “windmill” in the oncoming wind, charging
the batteries as they do so.
The aircraft’s control
systems, flight controls and landing gear actuators are all
electrically powered. Because Project Zero’s electric motors don’t require
oxygen, the aircraft could conceivably fly at very
high altitudes or in heavily-polluted air. It should also be difficult
to detect, as it makes little noise and has a low thermal signature
while in flight.
The JWST is a large, infrared-optimized
space telescope. The project is working to a 2018 launch date. Webb will find
the first galaxies that formed in the early Universe, connecting the Big Bang
to our own Milky Way Galaxy. Webb will peer through dusty clouds to see stars
forming planetary systems, connecting the Milky Way to our own Solar System.
Webb's instruments will be designed to work primarily in the infrared range
of the electromagnetic spectrum, with some capability in the visible range.
Use your iPad to make your car into a self-driving iPad robot
car.The low-cost navigation system can recognise its surroundings
using small cameras and lasers discreetly built into the body of the car
and linked to a computer in the trunk. The technology is controlled
from an iPad on the dashboard that flashes up a prompt offering the
driver the option of the car taking over for a portion of a previous familiar route by touching the screen to 'auto drive' for the robotic system to take over.
"UFOs" on the highway Audi has revealed a car lighting technology using thousands of tiny OLED colored lights that cover the width of the trunk to look like a moving "swarm" of
animals that respond to movement and the direction of the car. As the car speeds up the 'animals' move
faster.
The displays are designed to show other
drivers what the driver it doing or planning to do. You have it see it to believe it.
.
If you would like a less "glamorous", but more informative video, click HERE.
(The OLED has made this kind of display feasible - not so sure about how useful)
Australian scientists have successfully revived and reactivated the genome of an extinct frog. The "Lazarus Project" team implanted cell nuclei from tissues collected in the 1970s and kept in a conventional deep freezer for 40 years into donor eggs from a distantly-related frog. Some of the eggs spontaneously began to divide and grow to early embryo stage with tests confirming the dividing cells contained genetic material from the extinct frog. Clawed micro-drone swoops up prey mid-flight
Here's something you don't see everyday: a Micro Unmanned Aerial vehicle (MAV) that can grab objects on the fly with all the elegance of an eagle snatching a fish from the water's surface. Although MAVs and UAVs are increasingly being equipped to pick up, transport, and drop off payloads, we've never seen this incredibly precise form of grasping on the fly replicated – until now.
Using the technique that created Dolly the sheep, researchers from the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, have identified a way to produce healthy mouse clones that live a normal lifespan and can be sequentially cloned indefinitely. In an experiment that started in 2005, the team led by Dr. Teruhiko Wakayama has used a technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SNCT) to produce 581 clones of one original "donor" mouse through 25 consecutive rounds of cloning.
One of the world’s oldest preserved beers to be reproduced
Produced at least as far back as 5,000 BC, beer has been with us for a long time. But coming third only to water and tea in terms of worldwide popularity means that the lifespan of individual beers is more likely to be measured in days or weeks rather than years or decades. The exception is if they’re preserved at the bottom of the Baltic Sea in a shipwreck. One such shipwrecked beer that is about 170 years old has been salvaged and analyzed and will be reproduced using modern industrial techniques.
CANADA GETS TOUGH ON CRIME
(by creating political crimes and making criminals out of innocent bystanders)
by Douglas J. Johnston, Winnipeg lawyer - from the Winnipeg Free Press March 16, 2013)
The Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, which amends
Canada's Criminal Code to allow a citizen's arrest within a
"reasonable" period of time after a crime occurs, came into force
this week. Prior to the amendments, a felon had to be caught red-handed for a
citizen's arrest to be lawful.
The amendments were dubbed the "Lucky Moose"
bill, after Toronto's Lucky Moose food mart, whose owner was charged with
assault and forcible confinement in 2009 after he and two employees chased
down, tied up and held a shoplifter until police arrived. The store owner,
David Chen, had witnessed the career thief (43 prior convictions) steal from
his store earlier that day, but he'd gotten away before Chen could act. When
the shoplifter returned an hour later, Chen nabbed him.
The case became a cause célèbre when the Crown attorneys'
office prosecuted Chen for trying to protect his property. He was acquitted at
trial.
The amendments have attracted their share of criticism.
Critics contend the bill encourages victims to take the law into their own
hands. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association sees it as leading to
"forms of vigilantism."
But the Lucky Moose amendments aren't the only
citizen-as-cop provision in the Criminal Code. In fact, they pale beside our
treason law. Because, where there's an alleged crime against the state, the law
deputizes us all.
The exercise of citizen's-arrest powers is voluntary --
you can, as ever, forget about apprehending a thief and just call the police.
Our treason law, however, dictates that you must get involved with the
crime-in-progress.
The Lucky Moose amendments also have the benefit of,
logically, involving only the players in a crime -- the victim and offender.
Our treason law ropes in witnesses, too, and turns them into criminals if they
don't do something to foil the plotters.
In short, the Criminal Code makes it compulsory to
protect the state, whether you want to or not.
An example: You're sitting in a local doughnut shop one
morning, sipping your coffee and munching your muffin, minding your own
business. Then, two tables over, you hear a couple of guys plotting what sounds
like a crime.
Do you have a legal duty to report them to the police? Or
to stop them from carrying out their plan? If they're working up a break and
enter, a drug deal or a robbery, the answer is "No."
But if it's treason they're scheming, you're obligated to
report them to the police, or to attempt to thwart their plot. If you don't,
you're guilty of a criminal offence. Sec. 50 (1) (b) of the Criminal Code of
Canada makes it a crime punishable by up to 14 years imprisonment if you
neglect your citizenly duty to report, or stop, them.
Nowhere else in our law is there an affirmative duty,
coupled with a major-league criminal penalty, either to warn police or
personally confront would-be offenders -- not even if what's being plotted is
murder.
A duty to report to authorities -- and merely report -- a
criminal plot may in and of itself not be a bad idea. However, applying it to treason
is.
Treason is one of the most nebulous crimes in our
Criminal Code. Lawyers, judges and legal academics have written volumes about
where legitimate political protest ends and treason begins, and when acts of
civil agitation morph into revolutionary insurrection.
It's also a notoriously elastic crime -- one that
suddenly loses its criminality when there's a regime change or the political
winds blow a different direction. Sixteenth-century English courtier Sir John
Harington's famous epigram -- cited in several judicial decisions -- nicely catches
its pliability:
Treason doth never prosper:
What's the reason?
For if it prosper,
None dare call it treason.
Nonetheless, the Criminal Code requires anyone sitting in
a doughnut shop to rush to judgment, decide whether it's a crime against the
state being discussed two tables over, and leap into action -- or maybe not.
That the state's coercive power is so heavily brought to
bear, not against wrongdoers, but mere witnesses, underscores the law's
transparent result: It doesn't target crime, it creates political crimes. Worse
yet, it makes criminals out of innocent bystanders.
Sec. 50 (1) (b) is an utterly unprincipled provision. It
so overreaches the acceptable limits of criminal law that it's an
embarrassment.
In the late 1980's it was on the political radar map for
repeal, but it disappeared from view.
It's possible, over time, that on the ground there will
be instances of excess in applying the new citizen's arrest law. But, next to
our treason law, its reach, and objects, are pretty modest.
- In London, England, 175 Siemens wind turbines each with a capacity of 3.6 MW, the
massive energy project has been under construction since March 2011. A
peak output it is expected to generate 630MW, finally putting Britain’s
notoriously bad weather to good use. Located
nearly 18 miles offshore on the outer Thames Estuary, the London Array’s 175
turbines are spread across 90 square miles. 
C. Non-spinning blade generators: 
"FORE!! Three - Two - One - Fire!" called Doug Frost, inventor of
Rocketry Golf and Manager of the Rocketry Golf Organization. Then he
launched his ball (on the nosecone of a model rocket) from the tee of
the par-five 433-yard first hole at the Ridge Golf Club in Auburn,
California. Not fazed by the uphill approach shot to the green, he
placed his tee shot
