Ninnytechnology
jfiore | January 23, 2009From a recent ad spotted in Running Times magazine, we discover a way to get oxygen into the bloodstream of athletes without using the lungs. Yes, it's SportsOxy Shot from Scientific Solutions LLC. They're selling "super oxygenated" water that's supposed to drastically improve athletic performance. A "serving" is 10 milliliters and it contains 15 volumes percent O2. Hmmm, a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation reveals something interesting. Let's say we have a decent (though not elite) runner with a VO2max of 60 ml O2 per kg per minute. Further, let's say that they're running at an easy…
bushwells | June 2, 2008From one of my favorite "Oh, my! Isn't that quirky?" sites, technovelgy, comes Useful Body Modifications (submitted by Bill Christensen). Here we find a dude who has a ruler tattooed on the underside of his forearm...
...others who have small magnets implanted under the skin to attain a "sixth sense" (WTF?) and finally, pierced glasses. The latter take the Pince-nez to the twenty-first century.
And here are the instructions from James Sooy and Oliver Gibson who have come up with this innovation:
Get pierced - an internally-threaded barbell that goes through the skin above the bridge of…
jfiore | January 21, 2008Our Sunday newspaper magazine section features a two page ad for a new "miracle" heating device that looks like a fireplace and features a "hand-crafted Amish mantel". Check this out:
The HEAT SURGE miracle heater is a work of engineering genius from the China coast, so advanced you simply plug it into any standard wall outlet. It uses less energy than it takes to run a coffee maker. Yet, it produces an amazing 5,119 BTU's. An on-board Powerful hi-tech heat turbine silently forces hot air out into the room so you feel the bone soothing heat instantly. It even has certification of…
bushwells | January 10, 2008The 2008 Consumer Electronics Show wraps up today. As one might imagine, the show's replete with the coolest and most dubious of technology for the "Entertain Me!" masses. This Air Guitar Hero offering from "Nitrous Roxide" is a fine example of the dubious.
Here's the explanation of the technology in a nutshell:
Here's another demonstration. Why, oh, why did he opt for van Halen instead of Deep Purple?
I'm a mere bio-idiot, so I'm hoping Doc Acoustically-Enhanced-Jim will weigh in on this deliciously geeky device. I'll just say that Nitrous Roxide needs a more believable wig.
I can't…
bushwells | October 24, 2007Gakked from Technovelgy:
Here is a new cell phone that sports a replaceable scented strip on its body. Although it doesn't transmit odors to the recipient of a phone call, it's not a far cry from Fred Pohl's joymaker, a fictional form of PDA described in The Age of the Pussyfoot:
The remote-access computer transponder called the "joymaker" is your most valuable single possession in your new life. If you can imagine a combination of telephone, credit card, alarm clock, pocket bar, reference library, and full-time secretary, you will have sketched some of the functions provided by your…
jfiore | April 1, 2007In order to learn how to design circuits and systems using transistors and other solid state devices, students of electronics are told in their courses how semiconductors function. The atomic structure of crystalline silicon is examined in its intrinsic and doped states. Discussion of energy levels, conduction band electrons and hole production quickly follow. Soon, the student encounters the PN junction, a basic building block of modern electronics, and learns about majority and minority carriers, depletion regions, barrier potentials, leakage current and other exotica. All of this…
jfiore | January 3, 2007Mother Jones has an interesting article this month concerning hypermilers, that is, people who try to get the absolute highest possible fuel mileage out of their vehicles. Lots of folks are concerned about the environment along with high fuel costs, so I figured these drivers might be able to give me a few pointers. Boy, was I wrong.
As far as I can determine, this has little to do with environmental responsibility and everything to do with some sort of competition gone awry. Sure, some hypermilers have managed to get very impressive figures out of their vehicles, in excess of 100 miles per…