Check out these YouTube clips

1) - The Physics of Crystals 2) - History of the EV Gray Motor 3) - Browns Gas Water Torch Research & Applications 4) - Getting there and Saving on Gas Costs

Added 3 New Vanguard Sciences Ebooks on 12/18/08
Shape Power - Dan Davidson's analysis of the mysterious pyramid energies, Keely's aether force, Reich's orgone energy, Schauberger's diamagnetic energy, plus a host of others, and shows how shape and materials interact with the universal aether to modify the aether into electromagnetic, gravitic, and various healing energies...

The Physics of the Primary State of Matter - published in the 1930s, Karl Schappeller described his Prime Mover, a 10-inch steel sphere with quarter-inch copper tubing coils. These were filled with a material not named specifically, but which is said to have hardened under the influence of direct current and a magnetic field [electro-rheological fluid]. With such polarization, it might be guessed to act like a dielectric capacitor and as a diode...

Horse Taming - (under Oddities) - novel way to let the horse do it... In many hours of data mining in my batcave archives, I found this in a very old book and was surprised at how such a simple method could yield such useful results. / and more interesting info at - Source

01/03/09 - RORMaxx - Wind Powered Sports Car
Rory Handel and Max Bricklin, both of Harvard-Westlake High School, are responsible for the wind driven concept and they have every intention of following through with the idea. Handel has a passion for motor racing and there is no doubting that his racing ambitions played a part in designing the RORMaxx. Powering the RORMaxx is a 285 horsepower AC electric motor. Power will be provided via Lithium-Phosphate batteries that can be charged through solar paneling mounted on the body of the vehicle. On a sunny day, the solar power could extend the overall range by 15%-30%. The body and frame of the RORMaxx will be kept as light as possible to keep the required level of power down. The F1 inspired shell is expected to be aluminum based with steel being used only when necessary. Light-weight Magnesium racing wheels with M composite tires will keep the RORMaxx on the tarmac without adding too much weight. Once the vehicle is moving, the forward motion will be used to route air into 4 ducts, each one housing a small turbine. The turbines will be connected to ultra-capacitors that will store the charge until it is needed. The capacitors will provide for quicker acceleration off the line and when coming out of turns. - Source

01/03/09 - Why Not To Shout At Your Disk Array w/amazing video
Sun's Fishworks lab has an interesting video demo up at YouTube video demonstrating just how bad vibes, if expressed with sufficient volume in front of a rack full of disks, can cause a spike in disk latency. White noise, evidently, doesn't do them much harm. - Source

01/03/09 - Basic EVO Questions (and much more on electron clusters)
Ken Shoulders writes; "View of Existing Science - What I say about EVOs is viewed as the ultimate heretical doctrine by established and entrenched science because my vanguard statement is that many sacrosanct laws of present, single particle physics are baloney when considered from the multi-universe view I advance. For example: neither charge nor mass is fixed in magnitude and energy does not equal mass times the velocity of light squared. In addition, matter, even biological life forms, can be teleported with ease in concealed form at thousands of times the velocity of light. Nuclear transmutation is a trivial act, as many cold fusion workers have already revealed. This is dissent heresy from a normal, existing science point of view. - Source and all his articles and papers in pdf, doc and ppt form.

01/03/09 - New Year’s Resolutions Bad For Your Health
Making self-improvement New Year’s resolutions often leaves people feeling worse, the British mental health charity Mind warned. Mind urged people not to make resolutions focusing on physical imperfections such as attempting to lose weight because they create a negative self image and lead to feelings of low self-esteem, hopelessness and even mild depression. And when such optimistic resolutions fail, that could spark feelings of inadequacy and failure, the charity warned. “New Year’s resolutions can sometimes focus on our problems or insecurities such as being overweight, feeling unhappy in our jobs or feeling guilty about not devoting enough time to friends and family throughout the year,” said Mind chief executive Paul Farmer. “We chastise ourselves for our perceived shortcomings and set unrealistic goals to change our behaviour, so it’s not surprising that when we fail to keep resolutions, we end up feeling worse than when we started.” Mind suggested resolution-makers focus instead on being active, connecting with nature, learning something new and working for one’s community. - Source

High Voltage & Free Energy Devices Handbook
This wonderfully informative ebook provides many simple experiments you can do, including hydrogen generation and electrostatic repulsion as well as the keys to EV Gray's Fuelless Engine. One of the most comprehensive compilations of information yet detailing the effects of high voltage repulsion as a driving force. Ed Gray's engine produced in excess of 300HP and he claimed to be able to 'split the positive' energy of electricity to produce a self-running motor/generator for use as an engine. Schematics and tons of photos of the original machines and more! Excellent gift for your technical friends or for that budding scientist! If you are an experimenter or know someone who investigates such matters, this would make an excellent addition to your library or as an unforgettable gift. The downloadable HVFE eBook pdf file is almost 11MB in size and contains many experiments, photos, diagrams and technical details. Buy a copy and learn all about hydrogen generation, its uses and how to produce electrostatic repulsion. - 121 pages - $15.00 - Source

01/03/09 - As Local Ingenuity Generates Electricity. . .
Though no one could trace the exact origins of the invention, one thing that is sure is that it must have started as a hobby by a talented individual somewhere who thereafter decided to test its acceptability. And just like any other invention that started as an idea, this one is really working. It uses no petrol or kerosene and is fabricated by local technicians. Hawked on the streets of Lagos by young boys at very affordable price, this small box that has been christened 'doju ti NEPA' meaning 'putting NEPA to shame' is indeed putting the PHCN to shame by lighting up many homes that had for long been battling with epileptic power supply. Other users, probably out of ignorance, call it a solar lamp because of the reflective compact disc fitted to it that looks like a miniature solar panel. Though it may not be the perfect solution, it is meeting some immediate needs. The lighting box which comes with a switch to put in on and off is made up of a reflective used compact disc fitted with about four or five tiny globes that are powered by three batteries. The effect is indeed 'electric' whenever it is switched on as the bulbs reflect directly on the compact disc to produce a very bright light. The impact as well as the effect, many users would confirm, is even more than that from a 40 watts bulb. According to Mrs. Adekunle, "we later discovered that these are Hausa boys and the lighting box they were selling would be very useful especially with the way the Power Holding is treating us. I bought a set that evening and discovered that it is working. Now, we can sleep with our two eyes closed without the fear of an explosion. We put it on all night and it is very bright. We don't need to go looking for kerosene or petrol as in the case of generator and we don't have to exercise any fear of any fume as it is environmentally friendly." - Source

01/03/09 - Americans to Have More Sex, Use Fewer Antidepressants in 2009
The reason is that women's growing economic power around the world will give them more choices, and one of those choices, apparently, will be to have more sex. This prediction and more comes from The Futurist magazine, which compiles the forecasts and predictions of assorted visionaries each year. The issue also predicts that "Americans may turn away from antidepressants." According to the anthropologist who made this call, the millions of antidepressant prescriptions Americans take "kill the sex drive" but many may quit taking them, giving another boost to sexual activity in the new year. — Better underwear. The magazine says the invention of "high-tech underwear" will mean, "better blood flow, more energy" for all who wear them. - Source

01/03/09 - Economic Crises Known to Spawn Innovation
Given previous times of economic turmoil, the slogan “A crisis is the mother of invention” is a perfect description. Dramatic technological advancement usually follows an economic crisis because of the golden opportunity to newcomers given that old values are destroyed and entry barriers and the risk of failure are lowered. “Though 2009 faces the worst economic crisis in a century, a new technology or product that changes the world could emerge this year as well,” the paper said. Toyota Motor is developing an electronic car powered by an attached solar cell battery. The company’s ultimate goal is reportedly developing vehicles powered by solar energy that can be recharged at home via solar panels. - Source

01/03/09 - Entrepreneur's advice: Avoid 'sky is falling' mentality
People are essentially declaring that '"the sky is falling.'" As a result, you see lots of bad thinking people are selling off perfectly sound investments or going further into debt with '"therapeutic shopping.'" If there ever was a time for rational and calculated thinking this is it. Many investment portfolios may not look great today, but the market will bounce back so go over them carefully and methodically before making any portfolio changes. Together, we can avoid mass -hysteria and shore -up our economy to its previous strength. We can encourage innovation by creating tax incentives for venture capitalists to invest in small companies say, less than $30 million in revenues and by cutting back on Sarbanes -Oxley regulations, which have crippled the creation of new public companies, shifted the world financial center out of New York, and hamstrung entrepreneurship. America must restore its economic leadership by investing more in the skills of Americans in science, engineering and math. For decades America's commitment to education in these fields helped us compete to win in the world economy. But in recent years, the number of Americans pursuing education in science and technology has fallen far behind the people in the rest of the world. In fact, Americans have been a minority in U.S. graduate schools in these fields. The National Academy of Sciences, with many Nobel Prize winners, has recommended 20 concrete steps to address the erosion of our technological competitiveness. They include special training and incentives for science and math teachers, expanded scholarship programs, and increased federal investment in basic research. - Source

01/03/09 - Xtreme Science Foundation (XSF) - an Institution whose time has come
Here we are at the beginning of 2009, year that will certainly prove very challenging for all of us, wherever we are. Such a global economic crisis doesn't only hurt people where it seems to matter the most - their pockets - but it also provides some time for reflection, and creates an opportunity to re-examine the adequacy of many fundamental principles our society has been guided by in its chosen developmental model. We may finally understand that money IS NOT everything, and that Earth provides enough to satisfy everybody's needs, but not everybody's greed. We may hopefully understand what Gandhi said about "The Roots of Violence: "Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles.” And we should have understood by now that, in this WWW age, people are powerful, if they're not "asleep". - Source

01/03/09 - Volvo Introduces a Collision-Proof Car
Volvo will introduce a concept car based on the S60 this month at the Detroit Auto Show, looking ahead a few years to the goal that by 2020 "no one should be killed or injured in a Volvo car." The concept car will have forward-looking radar as a proximity sensor, and the ability to brake if a collision is imminent. When the car senses a collision, a light flashes on the windscreen display along with an audible warning. If the driver doesn't act, the car will brake automatically. - Source

01/03/09 - Why Mirroring Is Not a Backup Solution
"Journalspace.com has fallen and can't get up. The post on their site describes how their entire database was overwritten through either some inconceivable OS or application bug, or more likely a malicious act. Regardless of how the data was lost, their undoing appears to have been that they treated drive mirroring as a backup and have now paid the ultimate price for not having point-in-time backups of the data that was their business." - Source

01/03/09 - viaLibri Resources for Bibliophiles
Search for rare books from over 20,000 booksellers worldwide. - Source

01/03/09 - The Tissue of Youth
To date, at least, that evidence supporting placenta as a health treatment is scant. One small, randomized clinical trial from Korea published this spring suggests that injections of placental extract may help relieve symptoms of menopause and fatigue... As for liver and skin, some work suggests that placental extract may stimulate the regeneration of liver cells—in rats, at least. This may happen partly because placenta contains hepatocyte growth factor, which supports liver cell growth and tissue development. But without clinical trials, it's hard to know what the effects would be in people. The effects on skin are also fairly speculative. In theory, topical gels or creams containing placental extract might help chronic wounds to heal. That is plausible since placenta contains compounds that facilitate collagen formation and skin cell proliferation... - Source

01/03/09 - Cheap RV Living
Move Into Your Vehicle and Save your Rent/House Payment - You are probably working at a job right now and paying for an apartment or house. The first thing you do is decide what type of vehicle you want to live in and purchase it. Then you have a garage sale and sell as much of your excess stuff as you can, and give the rest away. Then you move into your vehicle (to learn how to convert a van: click here). Now this is very important, you open a savings account and the money you used to pay for your apartment or house and all utilities goes into the savings account instead. The hardest part is that it will soon turn into a lot of money and you will be tempted to spend it. Don't do it! Leave it there unless it is a total emergency. If you are currently paying $600 a month for rent and utilities, then at the end of the year you will have saved $7,200. Now you can travel for the next 7-14 months without working. Or if you work intermittently, you can extend that even further. - Source

01/03/09 - The best Web sites to help you scrimp through the recession
In our not-so-distant time of plenty, the word frugal might have conjured images of hardscrabble folks who've deliberately divorced themselves from modern pursuits. The Amish live frugally; the rest of us may cut back when times get rough, but when the world takes off again, we'll be right there to grab our share. With a historic recession affecting virtually every industry, we are all Amish now, and frugality has become a necessity. - Source

01/03/09 - M40's Wilderness Survival Skills
If you are looking for tips on hoarding supplies, becoming a shut-in or building nuclear fallout shelters, you've come to the wrong place. There are plenty of nut cases out there who intersperse "survival" information amongst heaps of "end of the world" type bullshit. These folks are scare-mongerers at best, and some are dangerous individuals. If you are looking for "earth-friendly" or "green" survival information, you should leave now... you will not like what I have to say. Go cuddle a shrub on someone else's site. These pages are dedicated to keeping folks alive in the wilderness for the SHORT TERM, whether lost, injured, or stuck somewhere. I've see too many news stories every year about hikers and hunters dying out there, and figured my extensive outdoor skills could be put to some good use. These tips, tricks and skills are based off of many years spent camping, hiking, and hunting. As a kid, I camped almost every weekend. I happily camped in blizzards and sub-zero temperatures. Back in the 90's, I took multiple survival courses at the USAF Survival School in Washington state. Between my own hands-on outdoor experiences and extensive research, I have gathered and assembled here what I would estimate to be the simple but effective skills that almost anyone can use. - Source

01/03/09 - Obama Moves to Counter China With Pentagon-NASA Link
President-elect Barack Obama will probably tear down long-standing barriers between the U.S.’s civilian and military space programs to speed up a mission to the moon amid the prospect of a new space race with China. Obama’s transition team is considering a collaboration between the Defense Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration because military rockets may be cheaper and ready sooner than the space agency’s planned launch vehicle, which isn’t slated to fly until 2015, according to people who’ve discussed the idea with the Obama team. - Source

12/31/08 - Gasoline-Powered MUSIC Engine Could Exceed Diesel Efficiency
A recent comparison of a 2.0-liter, four-cylinder implementation of the Merritt Unthrottled Spark Ignition Combustion (MUSIC) engine, initially developed at Coventry University (earlier post) with a 2.4-liter diesel engine suggested that the gasoline-fueled MUSIC engine could attain a higher brake thermal efficiency than the diesel across a wide range of engine loads. MUSIC is an un-throttled, high thermal efficiency, lean-burn, spark ignition system that uses an indirect combustion chamber to produce charge stratification by means of controlled air management. The four-cylinder prototype tested is essentially a new cylinder head and its associated combustion system mounted on a Ford Duratec crankcase. Unlike competing technologies, the MUSIC system does not require any new supporting technology. Apart from the cylinder head, the 4 cylinder prototype engine uses currently available production components throughout albeit in the case of the injectors to new specifications. The MUSIC engine tested was driving its own GDI fuel pump and oil pump, but was not driving its water pump, alternator or fan. MUSIC operates with simple solenoid GDI (gasoline direct injection) injectors, at moderate fuel line pressure and without pulsing to meet lower loads and speeds. - Source

12/31/08 - Engineers Developing Energy-harvesting Radios
K-State engineers are looking at the design challenges of a radio system like this. Kuhn and Zhang have been working on the project for a little more than a year. They are creating a demonstration to test how far the signals can travel from the sensors. Zhang constructed a demonstration board using solar cells from inexpensive calculators to power the radio. The board has capacitors that capture and store the light energy to power the radio without a battery. Although this prototype captures and stores light energy, Kuhn said that energy-harvesting radios could be powered by a number of different ways, including by electrochemical, mechanical or thermal energy. The demonstration board that Zhang created includes a microprocessor to store data before it's transmitted via radio. When the stored data is ready to be transmitted, the radio sends out a data-burst. In Zhang's model, this happens every five seconds. It may just sound like a "blip," but that burst contains data that a computer can translate into meaningful information, such as telling an engineer the stress or strain on the underside of a bridge. Kuhn said that it's kind of like sending a text message from one cell phone to another: After data are transmitted through the air, the recipient's cell phone turns that data back into text that can be understood. Kuhn and Zhang are stepping in to perfect the radio system design. This includes determining which frequencies to use based on how the environment affects radio waves indoors versus outdoors. They also have to look at how noise and other factors may limit the sensitivity of the receiver that's getting the data from all of the sensors. Because these sensors save data in their microprocessors, Kuhn and Zhang are working on timing and wake-up commands that tell the sensors when to send the stored information to the receiver. Through engineering analysis, they are determining tradeoffs between power requirements, data-rate and transmission range issues. - Source

12/31/08 - From garage tinkering to The Next Big Thing
Tim Wheeler makes his living hauling scrap, fixing cars and doing odd jobs. But in recent years, his passion has been inventing what he calls the Electro Magnetic Energy motor that merely sips electricity from a bank of batteries while producing gobs of torque. He says he's run the plastic prototype for an hour, and used only 2 percent of the juice from six motorcycle batteries. Compare that to the best that Detroit can do - around 40 miles from a full charge on a bank of batteries. It's why Wheeler and Bay City native Todd Thorp, President of TWN Technologies of Bay City, plus Bay City real estate broker Henry Johnson, want to show the invention to the Big Three automakers in Detroit. They say they even have a larger version of the motor in a 1951 Ford pickup, and it runs. Now, there's an image for you - a full-fendered blast from the past powered with a motor that uses positive and negative electric charges to push and pull magnets, turning a shaft for power. - Source

12/31/08 - Roger Ebert Gets All Pessimistic
It's all coming to pieces, isn't it -- the world we live in, the continuity we thought we could count on, the climate, the economy, the fragile peace. The 20th century was called "the American Century," with some reason. I do not believe the 21st century will belong to anybody, and it may not last for 100 years of human witness. There are nuclear weapons in the Middle East and on the Indian subcontinent, and if one is used, more will follow and who can say when the devastation will end? The weather is unhinged. It is no longer a question of global warming. It is a question of what in the hell is happening? The economy is going to get worse. We may have no idea how much worse. The greed and corruption at the economy's core reached a scale unimaginable at the time of the Great Depression. Even responsible banks are threatened, because they cannot borrow and are fearful of lending. The world seeks safe havens for wealth, but the dollar is weaker, the yen is also surrounded by Recession, and if we park our money in China, a risky notion, what will happen with their money, parked here? And he ends with a suggestion: If you are a member of the U.S. Congress, you should not give a damn if you are a Democrat or a Republican. You should discard ideology and partisanship. You should be searching only for what works, or gives promise of working. You should be listening to the best counsel of the wisest people you can find. This is no time for playing to the crowd. That is all over with. This is the hour to seek what might lead us back from the brink. - Source

12/31/08 - DIM MAK - “The Death Touch” (Feb, 1970)
Now for the first time their FORBIDDEN SECRETS OF TERROR can be shared with you. BREAK A BRICK. Included In the manual is a GUARANTEED method, of brick and board breaking enabling anyone to break a brick or board after only minutes of training. THIS IS NO EXAGGERATION. THERE IS NO TRICK OR GIMMICK. There is nothing to be held in the hand, or any hand brace needed; and no special stunt bricks or boards are needed. This is the same method that many famous Karate Masters use. POISON HAND. Considered by many as evil and cruel; the lethally savage ripping, tearing, slashing, clawing and gouging techniques which comprise the POISON HAND ARSENAL are used to attack (by strike, touch or pressure) the nerve centers, pressure points, major blood vessels and vital organs of the body. You will learn the original 77 “POISON HAND” techniques of ancient China in actual photographs showing them in application. These are not photos of drawings, but actual photos of COUNT DANTE applying these torturing techniques which are meant to maim, disfigure, cripple or kill and have been used by oriental terrorists and assassins to MURDER! - Source

12/31/08 - Salt Water Irrigation: Study Shows It Works
Take an arid field riddled with salty soil. Irrigate it with salty water. Plant a salt-tolerant grass along with a salt-sucking companion plant and what do you get? If you're a Brigham Young University research team, you raise a crop that successfully replaces corn as cattle feed. Just published online in the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment ahead of the February issue, the study identified a plant that could thrive in yet-unusable lands near the coasts in much of the world. But don't throw away your salt-shakers - the beef from the cattle raised on it tastes just the same as the meat you're used to. The research team focused on a plant called Panicum turgidum that can grow in salty conditions. They measured its protein content and determined that it could be a suitable alternative to existing cattle feed. Then they tested its growth potential when irrigated with the salty water found in the area. They showed that Panicum grew so fast it could be harvested almost monthly. Overall, with limited fertilizer, they produced 60,000 kilograms per hectare during the yearlong study. Nielsen is confident that further studies that determine the best ratios of fertilizer will boost that number over 100,000 kilograms. The researchers also used nature to preserve a sustainable growing environment. Panicum is a "salt excluder," meaning it survives salty conditions by keeping salt out of its system, which most other plants can't do. Although this allows Panicum to grow on salty water, the extra salt deposited by irrigation would render the soil too salty for even this hardy plant. So the researchers found that planting a companion crop that is a "salt accumulator" prevented the soil from getting too salty. The other plant sucked up the extra salt, then was harvested and burned and the ashes turned into soap. After the yearlong study, the levels of salt in the soil were virtually unchanged. - Source

12/31/08 - New high energy Concrete Buster
This new concrete-buster can mean all the difference when people are trapped inside collapsed buildings or walls. First responders rushing to get them out, or to deliver lifesaving supplies, must act fast, and this tool does it fast. Funded by the DHS Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate and developed by Raytheon Company, the CIRT is carried and operated by two people. It uses a blank ammunition cartridge designed for a standard rifle—driving a piston—that, when fired, generates a high-energy jolt. No hoses or cords are required, and it can be loaded to fire as often as two rounds every minute. At 36 inches long and 16 inches in diameter, it weighs all of 105 pounds—light enough to hold up against a wall, yet heavy enough to limit recoil action that can cause injuries. During a recent test, CIRT went head-to-head against other, traditional rescue methods. It was a race to break through a vertical, 5½-inch slab of steel-reinforced concrete and create a hole 18 inches wide (video clip available). CIRT won with a time of about 13 minutes, compared with 29 minutes or more for the others. Based on similar testing, the tool has also shown that it can bust through a horizontal slab in about 10 to 12 minutes. - Source

12/31/08 - 7 Easy Actions You Can Do Today to Save the Environment & Gas
Want to save gasoline, lower your power bills and help save the environment? New Vanderbilt research identifies seven simple actions individuals can start today that have the potential to dramatically reduce energy use and carbon emissions. / Reduce Idling / Inflate Tires / Change Car Air Filter / Reduce electricity Leakage / Adjust thermostat / Lower Water Temperature / Use compact Fluourescent light bulbs. - Source

12/31/08 - Laser experiment aimed at saving farm water
A professor of environmental engineering is pointing a laser beam across an alfalfa crop in Southern California's bone-dry Imperial Valley, looking for a better way to conserve the millions of gallons of water sprayed each year on thirsty crops. Jan Kleissl and a handful of his students at the University of California, San Diego, have rigged up a telescope-looking contraption called a large aperture scintillometer to study exactly how much water crops lose to evaporation and the peak times that water disappears. The hope is to give farmers a more accurate, up-to-date reading of how efficiently their crops are using water than current technology allows. While most farmers are experts at managing their irrigation by sight, recent years' droughts have called for more sophisticated ways to use — and save — water. Water became an even more valuable commodity in California last year, when a federal judge ordered federal and state agencies to restrict pumping in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to protect the threatened delta smelt, severely cutting the growers' supply. Further restrictions could result from last month's decision by state fish and wildlife managers to limit pumping to protect another native fish, the longfin smelt. These shortages are prompting researchers to devise new ways to determine when to irrigate and how much water to use, said Khaled Bali, an irrigation expert for the University of California Cooperative Extension office in Imperial County. "There's not enough water to go around," he said. - Source

12/31/08 - Sci-Tech Insulation Paint
Sci-Paint is the inventor and producer SUPRA, a 'High Tech Insulation Paint' which significantly reduces indoor temperature, improving energy and air-conditioning equipment efficiency and life. SUPRA typically decreases interior temperatures 5-10 degrees C. without air conditioning. SUPRA can be applied to concrete, all metals, woods, resin and any external building material. It is odorless and non-toxic, so can be applied to interiors as well. SUPRA can also be applied to transparent glass. GLASS SUPRA is clear, colorless and odorless, and applied on navigating bridges' windows will not blemish visibility during darkness hours, unlike colored insulating films. - Source

12/31/08 - What Carriers Aren’t Eager to Tell You About Texting
TEXT messaging is a wonderful business to be in: about 2.5 trillion messages will have been sent from cellphones worldwide this year. The public assumes that the wireless carriers’ costs are far higher than they actually are, and profit margins are concealed by a heavy curtain. Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin and the chairman of the Senate antitrust subcommittee, wanted to look behind the curtain. He was curious about the doubling of prices for text messages charged by the major American carriers from 2005 to 2008, during a time when the industry consolidated from six major companies to four. All four of the major carriers decided during the last three years to increase the pay-per-use price for messages to 20 cents from 10 cents. The decision could not have come from a dearth of business: the 2.5 trillion sent messages this year, the estimate of the Gartner Group, is up 32 percent from 2007. Gartner expects 3.3 trillion messages to be sent in 2009. - Source

12/31/08 - As if Things Weren't Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S.
For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument -- that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. -- very seriously. Now he's found an eager audience: Russian state media. Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control. He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in. California will form the nucleus of what he calls "The Californian Republic," and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of "The Texas Republic," a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an "Atlantic America" that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls "The Central North American Republic." Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia. - Source

12/31/08 - Visiting family warps your brain, study says
The study is the first to compare brain activity associated with seeing relatives with that linked to seeing friends and strangers. It suggests our feelings about biological relatives are at least somewhat primal. The findings may help explain everything from why our family can get on our nerves to why people who look like us can spark immediate feelings of trust, "but not lust," said Steven Platek, who co-authored the study with Shelly Kemp. The scientists found that relatives and self-lookalikes are processed through a self-referential part of the brain. Friends and strangers who look nothing like the viewer, on the other hand, light up entirely different areas of the brain, those linked to making important and risky decisions with respect to the self. Since relatives are processed through areas of the brain linked to self-reference, the study could also help to explain why relatives cause us to take things personally. While we may tolerate a friend's loud laughter or snoring, for example, we may have less patience with a relative because we judge them similarly to how we judge ourselves. - Source

12/31/08 - Taxing mileage using GPS
A year ago, the Oregon Department of Transportation announced it had demonstrated that a new way to pay for roads — via a mileage tax and satellite technology — could work. In more than one interview with the Democrat-Herald and others, James Whitty, the ODOT official in charge of the project, tried to assure the public that tracking people’s travels was not in the plans. The task force’s final report came out in November 2007. It was based largely on a field test in which about 300 motorists in the Portland area and two service stations took part over 10 months, ending in March 2007. A GPS-based system kept track of the in-state mileage driven by the volunteers. When they bought fuel, a device in their vehicles was read, and they paid 1.2 cents a mile and got a refund of the state gas tax of 24 cents a gallon. The final report detailed the technical aspects of the program. It also stressed the issue of privacy. “The concept requires no transmission of vehicle travel locations, either in real time or of travel history,” the report said. “Accordingly, no travel location points are stored within the vehicle or transmitted elsewhere. Thus there can be no ‘tracking’ of vehicle movements.” Also, the report said, under the Oregon concept of the program, “ODOT would have no involvement in developing the on-vehicle devices, installing them in vehicles, maintaining them or having any other access to them except, perhaps, in situations involving tampering or similar fee evasion activities.” - Source

12/31/08 - Do it Now!

12/31/08 - The down low in Hip-Hop (not safe for work)
The psychology of this astounds me but it seems to be more common than people suspect. - Source

12/27/08 - AirGenerate taps into energy-saving industry
Houston-based AirGenerate has developed a product, called AirTap, which dramatically improves the efficiency of standard hot water heaters. AirTap is a metal, square-shaped device that can be attached to the top of any 30-80 gallon water tank and then used to heat water, not with gas or electricity, but through the air surrounding it. AirTap does this by acting as a conventional heat pump, using a compressor (powered by a low-wattage electric current) to extract heat from the surrounding air, and then sending this heat through long copper tubes into an adaptor where it is dispersed into the water tank. This heats the water to the same degree as would a gas burner or electric heating component. According to the company, AirTap results in 300 percent improved efficiency and up to 80 percent energy savings and it has been certified by GAMA under Department of Energy guidelines as the most energy efficient water heater in the United States. AirTap uses about one-fourth of the standard amount of energy to heat water, by drawing three-fourths of the energy from the surrounding air. It can reduce energy consumption by approximately two-and-a-half times that of a standard water heater or tankless water heater unit. To put it in perspective, the company offers the example that AirTap uses less power than an 8-cup coffee machine to run the compressor, and its energy consumption level is equivalent to keeping two coffee machines on for a day. AirGenerate could get a boost from a federal tax rebate for using energy efficient products. AirTap qualifies for this rebate and its price tag of $499 can be drastically cut into when consumers get $300 back from the government for using it. - Source

12/27/08 - No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in ‘Passive Houses’
The concept of the passive house, pioneered in this city of 140,000 outside Frankfurt, approaches the challenge from a different angle. Using ultrathick insulation and complex doors and windows, the architect engineers a home encased in an airtight shell, so that barely any heat escapes and barely any cold seeps in. That means a passive house can be warmed not only by the sun, but also by the heat from appliances and even from occupants’ bodies. And in Germany, passive houses cost only about 5 to 7 percent more to build than conventional houses. Decades ago, attempts at creating sealed solar-heated homes failed, because of stagnant air and mold. But new passive houses use an ingenious central ventilation system. The warm air going out passes side by side with clean, cold air coming in, exchanging heat with 90 percent efficiency. Inside, a passive home does have a slightly different gestalt from conventional houses, just as an electric car drives differently from its gas-using cousin. There is a kind of spaceship-like uniformity of air and temperature. The air from outside all goes through HEPA filters before entering the rooms. The cement floor of the basement isn’t cold. The walls and the air are basically the same temperature. Look closer and there are technical differences: When the windows are swung open, you see their layers of glass and gas, as well as the elaborate seals around the edges. A small, grated duct near the ceiling in the living room brings in clean air. In the basement there is no furnace, but instead what looks like a giant Styrofoam cooler, containing the heat exchanger. Passive houses need no human tinkering, but most architects put in a switch with three settings, which can be turned down for vacations, or up to circulate air for a party (though you can also just open the windows). “We’ve found it’s very important to people that they feel they can influence the system,” Mr. Hasper said. - Source

12/27/08 - California's Big Squirt - October 1951
THE parched deserts of Southern California need water to transform their barren soil into fertile farmlands and tourist Meccas such as those existing elsewhere in the state. So far the problem has remained unsolved. But Sidney Cornell, a Los Angeles construction engineer, thinks he has a solution. He wants to construct a series of geyser-like power plants one mile apart to shoot water from the mouth of one into the funnel of the next, as depicted here by MI artist Frank Tinsley. The water would arc over hilly sections, have a flat trajectory over plains. Its velocity would approach 400 mph. These stations— 400 in all—would cost about $300,000 each. - Source

12/27/08 - 'Green homes' that can resist hurricanes
In a new study, researchers are aiming to develop home foundations and frames built of a lightweight unbreakable composite material that may bend in a hurricane, and can simply float on the rising tide of a storm's coastal surge. The technology weaves fibers from the jute tree, one of Bangladesh's most common and thriving plants, with plastics to form an ultra-strong building material. According to Uddin, the technology is light weight and also could help the structures survive hurricane storm surge and the resulting flooding, by essentially allowing the buildings to float on the rising tide once uplift pressures from climbing water levels force the structures free from their foundations. Uddin said that while this next phase of his fiber-composite research is taking place overseas, the technology, if it proves viable, will have tangible benefits for the coastal regions of United States. - Source

12/27/08 - Firm touts anti-radiation chip for phones
The E-Waves Phone Chip is essentially a bulky sticker that attaches to the back of your handset and works by using “interference technology”. When you make a call, the chip beams out - it says here - “a quantum physical information wave” towards your brain to neutralise any potentially harmful waves sent out by the phone. The E-Waves' radiation cancels out the phone's radiation, the company behind the project said. It revealed nothing else about the gadget. Register Hardware is sceptical, to say the least, but the chip is nonetheless said by its maker to be the product of five years of research carried out by developer More Energy Solutions. Distributor Omega Pharma has released contrasting thermal imaging shots of someone’s head during a mobile phone conversation. One picture shows how the user’s brain heated up when using an ordinary phone, whilst another image shows that the person’s cranium was kept cooler, allegedly thanks to the chip’s protection. Numerous studies have already been conducted into the potentially harmful effects of mobile phone use. But it’s worth remembering that for each one that hinted at a link, others have found contrasting evidence. If you believe the E-Waves Phone Chip claims, or just want to give it a try, then it will be available from tomorrow through Omega Pharma pharmacies in Belgium for around €40 (£35/$51). - Source

12/27/08 - One of the problems with the Economy