Boost is the secret of my energy!... our...

All those crazy star wars movies had atleast something right. Come to think of it, even in the matrix, the core of the plot was the harvesting of energy. In the future we are going to have enough energy. A source/sources of boundless energy, enough for a heated massage chair for every rabbit on the planet.
Right now we have the shittest forms of energy possible. And this requires you to take this in on a larger scale, probably the perspective of an idiot living on mars and gazing up at the earth.

1. Coal - co2, particulate pollution
2. Fossil Fuels - ferraris, but more co2 and heat.
3. Current Nuclear Technology - 2 weiners
4. Ashish Jain - Lots of masala dosa related H2S and methane emissions, endangers a forms of life in a 10 foot radius ... and the ozone.

Granted there are more sources involved but this makes up 85% (sue me if I am off by 10%) of energy created for human well being. I'll also give your intelligence the benefit of the doubt and as concisely as humanly possible by the will of the holy spirit up high in the sky close to what we know as the milky way which is also a chocolate by the way, say that the sole cause for all that pollution, global warming etc. is energy production and consumption. And I think we're on track to clean limitless energy.

Currently, the biggest harm this planet faces is from this wonderful invention(and I intend no sarcasm) the automobile. Fuck the references, I read it somewhere sometime. So fossil fuels is the focus. And we're running out of it quick (yay!). What are the solutions?
Electricity and Hydrogen are the best of what's out there and possible in the next 30 years. The problem with electricity almost all of it around the world is generated from coal(value addition from the other sources pale in comparison) which generously donates CO2 to the atmosphere.
Hydrogen as per current tests only outputs water as the waste product.

Hydrogen: The major issues right now are setting up of infrastructure anew for producing, distributing and consuming. A newly developing country like ours has a better chance for change than some of the fully developed ones. We're still in the process of setting up new supply lines and distribution centers. Cars using hydrogen already exist from almost every major manufacturer since the 90's. They're set. But production? For the lack of space in this already long winded and boring article, I cannot get into the specifics of how to generate hydrogen, but lets just leave it at being more economical and less polluting.

Electricity: The major problem with electricity is the inefficiencies. The biggest one - storage. We still use these ancient 'chemicals in a tin' boxes that we so fondly call batteries that decay over time and discharge over time. There are a couple of solutions popping up to fix this. A123 is this new outfit company, the 'google' if you will of batteries that has just invented a new kind of Li Ion battery using advanced nanoscale manufacturing that increases efficiency by 60%, drops weight and reduces recharging time by half and at the same time, can make them for cheaper. Imagine faster, more efficient electric cars that can now subsist longer using regenerative braking since the batteries charge faster. Or we just gotta wait till capacitors get cheap enough to use as batteries - they never leak, never lose power and are fool proof.

The Chinese have an ace up their sleeve right now. This is by far one of the most impressive and powerful inventions of this century. They plan to solve their two of their energy problems in one go. They have invented the pebble bed reactor:

How it works:
1. Hot Rocks: Thousands of billiard ball-sized fuel pebbles power the reactor. The balls are coated with impermeable silicon carbide and packed with 15,000 tiny uranium dioxide flecks, each of which is encased in its own silicon carbide shell.
2. Recycling Center: The fuel pebbles cycle through the reactor vessel from top to bottom, heating helium. Pebbles that are still potent return to the top; spent and damaged ones collect at the bottom.
3. Spin Zone: The hot gas flows into the water-cooled conversion unit and pushes the turbine, generating electricity. It then cycles back to the reactor vessel to be reheated.

Why this is so fucking cool:
1. The current stigma associated with nuclear based power is based on the old school reactors which were these huge nuclear rods dipped in not so tasty boiling liquid and enclosed in 4 layers of lead walls which were in place in case the place did.... you guessed it ..... explode. This is impossible to do with a pebble-bed reactor. They are explosion proof!
2. They are tiny and modular. Lets say you wanted to power a city with a traditional nuclear reactor. You'd have to read into the economy and growth levels of the city and plan out the potential energy requirement down the road and then come up with this reactor that must last the city for lets say 100 years. With the pebble bed reactor, just build one for now. When the city grows, build another one beside it, and so on. They're cheap and more importantly very modular.
3. This is the best part: The waste product - HYDROGEN! pure, clean and lots of it!

Boris Artzybasheff another sneaky fucking russian

This guy was born in the 1890's, lived in russia and escaped to the united states. He was an artist known for his surreal and imaginative depictions of modern technology.

His art has appeared on the covers of Time, life and Fortune.
This guy could have used some photoshop to really let his imagination fly.

Take a look at the hydraulic press and the finger face.

"Plentiful ad work for Xerox, Shell Oil, Pan Am, Casco Power Tools, Alcoa Steamship lines, Parke Davis, Avco Manufacturing, Scotch Tape, Wickwire Spencer Steele, Vultee Aircraft, World Airways, and Parker Pens. Mechanics Illustrated profiled him with a cover story in 1954, "When Machines Come to Life."

*Scroll down the page on the link above for some very interesting pictures.

Biomimetics: where mocking at nature is sometimes good

For the 2008 Beijing Olympics, China is getting a bit fancy with the swimming center, using an innovative method of construction for the external surface.
You'd have to be an architect or very bored to find this of any interest. But I see this as an influence of biotechnology and more specifically 'biomimetics' where scientists realised that most of natures shapes are the most functional in their environments and have begun to 'mimic' them for their designs.
Thin films of soapy water automatically take the shape of a round bubble(as opposed to a square shaped bubble) because that is the most stable shape possible for intermolecular forces. I guess this could also be the same for crystal lattices.

The skin itself is made from a transparent mutant of teflon which is the same substance used to protect important people from bullets and your omlette from getting too jiggy with your frying pan.

"Using steel and a fluorocarbon-based polymer instead of soap. When it's finished, in time for the 2008 Olympics, the 337,000-square-foot Watercube (as the locals call it) will have an airy, almost transparent frame, and it'll use less raw material than if it were built with a traditional skeleton. The look, more foam than dome, is the result of innovative construction: four edges, three faces, and three intersecting nodes repeated 40,000 times."

For architects and people just bored, check out the article and more cool pics here.

Some other sweet examples of biomimetics are:

1) The mercedes benz high fuel efficiency concept vehicle:
This fish is supposed to have the most aerodynamic shape on the planet.
Based on the body shape of a boxfish, a common cube-shaped fish found in tropical marine habitats. The bionic car will offer 20 percent lower fuel consumption and up to 80 percent lower nitrogen oxide emissions according to a release from DaimlerChrysler.



2)Velcro resulted in 1948 from a Swiss engineer, George de Mestral, noticing how the hooks of the plant burrs stuck in the fur of his dog.













3) Scientists at the University of Leeds in Great Britain are studying the "jet-based defese mechanism" of the bombardier beetle to see if the insect can help them learn how to re-ignite a gas-turbine aircraft engine in mid-flight. The bombardier beetle is capable of spraying would-be predators with a high-pressure stream of boiling liquid.









4)A research team at Bell Labs has found that tropical deep-sea sponge, Euplectella or Venus's Flower Basket, builds remarkably strong structures from extremely fragile materials, according to a press release from Lucent Technologies. This discovery led to unique insights in the production of commercial fiber optic strands. The same team also looked to the visual systems of brittlestars -- sea creatures related to starfish and sea urchins -- for inspiration to improve lens design.




"Nature works for maximum achievement at minimum effort". Reminds me of my preparation for exams.

Here's something new! cellphones might call cancer!

Recent research has once again brought up the ever flipflopping vote on whether cell phone use causes cancer.
This brings up a very important point.

Let's take a hypothetical situation:

We now learn that cell phone use definitely causes cancer:

Would you stop using cell phones, now that they have become such an integral part of your life? Can you imagine going back to those days where you're waiting by the door like a heroine in a very bad hindi movie from the 70's wondering why your loved one is two hours late?

If you have been using cell phones for a while now and you just found out that your past years of heavy cell phone usage has given you cancer, who would take responsibility for what has happened to you?

New technology, like new drugs find a way to bone people in ways manufacturers could not even dream of. Examples: Coca Cola contained proper cocaine till 1929. Cigarettes weren't found to be bad for health till the recent past.

If you do decide to continue using cellphones, would you be any different from people who smoke? If you do smoke and use the cellphone, would you blame the cigarette companies or the cell phone manufacturers first?

P.S. this situation is leaving out all the other possibilities of finding a better/safer way of near instant communication in the following years, which should be on the way soon anyways.

Germany represent! The new Audi R10 Lemans Intro

For the first time the history of the interworld, a race car is going to be powered by a Diesel engine. An engine technology that is seen as noisy, backward, smelly and slow is being repackaged as the next big thing by the company that first invented TDi technology. Hell yeah. There's been a couple of reasons behind this.
1) Diesel tech has improved as fast as international communication has since the 1900's.
2) Audi is the leader in diesel engines having invented the TDi engine as mentioned earlier
3)Because ALMS rules, mirroring those at Le Mans, made the R8 obsolete last year, so regardless of power plant, Audi had to build a new car. As for the diesel, Le Mans rules for 2006 and beyond favor the engine.
4) Diesels are significantly more economical that petrol engines requiring lower rpm to reach full power, and this plays a big role in the lemans marathon race.
5) Tyre smoking, gearbox shredding, buckeloads of torque.

As one journalist who experienced the monster said, "Like a poorly dubbed Japanese monster movie, the sound just doesn't sync with what you're seeing. The brand-new Audi R10 racecar streaks by, and instead of the urgent exhaust note of the now retired R8, the R10 just sounds…odd. A low, but authoritative, rumble, not unpleasant at all. And certainly not what we were expecting. No smoke, no smell."

In fact the diesel is quieter by a factor of two than the petrol engine it replaces.

Just imagining a diesel engine revving up to race car rpm speeds is mindblowing but Audi went all out and made a 733t video featuring the builiding and designing of the car and also featuring the mighty engine with 12 butterflies firing on full throttle!

This is one of the most well made videos i have seen. There is a sense of natural progression of design, testing and building. The soundtrack beautifully synchronizes to the video with one of the best soundtracks i have heard in a while, a fucking 650hp diesel V12 revving up and you can hear the sweet turbo whine kicking in as the turbos spool up. The video goes through the complete assemby of the engine. The white stallion on the treadmill reminiscent of the origin of the term horsepower, with the graphs of the engine on the dyno, the valves kicking in and out to the sound of the music, the gear box and clutches being put together, you can actually see a quick scene with four valves of a cylinder injecting fuel at more than 1600 bar being ignited! Carbon ceramic brakes and exhaust manifold heating up to near melting temperature. The extremely complex car finally gets put together, fueled up and leaves the pit garage. Hottest video of the year. period.
If you can find the sound track to this video, i want it.

"The engine’s power and the high torque are available to the driver practically from idling speed – a speciality of diesel technology, to which the Audi drivers must now become accustomed. The usable power band lies between 3000 and 5000 revs per minute."
Thats right, no more revving up to high rpms to get your power fix in those oh so outdated petrol engines. Instant 1100 Newton meters of torque on tap. Diesel is where its at.

watch the damn video

Another simpsons freak

This is taking love for the simpsons to new heights. The makers of the show i.e. the man himself Matt Groening as a celebration of the commencement of the show's seventeenth(!!) year on air, filmed the intro that we all have come to know and love with real people and real places! Its quite interesting how close they came to the actual show.

watch it here

thanks slashy

Phd Funnies

www.phdcomics.com. For all you grad students out there. Hilarious

And you thought philosophy was confusing

Here's quantum computing at its finest. If you guys haven't heard of schrodinger's cat , its about this guy schrodinger who came up with this experiment in which a cat is put in the box and stuff is done to it and you don't know if it is alive or dead until you open the box. So till that point in time when you open the box, the cat may be alive and dead at any point before that. Its really hard to simplify that cat shit.
well, anyways, thats essentially what quantum computing is about. Playing with uncertainess. Computers so far had transistors that worked as a specific 1 or a 0. Well not any more!

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/info-tech/mg18925405.700.html

From the article: "With the right set-up, the theory suggested, the computer would sometimes get an answer out of the computer even though the program did not run. And now researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have improved on the original design and built a non-running quantum computer that really works."


This is an awesome beginner's read to understand this shite. Read : a lazy layman's guide to quantum physics

The Prancing Horse: crusher of the Raging bull

Ferrari's hoof wheelying black stallion in the yellow italian sunset wasn't just made up as a company gimmick. Enzo Ferrari himself decided to use the emblem on the first of these thoroughbreds.
Where'd he come up with it?

I quote Enzo Ferrari himself,"The horse was painted on the fuselage of the fighter plane flown by Francesco Baracca, a heroic Italian pilot who died on Mount Montello: the Italian ace of aces of the First World War. In 1923 ... I met Count Enrico Baracca, the pilot's father, and subsequently his mother, Countess Paolina. One day she said to me, "Ferrari, why don't you put my son's prancing horse on your cars; it would bring you luck." ... The horse was black and has remained so; I added the canary yellow background because it is the colour of Modena."

Now you know.

P.S. The name Scudiera Ferrari was given to the racing division of Ferrari. This covers all forms of racing right from stradale to the wicked F1. Scudiera Ferrari means the 'Ferrari Stable' . A perfect name for a garage full of scarlet red prancing horses. Sweeeeet

Beemers - german engineering

I was looking up stats on the BMW for the previous post when I came across this specifications sheet for the current 7 series. To put this in perspective, this is the 'medium spec' version of the car. And BMW isn't even the leader when it comes to technology in cars. That crown goes to mercedes benz.
Below is a list of "STANDARD"(!!!!) features.
Still talking about getting bluetooth for the cellphone? this car has it!

Click here to see the list of features

Performance and Efficiency
6.0-liter DOHC(4-cam)48-valve V-12 engine with direct fuel injection and Valvetronic

Double-VANOS steplessly variable valve timing

Aluminum block and cylinder heads

Electronically controlled engine cooling

Digital Motor Electronics engine-management system with adaptive knock control

6-speed STEPTRONIC automatic transmission with Adaptive Transmission Control

Electronic gear selector

Liquid-cooled alternator

Handling, ride and braking
Aluminum double-pivot strut-type front suspension

Aluminum 4-link integral rear suspension

Aluminum front and rear subframes

Active Roll Stabilization (ARS)

Twin-tube gas-pressure shock absorbers

Self-leveling rear suspension with air springs

Electronic Damping Control - includes "Sport" setting

Vehicle-speed-sensitive variable-assist, variable-ratio rack-and-pinion power steering

4-wheel ventilated disc brakes with electronic brake proportioning

Electromechanical parking brake

Automatic Parking Brake

Dynamic Stability Control (DSC)

Anti-lock Braking System (ABS)

Dynamic Traction Control (DTC)

Dynamic Brake Control (DBC)

Exterior and Aerodynamics
19 x 9.0 front/19 x 10.0 rear Star Spoke (Styling 89) cast alloy wheels with 245/45R-19 front / 275/40R-19rear performance tires1

Body-color bumpers with hydraulic energy absorbers and (front only) compressible elements

Aluminum hood and front fenders

Xenon Adaptive Headlights with dynamic auto-leveling

Halogen ellipsoid front foglights

Windshield wiping sweep regulated for optimum coverage2

Variable parking position to reduce wiper blade wear

Articulated passenger-side wiper arm

Single-wipe control

Washer jets in wiper arms, heated fluid supply

Heated wiper parking area

High-pressure headlight cleaning system

Choice of standard or metallic paints

Smooth underbody

Audio / visual
Logic7 audio system with 13 speakers, Digital Sound Processing and 6-disc in-dash CD changer with MP3 playback capability; includes 2 subwoofers and all features of standard audio system

Instrumentation and controls
Electronic analog speedometer and tachometer

LCD main and trip odometers

Condition-based Service display3

Expanded Check Control vehicle monitor system

iDrive concept

Start/stop button

Electronic control stalks

LCD displays and warning indicators in dial faces

Leather power tilt/telescopic multi-function steering wheel with audio and phone controls, one programmable control; auto tilt-away for entry and exit

Programmable cruise control

On-board computer

Navigation system

Voice Activation system

Bluetooth® wireless technology4 for hands-free calling

Brake Wear Display

Flat tire warning

Interior seating and trim

Nasca leather upholstery5

Extended leather trim on instrument panel and rear sides of front-seat backrests

Memory system for driver’s seat, steering wheel, and outside mirrors (2 positions)

16-way power front Comfort seats with 4-way lumbar support; includes articulated upper backrest, adjustable backrest width, adjustable thigh support, passenger’s-seat memory, active head restraints with adjustable side support

10-way power rear Comfort seats with 4-way lumbar support; includes articulated upper backrest, automatic head-restraint height adjustment, automatic pretensioners, and rear seat ventilation

Active front driver's seats with gentle massage action

Ventilated front seats

Heated front seats with fast heating and balance control

Heated rear seats

Climate-controlled front console compartment with coinholder, trunk-release lockout, and illumination

Alcantara headliner and sun visors

Safety and Security
Intelligent Safety and Information System (ISIS) for deployment of safety systems

Dual front-impact airbag Supplementary Restraint System (SRS) with dual-threshold deployment, 2-stage Smart Airbags

Front safety belts with automatic pretensioners and force limiters

Automatic pretensioners in safety belts at rear outboard seating positions

Automatic-locking retractors (ALR) on all passenger safety belts (for installation of child restraint seats)

Front-seat Head Protection System (HPS)

Front-seat side-impact airbags

Active Knee Protection

Rear-seat Head Protection System (HPS)

Active front head restraints6

BMW Assist

Adaptive Brake Lights

Battery Safety Terminal

Automatic fuel-pump shutoff upon severe accident impact

Central locking system with double-lock anti-theft feature, selective unlocking7

Coded Driveaway Protection

Pathway Lighting feature7

Alarm system with operation from remote, interior motion detector

Comfort and convenience
Vehicle & Key Memory

Keyless entry with multi-function remote control

Remote trunk release

Power soft-close automatic doors and trunklid

Continuously variable stepless door brakes

Power windows with key-off operation, “one-touch” open/close and anti-trapping feature

Automatic front climate control with full separate left/right controls, solar sensor, automatic recirculation, heat-at-rest feature, left/right temperature-controlled rear outlets, auto ventilation

Activated-charcoal micro-filter ventilation

Power 2-way moonroof with key-off and “one-touch” operation, conceal panel and wind deflector

Window and moonroof opening possible from remote control

Dual power/heated automatic-dimming outside mirrors

BMW Universal Transceiver (garage-door opener) integrated into rear-view mirror housing

Automatic tilt-down of right outside mirror for visibility of curb when backing up

Enhanced interior lighting system including front and rear left/right reading lights

Footwell lighting front and rear

Exit/entry lighting on interior door panels

BMW Ambiance Lighting front, rear and door panels

Illuminated visor vanity mirrors front and rear

LED “atmosphere” lights in C-pillars

Illuminated front console compartment

Glove compartment with rechargeable take-out flashlight

Illuminated exterior door handles and ground illumination

Rain-sensing windshield wipers with electronically controlled, reversible wiper motor

Park Distance Control with graphic display

Heated steering wheel

Power outlet in passenger’s-side footwell area

Dual cupholders front and rear (total of 4-cup capacity)

Rear center armrest with storage compartment

Power rear-window and rear-side-window sunshades with driver and rear-passenger controls

Ski bag

Fully finished trunk with inside trunk release

Automatic trunk opening and closing

BMW Maintenance Program

My name is James Bond.... James.... Bond

It was not just the men in suits, the women in barely anything and the villans who were always upto something that endeared the series to many. Twas ze gadgets.

Jetpack (Thunderball, 1965)
Helps Mr Bond fly out of sticky situations.







Blue X-Ray Glasses (The World Is Not Enough, 1999)
Used to spot concealed weapons.







Q's Pet (A View To A Kill, 1985)
Robotic remote control being that was used for surveillance.







Imitation Fingerprints (Diamonds Are Forever, 1971)
They're finger prints and they are imitated.








Underwater Breather (Thunderball, 1965)
Allows the man to breathe underwater or in other very gooey situations for 4 mintues.







BMW had showcased a robotic 5 series that had bullet proof windows, a dent resistant exterior, self deflating and re- inflating tires, eight missiles in the sunroof, a wire cutter, automated caltrops(sharp triangular thingies) dispenser, forward machine guns and a english speaking computer that could be controlled with a nokia cellphone. (Bmw made sure all these features actually worked on the car and were not just props for the scene!)


However, interest in the movies is definitely down. Maybe people watching these movies are getting bored of the predictable plots, the classy and infallible womanizing British/Irish heroes and the unrealistically rich screwball villans with overambitious plans.
Or maybe the audience is getting smarter. Most have become more gadget friendly and Internet savvy.
Maybe mechanical engineering marvels that might have garnered oohs and aahs before are now yawnful.
The cliched 'Computer age' has probably made such gadgets seem wasteful. Most of them can be easily done with graphics making even the real seem unreal. Every other movie can have all these fancy deelies with some coffee inhaling programmers at their disposal.

Gadgets were the life blood for these movies and the plots had to incorporate them into their story. And this has begun to limit the movies to crappy plots with an outdated method of gadget exhibition. We don't need silly little mechanical marvels dangling in every scene. Their plots need to have more tech-depth to them. The plots themselves need to be the gadget. Most of us understand distributed computing, remote robotics, artificial intelligence and virtual reality.

Maybe the Matrix was the best James bond movie till date.