• Gadgets

    The Future of Laundry: No More Water

    By Posted on 10.22.2009 19 Comments

    Clean your clothes without putting them—or your utility bills—through the wringer. Xeros’s prototype washing machine uses 90 percent less water than ordinary models, which also eliminates energy-intensive spin cycles and dryer blasts.

    10.22.2009 at 09:39pm - Comment by Railgun

    Has anyone ever done a washer that keeps that final rinse water in a tank, which I would think would be fairly clean, and used it for the start of the next load? I would think that would work just fine for cold or warm wash loads, though maybe not for hot (unless the washer connects to an electric water heater, in which case it would consume the same power to use the rinse water but heat it in the mashine). For that matter why the heck don't they recycle the hot, moist air from the clothes dryer by running it through a dehumidifier and sending it back in? Pulling out the water will re-heat the air through the latent heat of vaporization of the water as it condenses.

  • The Environment

    More Speed, Less Guilt

    By Posted on 7.1.2008 4 Comments

    7.4.2008 at 10:19am - Comment by Railgun

    People plug diesel as an environmental plus because cars running on it are supposed to get better fuel economy. When they don't, they are even worse because gallon for gallon diesel emits ~10% more carbon. Its a denser fuel. So they say 23 Hwy MPG. That's sort of sad, even for 500 HP and 186 MPH. The 2008 Corvette Z06 is listed as 505HP, 198MPH, and gets 24MPG Hwy on gasoline. www.fueleconomy.gov. Not that I'm plugging the corvette here, just pointing out that popsci's entry doesn't even come close to qualifying in my book.

  • Science

    Scientists Unveil the World's Largest Sheet of Carbon Nanotubes

    By Posted on 2.28.2008 7 Comments

    Nanocomp Technologies Inc. of Concord, New Hampshire has managed to make the largest sheet of carbon nanotubing ever, rekindling the long-standing dream of a fantastical space elevator that lifts us into orbit along an ultra-light yet ultra-strong carbon nanotube cable. Sure, at 18 square feet, the sheet is smaller than a beach blanket but it contains a billion billion nanotubes, which makes it 200 times as strong as steel and 30 times less dense.

    2.28.2008 at 06:36pm - Comment by Railgun

    flame retardant? OK, this confuses me since its all carbon. Good thermal conductivity?

  • Entertainment & Gaming

    A Cure for Subscription Fatigue

    By Posted on 2.26.2008 9 Comments

    Perusing my cable/Internet bill this month from my local de facto monopoly, I picked my jaw off the floor and found myself on the horns of an ethical dilemma: To be a bandwidth thief, or not to be? That is indeed the question, as the fleetfooted Roadrunner has once again jacked prices through the stratosphere, leaving us folk on terra firma scratching our heads. The deal is, I get the same TV channels, and less bandwidth, but for more money. Genius! Tallying the rest of my monthly bills up against my humble paycheck, I started to get queasy, lightheaded and tired, and then I realized what it was. Ive got a full-blown case of Subscription Fatigue.

    2.26.2008 at 10:18pm - Comment by Railgun

    Good! I rent the occasional video ($1-3) and find I don't miss the cable.

  • The Environment

    California Hippie Court: Trees vs Solar Panels

    By Posted on 2.21.2008 4 Comments

    Here's one for your "only in California" file: A judge has ordered a Sunnyvale couple to cut down two of the eight redwood trees on their property because they block sunlight access to their neighbor's solar panels. About six years ago, Mark Vargas complained that eight redwood trees on Richard Treanor's and Carolyn Bissett's property were blocking sunlight to the $70,000 worth of solar panels he built to power his house in 2001. To protect his investment, Vargas cited the obscure Solar Shade Control Act that requires homeowners to keep their trees from shading more than 10 percent of a neighbor's solar panels between 10am and 2pm, peak hours for collecting sunlight. The judge ruled in favor of Vargas, although he decided against fining Treanor and Bissett the up to $1,000 a day in violations allowed by the law.

    2.21.2008 at 07:26pm - Comment by Railgun

    Hmm... Whatever happened to respect for another's property, given that the trees were planted there first according to this article. If we're going to not respect that, a more environmentally minded decision by the judge would have been to take the panels away and give them to someone w/o trees in the way!

  • Gadgets

    Hungry for Power

    By Posted on 2.19.2008 7 Comments

    I have a confession to make: I am an addict. Im strung out, my friends, literally—surrounded by the paraphernalia of my drug of choice, electricity. My apartment is a sickening jumble of daisy-chained power strips and extension cords, all supporting my particular addiction to wall warts—those power-squandering, space-wasting, chunky black power adapters used to juice my gadgets. Im not about to give up all my electronic gear—no sir, thats not an option—so Id like to offer a compromise. A methadone treatment, if you will allow me to stretch this already thin metaphor.

    2.19.2008 at 07:15pm - Comment by Railgun

    I doubt you're going to see the different manufacturers play nice with each other soon and make something universal. I've owned some adapters that stay warm (meaning continual power use) and some that stay cool when not powering a device (very little power waste), so some players can do far better and I bet the easiest payoff would be a power waste limit law. Or a stricter one if one is already in place. Or a tax proportional to the standby power usage, maybe equal to a typical electricity cost for 5 years of consumption?



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