Our Amazing Solar System

Back to back interesting articles. This article is about energy. Specifically, it's about solar energy.

You see, a few problems exist with energy from water. First off, a water molecule is pretty hard to split, so it requires a bit of energy to be put into the system. Second, the yield is usually greatly less than the energy put into the system due to entropy. Enter the story, and a great deal of hope (at least for me).

A U.S. scientist has developed a new way of powering fuel cells that could make it practical for home owners to store solar energy and produce electricity to run lights and appliances at night.

A new catalyst produces the oxygen and hydrogen that fuel cells use to generate electricity, while using far less energy than current methods.

With this catalyst, users could rely on electricity produced by photovoltaic solar cells to power the process that produces the fuel, said the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who developed the new material.

Here is another link with a little more of a description.

So, MIT researchers discovered a nearly 100% efficient way, using a catalyst, to split water and save the energy. Chalk up one to science! The other benefit is that the way to do it doesn't involve destroying the environment around it. It's environmentally friendly. And, it is a really really good way to store photovoltaic energy as a result.

So, for the big picture, photovoltaics yield energy. Super scientist guys add a cobalt phosphate catalyst to water, and use that photo-energy-rificness to put an electric charge across the water, splitting the water, and using Platinum to bond with the Hydrogen and store it, and the allowing the cobalt phosphate to bond with the Oxygen. Then, when the current is removed (i.e., the Sun goes down), the separated components recombine into water and release almost 100% of the energy used to create the separation.

Ultimately, this is a good way to store solar power during the day and release it at night. Rock on, Sun! And the über-awesomeness award to MIT for figuring this one out.

Shortie McShorts-a-lot

Your car’s planet-destroying A/C. No matter how guilty you feel about your carbon footprint, you don’t have to swelter on the highway to the beach. After doing tests at 65 miles per hour, the mileage experts at edmunds.com report that the aerodynamic drag from opening the windows cancels out any fuel savings from turning off the air-conditioner.

That's from this New York Times article. That's interesting. I have in the past wondered about this one. There is, however, something about the breeze on a cool Spring/Fall day that prevents me from keeping my windows up. Sometimes you just have to indulge in the simple pleasures in life.

Infectious Meme

I got this from Karina... Have fun doing it.

Here are the rules:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page of results, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

The Peanut Gallery Speaks

What began as a well-formed plan for a meal degraded quickly into a hasty, thrown-together piece of wonder I can only describe as ... tasty. Dinner was originally meant to be of rice, veggies, and fried. Also known as sushi (maki specifically) and tempura. By the time climbing ended, however, we feared we would waste away to nothing. So our well-laid plans of cooking a meal in following climbing quickly degraded to hastily rushing to the grocery store and absconding (post-cash) with the makings for peanut butter and jelly.

So, to the ingredients. "Not just peanut butter, jelly, and bread?" you ask. Of course not! So what else was there? Gnutella, bananas, fluff, and more bread; all on one sammich! Moo ha. Yum. Ice cream yet to come... Oh, and of course there was pineapple. This is a nice way to end infusion day.

The list of attendees: the girl, Amanda, Ken, and me of course.

Regression of the Species

While spending time on the U.S.S. Internets, I had a few thoughts...

Antarctica is cold (understatement of the year). Apparently, though, it wasn't always. It used to be next to Death Valley. Funky, huh? (1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9..10). This got me thinking about continental drift (wouldn't you immediately go there?) and I thought about the massive geological event that had to happen to separate these masses. Many earthquakes later, Antarctica is cold and Death Valley is just a few degrees too warm. Did I mention I hate the heat? I'd probably rather be in Antarctica. You can always put on more clothing, but you can't always take it off. Contrary to popular belief, nudity is not always legal. So, I also imagined just what kind of destruction had to happen. If something like this happens again with the human race around (I'm looking at you California!)...

And then, on the way to work, I heard a story about the running of the bulls. I always have to laugh when I hear these stories. They just scream "Darwin Award!" Surprisingly few people have died doing this, though. Fourteen, I think. But, I'm guessing that some serious screws have to be loose to do this. I giggle, though, when I think that this is the one day the bulls get retribution for all of the bull-fighting. And, these bulls will also slightly clean the gene pool for humanity. Go Bulls! Really, though, I don't want people to die in this. I find it crazy they do it at all.

Fun-filled Fourth and More

This has been an eventful weekend. First, the fourth of July. It began, as many of my days recently have, at around 4:45 AM. Somehow, I felt ridiculously functional, and decided to make my computer more useful. So, I installed Apache, MySQL, MediaWiki, and LXR. There's more to come on that.

When the rest of the world woke up, people came over and we kayaked. 'We' being the girl, Amanda, Ken, and I. It were fun. Check out our route. Afterward, we cooked enough food to choke a small family of elephants, and somehow did not meet our demise. 'We,' in this case, additionally included Tim and Samantha. We ended up watching the Wedding Singer, and lapsing into restful (I hope) comas following.

Sometime during the day or night, we decided to start rating beers, and needed a place to store the ratings. Fortunately, I installed a wiki on my computer earlier. Some DNS magic later, my friends have access, and we now have a wiki with beer, wine, recipes, and other random junk.

Breakfast came and went the next morning at a nearby diner in Pasadena. I had some tasty french toast. Amanda and Ken left, and Jessie and I then learned that our basement had a stomach ache. Our sump pump was making some seriously sickening gurgling noises. Several trips to Lowes ensued, and we now have a new sump pump. Later, we went to Sandrew's house to begin an enjoyable eve.

At Sandrew's place, we began by taking a tour of the neighborhood on Drew's refurbished electric scooter. Good stuff. I never thought the thing could have been so fun. A bunch more food, enough to choke the former elephant family's giant mutant offspring's family, and then Katie and Jon came over. The girl also jumped in the pool, fully clothed, to rescue a drowning Corona bottle. Because of her hard work, we'll have one more Corona bottle in the world, saved from being one of the many of the horrible statistic of Corona bottles that have drowned in pools.

Sunday: Climbing day! Ken, Amanda, the girl, and I went to Rockville! I love that gym. I wish I lived a bit closer. I'm still sore from climbing. We ate dinner at the Mongolian Barbeque, went back, and waited out the storm at Amanda's place, with ice cream! Thanks Amanda!

Desultory :-)

A whole host of strangeness...

First off, from the "things I wish I knew when I was learning what to eat" department, we have watermelon makes you horny. :-) 'Nuff said.

Then, a story that we all probably knew deep down, and that shows you the treachery of Cell phone companies, AT&T’s Text Messages Cost $1,310 per Megabyte. I always knew they were up to no good. And with their recent lack of desire to yield at all to a loyal customer on iPhone deals, they can go screw themselves. Maybe I'll send them text messages. It's a shame that they really don't see much of the cost from texting. Just poor little old consumer people.

Finally, in the "draperies department," solar curtains. I want some. This is the kind of stuff I want to see more used in the world. "Quick, it's sunny out, close the curtains so I can power all the toys I can buy by saving money on electricity."

The end.

Used 2G iPhone Goodness

For those who want proof of that you can activate a used 2G iPhone (since the 3G version is due out in 10 days), I got this email from AT&T support...

Thank you for taking the time to e-mail AT&T regarding how to add a used iPhone to your line with your sim card, and how to add the data plan for $20.00. I am happy to help you with your inquiry.

To activate a used iPhone on your line, please contact customer service at 1-800-331-0500 for assistance. A new sim card may be required, and the $20.00 iPhone data plan can be added to the account at the time of activation.

[...]

So, I might be getting an iPhone! I'm just glad to have proof positive that I can get the cheaper data plan. If the 3G plan was still $20, I might actually shell out the un-subsidized price for it.