Dadamotive: October 2008 Archives

Bleating grass

Posted by Marjolein | October 31 | 2008 12:44 PM | permalink

Tired of your home furnishing? Want a green image for your home or company? Or do you crave for a nice green lawn but detest all lawn mowers? This will be the thing for you! Real grass without the upkeep. It keeps changing colours for two years, also available in squares and sheep...

From: treehugger.com (and more pics!), available from Grassland

Dare to choose

Posted by Marjolein | October 31 | 2008 12:15 PM | permalink

Jared Diamond, ecologist, evolutionary biologist and professor of geography and physiology at UCLA, shares his thoughts on why societies collapse. Human environmental impact, climate change, relations with friendly and with hostile neighbour societies are significant, as well as political, economical, social and cultural factors. He gave his talk in 2003, but today it's even more interesting with all major issues nowadays. However, his conclusion is optimistic, if we caused it, we can fix it.

From TED.com

Bailout or buy-in?

Posted by Herman | October 30 | 2008 10:24 PM | permalink

A clear warning signal for European goverments who are supporting banks in distress that some managers are still in the mode of denial/business as usual. They are so autistic and egotistic that they have no connection with the society they live in and live from.

The New York Times has discovered that at least some banks are not using the new funds to get the real economy going, but to buy other banks. Not a word of using this capital to supply businesses and municipalities with badly needed liquidity, to get the real economy moving. Disgusting.

Cloud of mobility

Posted by Herman | October 30 | 2008 3:03 PM | permalink

The keywords on mobility in the Dutch "cloud", the size of the word is proportional to the frequency of use in the media.

Vsually representation by Daniel Erasmus (DTN)

Go East, Striped Suit

Posted by Herman | October 30 | 2008 1:09 PM | permalink

Quote du jour (WaPo):

Europeans in investment banking and other financial fields have been flocking to the oil-flush Persian Gulf for months, propelled by the hope that emerging economies of the East will ride out any global recession better than New York or London will. In a phrase often used by British brokers and bankers, "It's Shanghai, Mumbai, Dubai or goodbye."

Link

Android phones

Posted by Willem | October 30 | 2008 9:44 AM | permalink

In recent weeks several Android phones have come to the market. Android is Google's platform for mobile phones, and it is said to result in iPhone-killers. First reviews are quite good, but not stunning. However, Asus announced that it will also launch an Android handset in the first half of 2009. And judging from the success of its eee-pc tha t might be worth waiting for.

Waermepumpe

Posted by Herman | October 29 | 2008 9:44 PM | permalink

Germany has created a vibrant industry around "Das Nul-Energie Haus". A home that produces as much energy as it uses. The introduction of the Renewable Energy Act (EEG) in april 2000 has boosted the use of PV-panels and particularly wind-energy, but critics complain about the high costs paid by taxpayers (for PV) compared to the actual CO2 reduction attained.

One technology that is less visible but quite popular in Germany is the use of heatpumps to heat homes. The experience of the German producers with the technology attracts home-owners in other countries, like the Netherlands. In the coming months we will follow someone who is contemplating to buy one of these heatpumps in Germany.

Tangential approach

Posted by Herman | October 29 | 2008 7:43 PM | permalink

MorganSolar is a company with an interesting approach on solar concentrators.

Solar concentrators focus the sunlight onto a PV-cell. The plus is that you need less (expensive) silicon for the same amount of energy, the drawbacks are the elevated temperatures that decrease the lifetime of the cell and increased sensitivity for wind (larger structure catches more wind). MorganSolar have a radical different design that appears to eliminate the drawbacks.

They use a planar optical wave guide to transport the light energy to the sides where the PV-cell is located. Acrylic waveguide and alumunium housing are fit for massproduction. The aluminium H-shape is rigid and acts as a heatsink. The total structure has a low windprofile.

On paper a winning combination, I wonder when it will be put to the test in production. The original approach seems like good engineering to me.

The only thing I do not understand is why nobody combines solar concentration on silicon with water cooling, where the heated water is used in a solar boiler for daily use. The amount of m2 one needs for electricity generation is much higher than you need for heating water in a normal household. Why not combine the functions in one investment?

Future of Mobility

Posted by Herman | October 29 | 2008 7:25 PM | permalink

Today Connekt announced the start of an elaborate scenario development on the future of mobility. One of the most interesting parts in my mind are the video-interviews with great minds all over the world. A small taste of what is to come can be found over here.

Solace

Posted by Herman | October 29 | 2008 7:18 PM | permalink

Quote du jour:

"In Belgium people are happy that there is a credit crisis. The political debate suddenly is about something that really matters".

Kris Peeters, Belgian sociologist/antropologist, while comparing the Belgium stalemated debate on state reform to quarelling cooks in a kitchen who cannot even agree on recipes.

Zeitgeist

Posted by Herman | October 28 | 2008 5:17 PM | permalink

Beer-commercials tend to touch the soul of the (male) inhabitants of a country. As such they a perfect indicator of reality.

Take a look at this Budweiser commercial and a "pastiche" made in the USA, 8 years apart. Apparently according to the actors who have independently created the 2008 version there is hope....

2000

2008

Hydrogen out, biogas in

Posted by Willem | October 28 | 2008 3:59 PM | permalink

QuestAir Technologies, a Canadian company that develops proprietary gas purification systems, is set to refocus its business strategy on working in the biogas market. They used to make hydrogen purification systems marketed (not very successfully) by ExxonMobil, they will make methane purifiers that upgrade biogas for injection into existing natural gas pipelines. And they already sold ten of these. Can we use this for trend analysis or is it just a single company taking a step? You decide.

Charge of the electric brigade

Posted by Herman | October 28 | 2008 9:15 AM | permalink

Earth2tech reports that the UK government has decided to stimulate the electric car industry with a package worth Euro 150 mio.

"The money will be divided up across several initiatives. £20 million has been dedicated to researching technology to lower the costs of EVs, £10 million will go into a 100-vehicle demonstration competition where consumers can test the cars, and another £20 million will be offered up for car companies to make electric vans for government use, including mail delivery. The short list of manufacturers for this project includes Ford, Mercedes Benz, Citroen, Ashwoods, Land Rover, Modec, Smiths, Electric Vehicles, LDV, Nissan and Allied Vehicles.

To facilitate the switch to electrics, the government says it has removed many of the barriers to installing charging stations and intends to hold workshops for stakeholders to discuss how to prep the country's infrastructure. The government says that the existing power grid could support wide-spread electric car charging with a minimal increase in power generation."

Great PR, but anybody who has any inside in the industry will recognize that the factors that will increase the amount of electricity used for transportation over the burning of oil are much more complex than this package adresses.

Clean diesel

Posted by Marjolein | October 27 | 2008 1:34 PM | permalink

A catchy tune can stick in your head for hours, or even days. But will it last until the cardealer showroom? Honda sure hopes so!

More about clean diesel on treehugger.com

From the outside looking in

Posted by Herman | October 26 | 2008 2:06 PM | permalink

Laura Domela has published a wonderfull book called "Fietsen", full of pictures of bicyclists in Amsterdam, taken from above from an apartment in the Marnixstraat.

Shine, baby, shine!

Posted by Herman | October 25 | 2008 11:29 PM | permalink

Solar Thermal Electricity (STE) is a proven technology where solar heat is converted to electricity through steam and turbines. Ausra Inc. has published a white paper claiming that this technology could supply over 93 % of the electrical power for the USA (800 GW) within a square of 150 x 150 km filled with solar collectors.
Let's see if there is any substance to this claim.

The authors assume a "Solar Multiple" (SM) of 3, and heat storage for 1-2 days. Meaning that the actual size of the collectorfarm is 3 times the minimum what is needed to run a turbine at full capacity at solar noon in mid-summer, and excess heat is stored in melted salt or another medium to level out the output over a day's cycle. According to their modeling only during winterdays additional capacity should be needed to meet demand, the rest of the year the power plant would generate enough (ah, the lovely californian sunshine).
For an SM3 plant with storage, generating 177 MW, an area of 3.9 square km would be needed according to Ausra.

Let's see.

The power of the sun which reaches the surface of the earth is approx. 90 PetaW.

The surface of a sphere with a circumference of 40.000 km = approx.522 million x million m2. Half of that is in the dark, so 90 PetaW shines on 261 million x million m2 =345 W/m2 average.

3.9 square km receives therefore in solar energy 1344 MW (peak).

Divided by 3 (SM3 design requires triplesize arrays to level the output) = 450 MW solar energy on average to be converted in 177 MW. A 40 % efficiency ratio is required to make this calculation tick.

A bit optimistic but not far out. Interesting.

In 2007 the total electrical power generating capacity in the Netherlands was approx. 24 GW.

Using STE in the above configuration one would need give or take 25 x 25 km in a sunny location, like Spain. An investment of 80.000 million euro for power generation, storage and transmission capacity would be needed for this size of STE power plant. Payback time? The time it takes to reduce the cumulative import of oil by 1 billion barrels.

The current import of oil in NL is 0,9 billion barrels per year. Unfortunately most of it is used for other purposes than generating electricity. However, if we all would switch to electric cars (or Plug-in Hybrids), the demand for electricity would grow fast at the expense of oil imports.

An interesting concept. More to follow.

Grey electrons

Posted by Herman | October 24 | 2008 12:56 PM | permalink

Over here the number of microcars on the road is growing quickly. Grey-haired drivers who do not need/have a driving license use these vehicles as if they are fullfledged cars. But who can blame them. Cheap to operate and maintain, easy to park, and having the best of both worlds (car and moped at the same time). It was only a question of time before the manufacturers would create an all-electric version. And here it is, available right now at your favourite dealer.

Link

Revenge of the working class

Posted by Herman | October 23 | 2008 5:20 PM | permalink

(Great find of Benoit Felten, Fiberevolution blog)

The job
by trescourt

A trickle of sunshine

Posted by Herman | October 23 | 2008 3:41 PM | permalink

Small can be beautifull. Standard lead-acid batteries left unused for some time (boats, cars, motorcycles) require a trickle charge to retain their charge and capacity.

Instead of a 230 V trickle charger you can purchase a solar charger for as little as 34 euro's.

Simpel, effective, cheap.

Link

E-voting

Posted by Willem | October 23 | 2008 9:36 AM | permalink

With elections in the US coming up, the e-voting debate is also starting all over again. But don't we all know by now that on one hand e-voting is flawed, but on the other hand you need a really well co-ordinated effort to seriously influence the outcome of US presidential elections. And that it shouldn't be too hard either to influence traditional paper voting. Although, thinking about this, we are talking about the USA here... Okay, I'm against e-voting until it is all open source!

McKinsey does Carbon Capture & Storage

Posted by Willem | October 23 | 2008 9:19 AM | permalink

In a recent report McKinsey studies the economics of Carbon Capture & Storage, a method often advertised to continue using fossile fuels without warming up our earth. McKinsey's conclusion: Maybe starting from 2030 on a real scale, until then only demonstration projects. Our conclusion: Not for oil and gas, maybe for coal.

Forrest Gump explains

Posted by Herman | October 22 | 2008 4:51 PM | permalink

A viral email is circulating fast aroung the world. Forrest Gump is explaining the toxic mortgages. Hilarious.

Mortgage Backed Securities are like boxes of chocolates. Criminals on Wall Street stole a few chocolates from the boxes and replaced them with turds. Their criminal buddies at Standard & Poor rated these boxes AAA Investment Grade chocolates. These boxes were then sold all over the world to investors. Eventually somebody bites into a turd and discovers the crime. Suddenly nobody trusts American chocolates anymore worldwide.

Hank Paulson now wants the American taxpayers to buy up and hold all these boxes of turd-infested chocolates for $700 billion dollars until the market for turds returns to normal. Meanwhile, Hank's buddies, the Wall Street criminals who stole all the good chocolates are not being investigated, arrested, or indicted. So far
nothing is back to normal.

Mama always said: "Sniff the chocolates first Forrest".

Down Under DIY Diesel

Posted by Herman | October 22 | 2008 8:14 AM | permalink

Cleantechnica reports on how a couple of Australian friends have succeeded in homebrewing diesel from algea. Looks like I'll have to convert the swimming pool into an algeaheaven....

Please don't take my sunshine away

Posted by Marjolein | October 21 | 2008 11:33 PM | permalink

Solar power can be very useful outside. But what about your solar chargers indoors?
This PlantBot takes care of your flora, by moving to the sunniest spot in your room. Add some solar cells to power your gadgets! If the cat doesn't get them first...

Via Engadget, (also a cool animation!), see The Play Coalition for more pics

Quiz

Posted by Herman | October 21 | 2008 6:34 PM | permalink

Question: if we would capture and liquefy all carbondioxide that would be created by burning all imported barrels of oil in the Netherland, how many litres of fluid would that generate per day?

Answer: 650 million litre of CO2 per day....or 650.000 m3.

Car2go

Posted by Herman | October 21 | 2008 4:50 PM | permalink

Daimler Benz just announced an interesting mobility test project in the city of Ulm in Germany. Older Dutch readers will remember the more or less equivalent "witcar" plans in Amsterdam in the seventies. It wil be interesting to see if customers will start to use this facilities. The price of 19 ct/minute seems reasonable. Much will depend on the availability, the ease of use, and how clean the cars will be kept.

"And this is how it works: a fleet of smart fortwo vehicles will be made available within the city, functioning for all citizens as a vehicle pool that can be accessed at any time. Following a one-off registration process, the smarts can be hired spontaneously in passing, or pre-booked and used for as long as desired. The concept aims to ensure that a reliable vehicle is available at any time, just a few minutes walk away. The customer gets in and can drive off right away. Once the trip is completed, the driver simply parks the rental smart somewhere within the city limits. Billing for the Ulm project is just as straightforward and flexible as the entire operation of car2go - to the nearest minute, for just 19 cents per minute ".

Link

Nuclear business

Posted by Herman | October 20 | 2008 10:59 PM | permalink

Some politicians are actively promoting nuclear power as THE answer to global warming. Next to safety concerns the quickly rising costs of building a nuclear plant creates doubts about the economic viability of nuclear power. One of the indicators is the observation that no venture capital is flowing to nuclear, it is all going to "green". On the opposite side power companies in the USA have request USD 112 billion in loan garantuees from the government for nuclear power projects. The estimated investment per kW has risen to almost double that of a gasfired plant, the overruns in time and budget of existing projects are huge.

Sounds like a very questionable investment compared to other plans like this.

The heart of the sun

Posted by Herman | October 20 | 2008 10:46 PM | permalink

Wonderfull images of the magnetic signature of the sun, at the Boston Bigpicture Blog.

(Via BoingBoing)

Old habits die hard

Posted by Marjolein | October 20 | 2008 10:29 PM | permalink

From: Dilbert.com

They exist though, solar-powered rickshaws.

Einzelgang

Posted by Herman | October 20 | 2008 5:19 PM | permalink

Apparently even Deutsche Telekom has come to the inevitable conclusion:

if you want to upgrade the "last mile", the physical network connecting individual homes so you can support broadband and TV far beyond the limitations of copper-based networks, you have to cooperate.

Fiber is so superior in capabilities that there is no case for duplication of that part of the network. It would be as usefull as having duplicate electricity lines to your home.

They are following the trend: KPN has already started upon this route.

Too big to fail or not big enough to be critical

Posted by Herman | October 20 | 2008 5:00 PM | permalink

The "quote du jour" is by Tom Evslin.

"Nothing should be too big to fail because nothing can be made failure-safe."

"There's no question anymore that institutions which are too big to fail are also too big to leave unregulated. [..]

Those of us who have built complex interactive systems know that nodes which are significantly large compared to the network as a whole pose an outsized risk. The Internet is a triumph of decentralized relatively small nodes, none of which is "too big to fail". [..]

There is significant question whether any degree of regulation will be sufficient to prevent failure. Nodes fail for unexpected reasons - usually not the ones you're watching for."

An excellent exposé how the illusion of control has more inherent dangers than the acceptance of the limits of control. Read it.

Space age

Posted by Herman | October 17 | 2008 11:53 AM | permalink

One of the most extreme but beautifull designs for an EV or PHEV has just been improved. The Aptera has received some nice extra touches which somehow give it a resemblance to a dolphin jumping through the waves. I just can't wait to see one live driving over here.

On-shoring

Posted by Herman | October 17 | 2008 7:53 AM | permalink

Outsourcing and offshoring have become standard recipes for MBA's. The common "wisdom" taught in management schools is that all production will follow cheap labor to China and India and further. But, as one of our favorite blogs Evolving Excellence time and again demonstrates, in many cases this recipe is wrong and misguided. Improving your processes by respect for people and reducing all kinds of waste (including dead capital, production to stock and lead-time) is the superior answer.

And will cheap labor stay cheap over time? Apparently not.

A good example was given to me by a consultant who conducts many lenghty interviews on video and tape. He used to let these transcribe in India but changed recently to a supplier in.......

the United Stated of America, in the MidWest. 25 % lower cost, much higher quality because they understand more of the context.

Fade out

Posted by Herman | October 16 | 2008 2:56 PM | permalink

The financial crisis has dominated the news, so a small but significant step has barely caught any attention. The EU-countries have agreed upon a ban on incandescent lightbulbs, starting in 2010. This has to be ratified by the EU-commission and parliament before it becomes mandatory, but nevertheless.....

The real significance is the willingness to take such a step. It is clear that a system of carbon credits will never have enough financial impact on the purchase price of lightbulbs to bridge the gap with alternative lightsources. Most people tend to neglect the cost of ownership when purchasing a lightsource, so this would never lead to the introduction of new technology. Only a mandatory across-the-board ban on old technology will make the difference.

Some time ago this would have been branded as state-intervention of the worst kind. Apparently times have changed.

Bretton Woods revisited

Posted by Herman | October 16 | 2008 9:23 AM | permalink

Good politicians have a good sense of what their constituents feel is important. Our political leaders apparently understand that we think that this bonanza in the financial world at the expense of others should have been prevented. So a new order must be designed.

The interesting part is if they are able to think the unthinkable. Unthinkable according to the school of thought that has been prevailing the last 30 years, condensed in the simplistic rally "Government is the problem, the free market solves everything".

The originators of this school of thought saw quite correctly that the complexity of our

society has risen to a level where top-down Newtonian/Taylorian design and control is becoming ineffective. Too much energy spent on control, bogging down development, frustrating creativity. The answer (reduce interventions and control) has become an ideology instead of a means to an end. The ideology was also hijacked by shrewd operators who saw the possibility of getting rich by re-distribution of wealth , concentrating it in a smaller group.

The solution forward cannot be a return to the rigid centralized control systems of 30 years ago. Fortunately the concepts behind emergent systems analysis give us some handles to design a new paradigm. (More on that in a later post).

For the short term a rule of thumb could be used. Anything that is considerd vital infrastructure (like part of the banking systems: not the merchant banks but the simple oldfashioned handling of savings and lendings) must be isolated from the wild-west of the free market because we cannot afford to let that be hijacked by selfish greed. The price is too high, the originator of the problems does not pay the price (bail-outs are required, creating the moral hazard). We started this in the EU already with electricity networks, we should do the same with telecoms and proceed with contemplating what is vital

ElectionTube

Posted by Herman | October 15 | 2008 9:49 PM | permalink

IPDemocracy has an interesting piece which demonstrates the power of Youtube as a super-node in communication. The McCain campaign is protesting against the takedown of campaign ads that are placed on Youtube. The big networks are apparently requesting the removal of these ads on the basis that they contain copyrighted material.

This demonstrates that

"One thing is for sure: YouTube seems to be the only place that counts for the McCain-Palin campaign...and all other campaigns. Although YouTube was crucial to politics before (remember the Macaca video that sunk George Allen) it has become with this election season the undisputed dominant video hub for anybody interested in politics."

Back to the future

Posted by Herman | October 15 | 2008 10:20 AM | permalink

Fuel economy for normal cars is not something new. A 22 year old design, the Avion, which achieved a worldrecord of 42 km to the litre in 1986, has recently improved that record to 48 km per liter (just over 2 liters per 100 km).

Streamlined body, light chassis, a 6 speed gearbox of a Smart and a small diesel engine is all that was needed.

Quote of the day

Posted by Herman | October 14 | 2008 11:56 PM | permalink

Infectious Greed :

"This is market is worse than a divorce. I've lost half my net worth, yet I still have my wife."

Cool runnings

Posted by Herman | October 14 | 2008 2:24 PM | permalink

Check out this video of the Zuumer. Seems like an ideal pizza and beer delivery vehicle for the city-centre.

Bike-tru

Posted by Herman | October 14 | 2008 12:17 PM | permalink

Ecovelo reports : "Pueblo Bank & Trust in Boulder, Colorado has a dedicated, bikes-only, ride-thru window, complete with a bike rack and water cooler. Very cool."

with video

Biobattery

Posted by Herman | October 14 | 2008 12:08 PM | permalink

Researchers at Yale university have published a study on how to generate electricity like electric eels.

"The scientists began with the question of whether an artificial version of the electrocyte - the energy-generating cells in electric eels - could be designed as a potential power source. "The electric eel is very efficient at generating electricity," said Jian Xu, a postdoctoral associate in Yale's Department of Chemical Engineering. "It can generate more electricity than a lot of electrical devices.""

They have modeled an artificial cell that is capable of generating power, most likely using organic ATP as a power source.

Yale (via Ecogeek)

Roadsurfing

Posted by Herman | October 14 | 2008 11:58 AM | permalink

Zoomilife reports on their hands-on experience with driving the Zuumer electric....uhh, scooter/surfboard/citytransporter, for lack of a better word.

A clever new rear suspension allows for fun while driving, the top speed is over 30 kph. Lots of clever details in the engineering and usefull features make this Zuumer something in the category "I gotta have one of these!".

Electrifying

Posted by Herman | October 14 | 2008 7:47 AM | permalink

The Paris Motor Show was all about electric cars. Earth2Tech has picked the 9 sexiest ones.

It is interesting to see that the change to electric propulsion systems (EV of PHEV) creates opportunities for new contenders in the market. Such as Bolloré. Their choice to team up with Pininfarina has led to a very interesting car, the B0 (B-Zero). The looks are right, the specs are right, how about the price..?

Electioneering

Posted by Herman | October 11 | 2008 9:59 AM | permalink

BoingBoing reports on a clever use of connectivity in the US presidential election campaign. A giant electronic billboard happened to be opposite a open area where Palin would speak. Everyone could SMS their hard questions to the candidate, and the questions where shown on the giant billboard.
So far, de Democrats have shown to understand the new powers of connectivity better than the Republicans.

Link

The Order Electrus

Posted by Marjolein | October 10 | 2008 9:33 PM | permalink

Humans won't evolve any further, as far as Professor Steve Jones is concerned. But what about the other living creatures on our planet? David Attenborough, watch out. There is someone out there planning to take your job!

Lightspeed

Posted by Herman | October 10 | 2008 11:27 AM | permalink

The Smart Lighting Centre has succeeded in grabbing everybodies attention with the idea to use LED lighting for communication. Modulating the light output at relatively high frequencies will be invisible to the human eye, the LED will seem to be burning constantly. Ofcourse there might be some questions to answer: how to keep the perceived light intensity constant while modulating, how fast can you modulate LED's designed for a different applications, etc.

The most interesting application in my mind is in cars. Imagine if LED headlights and taillights are constantly communicating with their environment, about distance, speed, direction and some more. Cars could react to each others movements, pedestrians and cyclists could have an early warning of imminent collisions.

Hyperconnectivity in mobility. My imagination lights up immediately.

Velo-city

Posted by Herman | October 10 | 2008 10:59 AM | permalink

We Dutch use our bicycles a lot. In Amsterdam it is probably one of the favourite means of transportation, aided by the fact that the municipality has actively involved cyclists in improving facilities. Facilities like huge parking facilities for free.

A recent study revealed just how big the differences are between countries.

"37 percent of short trips (under 2.5 kilometers, or 1.5 miles) are made on a bicycle in the Netherlands, compared with 2 percent in the United States. 1.1 cyclists are killed per 100 million km cycled there; in the United States, 5.8 cyclists are killed per 100 million km."

Sources: "Making Cycling Irresistible: Lessons From the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany" by John Pucher and Ralph Buehler, Transport Reviews, 2008; National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; U.S. Census

A trip down Mesozoïcum lane

Posted by Marjolein | October 09 | 2008 8:35 PM | permalink

General Motors and Chrysler talk about a possible merger. Will they succeed in a market where the hybrids and the electric cars get more attention every week? Or will they prove to be the new dinosaurs, destined only to shine as an example of the molochs of the past?

Connected characters

Posted by Herman | October 09 | 2008 12:43 PM | permalink

It's official now. PointTopic reports that China has more broadband subscribers than the USA. Even more impressive, in Q2 2008 China added 5 mio more subscribers against 1.1 mio for the USA, so the diverging trend accelerates. The sheer volume of users will gather its own momentum, new trends and uses will develop in this space, particular to China. Anybody knows how to type in Chinese?

Waste control

Posted by Herman | October 09 | 2008 11:00 AM | permalink

Quite often a diesel engine of a truck is used to power a hydraulic pump through a PTO (power take off). Unfortunately the diesel has to run all the time although the pump is used only intermittently.

A Dutch company has created a cheap and simple method to reduce the amount of time a diesel engine is running idle for nothing. A simple remote controlled device is connected to the engine management interface, which nowadays is standard in any modern truck.

"Using the RX1 the driver can turn the lorry engine, including the PTO, on and off remotely. In this way the engine only runs when the PTO needs power, thus causing less damage to the environment and saving you money. In addition, the driver can lock the cab during loading and unloading, thus benefiting security."

Simple, elegant, easy.

Quote of the day

Posted by Herman | October 09 | 2008 9:16 AM | permalink

"Don't put your trust in money, put your money in what en who you trust"

Rick van de Ploeg, interview Radio 1

Raising a stink

Posted by Herman | October 08 | 2008 8:18 PM | permalink

Personal accountability and direct feedback of the effects of your actions would have reduced or even prevented the current credit crisis. They are powerfull safeguards of sanity. Some people take this to an interesting albeit somewhat extreme level. In one of our favorite blogs Evolving Excellence the story is told of a man who retains all his waste produced during a one year period in his basement. The experiment has immediate effects: a change of lifestyle which not only reduces waste but also saves money.

Link

Lies, damn lies and gossip

Posted by Herman | October 08 | 2008 5:58 PM | permalink

"Publish first, and check the facts later !" seems to be the name of the game nowadays. But quite often some simple checks can reveal that preposterous claims are flying around without any solid basis.

Ars Technica has done a thorough job in checking the origins of the claims of "Big Content" that piracy would cost the USA more than USD 250 billion and 750.000 jobs. Quite over the top, if you take into account that according to Ars "$250 billion is more than the combined 2005 gross domestic revenues of the movie, music, software, and video game industries."

Based on these claims legislation is proposed that would make ISP's, the police force and courts unpaid fee collectors for this industry. Ars shows that these claims are without any solid basis,and have been constructed from unsubstantiated remarks in reports as far back as 20 years ago.

Quite a demasqué.

Fast footed and nimble

Posted by Herman | October 08 | 2008 8:57 AM | permalink

Is it an investment banker looking for an exit? Or a civil servant on his way to save another bank in distress? No. Peugeot launched a new hybrid scooter prototype with the same layout as the Piaggio MP3. Fuel consumption is reported to be 2 litres per 100 km. If they would add some safety features and a little more protection against the elements over here, I'd be tempted.

Via Autobloggreen

Accelerate...

Posted by Herman | October 07 | 2008 9:45 PM | permalink

On October 5 the Amsterdam Internet Exchange set a new record: more than 500 Gbps of traffic was exchanged. 3 Years ago the record was 50 Gbps, a tenfold increase in 3 years. Interestingly enough the peaks are reached during evening hours and weekend: consumers drive the traffic volumes, not businesses.

If the nurse is worried....

Posted by Herman | October 07 | 2008 6:12 PM | permalink

The unfortunate tendency in society to mistrust professionals leads to bloated control structures that do reduce value and add paperwork. Anybody who works in care and health care can cite horrifying examples. Recently someone who works with mentally handicapped juveniles told me the amount of paperwork per juvenile has quintupled in 5 years time.

Fontunately there are other examples. In the blog "Running a Hospital" Paul Levy, President and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston (USA) describes the stunning results of a "trigger" program. A trigger is an early indicator of trouble. And as it turns out, if the nurse is worried, so should be you. Trust the instincts of a dedicated professional.

" The Triggers Program has various specific criteria mandating a response from providers. For example, if the pulse rate is acutely greater than 130 beats per minute, a Trigger is called and the team responds. However, we have one criterion which is much more subjective: "marked nursing concern." When we implemented the Triggers program, many physicians were very nervous about giving this criterion. They were afraid that they might be called in the middle of the night for things that weren't really important, and that nurses might use this as a weapon if they did not like the physician or if they disagreed with the plan of care.

Well, it turns out that nurses use this Trigger quite judiciously - only 15% of our Triggers are called only for nursing concern. (In another 27% of cases, nurses express "marked concern" but the patient also meets other criteria simultaneously.) It also turns out that if nurse has "marked nursing concern," it means you're really sick. The in-hospital mortality rate for a patient who has a Trigger called for "marked nursing concern" is 10.7%.

This is roughly twice as bad as showing up to the Emergency Department with a heart attack. Literally."

Fast financials

Posted by Herman | October 07 | 2008 5:54 PM | permalink

Our favourite financial blogger James eloquently describes the shortest history of capitalism:

A fantastic example of Happy Meal financial journalism, in case you're in a hurry

The art of conversation

Posted by Herman | October 07 | 2008 5:40 PM | permalink

The unraveling of a house of cards in only a couple of minutes, artfully dissected in this wonderfull conversation. (Thanks to Benoit/Fiberevolution).

Tryout

Posted by Herman | October 03 | 2008 10:03 AM | permalink

As we are in a try-out mode, do expect some odd changes and texts to appear....

Clean Energy and the Financial Crisis

Posted by Willem | October 03 | 2008 9:34 AM | permalink

An article in the New York Times Blog discusses the impact of the Financial Crisis on the clean energy industry. Several industry specialists (a.o. of Merrill Lynch...) were consulted and the result is, of course, mixed. No, it won't, since the Clean Energy Industry is too strong already and yes, it will, since the Clean Energy Industry is still vulnerable. How is that for an eye-opener?