Monthly Archives: December 2008
Unconscious
Our model of our brain assumes that the conscious mind is the decisionmaker. Logic and reasoning lead to hypotheses, conclusions and actions. Our subconscious mind is only messing things up. Well, it seems that everyone who has thought differently has … Continue reading
Catching up
Vernor Vinge is a writer annex professor in mathematics and physics. One of his last books ” Rainbows End” explores a near-future scenario with an interesting twist. What if Alzheimer could be cured? Some elderly patients would regain their full … Continue reading
Big City, Brighter Lights
Where design meets sustainability. The Office for Visual Interaction has designed a marvelous sleek new streetlamp for New York, based on (up to) 100 LED’s that use very little energy. The light distribution pattern can be tailored to the specific … Continue reading
Double duty
We all know about the ideas that cars with large batteries might be used as a temporary storage of energy, to be fed back to the grid when needed. Reality has more or less overtaken us. A Prius owner in … Continue reading
Ultralight
2008 is the year marking the fact that more laptops were sold than desktop PC’s. Combining low weight, a bright screen, high performance and a long batterylife is the ultimate goal for any laptop producer. This has spurred a continuous … Continue reading
Waves
Some recent news gives new hope to the viability of extracting energy from the motion of the sea. Seagen’s tidal wave generator (see photo) has reached its maximum output of 1.2 MW in real life circumstances. At the same time … Continue reading
Santa Phone
For free on your Iphone, for kids who believe in Santa Claus. The Iphone Santa Claus tracker shows you where the sled is. Cute.
Flashback
Thanks to one our favorite weblogs Infectious Greed we have these links to 3 wonderfull photo series of 2008. Watch them…. 2008: series 1 2008: series 2 2008: series 3
Losers of 2009
Chris O’Brien of the The Mercury News predicts three Silicon Valley companies that will have major trouble in 2009: Sun, AMD and Palm. Not very shocking, since they haven’t done well in 2008 but nevertheless interesting to see the reasons … Continue reading
Wobble
We all known that soldiers must pass a bridge walking out-of-sync. You don’t want to trigger and amplify a vibration that could destroy the bridge. So when the Millenium Bridge was opened and people complained about a wobble scientists expected … Continue reading