Monthly Archives: May 2009
Mobile traffic jams (2)
We have written earlier about the need to upgrade the backhaul network which connects the approx. 25,000 antenna-towers in the Netherlands with the Internet. One potential solution apparently is not viable: connect the antenna-towers with the existing cable-networks. Cable networks … Continue reading
‘Action through thought’
Controlling computers with your mind……hmmm. The French are trying to tackle the problem, with promising results. Check out the video.
Continuous improvement
Despite all the interest in electric vehicles the developments in hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles are very promising. They show a continous improvement curve you only get by patiently testing and improving the technology through real life tests. We might … Continue reading
Drawing power out of the air
All the effort put in battery-technology leads to a wide variety of approaches. One interesting approach is a battery that uses the oxygen in the air in the current generating reaction. If you do not have to carry a part … Continue reading
Free or Fantastic
Governments have resorted to spending hundreds of billions in a bid to recover the economy. The spending frenzy has attracted a lot of industries that were under pressure anyway: why not get a bailout as well? One of the industries … Continue reading
Jeffersons Warning and Macaulays Evil
“The Public Domain” by James Boyle is undoubtedly one of the best introductions to the origins, concepts and dangers of copyright law you can find. Not only available in print but also online. One of the gems in his book … Continue reading
Boomerang
It has been all over the news: the French government has passed a law (HADOPI) that gives an agency the power to cut off your Internet access if you download illegal content, without a court order or the intervention of … Continue reading
- 4,5 %
That is the reduction in our GDP according to the statistics in Q1 2009. People who rely on extrapolation see doom and gloom, others think the bottom is near. But what is the right interpretation? The source of the crisis … Continue reading
The lifecycle of news
As defined by Twitterati, but probably true for any news source which is online. (Source BoingBoing)
Peak coal?
The minable resources of coal are supposed to be large enough to last for a couple of centuries. Or are they? A new method of analyzing the output of mines over time suggests that the actual minable amount of coal … Continue reading