Cure penut alergy with... penuts!

A study from Duke university outline in a gizmag post shows that by ingesting slowly increasing amounts of peanut flour, children previously allergic to peanuts could rid them selves of the adverse reaction.

Imagine the tenth dimension

Very cool animation of 10 dimesnions; very much the multi universe theory on steroids!

Sonic Ruler

Definatly one of the apps I would buy if I had an iphone..

Sonar Ruler Demo from cc laan on Vimeo.

no end to stupidy

Wow... too many people believe what the see on TV. Every now and again a crazy makes it into a science meeting, and you get comments completly off topic, and always at the wrong moment. Humility is what is needed; the ability to think " you know what, I may be wrong sometimes!" But the crazy never lets this happen, and then they start shouting, or asking questions.. erg...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Healther Skelter
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

Conferences and Forms on Renewable energy

Several large conferences/forms are quickly approaching; here is the short list.
Global Renewable Energy Form (GREF); Leon Mexico; 7-9 October 2009
The form is summarized on the web site (concept note):

It is expected that some 1000 officials, planners and energy experts from all world regions will participate in the event, including representatives from governments, international organizations, academia, civil society, and private sector.

The Global Forum will feature a series of plenary sessions around the following themes:

• Energy Poverty, Economic and Financial Crisis, and Climate Change;

• Renewable Energy and Energy Transition;

• Renewable Energy Potential;

• Renewable Energy and the Access Agenda;

• Biofuels;

• Investments in Renewables;

• Policy and Innovative Institutions.



West Coast Green; San Francisco CA USA, 1-3, October 2009. This conference seems to be aimed at the design community with what promises to be a full exibitor floor. The educational track are listed as;

• Building Communities 2.0

• Business Opportunities and the New Economy

• Clean Tech and Cool Products

• Smart Systems

• Social Innovation

• Water and Energy

Cost, Students $250 USD, full pass $795 USD.

Institute of the Americas presents the Cross Border Climate and Renewable Energy discussion; August 13th, 2009, La Jolla CA

The event will convene policy makers from Mexico and the United States, renewable energy project developers, suppliers, analysts, NGO representatives and others for several panels. The focus will be on the significant opportunities that exist in the Cross Border region for renewable energy projects, as well as how to best work together to confront the critical challenges the issues of energy and climate present for us all.

Cost; General Public $100, Academics $25.

NASA and cafe announce green aircraft challenge

In an announcement made on July 31, 20009, NASA and the Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency (CAFE) have offered a 1.5 million dollar prize to a plane that can average 200 passenger miles per gallon of gas on a 200 mile flight averaging over 100 mph.

These contests are great ways to insight new innovation, and I think inspire new small firms to be formed. I'd love to see many more of these contests with housing, bike design, car design, solar and wind power systems etc...

I think the Mexican government could use this to promote more research. Instead of asking for proposals and giving grant money to the best looking option (which has way too much ability for corruption) offer a prize for someone who satisfies the demand. Where the initial cash comes from, that is still a problem, but companies will be more inclined to offer funding if they see a direct gain from completing the goal. Right now they win patent rights and tax incentives, but hard cash is even better!

Steven Pinker; the world is less violent

This is a great video for anyone who thinks that the world is going to shit (saw it about a year back, but it was brought to my attention by onegoodmove.org.) I've heard many times how violet the world is becoming, but here is his talk Mr. Pinter gives a very good argument how the world has become much better. When we think about this, it makes sense. The current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan draw a great deal of attention when 4 or 5 soldiers are killed, when it was 10 thousand lives ended in a battle in the major world wars. Any death caused by a person is regrettable, and it seems that we are finally getting that. The fact that people are caring for homeless dogs and cats is a sign that we are even looking outside of our species. Sound very Buddhist to me; several aspects of the eight-fold-path can be seen.

US gas milage hasn't improved in 80 years

A good post on gizmag about the US gas milage. My comment is below. This brings up one of my biggest concerns about cars here in Ensenada. Called 'Chocolate Cars' illegally imported clunkers crowd the streets here. Polluting more then any 100 times more then newer well maintained cars. If the government wanted to clean the air quickly they would run these cars off the street. The poor people who use them are throwing their money away in maintaining blown engines, burning oil, and excessive fuel consumption. They should buy a bike, which would also help with their obesity as well.

Moon engineering

A great post about the lunar orbiter and the engineering success of that marvelous machine. To me it is like the bicycle of space probes; not the biggest, nor most powerful, but the biggest bang for the buck. Simple ingenious engineering, and a mark of how great the American scientific effort can progress when the politicians and administration keep out of the actual design and implementation.



I don't want to take away for the feat that they accomplished, but to note how the current energy problem could be solved if the scientists were given free range. Currently we are told to make a wind/solar device that works such way... instead they should say; "give me electricity from the sun." The other big problem right now is the constant use of patents. As a scientist I hate patents. They bring the lawyers into the equation; if you think a politician or admin screws things up, try a lawyer!!!

Lastly, but still very important is this fact;

But of the first six Rangers, two failed to leave the Earth's orbit, one failed en route, two missed the Moon completely, and although the sixth reached the target, its cameras failed.

Errors are natural, and acceptable! But currently, if something blows up, or fails the whole project becomes threatened. This is dangerous and stupid! If we learn from our errors, then firing a failed team is losing your more experienced people! We can not be scared to fail; we must be excited to learn!

House cooling for small homes

The Tiny house Blog had a great post about cooling small homes. The majority of the post mentions how to reduce the heating of a home. I see many new constructions with southern windows covering the entire side of a hose, and without a square inch of shading. Theses home are only for the rich, because they must need AC on most of the year (not to mention how cold it must be at night in the winter...



Here are some other links. From Build it Solar about window shading, and from doItYourself.org about redwood trellis.

Green Carier pathways

While I have a lot of work, it is wise to keep an eye open for new opportunities. In my case this is just being abreast of what work is out there. The Center for sustainable energy in San Diego has an upcoming fair on green jobs; costs $15 pre $20 door registration. Its on Aug 1st.. hope I'll close at hand to go...

How to read science papers; the kindel

It was a common sight of a scientists desk to have stacks of unread, or highlighted journal articles. When I was in undergrad and my masters these mountains were formed during long nights in the library photocopying journals. But with the publication online of the majority of journals, people started printing out their pdf files.

I've been reluctant, and have been trying several data base programs. Currently I'm using DevonThink which is ok, has a great search function (A see also function lets you look for similar documents) but this sticks me to a computer for reading. The program also works best when you import the documents, leading to big databases (mine are 1-4GB).

I've tried sending pdf's over to my iPhone, but the screen is a little small, and there is no way to mark up the pdf, or add book marks etc..

The Kindle seems to be a possible solution, but does not handle pdf natively, so back to exporting, and having several copies of the same article. To send in pdf's there are a couple of hacks or kindle functions that you can use.

To bring in files there is an open source project Savory with instructions well outlined on Jesse's blog.

So will I buy a kindle to read papers? Well, that is about 4000 pesos. So maybe next paycheck,(too bad the mac tablet still isn't out yet!!) but maybe. I'm still not sure about the service in Mexico. If you have experience on this, please comment. Cheers

Open access journals

I've been looking for open access journals to publish in. One of the main ones we use is Optics Express. Its a little pricy, but free to read.

In Eileen's Blog she mentions a talk on this topic. I hope that more universities take this seriously. Its very disturbing that so much research is done on public funds, but the public has no access to their results.

One of the better know groups is the Public Library of Science (PLoS), but their journals are mainly medicine and biology related.

What I've found so far;

Open Renewable Energy Journal

The International Journal of Photoenergy; seems to be mainly chemistry type stuff

Geotermia, a Mexican journal on geothermal studies.

To find open access journals check out the Directory of Open Access Journals

Seems like OREJ is the best bet for what I'm looking at publishing. If you know of any other journals, please leave a comment.

My back hurts!

Ya, thats all this is. Somehow I'm sitting badly. Here is a good page by ErgoSum consulting on proper seating posture. I was all wrong. I remember someone telling me to tuck your feet under the chair. Apparently that is wrong!

-Don't put your feet on the spokes of the chair

-Support feet on the floor, or on a foot rest if your feet don't reach the floor

-Adjust chair height for comfortable keyboarding



Hopefully this helps.. but the chairs here are not the best I've seen. Really, I need to get back to exercising! Too lazy for my own good.

Funding in the lab; FOMIX

Until I get a blog set up as an eJournal in CICESE, I'll use this blog space to post some current notes. If you have ideas, feel free to comment..

Grant funding FOMIX

Damanda 4.2; Estudio de factibilidad para la creación del Parque Tecnológico en el Municipio de Ensenada.

I've been wanting to make a hacker space and a sustainable energy center here in Ensenada. Its a bit a stretch to call them a Tech Park, but they would accomplish much of what they want (I think.)

desarrollo de empresas de alto valor ; There is not really the type of people here to make new things, mainly there are a lot of people who follow the status quo. But a hacker space would combine the engineer with the artist, and that could make something; basically we need to bring Hacking and the Hacker Ethic into the Mexican culture.

A sustainable energy center may do something similar, but again there really is no industry here making anything for energy production.

But they want incubación de empresas de alta tecnología , and that gets back to hacker spaces.

Demanda 4.6 Fortalecimiento a la industria asociada a la generación y manejo de energías renovables no convencionales para el estado de Baja California. Modalidad A Investigación científica aplicada

While this seems to be set for our lab, they seem to focus on renewable energy for helping big industry. That mean finding new sources for their existing machinery; which means electricity, or gas. I've been trying to avoid electrical production, it is very hard to be cheaper then gas. Ideally I'd like to try something like industrial hot water heating. Maybe after we have a lab built with some decent solar collectors we can look again at stirling engines or concentrated photovoltaic, but not right away. We'll see if they like industrial hot water production, or maybe solar desalinization?

Water car; free energy

Here is an response I sent to someone who sent me the below video.

WebIslam

and my response (sorry, it is in bad spanish)

Hola ____:

No soy tan seguro de que proceso hablan, pero fue algo similar aquí:

Se llama Oxyhydrogen y hay buen referencia aquí:

La proceso necesita mas emergía para separar la agua que produce en energía mecánico o termal.

Hay otra procesos similar que se llama 'water car';

Es posible que este puede subir la eficiencia de la carro, pero otros tecnologías como frenos rejuvenecer que son mas simple, y menos pelegroso (no tiene H2); entonces su uso en muchos autos hibridos.

Gracias para la link. Si ves otras cosas interesante por favor mandaremos.. mientras muchos ideas son mal ciencia, algunos tiene material muy internaste y bueno!

Saludos

Rodger

note:
just remember, until we figure out some completely new relm of science (I have no idea what that could be, other universes, multidimension etc,) in our daily experience energy can never be free! So when you see "Free Energy" the first thing that you should think is.. 'most likely bull shit!'

Vino-Tourism

A great article by Steve Dryden in Mexidata. If you want to read about this years wine festival he has a good summary of the main events. The main page for the Festival de Vindimia is here. (altho it is a somewhat heavy flash page.. ergg)

Every summer the wineries of Baja California, Mexico pool their talents and wares to host an amazing series of wine, food, music and cultural events throughout the region. Most of these festivities take place in Ensenada and/or the Valle de Guadalupe, with a few events in other areas. You may need to get a bank loan to attend some of the events, but if you’re selective and practical you can enjoy some great wine, food and entertainment.

via mexidata

Lens baby; shift tilt lens?

Seems like a simple application of a shift tilt lens with a bunch of added optics attachments. I'm sure I could have lots of fun with a Lensbaby set.. maybe I'll become religious and pray for one.. maybe not..

An interesting solar concentrator

Seem pretty much like a fresnel lens, but in reflection behind the optic (actually I think it is the upper part of a series of nested parabolic reflectors.) Anyway, from SVV tech , it looks neat. But, I don't know how they patent this stuff, its cool, but not too original. Anyway... good luck..

Draw a parabola with a carpeters square and string

Thanks to the link from Red Rock Heliostats, here they outline a simple way to draw a parabola.