$10M Prize for Hydrogen Fuel Technology - Yahoo! News:
"Scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs will be able to vie for a grand prize of $10 million, and smaller prizes reaching millions of dollars, under House-passed legislation to encourage research into hydrogen as an alternative fuel."
From what I've read on this subject of hydrogen, the problem is where we plan to get hydrogen from. You can get it from two places: oil (so that doesn't help) or water. Problem with water is that it takes more energy to break the H off of H2O than you get from the H. So unless we dam every river or build nuke plants across the country, this is a losing proposition...
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Silica - Caller ID
Silica is a freeware OSX application that displays your incoming calls on your desktop. The application supports growl notifications so I can configure it how I like (this one is called 'Music Video'). Also notice how Silica recognized Matt (the caller) in my Address Book and pulled up his picture and name. I haven't tried this yet, but Silica can also run a script that has the computer speak the caller's name. All in all, a beautifully mac application - free, specific and configurable. =)
Check out Silica @ http://homepage.mac.com/gweston/silica/index.html
Check out Silica @ http://homepage.mac.com/gweston/silica/index.html
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
How about a 250 m.p.g. car?
The next X-Prize: How about a 250 m.p.g. car? | csmonitor.com:
"The challenge: Build the world's most fuel-efficient production car - one that gets maybe 250 miles per gallon and causes little or no pollution. The payoff: prize money from the group that awarded $10 million for the world's first private spaceflight two years ago."
This is a step in the right direction. The prize money will attract the attention of small business and universities to try innovative approaches to this problem. Equally appealing is the $250 million requirement for the prize. Not 75 or 100 miles to the gallon, but 250. Such a challenge will require truly different approaches to a difficult problem.
My real hope however, is that the government will realize the benefits of a similar content and start one of their own. The only reason I believe the government should offer such a prize is only the government can dangle a large enough bounty for the automakers to get interested. Once the race is on, the car manufacturers will invest hundreds of millions of their own dollars to find a solution.
Back in 1961, President Kennedy spoke at Rice University and said: "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." America was not going to lose that war to Russia. Equally, we cannot lose this war on energy consumption. Too much is at stake - national security, economy, and the environment.
"The challenge: Build the world's most fuel-efficient production car - one that gets maybe 250 miles per gallon and causes little or no pollution. The payoff: prize money from the group that awarded $10 million for the world's first private spaceflight two years ago."
This is a step in the right direction. The prize money will attract the attention of small business and universities to try innovative approaches to this problem. Equally appealing is the $250 million requirement for the prize. Not 75 or 100 miles to the gallon, but 250. Such a challenge will require truly different approaches to a difficult problem.
My real hope however, is that the government will realize the benefits of a similar content and start one of their own. The only reason I believe the government should offer such a prize is only the government can dangle a large enough bounty for the automakers to get interested. Once the race is on, the car manufacturers will invest hundreds of millions of their own dollars to find a solution.
Back in 1961, President Kennedy spoke at Rice University and said: "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." America was not going to lose that war to Russia. Equally, we cannot lose this war on energy consumption. Too much is at stake - national security, economy, and the environment.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
So big
We took Spencer to the zoo yesterday and he loved it (well, most parts). The giraffes seemed to be his favorite. He kept growling as though they should be making lion sounds.
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