N Y B B L E M O N T H L Y N E W S L E T T E R
A Free Ezine about Anything Tech and Everything Else
2010.07.14 Issue No. 221
With quite a lot of free time on my hands, I went about reformatting the home laptop. Got an old T41 that has a faulty LCD screen. Installed Windows7 on it and hooked it up to the LCD TV. Not able to get any output on the TV. After downloading and installing all the proper video drivers, I managed to use the TV as a secondary extended display. Configured the TV as the primary display, but Win7 won't let me save the settings. Bummer. Can't even change the resolution from the default 640x480. To fix this, I reinstalled Win7 with the laptop already connected to the TV. This way, Win7 picked up the TV as the primary display.
Been pretty impressed with Win7 so far. The T41 used to run XP Pro; has no problems running Win7. Seems be more responsive, too. Or maybe that's because I'm actually using Tiny7 instead of the real full-install Win7. Give it a try.
Have an answer, comment, suggestion, or violent reaction? Send them my way by clicking on Reply or join nybbletalk@yahoogroups.com to discuss a topic. If you think Nybble is good enough, do tell the Mac lovers about it. Thanks.
P.S. Sorry about the spam that was sent to the mailing list. It's ok, the list wasn't hacked and no one's email address was "stolen". Just a simple case of address spoofing. Not really much I can do, as it's up to Yahoo! to catch fake addresses.
_________TABLE OF CONTENTS_________
* Electronic License Plates
* New Material Stores High Energy
* That's a Hella Big Number
* Air-Purifying Concrete
* Zero-Gravity Radiation Suit
* Solar-Powered Lightbulb
* Likeable Links
* Questionable Question
* Quotable Quote
* Trivial Trivia
* Laughable Laugh
_________ELECTRONIC LICENSE PLATES_________
The device would mimic a standard license plate when the vehicle is in motion but would switch to digital ads or other messages when it is stopped for more than four seconds, whether in traffic or at a red light. The license plate number would remain visible at all times in some section of the screen. In emergencies, the plates could be used to broadcast Amber Alerts or traffic information. At least one company, San Francisco-based Smart Plate, is developing a digital electronic license plate but has not yet reached the production stage.
The bill's author, Democratic Sen. Curren Price of Los Angeles, said that the devices would also cut costs by streamlining the distribution, activation and registration of license plates.
_________NEW MATERIAL STORES HIGH ENERGY________
Researchers from Washington State University (WSU) have created a never-before-seen material capable of storing vast amounts of energy using extreme pressures similar to those found deep in the Earth or on a giant planet.
The researchers created the material in a diamond anvil cell – a small, two-inch by three-inch-diameter device capable of producing extremely high pressures in a small space. The cell contained xenon difluoride (XeF2), a white crystal used to etch silicon conductors, squeezed between two small diamond anvils.
At a million atmospheres, the molecules were forced to make tightly bound three-dimensional metallic "network structures". As a result, the huge amount of mechanical energy of compression was stored as chemical energy in the molecules' bonds. Basically, the experiment shows that it is possible to store mechanical energy into the chemical energy of a material with such strong chemical bonds.
_________THAT'S A HELLA BIG NUMBER________
What do you call 10 to the 27th power? If a 20-year-old UC Davis student gets his way, it's gonna be a hella big number.
You see, Austin Sendek is trying to get scientists from Boise to Beijing to use the term 'hella' to denote the unimaginably huge, seldom-cited quantity of 10 to the 27th power. That's a million billion trillion. It started off as a humorous Facebook petition to the Consultative Committee on Units, a subdivision of the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures. So far, it has 60,000 Facebook supporters, and Google has actually incorporated "hella" in its online calculator.
The committee's next meeting is on Septermber, but hella's chances is looking to be hella small.
_________AIR-PURIFYING CONCRETE_________
Aside from carbon emissions, fossil-fueled vehicles also produce nitrogen oxide. This reacts with chemicals produced by sunlight to form nitric acid – a major constituent of acid rain – and also reacts with sunlight, leading to the formation of ozone and smog. Commercial air-purifying concrete have been shown to reduce the concentration of nitrogen oxides by 25 to 45 percent. The air-purifying concrete contains titanium dioxide, a photocatalytic material that removes the nitrogen oxides from the air and converts them into harmless nitrate with the aid of sunlight. The nitrate is then rinsed away by rain.
Last fall in the municipality of Hengelo, the Netherlands, researchers at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) resurfaced around 1,000 square meters of the busy Castorweg Road with air-purifying concrete paving stones from paving stone manufacturer Struyk Verwo Infra, while another area of 1,000 square meters was surfaced with normal paving stones. The researchers carried out three air-purity measurements on the Castorweg last spring, at heights of between a half and one-and-a-half meters. Over the area paved with air-purifying concrete the NOx content was found to 25 to 45 per cent lower than that over the area paved with normal concrete.
Although the stones themselves are 50 per cent more expensive than normal concrete stones, the total road-building costs are only ten percent higher.
_________ZERO-GRAVITY RADIATION SUIT_________
To get around this, Dr. Chet Rees, an interventional radiologist at the Baylor University Medical Center, invented what he calls the "zero gravity" suit. It looks like a space suit, but is really a thick lead gown, suspended from the ceiling of an operating room. "It's much bigger and the lead is thicker, and it has an acrylic face shield which is actually impregnated with lead, so this is actually a shield, too, which shields your entire face," Dr. Rees said.
He hopes many hospitals will invest in his zero gravity suit — or other technology to protect physicians exposed to potentially dangerous amounts of radiation over a lifetime.
_________SOLAR-POWERED LIGHTBULB_________
The Nokero N100 solar LED lightbulb is meant to replace kerosene lamps as a lighting source in the developing world. The N100 solar bulb is about the size of a standard incandescent bulb and has four small solar panels in its rainproof plastic housing. Five LEDs and a replaceable NiMH battery inside provide up to four hours of light when the device is fully charged. People hang it outside during the day and then turn it on at night. Weather, seasons, and latitude can affect charging times. Nokero asserts that one day of charging in the sun can provide about two hours of light, though charging near the equator can provide more.
The LEDs are meant to last 50,000 to 100,000 hours, and the solar panels are rated to last 10 years. The life of the N100 is basically 5 to 10 years. Though the device's lumen rating is unclear, the company says the N100 is five times brighter than kerosene lamps and uses only 1/200th the energy. The cost? A single bulb is $15; a case of 48 costs $480. The company offers a "significant" discount when buying a thousand or more.
_________LIKEABLE LINKS_________
Media Player Classic Home Cinema
Family Shield from OpenDNS
Prank Dialer
Where is my cellphone?
_________QUESTIONABLE QUESTION_________
I've heard references to the element of surprise. I checked my periodic table and can't find it. What am I doing wrong?
_________QUOTABLE QUOTE_________
My wife has been my closest friend, my closest advisor. And ... she's not somebody who looks to the limelight, or even is wild about me being in politics. And that's a good reality check on me. When I go home, she wants me to be a good father and a good husband. And everything else is secondary to that.
~ Barack Obama
_________TRIVIAL TRIVIA_________
How quickly do landfills break down?
Most landfilled trash retains its original weight, volume, and form for 40 years.
Source: Arcamax Trivia
_________LAUGHABLE LAUGH_________
A curve approaches a tangent in a bar and asks, "Hey buddy, you look like you're in prime condition. You heading my way?" The tangent replies "Woah man, I'm a straight line!"
That's all for this week. Nybble is and will always be a work in progress. Please do send me your comments and suggestions on how to improve Nybble. Just hit the reply button to you know, reply.
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