Cleaned up the blog design to make it brighter. I really haven't been blogging in a while thanks to microblogging services like Twitter and the Facebook stream. It's so much easier to go that route when you're busy. Regardless, this blog is synced with Facebook notes anyway.
Having not used the Blogger interface for so long, I'm really surprised with how much Google has improved it since I last used it. I also see AdSense for monetizing content, but those options are mainly for popular blogs. Excessive and/or intrusive advertising irritates anyway.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
A Solution to Spray Paint Vandalism
I was reading about the new nanotechnology based Lithium-Titanite battery that will be used in the Lightning GT electric supercar when it occurred to me that future technology could be used to solve an age old problem: street vandalism.
The answer would be to simply manufacture nano identification particles and salt paint with them. These nanoparticles would be ID-linked to the spray paint, marker, or any product capable of being used to perform paint-based vandalism.
Of course, for that to be effective, laws would have to be passed so that everyone who purchases those products would have to be ID'ed and recorded in a database. But that's no biggie; we're already something similar for those people who purchase drugs containing Ephedrine.
The key idea here is to make it more cost-effective for the police to scan the nanoparticles at a scene of vandalism and track down the perpetrators. But by merely deploying this technology and ID'ing people, that alone should serve as a pretty strong deterrent.
The answer would be to simply manufacture nano identification particles and salt paint with them. These nanoparticles would be ID-linked to the spray paint, marker, or any product capable of being used to perform paint-based vandalism.
Of course, for that to be effective, laws would have to be passed so that everyone who purchases those products would have to be ID'ed and recorded in a database. But that's no biggie; we're already something similar for those people who purchase drugs containing Ephedrine.
The key idea here is to make it more cost-effective for the police to scan the nanoparticles at a scene of vandalism and track down the perpetrators. But by merely deploying this technology and ID'ing people, that alone should serve as a pretty strong deterrent.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
The Electric Car Revolution Is Coming
Right now, it is impeccably difficult to purchase a vehicle that doesn't fund terrorism in the due course of its operation. The reason is that virtually all the vehicles of today operate off either gasoline or diesel -- a nonrenewable commodity that is largely controlled by OPEC.
Aside from funding terrorism, there are also several other negatives to gasoline that make it a poor fuel source for powering personal locomotion. From an environmental standpoint, gasoline combustion is clearly bad as it exacerbates global warming. But, more importantly, it is the performance/efficiency characteristics of internal combustion engines that makes it an undesirable fuel.
It is very difficult for gasoline engines to accelerate quickly without resorting to tricks like supercharging, turbocharging, or increasing the number of cylinders/capacity. These "augmentations" allow the vehicle to develop more power, but rob efficiency in the process. You just can't beat the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Engines based on combustion will never be able to deliver high power and efficiency at the same time. A new technology is needed to deliver both; and that technology is the purely electric powertrain.
To replace gasoline engines, this new technology must both be monstrously powerful while being very efficient. The market as a whole is not going to adopt highly efficient but slow, clumsy vehicles because a vehicle is not just an instrument that takes one from A to B; a vehicle is a symbol that allows man to express himself; the vehicle is the a manifestation of art in modern technological societies.
The electric car is clearly able to deliver on this. For example, we have the 2010 Tesla Roadster Sport, a supercar that goes from 0 to 60mph in 3.7 seconds (range 244mi, top speed 125mph). By contrast, the gasoline powered 2010 Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 supercar also does 0-60mph in 3.7 seconds, but it's fuel efficiency is 16 mpg combined. So, if we go with $3.50/gal, it costs $5.47 to drive 25 miles in the Lamborghini. For the Tesla Roadster, it costs anywhere from $0.25 to $0.75 to drive 25 miles depending on whether you charge it in the day or at night.
In addition, electric powertrains deliver constant torque by nature and are far superior to gasoline engines in that regard because they begin transferring energy to the wheels the moment you floor the accelerator. With gasoline engines, there is a perceptible delay in power transmission as the gears downshift and the engine revs up.
Tesla Model SNow all that's left is for the technology to mature and have the cost trickle down to all market segments. Right now there are 3 main market segments, all of which definitely need more automakers jumping into (counting pure-electric cars coming to the US only):
Entry / Mass-Market (~$30,000):
- Nissan Leaf (~2010)
- Tesla BlueStar (~2016)
- Tesla Model S (~2010)
- Tesla Roadster Sport (~$130,000)
Very soon enough, we'll all be able to purchase electric cars that outperform their gasoline counterparts. It's a great relief that finally, we'll be able to drive around efficiently, powerfully, and do so without giving a dime to terrorism. Ain't technological advancement awesome?
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Tesla Motors Seattle Showroom Open House
Got to ride in the Tesla Roadster Sport today at Tesla Motors' Seattle Showroom opening...
Needless to say, that is an extremely fast car. The Tesla Roadster Sport goes from 0 to 60mph in 3.7 seconds. It's one thing to see those numbers on a spec sheet, and a completely different thing to experience it for yourself. When he floored the accelerator I could instantly feel the Roadster racing forward at an incredible pace. There was no shifting lag or wait time caused by turbochargers revving up to speed because the car is fully electric and has no gears.
And when it comes to being environmentally friendly the Roadster does it all at an equivalent of 120 miles to the gallon. Being fully electric that means you charge it on electricity generated from renewable sources and not release anymore carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But most importantly, fully electric vehicles like the Roadster means that you are no longer forced to support terrorism at the pump.
I don't see that big of a difference between the 10mpg Hummer H2 and the 50mpg Prius; you're still go to go fill it up at the pump. As long the pump is being used, terrorism will continue to have a source of funding and global temperatures will continue to rise. With temperatures soaring up into the 90s next week in Seattle, it definitely feels guilty to be filling up at gas stations. But, of course, the Prius is a good "bridge technology" that will take us from gasoline powered cars to pure electric cars.
More importantly though, the Tesla Roadster and upcoming Tesla Model S prove that electric cars outperform their gasoline powered counterparts. I personally wouldn't purchase an environmentally friendly vehicle if it entailed getting a slower car. For electric cars to win, they have to show that they are better when it comes to performance -- and indeed they have. A gearless pure-electric powertrain means that you get acceleration on demand, right away, at any speed. That alone makes it vastly superior to gasoline powered engines because there is no lag time to wait for turbochargers to spin up or engine components to get up to speed before you get your promised torque.
Needless to say, that is an extremely fast car. The Tesla Roadster Sport goes from 0 to 60mph in 3.7 seconds. It's one thing to see those numbers on a spec sheet, and a completely different thing to experience it for yourself. When he floored the accelerator I could instantly feel the Roadster racing forward at an incredible pace. There was no shifting lag or wait time caused by turbochargers revving up to speed because the car is fully electric and has no gears.
And when it comes to being environmentally friendly the Roadster does it all at an equivalent of 120 miles to the gallon. Being fully electric that means you charge it on electricity generated from renewable sources and not release anymore carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But most importantly, fully electric vehicles like the Roadster means that you are no longer forced to support terrorism at the pump.
I don't see that big of a difference between the 10mpg Hummer H2 and the 50mpg Prius; you're still go to go fill it up at the pump. As long the pump is being used, terrorism will continue to have a source of funding and global temperatures will continue to rise. With temperatures soaring up into the 90s next week in Seattle, it definitely feels guilty to be filling up at gas stations. But, of course, the Prius is a good "bridge technology" that will take us from gasoline powered cars to pure electric cars.
More importantly though, the Tesla Roadster and upcoming Tesla Model S prove that electric cars outperform their gasoline powered counterparts. I personally wouldn't purchase an environmentally friendly vehicle if it entailed getting a slower car. For electric cars to win, they have to show that they are better when it comes to performance -- and indeed they have. A gearless pure-electric powertrain means that you get acceleration on demand, right away, at any speed. That alone makes it vastly superior to gasoline powered engines because there is no lag time to wait for turbochargers to spin up or engine components to get up to speed before you get your promised torque.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
AmazonFresh is a win.
Yep. I did all my grocery shopping yesterday on the Intertubes while doing serious multitasking between Chinese homework and a ton of other stuff. I never even left my comfortable IKEA armchair.
And, this morning when I woke up, all my groceries and stuff magically appeared on my doorstep. That's right! Intertube Magic! No prizes for guessing where I'm going to do all my grocery shopping in future. AmazonFresh delivers. In fact, they deliver so fast that you can shop today and have your stuff by 6am tomorrow morning.
AmazonFresh seriously makes grocery shopping fun. You don't need to drive to the grocery store, look for parking, walk to the store, traverse every single aisle to find your stuff, queue up to pay, take all your stuff out of the cart to be scanned, walk back to your car, load up your car, drive home, and unload your car. You get the point.
Manual grocery shopping is tedious, tiring, and ultimately, untechnological. The modern man shouldn't have to go to the grocery store; the grocery store ought to come to him. With any luck AmazonFresh will turn out to be a commercial success. The service is currently in "beta" for selected neighborhoods around the Seattle area.
What strikes me about AmazonFresh is their environmentally friendly techniques. All their totes (see image above) and internal temperature-control packaging/gels are recollected and reused. Ice cream was among one of the refrigerated items I bought; it arrived hard as a rock (dry ice win). Also, the fact that I don't have to take my 17.5mpg vehicle out to get groceries does wonders to the environment too.
It's cool to be green these days.
(On a side note: The above image was taken with the iPhone 3GS's new 3 megapixel camera. The quality is stunning.)
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