828015
submission
Cycloid Torus writes:
BBC had a series of articles on the venerable Citroen CV2. A car of mythic virtues (maintenance required a scewdriver and two box wrenches), it has been out of production for some years. Since slashdotters are smart practical folks, I am wondering how they might redesign and manufacture such a valiant little car in a greenish manner. Compressed air engine? Small plug-in electirc air compressor (or should I say "compresseur"?) in lieu of other fuelish ways?
For those too young to remember the CV2, please see the links: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7564980.stm, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7563932.stm, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_east/7179084.stm
102106
submission
Cycloid Torus writes:
Troy Hurtubise seems to have done it again. Previously featured http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/1 5/1539221 for the Bear Suit, he has apparently invented and built a machine capable of seeing through walls (and other stuff) http://www.baytoday.ca/content/news/details.asp?c= 6657.
Additional references can be found at http://www.americanantigravity.com/hurtubise.shtml and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Hurtubise.
He seems to be the kind of guy who believes in just doing it .
81904
submission
Cycloid Torus writes:
The CNN headline ("Experts Slam Upcoming Global Warming Report") caught my eye, and from it I learned that the full impact of global warming was underreported due to a missing icemelt issue http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/01/29/climate .report.ap/index.html. The article identified the melt of 53 cubic miles per year in Greenland as the nature of a change which has "taken scientists by surprise".
Not wanting to be surprised, I decided to find out how significant this icemelt really was. So I calculated the area of a sphere based on a radius of 4000 miles ( about 201 million square miles http://www.teacherschoice.com.au/Maths_Library/Are a%20and%20SA/area_2.htm ), checked current water coverage ratio (about 70% http://www.grandpapencil.com/projects/watercov.htm ) and determined that spread over the oceans and seas ( about 141 million square miles ) 53 cubic miles equals a shade bit more than 2 tenths of an inch. Of course, this could be slightly less as some of the ice coverage has become water, but 2 tenths of an inch is a good approximation.
So I got to wondering how important that was and I decided to find out more about all the ice in the icecaps (http://science.howstuffworks.com/question473.htm) . This clarified that if all the ice melted it would be a really important issue — and based in a melt rate of 2 tenths of an inch per year in ocean depth, it would take 33,000 years for the melting of all of Greenland's ice to raise sealevel a very significant 20 meters.
Somehow I do not find "surprise" to be a truly descriptive word when I consider the timescale. Possibly important, but not "surprising". Now honestly, were you surprised? just a weensy bit?
30803
submission
Cycloid Torus writes:
IE7 is with us. It asked to be installed as a Critical Update this morning, so I decided to find out more about what was going on and if there are issues to this new and official piece of Windows XP. I found the following of use:
URL: http://www.ie-vista.com/known_issues.html#tsie
Are there other sites with solid information which can help the wary from getting charred with this upgrade?
