"Solar death ray"
Grok Headline matches for "Solar death ray"
The Solar Death Ray
The Solar Death Ray
03/23/2005 08:06 PMSolar Death Ray
Solar Death Ray
03/22/2005 04:46 PM
Straight out of a (low-budget) Bond
flick is the Solar Death Ray, a combination of particle board, 112
mirrors and, of course, Sol. Each of the mirrors are pointed towards
one area, focusing the sun's rays onto a target easily heated up to
930-1100 degrees Fahrenheit. The project page contains bunches of
science facts and enough instruction to build your own, Popular
Science style. In all seriousness, though, watching it melt through
some of the "targets" in their gallery is a bit disconcerting as I
imagine hundreds of maladjusted youth attempting to build their own as
an easy yet tragic way to score a new cat.
Project Page
[SolarDeathRay via MAKE:Blog]
Update: Alexander reminds us that giant fresnel
lenses are also affordable.
Wired: Solar Tents and Death Cars
Wired: Solar Tents and Death Cars
06/29/2004 12:16 PM
Of course the day I take a potshot at Wired for being
behind the curve would be the day they have a bunch of interesting
stories, like these two that I swiped from Bluesnews. The first
details the Army's continuing focus on the development of new solar
panels as they work to incorporate flexible panels into tents and
clothing. And apparently soldiers often leave depleted battery packs
in the field, rather than humping them back to base, so it wouldn't
hurt to get some a little less pollutety in their packs, or
maybe teach them to clean up after themselves. And pick up those
depleted uranium shells you left all over the desert, too, you lazy
little pukes.
The second story is a good old-fashioned scare piece, filled with
stories of high-tech cars almost killing their occupants as
accelerators and braking systems go haywire. It reminds me of that old
science fiction yarn where the gas attendants swap ghost stories of an
automatic car that travels the highways, shuttling its trapped
occupants inside from one gas station to the next, their dead faces
pressed up against the glass.
Read - Solar to Keep Army on the Go [Wired]
Read - Teched-Out Cars Bug Drivers [Wired]
Not Life After Death -- Email After
Death
Not Life After Death -- Email After
Death
09/25/2004 09:08 PMSolar sails
Solar sails
08/10/2004 08:03 PM
Space
age origami. JAXA
successfully launched and unfurled two
solar sails
in space.
Solar Discord
Solar Discord
02/10/2004 06:40 PMcoding to begin soon
Three More Solar Flares
Three More Solar Flares
11/04/2003 02:27 PMEvil Adrian writes "Space.com reports that the sun shot off three more
solar flares on Monday. This is quite a historic period for solar
activity." The article ...
Yet Another Big Solar Flare
Yet Another Big Solar Flare
10/30/2003 03:48 PMphilthedrill writes "CNN is reporting that the sun has fired another
large solar flare towards Earth. This one could arrive as early as
Thursday (Oct. 30th) ...
Solar Gadgets
Solar Gadgets
06/06/2004 12:48 PM
Wired News has a
short regurgitation from Reuters about the increasing number of gadget
users who are turning to solar power to keep them mobile. It's not
perfect, of course -- cloudy days can still easily double the recharge
time of batteries -- but as the efficiency of solar cells improve, we
may well see increased ubiquity of solar power for all our devices,
especially as flexible, wearable panels become available.
Read [Wired]
Solar Style
Solar Style
12/22/2004 01:36 AM
I was writing a column this month and mentioned the
upsweep of
solar-powered gear the last few months and my editor's editor (why do
I love blogging again?) was all huh?. And yes, okay, solar
power isn't anything new, but the new high-efficiency panels are
really starting to happen, like this entire new 'Solar Style' line of
gear called the 'PV Solar Chargers." You've got yer solar bag, yer
flip-out notebook charger, ya gotcher cell phone case with a
charger—this stuff is taking off.
The Solar style gear doesn't seem to be quite ready for retail yet,
but you can order a 'sample kit' for 200 bucks, which I'm guessing
includes a few different units to try out. The press release lists my
arch-enemy AirWater Corporation, though, so these might be a
force for evil. Be careful. (Thanks, Kelly!)
Press
Release [Yahoo]
Solar Roller
Solar Roller
08/30/2004 10:33 AMDave Johnson: It's official. Roller is now my full time job. I just
accepted a job with Sun Microsystems to "design, develop, and deploy
the
primary blogging system for Sun in conjunction with other engineers"
and
to evangelize blogging both inside and outside of Sun.
Solar Pursuit
Solar Pursuit
04/10/2005 09:34 PMWeb Page
Solar Saga
Solar Saga
10/29/2003 08:15 PMDesign needs futher work
Solar to Keep Army on the Go
Solar to Keep Army on the Go
06/29/2004 05:45 AMSeeking ways to keep troops more mobile and harder to detect, the U.S.
military is leaning more and more on solar technology. By John
Gartner.
Solar Empire
Solar Empire
04/18/2004 10:53 PMNew release - 2.2 available
solar system
solar system
11/15/2003 09:57 AM sola
r system [note: requires anark plugin] Solar Clock
Solar Clock
03/24/2005 07:55 AMLicense Change
solar deathray
solar deathray
03/23/2005 10:53 PM
solar deathray Around the Solar System in an afternoon
Around the Solar System in an afternoon
06/20/2004 02:43 PM
« The pavilion where Uranus lives. »
A few weeks ago, Janne "Butt Ugly" Jalkanen mentioned a scale model of the Solar System in Helsinki which I hadn't
ever heard about. I am, apparently, not alone in this as just about
everyone I asked about it hadn't ever heard of it either, expat and
native alike, which was rather surprising since it has been around
since 1992. Jarkko found the Ursa Aurinkokunnan
Malli website for me and I was fascinated by such magnificent nerd
porn only a few kilometers away. :) After some prodding, he translated
the directions for me and I rode the bus up to Pajamäki one afternoon
with a map and my camera. Perhaps I'm just an easily entertained nerd,
but this is the coolest thing since the MIT dome was adorned with a
complete police car.
You can bicycle or walk around the model as a car tends to be rather
cumbersome since the planets are situated in some out of the way
places. The model was especially well placed for a long walk in the
woods and around a few islands. Take a picnic and a big bottle of bug
repellant. The Ursa pages frequently mention the visibility of the
model of the Sun from the other planets but, maybe I'm getting old and
going blind, unless you have x-ray vision or a pocket telescope it
seems to be a bit of a stretch of the imagination.
Since I decided to make an English version of the pages, I also took
the liberty to breathe a little love into the HTML and pictures since
they've likely been the same for a decade. It's difficult to sex-up
pictures of bits of metal atop grey concrete pillars, but I made an
attempt anyway. The information guides have a really nice bicycling
map with the locations of the planets, but I included one that I made
since their map isn't available on-line. I moved the pages into XHTML
1.0 and kept much of the original design while bringing it into W3C
compliance and added a few links and the navbar on the left. Jarkko
did much of the translation, but I gave up torturing him and
translated most of the guidemap texts at the bottom of the pages. I've
got a tarball of it all which I'd like to offer to the Ursa folks if
they're interested.
It seems a pity that such a neat installation should go so unnoticed,
even when in plain view. I'd like to help replace Pluto and maybe get
a day set aside during the dark months before the snow arrives where
we can get dressed up as comets and ride around the model on our
bikes, ending up at the Sun. The possibilities with day-glo,
glo-sticks and battery powered lights could really make for a fun
event. :) Bring back Pluto!
Elecciones abiertas en SoLAr
Elecciones abiertas en SoLAr
11/19/2003 08:01 AMSpinach Solar Power
Spinach Solar Power
06/29/2004 03:53 PM
If Marc Baldo has
his way, we might be using spinach to power our future gadgets. He and
other at MIT have developed a process that isolates photosynthetic
proteins from spinach and puts them between two layers of conducting
material, causing a small electric current to be generated when light
was shone on it -- the same proteins that form the chloroplasts inside
the plant's leaves, which convert light into energy via
photosynthesis. The biological solar cells aren't perfect, as they
give up the ghost after around 21 days. Surprisingly, though, they're
already hitting a 12 percent efficiency of conversion -- that's as
good as many conventional solar cells today.
I predict the biological stability of the spinach cells will
increase when married to a fixed solution of olive oil.
Read
[Nature]
Solar Powered Wallpaper
Solar Powered Wallpaper
12/19/2004 03:01 PMTreehugger points out an innovative student project from
NYU that adds electroluminescent materials to wallpaper, hiding in the
background as traditional design elements when there is ample ambient
light, then releasing stored sunlight through glowing elements as the
lights dim. A prototype will be shown at the Winter Show at the Tisch
School of the Arts this Sunday and Monday.
Sol
ar-Powered Wallpaper [Treehugger]
KSol Solar Cooker
KSol Solar Cooker
06/22/2005 01:57 AM
The sun can be a harsh
mistress, stealing our fluids and destroying our livelihood with her
evil rays. But she can also make coffee for 10 people in 6 minutes.
The KSol solar cooker, which looks like a cool radar dish, costs a
little less than $200 and focuses the sun's rays onto foodstuffs for
cooking and eventual human consumption.
While this think can't beat a shank steak cooker over a burning
trash can, the KSol seems like a nice way to keep the park, alley, or
living room from smoking up during the family BBQ.
KSo
l & Sun Cook: Cook With The Sun [Treehugger]
Barefoot Solar Engineers
Barefoot Solar Engineers
07/29/2004 01:40 PM
Barefoot
Solar Engineers. India's
Barefoot
College teaches poor and illiterate women to build and maintain
rural solar systems in areas with little or no electric supply.
[Via WorldChanging.] Rulers of the solar system
Rulers of the solar system
01/16/2004 11:02 AM Back to the archive, one tape at a time. A new old episode of
previously missing Doctor Who has turned up. It's episode two of
The
Dalek Master Plan which means we've now got three of the
twelve parts that make up that story. Nine to go... (a clip with lots
of Daleks in can be seen
here).
Solar Powered Toothbrush
Solar Powered Toothbrush
12/22/2004 01:36 AM<
img src="http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/images/solar_toothbrush.jpg"
alt="solar_toothbrush.jpg image" width="119" height="200" class="right
border"/>For those with pasty white gums, this Soladey
solar-powered toothbrush will provide a loving bronzing that even
George Hamilton's dentist will love. Or it will convert light into
negative ions to attract positive ions from acidic dental plaque or
something—it's Japanese; I hold myself to no accuracy. It's part
of a selection of green hygiene products on Treehugger, including a
prototype ceramic-bladed razor that wouldn't have needed sharping or
replacement blades, but was rubbed out when it was discovered to allow
cars to travel 200 miles on just a single gallon of gas.
T
op Five - Personal Care [TreeHugger]
Solar Charged Vibrator
Solar Charged Vibrator
08/18/2004 05:07 PM
MIRIAM BOON --You may all remember the
USB-powered ten speed Matrix Vibe. Fondly remembering those crazy days of
USB-powered-everything, I went digging for more alternative-powered
sex toy hijinx. What I found was enough to make any geeky kinkster --
especially an environmentalist -- cream her panties.
Yes, the folks at California Exotic bring frequent campers and
granola-munching hippies a solar rechargeable vibrator. Leave it for
five hours in the sun (or under a lamp), and it's rarin' to go.
At first, all I could think was, "Dude. Solar powered vibrator."
Eventually, however, skepticism set in. As a bona fide female with all
the standard features, I'm keenly aware that choice of vibrator can be
a matter of widely varying taste. What if you want to be
environmentally friendly, but this vibe doesn't heat you up, so to
speak?
No problem. Turns out there are tons of solar-powered battery
chargers out there. For a similar price, you could be the proud owner
of a solar charger instead. With its aid, you can harness the awesome
power of the sun to power your favorite vibrators. After all, some QT
with your favorite vibe is what the sun's power is really for,
right?
And I suppose while you're at it, you could charge batteries for
your other electronics too.
Read - Product Page (Mostly Work Safe) [Blowfish]
Intense Solar Flare
Intense Solar Flare
10/28/2003 11:08 PM The largest solar
flare of the current solar cycle shot off the sun earlier today.
After the media latched on to what was predicted to be mostly a
non-event last week (probably due to a NASA article released around
the same time about
a
super spacestorm) , it's not making as much news this time. But
you should
pay attention this
time. This could be the best and last chance for a lot of us
farther south to see some auroras before the sun dives into solar
minimum, assuming
all
the variables line up correctly this time. I recommend watching
the
Solar Terrestrial Dispatch, as
it is a great all around resource for solar activity and auroras that
includes live data and sightings reports by the general public.
Unfortunately though, no doubt as word IS spreading, that site is
being hammered again and may be quite slow.
Hybrid Solar Lighting
Hybrid Solar Lighting
03/14/2005 06:02 PM
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which conducts all of its
research in tuneful four part harmony, has developed a system that
uses sunlight (I actually started to write 'solar-powered light')
pumped down fiber-optic tubes to complement an integrated system of
flourscent bulbs. When there's sufficient light outside, a sensor cuts
the electric blubs, letting the light shine in. Obviously, piping
light from roofs to fixtures is something that's best done when the
buildings are actually built, but it's a great idea all the same.
Of course, they don't mention that the light snakes down around
your throat as you sit in satori, attempting to harness the power of
mind to expand your forehead real estate. (Thanks, Boo Boo
Prime!)
Su
nlight in a tube [World-Science]
Solar Power In Suburbia
Solar Power In Suburbia
02/12/2004 05:58 AMSolar power is one technology that has never lived up to the hype -
especially for home use. However, a new trend is starting to spread
where houses that generate solar power are no longer completely
disconnecting from the power grid. Instead, they're staying connected
and
are
getting a refund for all the solar power they generate, giving
them the ability to continue to use electric power, if needed, but to
use as much solar power as possible to reduce their bills. Still, the
equipment remains pretty expensive, and it appears that solar power in
the suburbs is still more of a status symbol thing than a reasonable
bet for many users.
You gotta fight for your right to go
solar
You gotta fight for your right to go
solar
06/03/2004 09:18 AMKenneth and Gabrielle Adelman felt guilty about the fossil fuels their
planes were consuming. So they decided to build a huge solar power
system in their backyard. The local power utility was not amused.
Solar-Hydrogen Eco-House
Solar-Hydrogen Eco-House
04/20/2004 03:23 PMNew Light on the Solar System
New Light on the Solar System
04/12/2004 12:52 AMSloan Solar Faucet
Sloan Solar Faucet
06/22/2005 01:57 AM
Tired of all those
old-fashioned sinks use "plumbing" and "pipes?" Sloan Valve has
released a device for you! It is a solar powered faucet that works
with ambient light. A built-in battery powers the automatic sensor
that turns the water on and off. I mean we're getting into some Buck
Rogers territory here, friends.
What better way to save the planet and avoid wrist overuse than
with a solar powered automatic faucet.
New
Solar Power Faucet by Sloan Valve [Treehugger]
Kyocera's New Solar Panel
Kyocera's New Solar Panel
08/04/2004 11:37 AM
The intern was disappointed to learn that this
Japanese woman is not included with Kyocera's new solar panel
(with the world's highest efficiency rating for mass produced solar
cells). I didn't have the heart to tell him that we actually do
receive review models with our review models -- screaming stacks of
them, actually -- but that we feel he's just too young to see the
prostitutional side of technology reviewing (the writers kneeling for
the product companies, that is; the models we set free in a bucolic
reserve).
Oh, and nevermind that these have a 15.7% conversion efficiency
rating (That's the highest?) and will be followed up by cells with a
17.7% rating in 2005. Let us do the science talk, okay?
Read
- Press Release (Japanese) [Kyocera via MYCOM PC
Web]
Solar Storm to hit Earth about NOW!
Solar Storm to hit Earth about NOW!
10/29/2003 11:21 AMWhile I was on an airplane and out of contact with the world for about
10 hours yesterday the sun...
Solar Storms Continuing to Reverberate
Solar Storms Continuing to Reverberate
07/09/2004 03:00 AMThe massive solar storms that pummeled the Earth last fall have
continued almost to the edge of the solar system, causing disruptions
on other planets and other surprising effects.
MIT Searches for Solar Power in Spinach
MIT Searches for Solar Power in Spinach
09/21/2004 08:30 PMMIT researchers generate an electrical charge from mixing spinach with
solid state electronics.
Notes and Tips: Solar Power
Notes and Tips: Solar Power
09/22/2004 10:12 AMHere's a great discussion about solar power for Mac laptops.
Grok Description matches for "Solar death ray"
GrokA matches for "Solar death ray"
"Solar death ray"
