Monday, February 11, 2008

Breaking the laws… of physics

There’s hope for those of us who just don’t feel the love when it comes to math and science.  A Canadian man named Thane Heins is a college dropout, yet it appears he may have invented the world’s first perpetual motion machine.  The scientific community is still skeptical about Heins’ claims, not because he lacks the education to be a true scientist, but because the concept of “perpetual motion” is deemed impossible by all the existing laws of physics.  To put it simply, you have to use energy to create energy; you can’t create energy from nothing.  The fact that Thane Heins has created a motor which seems to run on energy from “nothing” is exactly what has the scientific community alternately up in arms, or scratching their heads.

Heins invention is called “Perepiteia”.  It’s a simple electric motor, with a driveshaft.  The motor is activated using regular electrical current, but then a large magnet is held a few inches from the driveshaft to create a magnetic field.  When the magnetic field is applied, the motor inexplicably begins to accelerate.  If Heins machine forces the laws of physics to be rewritten, it means that an electric car could start up on a battery, but the battery could be constantly recharged by the application of a magnet while in motion.  Moving a magnet closer to the engine could assist in acceleration.  It’s potentially a vast source of clean, renewable energy with no nasty side-effects.

After years of dismissing Heins’ claims, some people in scientific academia are finally starting to show interest.  The inventor was recently invited to demonstrate his machine at MIT, and the University of Ottawa has given him access to a professional lab where he can perform tests and experiments on a larger scale.  He’s trying to attract the attention of people like Al Gore, Richard Branson, and the head of Tesla Motors, hoping they’ll help with financing and with credibility.

The laws of physics won’t be rewritten easily, and there’s no need to change them until some great mind can explain why the Perepiteia acts the way it does.  Perhaps it’s a simple explanation, or perhaps it truly is a revolutionary new discovery which could open the doors to endless supplies of cheap energy.  The answer will surely come soon, because after two years of being dismissed and ridiculed, scientists can no longer ignore what Thane Heins has to say.

You can read more about Heins and how he stumbled upon his discovery by reading this article in the Toronto Star.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 02/11 at 04:17 AM
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Friday, February 01, 2008

Product review: Creative Zen 4/8/16/32GB portable media player

Remember when we just had “mp3 players”?  Now we’ve got “portable media players”, and one of the newest is the Zen by Creative.  It comes in a number of memory sizes, hence the rather unruly product description of “4/8/16/32GB”.  To add to the pandemonium, Creative has been making mp3 and media players for years, and all those older products have the word “Zen” in them too.  For example, you can still buy the “Zen Stone” and “Zen Vision”, so I guess it was the bad decision department which suggested naming the newest product just “Zen”.  It’s not an issue if you just own the product and all is well, but it becomes a huge ball of confusion when you go online to look for cases, screen protectors, and even tech support for your product.  Type “Creative Zen” into a search engine and you’ll end up with a lot of things which aren’t your new portable media player.

While I obviously have an issue with the product name, I like a lot of things about the product itself.  I’ve listened to iPod products, like the Shuffle and the newest iPod Touch, and the Creative has amazing sound.  While the included earbuds are adequate, I stepped up to the Creative EP-630 earbuds for about $30 at Amazon.com, and the sound was fabulous.  I listened to songs I hadn’t heard since I’d played them on LPs back in the 1970s, and heard sounds and background layers in the music which I’d never known were there.  It was a wonderful experience.  When one of my cats chewed through the Creative EP-630s, I took another step up the earbud ladder, this time to the Sennheiser CX300-B.  Again I heard an improvement in the sound, proving that the Creative Zen is offering top-notch audio if you use the right tools to listen to it.  I eventually learned that a cat can bite through the cord of the Sennheiser CX300-B, too, but that’s a story for another day.  (I’m now seriously in the market for a paid of chain maille earbuds if someone can hook me up).

The Creative Zen allows you to listen to audio (music and books, for example), store photos, listen to FM radio, record voice memos, and sync with Outlook.  What makes it a “portable media player” is that it also allows you to store and view movies and videos on the 2 inch screen.  I didn’t have much luck trying to rip my own DVD movies onto the player (thanks to the DVD Copy Control Association), but I was able to download some fun TV shows and movies using the “Amazon Unboxed” feature at Amazon.com.  The video is bright and crisp, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching an episode of “30 Rock”, as well as an hour-long comedy special featuring Kathy Griffin.  It’s no substitute for a 62” plasma TV set, but it’s a nice diversion if you have a lot of time to kill, say, riding a bus or sitting on an airplane.  You can also add your own videos, and videos you’ve downloaded from the Internet.

I wanted to write about the Zen because as much as I love it (and use it every day), it’s been extremely buggy and temperamental.  I’m even on my second Zen, after sending the first one back for a common problem where the screen goes white and loses video.  Even though my current Zen is better-behaved, it still locks up every time I charge it, requiring a hard reboot.  Many issues have been fixed with firmware updates, but just as many quirks remain.  Creative offers a customer support forum which is full of Zen owners, like me, who love their product but who wish it would work more reliably.  Every few months I quietly glance at ads for products like the Sansa Live portable media player, wondering what it might be like to own something less temperamental. 

So, that’s a brief overview of my time with a Creative Zen portable media player.  It’s got some wonderful features, works well with subscription services like “Rhapsody to Go”, and it’s light and sleek to carry around.  Audio is amazing, and you’ll have fun watching videos on it, too.  Just cross your fingers that you don’t get a buggy player, or one with a screen malfunction, or one with another issue which will require return or exchange.  Despite my love of the Zen, it’s tough to recommend a product with so much potential for disappointment and frustration.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 02/01 at 06:00 AM
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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Airliners offer broadband and satellite radio, yet still don’t have decent air quality

On a recent flight between Calgary and Las Vegas, the plane I was on offered Sirius satellite radio, a TV monitor on the chair-back in front of me, access to pay-per-view movies, 26 cables channels, and live coverage of an international hockey tournament being played in Switzerland.  If I’d wanted to purchase a headset for $3 so I could partake of the entertainment offerings, I would have been allowed to keep the headset permanently.  Gone are the days of a single in-flight movie and those clunky rental headsets that you wouldn’t be caught dead wearing in real life, even if you’d been permitted to keep take them home as a souvenir.  It’s obvious that my comfort and entertainment are deemed paramount to a positive flight experience, but I wish some airline, any airline, would put such effort into making sure that I leave their plane healthy as well as happy.

I’m not a newbie air traveler, but I am a germ-o-phobe.  When flying I take with me lots of my own tissues, portable hand sanitizer, and I make a point of never touching my face as to avoid escorting germs directly into my eyeball, for example.  I often bring my own snacks and water bottle so I don’t have a lot of hand contact with the flight attendants, who are passing things out and retrieving used objects from every passenger on the plane.  I feel like I do everything possible to isolate myself (everything but wear a mask and make people think I have TB), yet I still came home from my recent flight with a terrible virus which has moved through my sinuses and lungs with joyful abandon.  I tried to drown it out of me with hydration, using Airborne as RU-486 for head colds, but the virus was victorious.  It hit me with a wallop about 72 hours after I was safely back home in sunny Las Vegas.

I’ve never traveled on an airplane without catching a cold virus, and I’m frustrated in my failed attempted to change my odds.  Given all the efforts I make to isolate myself from germs while flying, maybe it’s time for the airlines to step up and take some responsibility for this, too.  Can’t the air be run through UV and other sterilizers as it’s recirculated during the flight?  Is it really so difficult to keep air in such a tiny space clean?  I’ve got a room full of cockatoos in my house with one air-cleaner, and I think that air quality is better than anything I’ve breathed on an airplane.  I don’t think the airlines are devoting enough attention to the problem because consumers are complaining about it.

The next time I fly, I’m considering the paper mask.  Perhaps I’ll just wear a gas mask with charcoal filtration to save me from rhinovirus and anthrax.  What I really want, though, is to see an advertisement for a new airline called “Fresh Air” or “Head Cold Free Air”, so I can throw them my business.  I’m supposed to fly again in April and while I look forward to the trip, I also know I’d better stock up on Theraflu so I can drown my sorrows when I return.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 01/23 at 05:20 AM
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Friday, December 14, 2007

Geminid meteor shower puts on a show tonight

The Geminid meteor shower is the biggest sky show of 2007, and NASA officials say tonight should be the shower’s peak.  Between the hours of midnight and dawn, sky watchers should see as many as a dozen streaking meteors per hour.  The meteors will actually start to appear a few hours before midnight, but only to viewers in dark, rural areas.  NASA has set up a nice little webpage with everything you need to know at Geminid meteor shower on NASA.gov.  If you want to more about meteoroids in general, you can visit the more detailed website of the Meteoroid Environment Office.

I’m envious of those of you who live in areas with a good view of the night sky.  The city conveniently surrounded my backyard with streetlights, so the only things I see zipping through the sky at night are moths.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 12/14 at 04:47 AM
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Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Woot for W00t!

Merriam-Webster posted an online poll to ask people to vote for the “2007 Word of the Year”.  The results, revealed today, gave the top prize to “w00t”, also known as “Woot”.  The word is generally used as an exclamation of happiness, the same way someone might use “Yay!” There’s no guarantee that Merriam-Webster will include the word in a future print edition, but it’s a pleasant bit of unexpected news for the folks who own Woot.com.  If you’d like to see the runner-up words, visit Merriam-Webster.com.

In case you were wondering, the Oxford dictionary also has a “word of the year”, but the word is selected by Oxford and not voted on by the general public.  This year’s winning word for Oxford was ”locavore”, which sounds more dignified than “w00t”, but not nearly as exciting.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 12/12 at 05:23 AM
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