Free Energy?
It would seem there is growing interest in the claims that an Irish company has found a way to generate energy with no expenditure of material. The wikipedia write up on Steorn clarifies some of this and offers a number of related links .
Experimental fence unexpectedly sagging
Our research group in coordination with the behavioral psychologists suggested the introduction of a “string” fence along one side of our driveway.
The theory is that the kids on their bikes, scooters and other such powered or non-powered recreation based transportation devices would avoid running over a thin string rather than breach it. Just the presence of the string might be sufficient to encourage them stay located in driveway and/or sidewalks during their turnaround maneuvers in the Authors driveway.
So far so good. Coming home for lunch I noticed what was a tight string is now loose and sagging almost to the ground. The string is a sem-thick made out of hemp, brownish in color and very course, might be bailing chord. The distance it spanned is about 12 feet and the height from the ground about 11 inches. It’s currently about 1 inch from the grass.
Humidity? The rising temparature of the day? I didn’t notice it sagging this morning…maybe it wasn’t. I’m betting it will tighten back up.
[Added 8/22/06]
Noticed this morning that the string fence is now tight. Also noticed wheel marks crossing the lawn where the string must have been on the ground late yesterday. This would suggest that the presence of the fence when the string is not tight isn’t enough to discourage riding across the lawn. The next plan is to re-tie the string when it’s longest…see what happens when it tightens over the night.
Interesting properties of metal
After spreading a little peanut butter on a toasted English Muffin this morning I washed the peanut butter off the knife then set it in the dishrack to dry.
As I was wrapping up my breakfast I kept hearing this metallic “ting” sound from the dishrack. At first I don’t give it much thought but after I heard it a few more times it awoke my curious nature.
Knowing that the knife was the only new element in the dishrack I suspect it straight away. I moved things around just to be sure. I waited and didn’t hear anymore tings. On a hunch, I run some really hot water over one side of the knife then put it back in the dishrack. Thinking this might be the result of thermal change I figured I might be able to make it happen. I listen for a few moments and don’t hear anything. As I’m walking out of the kitchen I hear the “ting” again.
I get close to the knife and hear it ting a half dozen more times over the next minute or more. Noting the periodicity of the ting and the increasing delay of occurance I conclude my experiment and amuse myself imagining how the sound was being produced.
My mind builds a picture of very small shifts in disparate layers of metal somewhere in the knife that are violent enough (at a microscopic level?) to produce a sound loud enough for me to hear. Earthquakes of a sort. The expansion and contraction of material motivated by thermal change isn’t a discovery but it is a curious event in a butter knife.
Some initial thoughts on “Avatars of the Word:”
We Students were notified by way of being subscribed to a student forum that one of our books was “Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace”.
Mr. James J. O’Donnell is very much a scholarly man like the guy on the cover. Probably why he opted for that image and starts the book with a thoughtful tribute to the Scholar in all of us to which such images appeal. The man uses words that you’d swear were made up. But it’s an interesting read. Not one that I’d keep reading if it wasn’t for a greater purpose.
I’ll be commenting more on this book I suspect…and many other articles and/or books. Once classes get going we’ll see if I actually keep up with posts. But I’ve been thinking about this book a bit. Particularly the part where he considers how papers and such written online…let’s assume in html, have available to them a cross linking mechanism so powerful it becomes overpowering.
A close call with diet coke…
After working around the house today I opened a can of diet coke and took a long swig. Boy, that really hit the spot. Then I reach for a box of mentos I picked up yesterday while the Wife and I were out Running Errands.
Immediate flashback of watching those guys on the internet set up an elaborate display of spraying 2 liters. Apparently they drop mentos into the 2 liter and it erupts like crazy. Naturally I hesitated. How’s that for information sharing on the internet. Scared to drink coke and eat mentos.
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