Month: April 2007

Cut a Tree and Save the Earth?

Plant a Tree and Save the Earth?
A new study says that it depends on where the trees are planted. It cautions that new forests in mid- to high-latitude locations could actually create a net warming. It also confirms the notion that planting more trees in tropical rainforests could help slow global warming worldwide.

In the first study to investigate the combined climate and carbon-cycle effects of large-scale deforestation in a fully interactive three-dimensional climate-carbon model, scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Carnegie Institution and Université Montpellier II found that global forests actually produce a net warming of the planet.

Six Funny Life Lessons

Six Funny Life Lessons | Who the hell is Carl Pei?
Lesson 1: Naked Wife

A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower when the doorbell rings. The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs. When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next door neighbor. Before she says a word, Bob says, “I’ll give you $800 to drop that towel.” After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob.

After a few seconds, Bob hands her $800 dollars and leaves. The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs. When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks,…

“Who was that?” “It was Bob the next door neighbor,” she replies. “Great!” the husband says, “Did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?”

Moral of the story: If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure. Continue reading “Six Funny Life Lessons”

Western Europe’s America Problem

The Chronicle: 1/19/2007: Western Europe’s America Problem
It is completely unclear which direction and what kind of political and symbolic content this waving of the European flag will assume: a negative, exclusionary, and therefore arrogant identity formation that Hannah Arendt labeled “Europeanism,” or a positive and universalistic ideology that builds on the commonalities of Western values and then forms the basis for further European state and nation building. But there can be no doubt about one thing: Outfitted with a mass base and a congruence between elite and mass opinion, anti-Americanism could, for the first time in its long European history, become a powerful political force going well beyond the ambivalences, antipathies, and resentments that have continuously shaped the intellectual life of Europe since July 5, 1776.

Leonardo’s Pushbike

Leonardo’s Pushbike – The Ride by Ellsworth featuring NuVinci’s Continuously Variable Planetary (CVP) transmission – gizmag Article
 A bicycle 517 years in the making? Well, perhaps not – Leonardo Da Vinci’s original mind-boggling sketches of the first Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) used a spiral shaped cog to achieve the goal of perfectly smooth gear ratio alteration. NuVinci’s CVP transmission uses tilting balls to achieve a similar effect.

AVG Anti-Rootkit Free Edition

AVG Anti-Virus and Internet Security – AVG Anti-Rootkit Free Edition

From the people who have the best Free Anti-virus out there is this new tool. Don’t leave home without it, or something similar. Some of the newer protection suites include such protection. This tool will at least find what may already be hiding on your hard drive and you probably wouldn’t even know it
AVG Anti-Rootkit is a powerful tool with state-of-the-art technology for detection and removal of rootkits. Rootkits are used to hide the presence of a malicious object like trojans or keyloggers on your computer. If a threat uses rootkit technology to hide itself it is very hard to find the malware on your PC. AVG Anti-Rootkit gives you the power to find and delete the rootkit and to uncover the threat the rootkit is hiding.

Kiva.org – Loans that change lives

Kiva.org – Loans that change lives

Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can “sponsor a business” and help the world’s working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you’ve sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back.

Nanogenerator Provides Continuous Electrical Power

Georgia Institute of Technology :: News Room :: Nanogenerator Provides Continuous Electrical Power
Researchers have demonstrated a prototype nanometer-scale generator that produces continuous direct-current electricity by harvesting mechanical energy from such environmental sources as ultrasonic waves, mechanical vibration or blood flow.

The nanogenerators take advantage of the unique coupled piezoelectric and semiconducting properties of zinc oxide nanostructures, which produce small electrical charges when they are flexed.

Because zinc oxide is non-toxic and compatible with the body, the new nanogenerators could be integrated into implantable biomedical devices to wirelessly measure blood flow and blood pressure within the body. And they could also find more ordinary applications.

“If you had a device like this in your shoes when you walked, you would be able to generate your own small current to power small electronics,” Wang noted. “Anything that makes the nanowires move within the generator can be used for generating power. Very little force is required to move them.”