Interesting airplane crash story with a positive ending. Forty-five year-old Alain Vasserot was piloting a small plane on Sunday evening in California when things when awry. While attempting to land at Palomar Airport just before 7:30 in Carlsbad, he ended up landing in a tree. Yes … landed in a tree. All pilots (and non-pilots with commonsense) know that trees are something we try to avoid at all cost. Nevertheless in Mr. Vasserot’s case the tree might have saved his life, as after lodging his plane firmly in the treetop he was able to safely wait for rescue crews. They were able to ladder their way to the airplane and bring him safely to the ground without major injury. Like they say, any landing you can walk away from is a good landing … but I’m not sure this scenerio was considered? Although … he had to climb down and didn’t ‘just walk away’ … or is that just semantics?
🙂
With the cost of fuel hovering just below $3.00 a gallon, alternative vehicles are becoming more and more attractive to average citizens. Unfortunately most alternative vehicles are only suited for weekend mechanics or people with expendable income. Enter Myers Motors and their all electric NmG (No More Gas). I had the good fortune last week while traveling to stop and visit with Dana Meyers, the president of Myers Motors. We had an enjoyable interview and a test drive in their little electric vehicle in Tallmadge Ohio.
The Myers Motors design originally was part of the Corbin Motors company in Hollister California. The Sparrow as it was known, was built between 2000 to late 2002 before Corbin Motors filed bankruptcy. The futuristic looking electric car (licensed as a motorcycle) sold for a reasonable MSRP $13,900 to about 350 fortunate owners. Myers Motors purchased the assets including a bunch of ‘shells’ and redesigned (and continues improve) the electrics and drive train. This new vehicle, the NmG, runs on three wheels, handles like a go-cart. It accelerates extraordinarily quickly to a top speed of 70 mph; believe me it is quick — I shockingly found this out while pulling into traffic and chirping the single rear drive wheel. I think I was expecting golf cart like acceleration.
According to Dana Myers, he sees a bright future for electric vehicles. Not only is their vehicle unique, it is also reasonable to operate. The simple electrics are designed to recharge at home from either a 220 or 110 outlet and can be fully recharged in 6-8 hours for about 55 cents at 11 cents per kilowatt hour. (quicker with the 220 charger) Myers research shows that most people commute less than 20 miles and are with one person in the vehicle where the NmG is perfectly suited. My primary pet peeve with the all electric NmG is that the range using 13 gell cell batteries is only about 30 hours. (see online manual)
Nevertheless, the electric NmG was very impressive. The hand built vehicles are constructed by craftsmen in a nice size facility in northeastern Ohio. (close to Akron) From the electric windows to the excellent instrumentation, I felt my lime green test ride was surprisingly comfortable. The little one seater has windshield wipers, heater/defroster, audio system and a cute little 6 cubic foot trunk. The would be gas door hids a recharging plug.
Dana Myers had to make several concessions to keep the MSRP at $24,900, this includes the very safe but somewhat low tech batteries that give an unacceptable range even for electric vehicles, in my opinion. It will be interesting to see just what can be accomplished with A123 Battery package or an eventual fuel cell system?
All in all, I enjoyed my visit with Dana and his enthusiasm for the NmG. I wish him well at marketing a one seat vehicle that can only go 30 miles between charges. If you are interested in adding a fun to drive EV to your garage, be sure to contact Myers Motors at 330.630.3768 or visit www.myersmotors.com to checkout the NmG.
***MSNBC has an easy read on some future EVs and hybrids here.
***GreenCarCongress had a good post about the Toyota RAV4 EV as well, one of the more promising real sized EVs.
A Businessweek article detailed a push in Brazil to use soy and other oil seed vegetable oils with their petroleum diesel. Brazil is already a leader in moving to ethanol, and this new biofuel will add to its sugarcane alcohol fuel.
Petrobras, the state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, said the new fuel, called H-Bio, was developed over 18 months by mixing refinery petroleum with oil from soy, sunflower seeds, cotton and castor beans. The new H-Bio fuel is different from biodiesel in that it is not processed but that the oil is blended in amounts up to 15% with petroleum diesel at the refinery level.
Petrobras predicted that three refineries would produce the new fuel by 2007.
In May I posted a story on “Water Power for you car” and received a few comments and couple of emails wanting more information. I attempted to dig for a bit more and sent an email to the developer. I was sent a promotional video clip that is included below. Basically the equipment was designed for the metalworking industry but could have application anywhere clean hydrogen fuel is needed. Here’s a link to a ScienceDirect abstract, or the full PDF for those with a science oriented mind.
My primary reason for trying to contact the developer was to see some actual numbers on how much amperage is used to create a particular amount of gas in to provide the BTUs. I’ve yet to find that out. (any sleuths out there?)
Imagine moving a full DVD movie through a network in 5 seconds … impossible? Yes for now, but the engineers and researchers over at IBM have build a transistor that runs faster than anything we currently have. Imagine the speeds that electronic devices could process data if they were zooming at speeds 250 times faster than cell phones? Imagine cooled chipsets in computers clocking up near 500 gigahertz … they would be “ultra-fast” says an article on msnbc/msn.
“What we’ve been doing in the last several years is pushing the absolute limits of silicon technology,” said Bernie Meyerson, head of semiconductor research for IBM. Researchers achieved speeds about 100 time faster than current chips in computers from transistors from silicon “laced” with the chemical element germanium. The test transistor achieved a speed of 500 gigahertz by a group from IBM working with the Georgia Institute of Technology, but only when they cooled it to absolute zero — yet the numbers were still impressive running it at room temperature: 300 gigahertz. (this humbles my notebook with an Intel Pentium M running at 1.7 gHz — room temperature.) According the the article, “Meyerson forecasts that the advances will show up in real products within a couple years.” I’m thinking maybe I should wait a little while to buy a new computers or upgrade my network components?
I don’t have much time to post much commentary today, but I will include a forwarded video from where else … YouTube.com. A friend of mine mentioned it me and since I’ve enjoyed almost everything the program TopGear produces thought this was worth including on my blog.
Enjoy. 😀
A friend of mine forwarded a bit of news making it around the IT security circles which deals with a company we all know: Google. Kelly Jackson Higgin posted the article at DarkReading.com about a Trojan keylogger discovered by Websense; Google quickly shut down the offending URL. Unless you use the http://www.googlepages.com site you are most likely not at risk from this particular Trojan, but it does go to show the risk in clicking links on pages.
This Trojan was purported to infect a users computer through a planted link. This link would download a sleeping keylogger which would then monitor sites the user visited. The obvious risk would be to visit a bank, broker or value oriented secure site as the keylogger records a users keystrokes. Do be careful.
Sony has been showing off its Reader at several of the consumer electronic events around the country and from the reviews looks to be a winner of a product. The small size, clear text, and long battery life as well storage capacity should make this a winner. The only thing holding it back might be a high retail price point and Sony’s notorious proprietary way of preventing expansion. (although literature does say that the Reader will support both Sony’s Memory stick AND the more universal SD Cards) Unfortunately the announced availability of this summer has been delayed. Expect a late summer or early fall release now but they obviously would not want to miss the holiday season.
Travelers will most likely love the Sony® Reader and will be anxious to fill their device with electronic books. It is as small as a paperback book, 6.9†by 4.9†by .5†and weighs a mere 9 ounces. Its rechargeable battery lasts about 7,500 page turns and can be recharged in as little as 4 hours with an AC adapter.
Besides the online stores marketing books, I’d recommend the open source project called Project Gutenberg where all texts are free. (great for non-Sony Reader buyers too as the electronic version are available for computers, etc) I’m not sure I’m ready to jump on the Sony Reader bandwagon just yet, but I’m anxious to spend an evening ‘testing’ it.
While attending a graduation party this weekend the initial subject of “the weather sure is nice,” gave way to “the cheesecake is good” and to the high price of gasoline. While attempting to skirt the issue I did not say that perhaps we own too many SUVs or that “Americans are gas hogs,” — no … I applied commonsense and just agreed that prices were high. I tried to explain that the ‘actual’ price of gasoline adjusted for inflation was not quite has high as those remembering 29 cent a gallon gas, but I don’t think it registered.
To illustrate the the Department of Energy’s published numbers take a look at the chart above. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s a gallon of gas compared to income costs us less each year. The price of gasoline, adjusted for inflation, declined over this 20 year span, although it happens so slow that prices were barely noticed — in fact the prices at the pump really didn’t change much. The inflation adjusted change came as the income level of Americans rose causing gasoline to require less of ones income. (of course we began driving and using more gasoline too)
Some of us remember the Oil Embargo of 1973 which was followed by a steep rise in the cost of gasoline as well as a period of inflation. As oil exporation flourished and new oil flooded the markets with more crude oil, gasoline prices headed back down from their highs. Not only was there now plenty of oil, but Americans incomes continued to rise. Eventually the two factors caused the inflation adjusted cost of gasoline to drop to all time lows … just in time for more powerful cars and bigger modified trucks that ‘lovingly’ became known as the SUV.
As we crashed through the millennium burning nearly 180 million gallons of gasoline per day in the United States, demand has started to show signs of passing production. Add hurricanes to the instability in the middle east along with booming econonies in China and India … and we are left with skyrocketing gasoline prices. Today in the US, the average price is above $2.90/gallon. (I should have corrected my chart!)
Of course the graduation conversation didn’t really have me scribbling charts on napkins or standing on my “biodiesel soapbox” — we instead moved to the next light subject … “He sure has grown up fast. I remember when he was …”
😀
More national news coverage from the press on Franklin County Ohio’s Judge Connor. (see previous comment) Bill Oreilly on his FoxNews program “The Factor” covered some additional disconcerting cases that all seem to point to a failure of the justice system to fairly sentence and protect citizens. Obviously the voters elected this judge but I suspect his true colors were not presented?
On O’Reilly’s program tonight, he interviewed the mothers of two young people that were killed by a drunk driver who Judge John Connor refused to incarcerate, even though there were many additional offenses. Listening to the the two moms is emotional; their losses were preventable and most likely their kids would still have been alive if the repeat drunk driver would have been in a courtroom other than Connors. No surprise, this was the same Judge John Connor that has been convicted twice of DUI and arrested several other alcohol/drug charges himself, according to “The Factor.” As if poor judgement in this case wasn’t enough, he also sentenced a repeat child rapist to probation a few months ago. Thankfully the spotlight was put on him and now there is a movement in Ohio to remove this sitting judge. If you live in Ohio, you might consider voicing your opinion to our attorney general as well as Governor Taft.
If you live outside of Franklin County, Ohio:
If you’d like to contact Ohio Governor Bob Taft about Judge Connor, visit http://www.governor.ohio.gov/contactinfopage.asp to send him a message. You can also contact his office by telephone at (614) 466-3555.
Persons
outside of Franklin County, Ohio who wish to learn more, donate to or
support the Justice League of Ohio are welcome to log on to TheJusticeLeagueOhio.org or call (614) 848-8500.
The Justice League of Ohio (TheJusticeLeagueOhio.org or (614) 848-8500) may be spearheading a petition to remove Connor; check their site in the coming days for additional information. The petition will be open ONLY to residents of Franklin County, Ohio.
Interesting airplane crash story with a positive ending. Forty-five year-old Alain Vasserot was piloting a small plane on Sunday evening in California when things when awry. While attempting to land at Palomar Airport just before 7:30 in Carlsbad, he ended up landing in a tree. Yes … landed in a tree. All pilots (and non-pilots with commonsense) know that trees are something we try to avoid at all cost. Nevertheless in Mr. Vasserot’s case the tree might have saved his life, as after lodging his plane firmly in the treetop he was able to safely wait for rescue crews. They were able to ladder their way to the airplane and bring him safely to the ground without major injury. Like they say, any landing you can walk away from is a good landing … but I’m not sure this scenerio was considered? Although … he had to climb down and didn’t ‘just walk away’ … or is that just semantics?
The Myers Motors design originally was part of the Corbin Motors company in Hollister California. The 
In May I posted a story on “
Imagine moving a full DVD movie through a network in 5 seconds … impossible? Yes for now, but the engineers and researchers over at IBM have build a transistor that runs faster than anything we currently have. Imagine the speeds that electronic devices could process data if they were zooming at speeds 250 times faster than cell phones? Imagine cooled chipsets in computers clocking up near 500 gigahertz … they would be “ultra-fast” says an article on 
I don’t have much time to post much commentary today, but I will include a forwarded video from where else … 
Kelly Jackson Higgin posted the 
Sony has been showing off its 
Travelers will most likely love the Sony® Reader and will be anxious to fill their device with electronic books. It is as small as a paperback book, 6.9†by 4.9†by .5†and weighs a mere 9 ounces. Its rechargeable battery lasts about 7,500 page turns and can be recharged in as little as 4 hours with an AC adapter.
Some of us remember the 
As we crashed through the millennium burning nearly 180 million gallons of gasoline per day in the United States, demand has started to show signs of passing production. Add hurricanes to the instability in the middle east along with booming econonies in China and India … and we are left with skyrocketing gasoline prices. Today in the US, the average price is above 
More national news coverage from the press on Franklin County Ohio’s Judge Connor. (see