Slashdot Mirror
Crank Up Your Webserver
destinyX writes: "Lineo an embedded linux company and inventors of uClinux (microcontroller linux) produced an intresting 'batteryless' webserver." A very cool creative re-use! You never know when you'll be out in the desert with nothing but a convenient ethernet cable leading toward an oasis I guess.
Hook it up to a water or wind mill, and have it serve a web-cam page of itself running. We should have enough power left to run a quick-cam, shouldn't we?
Imagine a cluster of these in a health club somewhere.
Your exercise bike came linked to a dynamo, so that you could use it to store up power in an array of rechargeables, so you could then then use a Zener diode setup to bypass the power supplies on some of your appliances (when and only when the batteries were up) and power them with the sweat of your brow? You could have an array of Zeners for each voltage level on your radio or other small appliances, and it wouldn't take too much soldering to hook these up. It would make a really cool demo, especially now that Fornicalia is having rolling blackouts and other states may soon as well.
Then add a second spring-and-crank mechanism, and a way to 'hot-swap' from the first to the second and back without interrupting the power flow, and you could have a web server that would run continuously, as long as you remembered to wind it up every morning.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
This would almost be great for power cuts. When the server gets shut down because of the power-cut lasting longer than the UPS this thing could kick in. The reason I said almost is because while this solves the web-server problem it doesn't sort the problem of the optical-copper bridge, which most companies have, loosing power or the gateway loosing power.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
His site is slow, maybe he should crank with the other arm.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
Now it seems that those "computer-types" have a reasonable explanation for their right arm being much larger than their left one.
:)
Yeah, porn sites are already hand powered.
SuperID
Free Database Hosting for Developers
The thing about batteries, though, is that they always seem to have run out just when you need them most.
These hand-cranked gizmos are great for emergency or seldom-used gear, because you don't have to worry about batteries having been stored too long, or having run down. Maybe this would be a good way to power emergency-use-only cell phones? Crank it up to dial 911.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Finally, we can put all those fired silicon valley geeks back into physical slavery ... powering california's websites by rotating the handle. They'll finally be able to afford a meal and cardboard box again.
"Old man yells at systemd"
But not by RackSpace. By VA.
http://cmdrtaco.net/hamster/
www.eFax.com are spammers
It's win-win!
---
currently I am working on a companion device. basically it is a rotary motor powered by a gas engine which can be used to turn the crank. the only downside is that all my pets are dying of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Looks like we're within spitting distance of going full circle on this....
--
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
That is going to take a bit more cranking. Above 12W is approaching something that needs pedal power.
Umm . . . the machine does user "power" to operate. But I see what you mean about not wanting to introduce 120V AC or 240V AC power into a sensitive area. A better solution, though, would be to just use batteries. You will get a longer operating time and less carpal tunnel syndrome.
-----------------
To support your point, there was a story on /. a short time ago (sometime in the past two weeks) about a company creating UPS systems based on flywheel technology. The idea is similar - using something besides batteries or "the grid" to supply power to a machine.
I'm all for alternative forms of power, but the things that keep holding everything back are twofold: (1) consumers are cheap and only want to spend as little as possible; (2) alternative forms of power (batteries, solar, wind, geothermal) are expensive and not nearly as efficient as good old coal, nuclear, and fossil fuel. These two things do not make a good combination for the embracing of more ecologically sound forms of power.
But as you said, small steps to big goals! The best thing about this project is the creativity factor. These are the kinds of guys you want on your engineering team.
-----------------
Same thing with this dude. If he spent his time trying to figure out a weird way of getting a low drain computer, more power to him. (Pun pseudo-intended).
Hehe... You can always spot the stories by Brits and Canadians (and lotsa other folks). For the confused folks, flashlight = lantern. My friend also gave me this handy guide:
galloshes = rubbers
elevator = lift
french fries = chips
chips = crisps
crisps (those fat free things we have in the USA) = crap
Cheers!
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
You could hook up the winding mechanism to a treadmill, excercise bike, etc, and stay healthy with a daily 20 minute workout...at the same time recharging your servers!
<sarcasm>God knows a lot of us geeks could use the workout. Besides, having to "wind up" your servers daily might seem like a chore, but all those poor M$ Windows admins have to reboot daily anyways, so when you think about it there really wouldn't be that much extra work involved...</sarcasm>
Ed R.Zahurak
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
Tim
Nike might even be able to do web hosting for www.kathieleegifford.com so that Kathie Lee could showcase her clothing line on the web.
It wouldn't be hard to build a battery recharging device that runs off barometric pressure or changes in temperature, although it would require a very low voltage device. There are a few very rare "perpetual motion" clocks in history that used this mechanism to get enough energy to tick until their gears wore out (or, more likely, were take apart for various reasons.)
Of course, this device seems to draw a lot more current.
Of course! Instead of a web-server, add a peer-to-peer client. Add wireless Ethernet and a Carusoe chip, and you can create the ultimate peer-to-peer network for the third world! Imagine it, paying small children to crank their little P2P stations all day in order to provide free MP3's or find the cure for cancer. It's brilliant. Why didn't I think of this before?
Hang on. What? Time for my medication?
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
Sorry guys, but you're many moons too late for this to be new - Apple beat you to it in 1996, in the form of the ill-fated eMate 300 (incidentally, the first translucent Apple product) coupled to a Freeplay generator, for the useful purpose of education and as written in this 1997 press release. Furthermore, although the eMate (and it's parent the Newton) are long dead, the idea is still pretty much on the table with Apple, as this 1999 WIRED article points out. Who knows, with Apple seemingly interested in getting into the PDA market again, we may yet see this idea resurrected in commercial form.
Long and short of it - screw webservers. Think of powering keyboard-equipped highly functional PDAs with these things.
cryptochrome---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
of the 'missing' Pinky and the Brain episode?
"Faster, Pinky, or my DDoS attack will never work!"
"What are we going to do tonight, Bill?"
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
Precisely. That's why I'm busy modifying the design to run on hamster power.
Run my little children, run, run!
--
Imagine putting seti@home on one of these lantern computers, along with a wireless modem and Iridium hookup. You wouldn't even need a display, just crank in order to get a few of those oh-so-crucial work units out for Team Whatever. You could distribute these computers in third-world countries, and have massive computing power from millions of people just cranking these things a few minutes at a time.
No, I am not being serious.
I'm the stranger...posting to
The more innovative technologies we can have, the more the inventive minds can implement those technologies is useful and beneficial ways.
Technology advances in small steps, not giant leaps. Unfortunately, to get to what appears to be those leaps, the small steps in between can often seem rather silly. But if we look beyond things as they exactly are and use something like this to say, "It's not quite right but if I added this one little thing..." then the technology advances.
My major point was that this type of technology has some good use, even if the actually application still has kinks.