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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?
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.
His site is slow, maybe he should crank with the other arm.
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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.
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"
It's win-win!
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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.
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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.
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.
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