In fact, I have seen people rig up homebrewed windmills fairly easily with bicycle parts to transfer the energy and to experiment with different gear ratios. Bike parts are tough, cheap, plentiful and easy to work on.
It seems to me that you could build a paddlewheel boat fairly easily and link the paddlewheel to a generator with some old beater bike sprockets. Go with steel, aluminum wears to fast for constant use. Instead of lubing the chain with oil, use grease. A nickel plated chain will resist corrosion as well.
Paying $5k for a tiny rock just because it's pretty is pretty dang crazy when you think about it. Okay, I can see paying for artisan jeweler's beautiful hand crafted creation, paying for a cutter's expertise, etc. But when you think that most $5k rocks are churned out in an assembly line just to end up at the local Zales for $5k a pop....
Does this seem a bit too much like the Dot Com era? As soon as folks wake up, the market is gonna colapse. An artificially inflated industry just waiting to be 'rightsized'.
Natural diamonds aren't really that rare anyway. It's only DeBeers iron fist that keeps the price high.
whelp, if the memory part of the camera works, who cares if the impaging portion works. Solid state stuff is pretty dang durable. I'm not suggesting that you blow up the cameras, I'm just saying that for $12, you can put it in harm's way without harming your pocketbook.
Lemmie see if I got this straight. Inferior camera, none of the advantages of digital apply here, costs more than a disposable film camera.... what's the advantage again? Okay, I can see saving one use film strips, so it is 100% reusable, but that is the only benifit.
OTOH, now that it can be hacked, there may be one benifit. A cheap digital that you can take in poor environemntal conditions and not feel bad about wrecking it. ALso, you can use it in situation where you know you will destroy it, such as taking close up pics of explosions, etc.
We have tires that don't go flat... or at least rarely go flat. It's called UST tubeless tires/rims (they work like car tires) or you can get the same thing with a $60 Stan's No-Tubes kit and regular tires and rims. For that matter, you can come up with your own recipie with $10 of materials from the hardware store and information from the internet. Tubeless also saves weight and rolling resistance. they are quite popular with the mountain bikers, and Stan is developing a roadie version as we spew. If you do manage to get a flat in the field (tire sidewall tear, large stick impailed your tire, etc), you just install an innertube and ride home.
We also have brakes that work in the rain, Discs. I particularly like the Avid mechanical brakes. Downside is that you have to have a frame and hubs that are disc brake ready, but almost every mountain bike built today has a disc ready frame.
As far as the helmets go, I feel that if you ride your bike without one, you are seriously asking to spend the rest of your live as a vegetable. Nearly all the cycling deaths in the US can be avoided if the rider wore a frickin helmet. I have not had a wreck that cracked a helmet in half, but most of my friends have, and most have walked away with a 'Wow, that was a nasty spill... I suppose I need a new helmet!'
As far as the internal gearing goes, it's pretty ready for prime time. I have friends that have been using the Rolhoff 14 speed internal gear hubs for a year or more, and they are rock solid, if a pound heavier than derailers. OTOH, those are the guys who keep on riding through muddy nasty conditions, when everybody else has to stop to dump chainlube on their drivetrains to remedy chainsuck, (when the chain sticks to the chainrings and gets wedged in the frame).
So internals have more weight, more expense, but you loose the derailer system and gain reliability.
I often see ads for L1&2 Help Desk positions that reqired 7 or more years experience. Would you trust a personality that could not move their career along faster than that? Nothing wrong with help desk (I'm a desk helper myself), but dang, who stays in Help Desk for 7 years or more. I would have to paint the walls with my brains.
Man, everybody hated that move but me! I thought it was an amazing film. The what Kubrik's use of color to tell the stories of passion, fear, love was incredible. He practically told that story through the use of his palate.
That and Nicole Kidman naked!
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In fact, I have seen people rig up homebrewed windmills fairly easily with bicycle parts to transfer the energy and to experiment with different gear ratios. Bike parts are tough, cheap, plentiful and easy to work on. It seems to me that you could build a paddlewheel boat fairly easily and link the paddlewheel to a generator with some old beater bike sprockets. Go with steel, aluminum wears to fast for constant use. Instead of lubing the chain with oil, use grease. A nickel plated chain will resist corrosion as well.
Paying $5k for a tiny rock just because it's pretty is pretty dang crazy when you think about it. Okay, I can see paying for artisan jeweler's beautiful hand crafted creation, paying for a cutter's expertise, etc. But when you think that most $5k rocks are churned out in an assembly line just to end up at the local Zales for $5k a pop.... Does this seem a bit too much like the Dot Com era? As soon as folks wake up, the market is gonna colapse. An artificially inflated industry just waiting to be 'rightsized'. Natural diamonds aren't really that rare anyway. It's only DeBeers iron fist that keeps the price high.
whelp, if the memory part of the camera works, who cares if the impaging portion works. Solid state stuff is pretty dang durable. I'm not suggesting that you blow up the cameras, I'm just saying that for $12, you can put it in harm's way without harming your pocketbook.
Lemmie see if I got this straight. Inferior camera, none of the advantages of digital apply here, costs more than a disposable film camera.... what's the advantage again? Okay, I can see saving one use film strips, so it is 100% reusable, but that is the only benifit. OTOH, now that it can be hacked, there may be one benifit. A cheap digital that you can take in poor environemntal conditions and not feel bad about wrecking it. ALso, you can use it in situation where you know you will destroy it, such as taking close up pics of explosions, etc.
We have tires that don't go flat... or at least rarely go flat. It's called UST tubeless tires/rims (they work like car tires) or you can get the same thing with a $60 Stan's No-Tubes kit and regular tires and rims. For that matter, you can come up with your own recipie with $10 of materials from the hardware store and information from the internet. Tubeless also saves weight and rolling resistance. they are quite popular with the mountain bikers, and Stan is developing a roadie version as we spew. If you do manage to get a flat in the field (tire sidewall tear, large stick impailed your tire, etc), you just install an innertube and ride home.
We also have brakes that work in the rain, Discs. I particularly like the Avid mechanical brakes. Downside is that you have to have a frame and hubs that are disc brake ready, but almost every mountain bike built today has a disc ready frame.
As far as the helmets go, I feel that if you ride your bike without one, you are seriously asking to spend the rest of your live as a vegetable. Nearly all the cycling deaths in the US can be avoided if the rider wore a frickin helmet. I have not had a wreck that cracked a helmet in half, but most of my friends have, and most have walked away with a 'Wow, that was a nasty spill... I suppose I need a new helmet!'
As far as the internal gearing goes, it's pretty ready for prime time. I have friends that have been using the Rolhoff 14 speed internal gear hubs for a year or more, and they are rock solid, if a pound heavier than derailers. OTOH, those are the guys who keep on riding through muddy nasty conditions, when everybody else has to stop to dump chainlube on their drivetrains to remedy chainsuck, (when the chain sticks to the chainrings and gets wedged in the frame).
So internals have more weight, more expense, but you loose the derailer system and gain reliability.
I often see ads for L1&2 Help Desk positions that reqired 7 or more years experience. Would you trust a personality that could not move their career along faster than that? Nothing wrong with help desk (I'm a desk helper myself), but dang, who stays in Help Desk for 7 years or more. I would have to paint the walls with my brains.
...I'm evil and have a goatee in a parallel universe? I must in at least an infinite number! Ow, my brain hurts!
Man, everybody hated that move but me! I thought it was an amazing film. The what Kubrik's use of color to tell the stories of passion, fear, love was incredible. He practically told that story through the use of his palate. That and Nicole Kidman naked!
and built it into OS 7.5.