Electricity Through Wireless

I’ve been doing a little bit of ongoing research into “Tesla” electricity generation– that’s “wireless” electricity. Nikolai Tesla first came up with the idea, about 100 years ago. He was a contemporary of Thomas Edison (who, as we all know, came up with the light bulb and electricity transferred through wires). Tesla’s ideas were crowded out in favor of Edison’s, because Tesla’s ideas didn’t make the robber barons (like J.P. Morgan, who ran the copper industry) as much money as a world filled with poles and copper wires. So if you want to blame anyone for your tangled mass of electrical cords and all those ugly telephone poles on your streets– blame Morgan and Edison.

ANYWAY, Tesla’s ideas are now coming to the forefront. So far, the British have been the innovators in this field. Several years ago, they were doing some experiments with wireless energy, and were trying to use wireless electricity to power a laptop without its battery. It was some BBC article (can’t find it now; it was about 6 years ago or so).

Well, the Americans are working on it, too. Some professors and students at MIT have invented a contraption that generates what they call “WiTricity.” In a nutshell, a corded electrical device is rigged up with a transmitting device that transmits a magnetic field that resonates at a very high pitch. The receiving electronic device is rigged up to receive the pitch, which converts it to power to run the device. Here’s a video of how this is done.

Of course, I have the philosophy that any innovation and invention– ANY– will always be twisted around by man to use for evil. It’s been happening ever since Cain and Abel. Think about it– do you really think axes were made to split heads open, or chop trees to make houses? No! The “good” of the technology was rapidly turned into an instrument for evil. How about the airplane– do you think Wilbur and Orville Wright had Nazi bombers in mind when they flew their plane at Kitty Hawk? No! How about dynamite? Or gun powder? Or computers? All were created with the best of intentions, meant to make human life easier, more convenient, or to help him in progress. But every time, it’s been twisted to be a tool for evil. I can’t think of an exception.

Anyway, so while this wifi electricity generation is GREAT… I do find my self wondering “I wonder what evil this great invention will be used for?” :-p We should always progress into such things with care.

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How Nerdy Are You?

This was one of the funnest quizzes I’ve taken. LOL, I am proud of my score. :dude:


You Are 68% Nerdy


You are a pretty big nerd, and you’re getting nerdier every day.
Don’t worry if you don’t have friends… there’s always robots.

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Posted in chatty, fun programs. 4 Comments »

Linkworth is So Confusing

I’ve been stretching out in various pro-blogger directions, trying to widen my horizon here. I’ve joined Sponsored Reviews (which gives me about 1 opportunity a month or so), ReviewMe (which gives me about 1 opportunity a YEAR, sheesh), Blogsvertise (another lame one), and Linkworth. I joined Linkworth about a year ago; I think I’ve only seen about 3 or 4 offers from this company.

I wonder if the problem lies with the baffling complexity of the website. Every once in a while, when I feel brave, I log in and try to navigate around the place. It is SO confusing! I’m no Einstein, but I’m no Elmer P. Worrell, either… Linkworth has me completely stumped. It is a confusing mess of LinkAds, LinkPost, LinkMura, LinkText, LinkThis and LinkThat with a billion different options. And then you have to figure out WHERE and WHAT you submit– a blog, or a website? And with what? And what are LinkMuras? What do I do? Do I submit every blog with everything? How? Gosh, I usually quit after about 5 aggravating minutes of trying to navigate the place. Yuk.

I have to wonder– how popular is this place? Are you able to decipher the thousands of links that tell you this and that?

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Dumping Blogger for WordPress

I’ve spoken out quite a few times about the foibles of using Blogger as a blog-hosting platform. I started out on Blogger, way back when they were Blogspot before Google took over… and it was OK, having a free blogging platform to work with. But I quickly learned that Blogger is extremely limited, and, now that Google had got ahold of it, rather controlled. I still have a few Blogger blogs skulking around, but I am most happy with my self-hosted WordPress blogs.

I’m bringing this up again because of a recent spat with Blogger over the weekend. For about three days, when I tried to visit Blogger blogs, I got the following page:

Photobucket

Gosh, for a day or two, I thought there was actually something wrong with my router or my computer! I did a virus scan and found nothing. I rebooted the router, changed the IP address, and tried again. The same error message. Slowly I began to realize that it was Google/Blogger’s fault, not mine. And just think– all those Blogger blogs that were unavailable, and that were inaccessible! :-p Very poor.

So once again, if you are serious about blogging, or think that someday you may be– I am enthusiastically recommending that you go with your own hosted blog. It’s not hard to set up. Sure, there’s a learning curve, but WOW it’s the difference between night and day. And I do recommend Hostgator for web hosting. I have tried several web hosting companies, and no one comes close to Hostgator in reliability, service, and professionalism. I’ve helped quite a few people get established on Hostgator with their own WordPress blogs, and I could certainly offer you some help if you need it. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. If you want to get serious about blogging, ditch the Blogger and get your own space!

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BREAKING NEWS: 40% Twitters are Meaningless!

:ermm:

That comes as a surprise to some people? Hello?

Forty percent of the messages on Twitter are “pointless babble” along the lines of “I am eating a sandwich now,” according to a study conducted by a US market research firm.

Pear Analytics, based in San Antonio, Texas, said that it randomly sampled 2,000 messages from the public stream of Twitter and separated them into six categories.

The categories were: news, spam, self-promotion, pointless babble, conversational and pass-along value.

Pear said “pointless babble” accounted for 811 “tweets” or 40.55 percent of the total number of messages sampled.

Where has this guy been? They needed a study to determine this?! I hope it wasn’t taxpayer funded! Because ALL you have to do is watch the Twitter tutorial video produced by the Twitter folks, and it’s a NO BRAINER. Twitter was created to be a mindless bastion of meaningless, frivolous banter.

Holy cow, just wait til Twitter ads come out in full force…. you guys ain’t seen nothing yet. :blink:

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Posted in news. Tags: . 5 Comments »

A Day in the Life Of…

… my hard-working HP computers…

The poor thing. This heat and humidity is TERRIBLE for a computer. I have a slew of them (the kids and I), and we were almost SURE we could hear them heaving, sighing, and complaining…

Holy cow, this heat! Can’t these people shut me off for just a little while? So I can cool back down to the boiling point or something? *pant pant* work, work, work, that’s all I do!

Honest! That what the machines seemed to be saying! :hrm:

I do feel sorry for the machine, but a gal HAS to make a living…

Living, schmiving. I’m sweltering! And I’m also sick and tired of this operating system! When are you going to get me updated, huh?

:cwazy: lol. My computers can talk! Well, that’s OK, just as long as they don’t start calling me “Dave.” 8-O

I love HP. I will ONLY buy HP monitors, for starters. I have a verrrry nice 23″ LCD monitor for my work station, with my “HP Hot Rod” machine as I call it (AMD Phenom Quad-Core processor, NVIDIA GeForce 9100 video card, 6 GB RAM, and 640GB hard drive). We also have a slew of “lesser” HPs– a few with Intel Celeron processors for the kids, two laptops– one dual-core and another single-core. All very nice. Not to mention I have HP keyboards, monitors, printers, etc etc. I’ve found HP to be a thoroughly reliable brand. And did I say how much I LOVE their monitors?! They have the BEST monitors- very clear and crisp. Because I have poor eyesight and because I have a job that has me starting at the computer screen all day, I need a high-grade, quality monitor. HP has what’s called “BriteView” technology, and I think it is superior.

But the girls’ laptops, which are several years old, are starting to complain. For one, they are a tad outdated. (A computer more than five years old is considered “old.”). The fan on one of them has completely pooped out, another has a power button that doesn’t work anymore, and on another, the monitor is starting to show it’s age.

Who you calling old, sister?? I just need a little TLC… and air conditioning.

How about you? Your computers feeling a little slow and sluggish? Looking forward to ditching your Windows ME or XP for the flashy Windows Vista? I love Vista. :D Well, here’s a very nice promotional deal for you:

Get $500 off instantly when you purchase an HP HDX 16t with $300 coupon code NBN3248 + $200 Instant Rebate. The offer is valid through 8/23 or while supplies last. Restrictions and exclusions apply.

It’s a great time to get a new computer– manufacturers are moving out the Vista machines to make room for the Win7 machines. I may try to nab a good deal or two, also, so we can finally retire some of the old workhorses around here.

I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Dave.

8-O

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