All posts by Jeremy Eades

I'm an English teacher in Japan. I have an interest in the brain and language acquisition, not to mention writing and the pipedream that I'll become the next Asimov. Or something like that. Nice to meet you!
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Solar pessimism

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Lots of advances have been made in solar energy, as we’ve reported recently.  But solar energy may not be all dandelions and sunflowers, and there are worries not just about efficiency.  Simple production capacity dictates that even if we wanted to, we couldn’t produce nearly enough to meet our current energy needs.  A post by scienceblogger James Hrynyshyn over at the aptly named The Island of Doubt has some more information of solar pessimism.

Just like at that business seminar you attended, constructive criticism is best.  These add a dose of realism and keep us from wondering in five years why we’re still being told we’re just around the corner from a breakthrough.  As Mr. Hrynyshyn said, "Don’t get discouraged guys. Just keep plugging away…."

(image from Rob!)

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US military proposes space-based solar power station

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A few weeks ago, Tobias posted about the US military and eco-technology.  In it, he jokingly suggested an eco-DARPA.  As it turns out, the military seems headed in that direction, specifically with a space-based solar power station that would beam energy down to the surface.

The idea is that the Pentagon has decided that energy independence is now a national security issue, and as such falls under their purview.  In addition, this orbiting power station would negate the need for long fuel supply lines.  Units could have needed energy beamed down directly from orbit.  Another benefit of having the military act as the early adopter is that prices should begin to decrease almost immediately, making it more affordable for commercial enterprises to license the technology for civilian consumption.

As with all things governmental, we’ll have to wait and see.  This may just be pie-in-the-sky, it may be an enormous financial boondoggle for no-bid contracts, it may work spectacularly, or more probably something in between.  But keep your eyes peeled on this one over at its very own blog.

(via DailyTech)) (image from NSSO/Pentagon pdf)

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Where to store wind energy?

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The weather is a fickle thing.  Typically, riding my bicycle to work is hard going and easy coming home because of wind patterns, but sometimes the wind decides to switch, or perhaps not blow at all, really messing with my commute.  Thus the problems with wind energy.  The wind doesn’t blow all the time, and it may decide to quit right at peak hours, or blow up a storm when no one’s using electricity.  So what to do?

A test wind park in Iowa, as described by Environmental Science & Technology, proposes to help solve these problems by using excess wind energy to store compressed air in underground aquifers until such time that demand rises.  This maximizes the turbines’ efficiency and allows companies to sell energy when they can make the most from it and when demand is highest – peak hours.

This could be a real boon to wind farms, making it more economical than it already has become to run turbines.

(via SciTechDaily) (image from article)

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Internationalizing the Internet

Coming soon to an Internet near you:  top-level domain names written in Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Russian, and several other languages.  As of yet, no announcement of full implementation has been made, but ICAAN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has announced that testing will begin on this idea.  So far, non-Roman alphabets can be used in second-level domains, but the final bit in a URL must still be .com, .org, .net, etc. – or one of the country domains assigned to each country.

This is an interesting idea as it opens the world a tiny bit more to hundreds of millions more non-English-speaking people.  But at the same time it opens the door for new scams people can pull by taking similar characters in differing alphabets and attempting to fool unwary users.

(via Ars Technica)

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Portal to a whole new world in gaming

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At midnight on Wednesday, gaming company Valve unlocked it’s Orange Box software.  In addition to a new episode in the compelling Half-Life 2 universe, you also got a quirky/awesome multi-player game called Team Fortress 2, and this enigmatic concept game called simply ‘Portal.’

In it, you wake up in a small room, and are required to navigate several mazes in a sterile, psychological experiment-looking series of rooms.  The tests get progressively harder, challenging your spatial ability and your patience.  At times, you just want to break free…

I’d seen videos of it before, but nothing prepared me for playing it.  Overall, the game itself is way too short, but as a high concept of an aspect of gaming to come, it’s revolutionary.  I’ve only played through the basic missions, the more advanced ones await me.  But there are lots of puzzles, and me likely the puzzle.  There are also rumors that the character here will be incorporated into the Half-Life universe.  Now it’s time to start up Episode 2.

(image via Borkweb)