Webs’ Random Ideas

In other news today, Ava Lowrey has made headline news with her animations.  Check out this one WWJD that got her an interview on CNN.  She rocked in that interview by the way, and she is only 15 YEARS OLD!

Well my birthday was this weekend and so I decided that I wanted practical gifts, something that I will be using a lot.  So I got a new bike seat, water bottle holder, an under the seat bag, and there are also new pedals on my bike as well, but they have been there for a couple weeks.  So I got this bike about 2 years ago at workingbikes.org, they have a bike shop in Chicago.  For those of you not in the know, Working Bikes fixes up non working bikes, and donated bikes, into working bikes that can be driven again.  Most of the bikes they fix up are sent to Nicaragua, Cuba, Kenya, and Ghana so that people whom do not have a means of transportation, can have a chance to get around.  The bikes in the shop they sell help pay for daily costs of running the shop. 

My bike is a Fuji that was built around 1975.  It has twelve speeds, and originally had some rusted pedals, the kind with the annoying foot strap, a luggage rack, and a horrendously terrible seat.  After I got the pedals fixed and gave it a tune up, I started riding it again.  I must say, I have a new found joy for riding bikes.  I find that it is very good cardio exercise, and it doesn't hurt my knees.  So after all is said in done, I will have a under the seat storage bag, a new seat, fixed up luggage rack, new pedals, a water bottle holder, and new tires.  Everything all together cost me about $40.00 and maybe 2 hours of time.  Not bad considering what it would cost me to drive my car everyday.

This is a fairly moving video created by Devinquest at www.machinima.com.  The video is linked here -> An Unfair War.  The movie was created using Sims 2, and gives, what I would assume to be, a fairly accurate portrayal of what life is like for the Iraqis.  Enjoy.

Check out this funny video.  It's a decent protrayal of what things would be like if Iran was next. 

Let's bomb Iran?

Well no one but Google really knows for sure, but I imagine there will be many more programs we use day to day that will be available under Google on the web.  For instance, would it not be great to be able to write a document by just going to GOffice.com.  Then being able to send the file right to your Gmail or other storage location.  How about being able to do everything you can do with MS office, but not having to pay the money.  I know someone out there is screaming, "Hey what about Open Office?"  I know about Open Office and I am a big fan.  I try to ween everyone I can off of MS Office in favor of Open Office, but Open Office still has the overhead associated with it being installed on your hard drive, and because its on the hard drive you still have to worry about the security vulnerabilities.  The idea behind a GOffice is that it is all located on the web and accessible from the web.  If Google goes this route, then there would be little stopping network administrators from creating a GOffice server so that users could then do their office work on the intranet, or within a Local Area Network(LAN).  Then instead of needing to protect 200 users, you now only need to protect one system, the GOffice server (in terms of security vulnerabilities with an office suite).  If GOffice was written as good as the rest of Google's software then overhead of the program would be minimal, functionality would be amazing, and there would be little lag in the software.  This is something I am waiting for and would be very upset if it never materialized.

Since the price of networking technology has dramatically dropped, having a robust and fast intranet backbone is incredibly easy and is becoming more prevalent with companies and institutions.  This could bring back the whole dummy station idea.  Where people no longer log into a computer but a terminal that connects to a server.  Put the OS on the intranet and allow the terminals to pull it down.  Then every system would have access to only what people need, and again, the only system that needs to be protected is the server that houses what the terminals are pulling down.  A system like this is already being used for Boothbox Internet stations.  Boothbox is a Linux OS that allows administrators to create simple web kiosks or Internet portals, and very easily I might add. 

I still haven't completely convinced myself that the dummy station idea will take off, but I am very convinced that Microsoft's share of the software market is going to start plunging south.  If they don't change their whole paradigm of charging for non-open source software, they are going to take a hit.  People are going to start to get tired of paying for buggy and crappy software.  Educational institutions that are constantly fighting for State and Federal funding are going to start to look for other ways to save, and not paying for a software license for MS Office is one place to start.  Already many educational institutions have started using Open Office, and it wouldn't surprise me to see public schools do the same. 

I think Google's free software design will continue to win over people, and if their online software can make a strong enough appeal, people will make the switch.  There are always the nay-sayers that will say, "Ya but users like how things look with Microsoft, and if you give them something different they will freak out."  Point well taken, but if you look at the progression of Open Source software, it started as an underground, geeks only thing.  Now its spreading like wild fire, and I use Open Office everyday, and can tell anyone as a fact that I can hardly tell the difference between Open Office and MS Office.  And the transition to Open Office, doesn't have to be immediate, it can start out slowly with a couple labs and then progress to the whole network.  Either way, mark my words Open Source is here to stay and it is going to steadily take over.  Whether users are forced to learn something different or not, here it comes.

Everyone please head over to FreePress to help them in their campaign to keep the internet free, as well as a couple other causes.  Now is the time to show that the internet needs to remain free and open with out tolls.

Click Here for an important tip.

Hi Jon & Katie,

 Thought you might want to know Jon that Microsoft has released a beta version of Office 2007 that you can download at:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/getthebeta.mspx

Also, Annie & I bought our very first home! We are very excited about it. No pics have been posted yet on my site, but check out my site for more home info:
www.afroelich.com

Hope all is going well in Bloomington. The 4 of us need to get togethr one of these weekends to hang out. Annie & I miss hanging out with you & Katie.

Take care,
Art

But man is it fun.  I went to Funks Grove this weekend for some paintball action with a friend at Sudden Impact.  I never could have imagined that something so painful could be sooo much fun.  The first time you get hit is pretty exhilarating, and man do you feel it.  After that though I just kind of felt a stung, and couldn't wait for the next round.  After playing for about 5 hours I was still wanting more and I remember telling my friend that for as many times as I got hit, I didn't feel that sore.  Well after I got home I could tell a difference.

Paintball is a fun alternative to pulling out a gun and shooting someone.  Instead you make them curse and slightly injure them.  At the course my friend and I were at they had a capture the flag and three speedball courses.  Capture the flag is in a heavily forested area and your group is split into two teams.  Each team has a flag, and the object is to either shoot everyone on the other team, or capture the flag.  It's pretty hard to see whats going on for capture the flag, the fact that you play in a forested area makes it pretty intense, and adds a guerrilla warfare type feel to the game.  If you ever saw paintball on TV or on ESPN, that was likely speedball.  The course is small and there are items to hide behind that are usually about 6-10 feet tall and a couple feet wide.  The object of the game is to shoot people on the other team till they are all out. The game sounds simple enough but there is actual strategy involved.  If you stay back and try to pick people off, your likely to loose since the other team will advance on you, but if you advance too quickly you might get picked off.  There is a fine line you have to find and having your team help you with cover fire, and good communication are all key.

 All in all the day was a blast and I recommend to everyone to try it once.  I guarantee you will have fun.

So a couple weeks ago I was checking out EcoGeek, its in my links section, when I ran across an air hybrid engine.  You heard me right.  An engine that uses air as the second component instead of batteries and an electrical motor (which if are not properly disposed of will do a lot of harm to the environment).  How the engine works is actually kind of simple.  A normal four cylinder engine has combustion that takes place in all four cylinders and all pistons are timed so that the combustion takes place when the piston is at the peak height in the cylinder.  Check out How Stuff Works for more info and cool pictures and movies.  Anyways the movement of the piston in the downward motion not only allows the car to drive, but also gives power to the other pistons so they can rise up easier.  All four pistons work together in a sense, but are not in the upward position at the same time.  Everything is fine tuned and timings are set based on manufacturer and a myriad of other things.  The problem with this modern design is that for one, there is pollution from the combustion obviously, and two it is incredibly inefficient for the amount of energy put in.  Some four cylinders get MPG's in the lower twenties (I know there are many other factors involved here, but seriously how high a MPG rating have you seen on a none hybrid). 

Well Scuderi Group is trying to solve the problem as well as give people a different hybrid choice.  Their hybrid engine works by collecting the exhaust in a tank and using it to pressurize the fuel before it gets combusted.  One cylinder pressurizes the fuel while the other is used for combustion.  So all together there are two cylinders pressurizing the fuel and two used for combustion.  This leads to lower emissions, and the pressurized fuel burns harder and longer allowing for more output from half the cylinders being used for output (when compared to a four cylinder).  And because Scuderi Group reinvented the combustion engine, current engine manufacturers can easily produce these engines without an overhaul of their production lines.  This is awesome.  This is what has been missing for the last 50 years in the automobile industry.  If the oil and auto companies are so worried about profits on oil and gasoline engines that they have to keep us using them for as long as they have been, at least they could make cars more efficient.  Well that would be nice, but there is a reason why electric cars have died off the face of the earth, and we keep hearing all the negatives to hybrids.