Casio PB-100

The iPad…. Well I have to start this story a little while ago. Let’s say about 27 years. In my hand is my first (self bought) computer. Model PB-100 from CASIO. It’s a calculator with Basic dialect and all of 588 bytes of RAM. For me it was sheer amazing. I had 12 bytes output. I could conquer the world!!!

Not quite. In a certain way though yes I could. This little machine was about 12mm high, 16.5cm wide and 7.1cm high. It ran on two flat lithium batteries. If I’m not mistaken CR3202′s and they lasted for ever. I COULD take it everywhere and I pretty much did.

Of course 588 bytes quickly set an end to the unlimited potential. Causing me to go down the route of bigger and more desk bound computers. The flexibility was gone but a lot of power was gained. Nonetheless I missed the days of moving around with my computer. As a little side note the PB-100 is still in use today by my father. It’s still working well after 27 years!

Apple Newton MP2000

Years and years later, when laptops already roamed the trains, planes and office lobbies, I still missed the easy portability of that calculator. It was just always there. This was the time when the PDA revolution started. In succession I had a Apple Newton MP2000, a Psion Mx5, and several Palm devices. As a PDA the Psions were top. The Symbian/EPOC OS making all the difference. The one I did regret most selling though was the Newton. It was just leagues ahead of the competition.

Anyway for all the goodness of those platforms the input methodology was their biggest flaw it was always a compromise. Battery times were good though. What killed them all in the end were two things though:

1) the Internet. The graphical and display requirements were just too much for the processing power of these small devices and the displays were too small.

2) Connectivity to the outside world. All needed some syncing software via serial cable/USB and if you had multiple PCs you were in deep trouble.

I also have to admit here that I actually don’t like notebooks and laptops. I can’t really put my finger on why though. I had quite a few in my time also including MacBooks but they jut don’t give me the portability I want. They are to big to be truly portable and too small to replace my desktop (mainly screen size that is).

Finally Apple gave us the iPhone. I have a 3GS and that immediately changed the way I communicated and what I did on the go. I must contend I am a iPhone power user of sorts. Few games but a heaps of SSH, VNC, RDP, networking Apps stuff. I also like the absolutely brilliant way it converges calendars and email. This was the first time I was really all round happy with a mobile device…..if it weren’t for the screen size.

Psion MX5 PRO

And this is where the iPad now comes in. It is the right size, weight, power class and also very important; it doesn’t do too much. There is still a space for my iMac in all this. But it allows me to be productive on the go (like now), do my email and my surfing. It also streams video quite nicely so I can use it as a sort of TV.

The iPad certainly doesn’t do away with the iPhone. It is much more complementary. I wish Apple hadn’t locked the communication between the two devices down that much. I went for the 32gb option with 3G. The middle path between space and mobility. So far that looks a good decision.

So, my experiences…. Well my first experience was short lived. After about three hours the screen suddenly gave up mid flight. Very annoying that. So I rushed into town the next day and got it exchanged *phew*. So now I am on iPad v2.0 all going well so far. Let’s start with the down sides.

1. Aluminum can get REALLY cold! But that’s rather due to our bad insulation in our house.
2. Where’s the camera?
3. Keynote doesn’t allow the use of a clicker (yet)
4. No iOS4 (yet)
5. WordPress WYSIWYG editor don’t work
6. The USB power issues it has
7. Where is the calculator?
8. Where is SMS?

But all in all these niggles are minor. The good is that it’s absolutely awesome! After searching for decades this is the mobile device I always wanted. It gives me the flexibility without the bulk. The virtual keyboard is great. Little excursion on that… I can type nearly as fast on this thing as on a keyboard. The reason is probably that I never learned to 10-finger type. I still need to look at the keyboard. My hand movements to keys is random at best but it’s not slow. From the iPhone I’m used to not needing a tactile response and I actually find the glass that Apple uses nice to touch. Another cool side effect is that you can type easily in the pitch black.

Anyway… Oh yes, perfect device. The iPad like the iPhone follows the same principle of being more of a window on your data. So your emails and calender are just aggregates of your real services like Gmail or Exchange. So the iPad actually doesn’t save your stuff locally. This, in the age of Cloud Computing, is a good thing. Our data is ever more on-line. The need to have it locally is evaporating quickly.

I’ve now shown the iPad to a few people and the response is phenomenal. It’s like a no-brainer selling this thing. Switch it on, 50% sold and use it for 30 seconds…sold. This is the kind of device most people didn’t know they have been waiting for. The use is next to instinctive, no explanation necessary. Even ardent Apple nay-sayers are sold on it. Oh and I just wrote the last two paragraphs easily on the bumpy bus. Even a netbook would have been awkward in this situation. My only problem is that I am now getting motion sickness.

So in all, I definitely see this device as a milestone in computer and interface development. I am convinced we will look back on it like we do now on the first Macintoshes. It is also a much more revolutionary device than the iPhone. Where that was evolution of a concept this is revolution. The whole expectation of how personal computing is understood will change. Maybe it won’t be Apple selling the most devices in the end but neither did the Macintosh but it still was a revolutionary product (btw has someone already hacked an iPad into a Macintosh shell?).

Have a look at the iPad if you have some unused €£¥$ lying around! Don’t if you don’t. The temptation is just too big.

So I started looking for a new pair and to my surprise discovered Sennheiser was nice enough to have brought out a new model. The PX 100 II’s.  They have had a slight or not so slight update around the edges. I think the main things are:

• Broader and tighter headband
• One-sided cable with other ear cable going through headband
• Updated speakers
• No more case (but a nylon bag)

After searching the Internet there were lots of reports either way. Some said the sound was too basey, others said the sound was great. So after a couple of weeks of listening to them I think I can add now my own analysis.

1. The sound is slightly different. In my opinion better and still the stellar PX 100 sound. A+
2. The single cable connect thing is an absolute godsend! Just for that I’d buy them. No more feeling for the three dots to know where left is A++
3. I like the firmer headband. It’s better when listening lying down and it feels much more sturdy in general. A+
4. Downsides…..none.

Looks again like I’m a fanboy. I didn’t really set out to be one, being very cautious because of the different reports. In the end they just blew me away as the original PX 100′s did at the time.

One week later my old headphones turned up and now I have both. So far haven’t touched the old ones. The II’s are just so much more convenient and easy to use. I know that sounds like an odd thing to say about headphones but Sennheiser made them so much more usable. I am very thankful I did end up buying these even though the old ones turned up again. I am even thinking of selling my old ones because I can’t think of where I’d like to use them anymore.

So there you go. My fanboy endorsement for the NEW Sennheiser PX 100II’s.

So my civil duty it is to tell my fellow new zealanders about www.bookdepository.co.uk. It’s like Amazon but it has a distinct advantage…..FREE GLOBAL DELIVERY!!!! Now that is music to a Kiwi’s ears. No more waiting until you have US$150 worth of books to order from Amazon. Get them in your post box for the price of a book. And that price being that what the book really costs – before our kind bookstores put the gold-lining on the price.

Bookdepository has a very good selection of books and is sometimes even cheaper than Amazon (depending on exchange rate). The fastest delivery (and we have already had dozens) is 4 days with 5-6 being the norm. The longest was about 2 weeks. Every book is sent separately so books that are not in stock don’t delay books that are in stock.

All you bookworms out there rejoice and order to your hearts content!

This will cause more kiwi $$$ to go off-shore and will force our bookstores out of business. But…see it from the positive side. You’re doing the country a service. You are supporting the upward trend of literacy and abolishing these ridiculously high retail book prices. Let’s force them to re-think what they are doing.

Oh and… Mr. Key you can probably save a whole lot of tax-$$$ if you start ordering schoolbooks from overseas

What had happened was that I had tried an apt update/upgrade (something like automatic updates on Windows) on my Ubuntu 8.10 server. It didn’t go quite swimmingly. Nothing new because my installation was a little wonky anyway. But as I restarted the machine it would not let me boot anymore. I was getting an immediate kernel panic. *shock*

So I did what I wanted to do a long time ago anyway (and was now forced to do) – upgrade my system. From a good friend I got an old 2.5″ 20GB HDD to replace my USB stick with that was running my web server. Not that the USB stick was a bad idea or anything but there’s the odd thing that is made easier by having a hard drive. I chose a 2.5″ model as I still am quite stingy when it comes to power use.

So I tried installing Ubuntu server 9.04. That failed due to whatever reason. So I installed Ubuntu server 9.10 Alpha 6. Very courageous here! …which went all fine.

It was nice to see that the USB stick was not all lost and could be read by the OS. So after installing some needed packages it was necessary to install my WordPress site (i.e. this site). Now that would be a challenge I thought. Not quite so….

1. Copied the WordPress directory,
2. changed the mySQL password in the wp-config.php file,
3. copied the apache2 site config files,
4. created the WordPress database I used for my site,
5. imported the database from my weekly backup file via phpmyadmin
6. and restarted apache2.

Voila, here is the site! Easy as. *phew* …. *PHEW*

So after the initial shock it took me less than 24hrs to recover my site. There’s still quite a bit of detail work left but that I can tackle at a slower pace. Impressed by both, Ubuntu and WordPress here. And of course my lucky stars that I could still read that USB stick. I think now it’s time for regular full backups of my web server!

As a result they lost my business as I have now ordered directly from Apple (which I would have done anyway if I had anticipated that they’d sell it too). It’s even $30 cheaper from them.

So Apple has come through again and Vodafone proved it can’t really come to the party. The sad thing is Telecom isn’t an option either they’re just as pathetic. Wonder when we will really get a choice in this country.

Since I have a Mac OS X Leopard family license with two licenses left unused I thought this might really be a good idea. If it is legal I’m not sure (am no lawyer). I do know though that Apple earns on average $2000-$3500 from us every year in software and hardware. I think that warrants me going a little astray for the fun of it.

In the end I just love the tinkering. I think it’s the same genes that are responsible for grown men to play with toy trains.

So what did I do…. firstly I had to get all the components.

1. Intel Atom 330 Motherboard D945GCLF2 (from Paradigm PCs in Wellington – not the cheapest but reliable & quick)
2. 1GB Ram DDR2-5300 (had that already)
3. WD 250GB 7200RPM HDD (had that already)
4. Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-110D (had that already)
5. SilverStone LC16M HTPC case with a Task 450W low noise PSU

The SilverStone case was a stroke of luck. I got it cheap off TradeMe and it was exactly the thing I was looking for. Eventually the hard drive will be exchanged for a 1-2TB drive(s) but I am waiting for the big drives to come down in price a little and for this experiment to work before spending more money. So far I have now spent just over NZ$400 for the set-up.

The  Intel D945GCLF2 mainboard with its dual core 1.6Ghz Atom 330 processor is a sweet little thing. It definitely has its drawbacks. It only has Intel GMA950 integrated graphics, 2GB ram max, only 2 SATA ports, only one PCI expansion slot, no Firewire and the chipset could be more efficient. But it is very compatible with Mac OS X, has a plethora of USB ports (4 x front & 4 x back), is available and is dirt cheap. My research on the Internet said that it definitely wouldn’t do 1080p. Since our TV is 720p/1080i only I wasn’t too worried.

I would have liked to get one of the new Atom + Nvidia ION chipset mainboards but there’s none to have in NZ for a while and their compatibility with Mac OS X isn’t proven yet. I also anticipate them costing NZ$350 and more.

So by last Friday I had all the parts sitting right in-front of me.

(LtR: DVD, HDD, Mainboard, RAM and USB stick)

and the case…

And I must say the case is absolutely divine. It is just the right size. Has space for (at least) 6 hard drives and can be fitted with fans left-right and center. It is solidly built and the front is really nice aluminum. So I set about setting it all up. It would be a challenge to get all the switches, display and other gadgets to work under OS X.

More tomorrow….

Bill English said today something like “the downturn is worse than even the worst prognosis and therefore the tax cuts cannot be upheld”. Basically either he is lying and National has pulled the election coup of the century by buying the election and then not paying up with full intent or he is admitting that the oh so financially competent National Party has no clue what’s happening on the world markets. Please Mr. Key take a pick! I do feel sorry for the 45% (minus the few super-rich) that have voted for National. You’ve just proven that you’re politically gullible. Hope this will teach you a lesson in believing in what politicians say.

As for cutting investments into superannuation, the second idiotic thing in the budget, it’s just typical behaviour. Pray on the future which someone else will have to deal with. They made it look as if there were only two options: no investment or an unsound investment. I really can’t believe that a “financially highly capable” National Party cannot find an investment that cannot return a good return. I’d even say that money could have been invested into NZ and have directly created jobs! How shortsighted.

There seem to be only two good things that came out of the budget.

1. Insulation for homes. Thanks Greens and Maori Party!
2. Luckily not even more headless damage. Thanks National Party for being a bit lazy or afraid of the backlash.

Point to note is the absence of Labour in this post. I think they have to step up to the game a bit if they want to have a chance in the near future.

Sorry for the political rant but it’s hard not commenting when given such an invitation. I do hope the feeling is mutual.

Usually this feeling is not really strong and doesn’t really affect us or what we do. It does explain though that there’s more of a leniency to cut corners or to ignore the obvious. If the product is virtual maybe nobody will notice (and nobody really does). If you do that as a builder it is blatantly obvious that the house  has no doors.

Have a read http://tinyurl.com/o2t9ox (thanks Yee for the link! And Matthew for the insight). This article pretty much hits the nail on the head of what I’ve always felt and seen.

I don’t really know what to do about it. Not for me and not for the industry. How do we mak the virtual workplace, the cubicle monster give us what we need? Or are we doomed to a happy existence as motor cycle repairist? Is this growing up or becoming wise or when does knowing set in? Is this where the common midlife crisis sets in? Maybe you’ll know…

Director J.J. Abrams has certainly created his masterpiece. Maybe not technically as a film but for him to take the Star Trek universe and dare to go near the topic and then make such a stunner is definitely a great achievement. The film has a near perfect cast (the only slight let-down is Uhura), a good story and great special effects. Where the special effects never seem to take center stage but enhance the story. I loved the film and sincerely hope Abrams immerses himself in the Star Trek universe and lets us have at least another three masterpieces like this one. The stage is definitely set for more great stuff.

And because Abrams has his fingers deeply in the land of TV series (Lost, Alias) we might stand to hope….. oh that would that not be a dream come true…

With this film I will do something I haven’t done for over 15 years. I am going to watch it again in the cinema. I am so elated to see Star Trek alive and kicking (butt; if I might add!). I was getting somehow jealous of the Star Wars fans (although it depends which fan you ask .

Both Spocks are great and Kirk is the son of a b*tch he’s supposed to be (although I still don’t dislike him quite as much as the Shatner-Kirk which I loved to hate). Karl Urban as Bones and Simon Pegg as Scotty are excellent choices that match the originals easily. Especially Karl is a chip off the old block.

So if you’re a Trekker or Trekkie “May you watch long and be happy”. I’m not going to say “go watch this film” because I know you will but drop me a comment here what you thought.

Since 1999 I’ve been more or less actively trying to reduce the power consumption where I live. At that time not so much out of ecological aspects but plain saving money. So things like energy saving lamps were a given. (By the way, I still use those lamps today! Out of the about 20 I bought over the last years only two have failed and one I destroyed by accident. That means these energy lamps have saved me heaps of $ and caused quite a bit less CO2 and still continue doing so.) I also rigged PCs that had to run non-stop to use less power by removing any unneeded parts. Even removing single chips from mainboards.

In 2007 I became interested in the ecological side of things. Being bombarded with climate change ‘n all left it’s mark. So I decided to re-look at where I got my energy from. I used Genisis and well….let’s say they are about as clean as a coal miners hands after a double shift. So I did a 180 degree turn and went to Meridian. As a sidenote I didn’t see a change in the energy costs I was paying each month and this is 100% renewable energy (I won’t go into the debate here whether and how that is true or not). Anyway I really felt better doing that. Made all my energy saving lamps even more CO2 friendly.

But I also thought I owe Genisys an explanation. So I did send their staff a longish email on the reasons I changed. Explicitly stating I didn’t see any move from Genisis to become more environmentally friendly. After a while I got a nice email back stating how Genisis is proud to be embarking on a mission to become more environmentally friendly etc. I wrote back that I’d contemplate coming back if they ever did.

About 6 weeks later there was an article in the press about how Genisis was searching for more coal to scrape off this earth (against the wishes of quite a few people). So I got quite enraged. The dear woman from Genisis blatantly lied to me. So I wanted to make a formal complaint but after scouring the web page I couldn’t find one email address or anything that allowed me to escalate the issue. So I wrote an inflammatory email to the woman from before and CC’d it to our then PM Helen Clark. I was hoping at least the CC would give something to mull about. Anyway nothing happened for a few weeks. Nothing at all from Genisis and I wasn’t expecting anything back from Helen. I must admit I probably did that just for the theatrical effect. But…. then I did get a letter from Mr. Mallard (at that time he was Minister of Energy). Seven pages mind you. Going into the details about what the energy startegy of NZ is. I was very impressed but not really appeased since it really didn’t condemn Genisis at all.

I think this experience festered for a while. I got more involved with ecological topics (that includes all food related topics too) and started to think about pros and cons. I looked at what I’m buying more closely and recently joined the Greens in an effort to drive more action in the direction I wanted to go. Now don’t get me wrong I am definitely not a CO2 minimalist wonder or anything but I try and do what I can. Hence actions like the post below, where we’re trying to get about without a car. Public and private transport seems to be one of my key focus points that I tend to go on about. I’ve actively taken part in discussions with local council and Stagecoach or seen to it that I participate in petitions against more roads. I am also actively trying to buy an electric car (to no avail). The effect I have is small but at least something. When the election came I was happy to see the Greens do well but still came out short.

The National party has been quieter in their first 100 days than I would have thought but it seems that now they are really turning up the heat. Never mind the ungraspable shortsightedness of stopping tax breaks for all R&D work that had just been introduced (how can (at least 45% of) New Zealanders actively throw away their future like that?). But I’ll stick tho the current unfathomable newest brainchild (or should I say dud?).

6c petrol tax increase. Alright Johnny! This is a cool thing to do. It will bring more people to public transport and give you money to make public transport better. But  then I read the fine-print. They need to raise 1bn to build more roads. Hold on! MORE ROADS???? That’s like buying horse carriages today because “they’ll never go out of style”. Cars are the transportation of the past. Can’t we all just accept that? Do we need $2.50+ petrol prices to prove that? So why 1bn for roads that we can scrap 20 years from now? But it doesn’t stop here.

The 6c petrol increase only covers about $260m so another $420m are coming from cutbacks in public transport. ???!!! OK, now I’m lost. Not only are we failing to invest in public transport but we’re also now taking money away from public transport?! Could it be that Johnny just can’t say the word Kyoto? Do you know how much this decision will cost YOU? Kyoto will be a huge burden for each and every one of us if we can’t get our act (no pun intended) together.

Just imagine what 1bn in public transport could mean. That is $250 per person in NZ. We could even build a high speed train link between Wellington-Palmerston North-Auckland. Never mind buses, light rail and trains till kingdom come. And roading is supposed to cost us $10bn+ in the next 10 years. Just imagine the possibilities (that includes the Overlander with true 24ct gold faucets).

I know Kiwis love their cars and I admit I have a weakness for them too but we all have to switch to public transport on the long term. At least we should do it for the haul to and from work. If we did that now we might even be able to keep our cars for quite some time to enjoy our weekends. But I also understand that nobody will do that without a little nudge. So I’ve been saying for years you need to up petrol taxes, RUCs and taxes on cars and at the SAME TIME introduce good, flexible and cheap public transport. The additional taxes should be contributed 100% towards building the public transport infrastructure. Even if you’re a National government you should see the short & long term benefits of that. And I can promise all Kiwis they will enjoy good public transport. It’s not as bad as it’s made out to be.

So *yay* to the 6c increase. That will help but an absolute failure at the 1bn thing.Nats get with it.

Someone pinch me please I’ve got the strange feeling I’m in America and it’s 20.01.2001.

I did some calculations and it turns out I pay about $6000 a year for driving a car (car depreciation, petrol, repairs, WOF, registration, insurance, fines,…). Depending on the car value either depreciation or repairs are higher. So the $6000 are pretty independent on the type of car for cars up to $20,000.

We don’t drive more than 5000kms a year anyway and use the bus and sometimes taxi for most of our work-week commuting. In an average week we use the car 1-2 times only. So we are really don’t need a car at all. What I’d really like though is an electric car but no-one will sell me one and I don’t have the time to build my own. I really don’t want another gas guzzler. For the time being I decided with Rebecca that we’d try and go no-car.

What does no-car mean for us? We’ll take $5000 as the calculation basis. That is the money we can spend on any means of transportation. Not included in those are 1 taxi ride a week and bus fares to and from work as we do that if we have a car or not. After some research we have found that we can do the following:

1. Walk and use the bicycle (free)
2. Ride buses ($2.25 per ride)
3. Use taxis for all trips where buses don’t drive ($15-30 per ride)
4. Use www.cityhop.co.nz. ($75 yearly, $13.50 – $15/hour for a car)
5. Use rented cars for longer trips/holidays. (about $60 a day)
6. Get a scooter (electric/petrol) for everything that doesn’t fit the above ($2000-$3000 for a scooter + $40 petrol & insurance/month)

So… then $5000 gives you 2,222 bus rides, 166-333 taxi rides, 333-370hrs of cityhop cars, 83 days of rental cars (petrol excluded). The scooter (point 6) is excluded here for now. Maybe it also motivates us to walk a little more as this directly saves money on our bottom line (there are no fixed costs to speak of). That’s a LOT of transport and it sounds quite good from a financial perspective. And(!) we can switch back to a car at any point in time without having lost any money to speak of. From an environmental perspective this is probably the lowest CO2 rating you could have in our situation (not including working from home as that is not a viable option for us at the moment).

So we’re going to give it a shot. The budget will be $100/week for all commuting expenses excluding bus rides to and from work but including all taxi rides (i.e. the one taxi ride per week is included here). Let’s see how that turns out for us. I’ll definitely post some updates on how we are going.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/connect/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501833&objectid=10556606

I’d say that is a very nice reason to loose the fumes. Does a 150mph and a 150 miles per charge (probably not at 150mph though). The motorbike is called Mission One and is probably the fastest electric bike around at the moment. Have a look at the website for more pictures. Although I don’t want to see the price tag…..yet.

Where we had single core systems in the past we now have quad/eight-core systems. They are more efficient in Watt per MIPS but we now use ever more MIPS. So we are not really conserving energy. We would only be doing that if we kept the system usage the same. We have noticed in our test datacenter that the power usage has gone up dramatically and the cooling needs too. I think it is out of proportion to what’s being done. Nonetheless we need to put more power in and more cooling and….

The new power is going into more ram and HW to run newer and bigger OS’s, Java runtimes, .Net APIs,…  Do they bring more power to the user? Do software developers need to start thinking about power usage? I definitely think so. We need to start thinking of how and when to use multi cores and business needs to think about how time critical batch processing is. Developers need to know what API call consumes how much power per call and the such. Power saving features of hardware need to be used and optimised.

As for your desktop PC and/or your notebook… Most of us are using it to surf or do email. Maybe a little photo library stuff too. So why do we need quad-core 500-1200W consuming monster machines (I am not addressing the gamers out there)? Those machines would have replaced a whole scientific supercomputer 10 years ago. Luckily the notebooks are getting more prevalent. They usually use up to 80W. Even more interesting are the new Netbooks. They use even less power. Looking at Demand people are getting that too although power usage is not their motivation.

I still think IT is using far too much power for what is really needed. I’ve seen numbers like 15% of the worlds power is consumed by IT, one Google search consumes the equivalent power of running an energy saving lamp for 1 hour. I don’t know if these are just myths but they shure point to some smoke. We need to check in our own back yards (i.e. PCs and datacenters) if there’s a fire too.

IKEA is a household name all across the World. All the World? No. Two small islands in the Pacific resist the trend. New Zealand has NO IKEA! Here in NZ we live without the cheap but quality goods. Especially Europeans miss their favourite furniture store.

There are hundreds of rumours around the so-called Auckland-IKEA. It’s probably more elusive than the Loch Ness monster.

Judging from the demand I see I can’t explain why we don’t have one. NZ’s furniture prices are astronomical and the quality is cr*p (if you don’t plan on spending your months wages on one chair). People even resort to fly to Sydney and go to the IKEA there and ship it to NZ. So an Auckland store would at least pull all of the north island clientele.

But on top of that reading this article it might make sense from another perspective…. meeting Kyoto.I can’t see our current suppliers of furniture being very environmentally friendly. IKEA seems to have hit the nail on the head. They are going in the right direction with their cheap but not at any cost program. And I think the consumer is at that crossroads now. We want affordable furniture (and anything consumable for that matter) but we want to be environmentally friendly and get quality stuff. IKEA falls into that category as does Apple, Toyota Prius (although that’s debatable) and others. So far I don’t see those companies not succeeding. Just the opposite.

Why is there only a small percentage of these companies? Why are consumers not pushing the obviously winning strategy? Why don’t we have an IKEA? Is there a petition somewhere? Does this need to go on a political agenda?

(linked image from Inhabitat)

Other Links:

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/freitasm/5845

http://coffee.geek.nz/tags/92a

http://creativefreedom.org.nz (sign the petition)

http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/257775653538F293CC257540000F222E

http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/5A10F75C5E84D8F4CC25754400080FBE

Some say the answer is in solar panelling the world or space, having a wind-farm on every hill, taking geothermal energy and having tidal generators for every stretch of coastline suitable. I’m not really opposed to that but even that is probably not enough to feed the energy needs and the future energy needs of India, China and others. I can also fully understand people that don’t want a rotor looming over their back garden.  So again what is the answer?

We all -deep down- know what the answer is. NO! It’s not nuclear reactors! God forbid! The radioactive waste on those has a half life of about 10,000 years. We haven’t even been able to come up with a warning sign that will last that amount of time (remember the pyramids are “only” 4000 years old). I think I’ll take coal any day compared to that. No, the answer is something we’ve all heard before but have chosen to ignore. It’s the stuff mentioned in the title. What I’m talking about is nuclear fusion.

Fusion is the only power source known to mankind that can supply more power than atomic reactors (thereby enough to power all of humanity) with producing a minimum of radioactive output (a minuscule amount compared to your average nuclear plant) or any output apart from energy for that matter. As I said we’ve all heard of it but why hasn’t everyone got one in their back yards? Well…. that’s because we can’t build them yet. We don’t even know if we can. The Europeans have come together to build the biggest Tokamak type reactor ever in France called the ITER (there’s also the Stellerator type fusion reactor like the Wendelstein 7-X being built in Germany which is a different concept and cheaper). It’s the first time there’s an attempt to build a fusion reactor that can produce more electricity than it consumes. i.e. it would be the first reactor that can be seen as a proper power generating station.

But remember that we don’t really know if the scientists and builders can do it. The whole project is currently budgeted for 5 billion US$. They will probably end up paying $6-7 billion. Expensive …not?! We’re building something we don’t even know will work but sinking all this money into it???!!!! Most people don’t even know that it is being built!

Well, I think we’re not spending enough and not enough buy a long shot. If ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) succeeds humanity will probably have solved all energy problems we ever had and could have. Within this century we could switch off almost all of our bad energy sources and wouldn’t even have to build any wind farms or solar whatevers. This would revolutionise the world energy economy. Fusion power is so cheap it would obliterate your energy bill. So why are we spending only $5-7 billion? If this is as good as it gets why aren’t we spending more? America pays $500+ billion a year in oil imports and $230 billion in electrical bills. A nuclear (fission) reactor costs about the same as the fusion reactor. Are you doing the maths?

There’s a lot of negative controversy around the ITER too. Green parties and Greenpeace are complaining that the funding is taking away from funding alternative energies. That fusion reactors will probably not be operative before 2050. Sorry but how shortsighted is that? Alternative energies are needed and good but we all know that they cannot ever produce enough power to feed the world with power. Humanity needs fusion power or something new we haven’t invented yet. We cannot stop researching fusion just to spend more money on the wrong type of power generation and by that I mean anything non fusion. Green parties and environmentally friendly organisations should concentrate on supporting fusion strongly AND pushing for alternative sources in the mean time. By bickering over this all energy sources loose.

Humanity will need more power in the future not less. Even if we start consuming less. We will probably see a day when there are 10-14 billion people living on this planet.  They all want to be warm, mobile and watch TV. They will still want to travel and do things. Fusion with its promise of the ideal power source is really the answer. I discuss electric cars, others are fans of hydrogen (which I believe will be the answer for trucks, buses, heavy machinery, air travel and not for personal travel – that will be battery-electric). Both need a clean energy source to have any positive impact on the world.We will not get that without the fusion reactor.

So my plea is to have a closer look at fusion and support it as much as possible. Maybe NZ should actively allow fusion reactors to be built and give TAX cutbacks for doing so. That might give the power companies something to aim for. But even if not that it would certainly create discussion and publicity for the technology. Who knows maybe the US Navy will go fusion and then they could come and visit us! Go out and do some research like I did and see for yourself. The links above are a good starting point.

Miraz

So far I haven’t driven an EV scooter and I’d be very keen. What I’m worried about are the Wellington hills. They are a challenge for any kind of transportation. They will affect the range of these cycles. The question is by how much.

(picture is the Vectrix VX-1)