First off, I want to thank Jarred for inviting me to guest post on Tropophilia. I’ve been following the blog since its inception and have been nothing but impressed. I hope I can meet the standards of this site.
Jarred linked me to an article about using solar power in conjunction with a small water powered fuel cell. While photovoltaics power a home during the day, surplus power splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, and the two are combined again at night in a fuel cell to produce power. Sounds good enough, but I cannot in good faith agree with the concept.
I’m not an engineer or scientist by any stretch of the imagination, but I do believe that simplicity works. My first thought when reading the article was, “why not just store the excess power in a battery instead of using it to power another process?” To me, adding extra steps, equipment, and parameters only complicates things. Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t efficiency fall every time an energy source passes through a different medium? Continue reading ‘The Future of Power’
When I first started using a Mac, I read several different blog posts that recommended a program called Quicksilver. Quicksilver, according to its developer, is a “unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data.” Put much more simply, it is designed to be a more natural way to interact with you computer.
The basic premise of Quicksilver is that, after “invoking” it with a quick keystroke, you more or less type what you want to happen, and it happens. From sending an image to a friend by email to burning a playlist onto a CD, tasks that would take a few minutes of searching and a multitude of clicks and drags can be accomplished in a few keystrokes.
I never got hooked on Quicksilver, but today Mozilla has released a test version of a similar tool for its popular Firefox browser — ambitiously called Ubiquity — that I believe I will come to embrace and rely on every day. If you’ve ever been frustrated by tasks that you think should be remarkably easy to execute — defining a word, checking the weather, mapping an address and copying that map into an email, etc. — then Ubiquity has that, and more, for you. By invoking the tool and typing “define”, “wikipedia”, “weather”, “google”, “imdb” and other commands followed by a word, the Web’s most popular services are at your fingertips.
Hey folks–sorry for the light blogging lately. Deadlines at work and fun weekend trips combine for precious little bloggin’ time. Thanks to everybody in NYC for a terrific visit this weekend…always good to see you all, and I enjoyed exploring a bit more of the big city.
A few links:
Consider this a Tropophilia bleg (blog+beg=you get the idea): if you’ve studied abroad, head over to our friend Henry’s site and rate your program: Rate Your Study Abroad.com. They’re starting to build the database of programsfor the first time, and they would really appreciate a few minutes of your time.
Thanks to Jack for sending along what he called “the clearest and most scientifically sound explanation of electric cars I’ve ever seen.” The whole thing is brief and worth reading, as it provides an answer to the question I’ve heard often:
If the electricity used to charge up an electric car is created by burning fossil fuels, is it better to stick with a gas-powered car with good fuel economy?
Apparently 80% of Facebook users have rejected the new site design in favor of the old layout…that is, while they still can: Facebook plans to make the new version mandatory in September. Are you using the old layout or the new?
For all of you New York folks, here’s a great Google Maps mash-up site that plots out safe biking routes between any two points. I’m incredibly jealous, and I would love an easy bike route-generator for my neighborhood. Jarred, could you get on that please? [Hat Tip: TechCrunch]
Just two years ago, the modern age of YouTube/Web Video Politics began:
On 8.11.06, Sen. George Allen, a shoo-in for reelection and early favorite for the GOP 08 pres nomination, called Web Campaign video tracker S.R. Sidarth “Macaca”.
On 8.14.08, the Webb campaign, unable to get TV stations to take the video and run with the story, posted it on the new video service, YouTube, which as of then was not on anyone’s political radar.
The rest is history.
Here’s the moment that started it all:
More new stuff to come this week, but that’s all for now.
Well hi there, folks. Massive apologies to you, the readers, for my prolonged absense from the blog, and massive thanks to Taylor for diligently plugging on. I thought I’d be able to devote some time to blogging after finally getting settled in my apartment, but those free hours very quickly turned into hours in front of the TV watching people in much better shape than myself achieving incredible feats of athleticism. I’m also still searching for the right theme upon which to reassert myself here. Now that my job is taken up with thinking about Google and its industry, the last thing I want to do in my free time is think about them some more. Send any tips my way.
Enough with the blabber, let’s get you linked up for the week:
The good folks on the Google Reader team have invited some political power players to use their product to share the news stories they’re reading, including Senators McCain and Obama.
France’s reliance on nuclear for almost 80% of its energy is not a vestige of the last century, as demonstrated by the new reactor being built in Normandy.
The Washington Postreports (and Mike Arrington of TechCrunch laments) that everyone’s favorite Internet radio station, Pandora, might be shutting down soon:
Last year, an obscure federal panel ordered a doubling of the per-song performance royalty that Web radio stations pay to performers and record companies. Traditional radio, by contrast, pays no such fee. Satellite radio pays a fee but at a less onerous rate, at least by some measures. As for Pandora, its royalty fees this year will amount to 70 percent of its projected revenue of $25 million, Westergren said, a level that could doom it and other Web radio outfits.
We’re slipping from frenemy to full-on enemy status with Russia. So this is what the Cold War felt like…
When asked about his explosive and ever-rising popularity in an interview with Bob Costas, Michael Phelps referred to Facebook and how he’d received so many friend requests from tag-a-longs, some of whom had even bullied him in his youth. You could feel the awkward, silent incomprehension from Bob Costas and Phelps’ mom. Friend requests? Facebook? Whaaaaa?
Short and sweet. I’ll try to pry myself away from Beijing to put fingertips to keyboard this week. Adieu.
Today, Google released granular sharing controls for its Reader product. Allowing users on a contact-by-contact basis to determine who they share items with (and, in turn, who can share items with them), this upgrade arrived in explicit response to widespread user outcry over a previous upgrade that didn’t give users enough control over their sharing. That was about eight months ago, and the very first post on this blog chronicled and discussed the reaction.
Yeah, that’s right. In only three weeks of employment with Google, I have taken the message of the good ship Tropophilia to the higher-ups and shaken the foundations of the Web itself.
Disclaimer:All content found on Tropophilia represents the thoughts and positions of its authors alone, and does not seek to represent those of their employers.
Jarred linked me to an article about using solar power in conjunction with a small water powered fuel cell. While photovoltaics power a home during the day, surplus power splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, and the two are combined again at night in a fuel cell to produce power. Sounds good enough, but I cannot in good faith agree with the concept.
When I first started using a Mac, I read several different blog posts that recommended a program called 
