October 5, 2012
Wave power is the transport of energy by ocean surface waves, and the capture of that energy to do useful work – for example, electricity generation, water desalination, or the pumping of water (into reservoirs). Machinery able to exploit wave power is generally known as a wave energy converter (WEC). Wave power is distinct from tidal power and the steady gyre of ocean currents.
In 2008, the first experimental wave farm was opened in Portugal, at the Aguçadoura Wave Park. Waves are generated by wind passing over the surface of the sea. As long as the waves propagate slower than the wind speed just above the waves, there is an energy transfer from the wind to the waves. Both air pressure differences between the upwind and the lee side (the side sheltered from the wind) of a wave crest, as well as friction on the water surface by the wind, making the water to go into the shear stress causes the growth of the waves. Continue reading →
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October 5, 2012
Tidal power, also called tidal energy, is a form of hydropower that converts the energy of tides into useful forms of power – mainly electricity. Although not yet widely used, tidal power has potential for future electricity generation. Tides are more predictable than wind energy and solar power. Among sources of renewable energy, tidal power has traditionally suffered from relatively high cost and limited availability of sites with sufficiently high tidal ranges or flow velocities, thus constricting its total availability.
However, many recent technological developments and improvements, both in design (e.g. dynamic tidal power, tidal lagoons) and turbine technology (e.g. new axial turbines, cross flow turbines), indicate that the total availability of tidal power may be much higher than previously assumed, and that economic and environmental costs may be brought down to competitive levels. Continue reading →
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October 4, 2012
In the United States, clean coal is any technology that may reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses that arise from the burning of coal for electrical power. Typically, the term clean coal is used by coal companies in reference to carbon capture and storage (CCS), which pumps and stores emissions underground, and to plants using an Integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC), which is technology that turns coal and other carbon based fuels into synthesis gas (‘syngas,’ which can be used to produce diesel, or converted into methane or other fuels).
Historically, the term has been used to refer to technologies for reducing emissions of ash, sulfur, and heavy metals from coal combustion. Carbon capture and storage technologies are being developed primarily in response to regulations by the EPA—most notably the ‘Clean Air Act’—and in anticipation of legislation that seeks to mitigate climate change. Currently, the electricity sector of the United States is responsible for about 41% of the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions, and half of the sector’s production comes from coal-fired power plants. Continue reading →
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October 4, 2012
Leather is a durable and flexible material created by tanning animal rawhide and skin, often cattle hide. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the process draws its name (tannin is in turn named for an old German word for oak or fir trees, which supplied it).
Rawhide is made by removing the flesh and fat and then the hair (leather with the hair still attached is called ‘hair-on’) by use of an aqueous solution (this process is called ‘liming’ when using lime or ‘bucking’ when using lye), then scraping over a beam with a somewhat dull knife, and then drying (often while stretched). Liming or bucking also cleans the fiber network of the skin to encourage penetration of the tanning agent. Continue reading →
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October 3, 2012
Feminist science fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction which tends to deal with women’s roles in society. Feminist science fiction poses questions about social issues such as how society constructs gender roles, the role reproduction plays in defining gender and the unequal political and personal power of men and women.
Some of the most notable feminist science fiction works have illustrated these themes using utopias to explore a society in which gender differences or gender power imbalances do not exist, or dystopias to explore worlds in which gender inequalities are intensified, thus asserting a need for feminist work to continue. According to professor Elyce Rae Helford: ‘Science fiction and fantasy serve as important vehicles for feminist thought, particularly as bridges between theory and practice. No other genres so actively invite representations of the ultimate goals of feminism: worlds free of sexism, worlds in which women’s contributions (to science) are recognized and valued, worlds in which the diversity of women’s desire and sexuality, and worlds that move beyond gender.’ Continue reading →
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October 3, 2012
Alcohol Without Liquid is a process introduced first in Asia and Europe that allows people to take in liquor (distilled spirits) without actually consuming liquid. The machine vaporizes alcohol and mixes it with oxygen, allowing the consumer to breathe in the mixture.
The machine has been dubbed AWOL, a play on the military term AWOL (Absent Without Leave). The AWOL machine produces a very fine alcoholic mist. The continual intake of this mist over a twenty-minute period is the equivalent of taking one shot of distilled spirits. The machine was introduced to the United States in 2004. Continue reading →
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October 3, 2012
In Broadcast programming, counterprogramming is the practice of offering television programs to attract an audience from another television station airing a major event. The Super Bowl is among the most-viewed programs on American television. Thus, counterprogramming focuses on the pre-game period and the halftime show.
However, it is a common gentlemen’s agreement that the broadcast networks who carry the league’s game coverage (and in turn, other cable networks owned by the broadcasters) never counterprogram the Super Bowl, yielding to the game and airing either low profile reruns of their series or a middling film in the timeslot instead. Continue reading →
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October 3, 2012
The term box office bomb or flop generally refers to a film that is viewed as highly unsuccessful or unprofitable during its theatrical run, sometimes preceding hype regarding its production, cost, or marketing efforts.
Not all films that fail to earn back their estimated costs during their theatrical runs are bombs, and the label is generally applied to films that miss earnings projections by a wide margin, particularly when they are very expensive to produce, and sometimes in conjunction with middling or poor reviews (though critical reception has nothing to do with box office performance). A film can be box office bomb, even though international distribution, sales to television syndication, and home video releases often mean some films that are considered flops in North America eventually make a profit for their studios. Continue reading →
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October 2, 2012
Old Bay Seasoning is a blend of herbs and spices that is currently marketed in the United States by McCormick & Company, and produced in Maryland.
It is produced in the Chesapeake Bay area where it was developed by German immigrant Gustav Brunn in the 1940s, and where the seasoning is very popular to this day. At that time, crabs were so plentiful that bars in Baltimore offered them free and seasonings like Old Bay were created to encourage patrons to purchase more beverages. Continue reading →
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October 2, 2012
‘The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era’ is a non-fiction book by American economist Jeremy Rifkin, published in 1995.
Rifkin contended that worldwide unemployment would increase as information technology eliminated tens of millions of jobs in the manufacturing, agricultural, and service sectors. He predicted devastating impact of automation on blue-collar, retail and wholesale employees. Continue reading →
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October 2, 2012
An infomorph is a virtual body of information that can possess emergent features such as personality. The term was first described in Charles Platt’s 1991 novel ‘The Silicon Man,’ where it refers to a single biological consciousness transferred into a computer through a process of mind transfer. In the book, a character refers to an infomorph as ‘intelligence held in a computer memory,’ and an ‘information entity.’
Russian artificial intelligence theorist Alexander Chislenko uses the same word in his 1996 essay ‘Networking in the Mind Age,’ to refer to a software agent that possesses distributed intelligence. Whether the vision shared in Platt’s novel will ever be more than a theory is uncertain, but computing power is still increasing exponentially, and the ‘Future of Humanity Institute’ at Oxford University have considered the philosophical and technical feasibility of this theory at some point in the future. Continue reading →
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October 2, 2012
Whole brain emulation or mind uploading (sometimes called mind transfer) is the hypothetical process of transferring or copying a conscious mind from a brain to a non-biological substrate by scanning and mapping a biological brain in detail and copying its state into a computer system or another computational device.
The computer would have to run a simulation model so faithful to the original that it would behave in essentially the same way as the original brain, or for all practical purposes, indistinguishably. The simulated mind is assumed to be part of a virtual reality simulated world, supported by an anatomic 3D body simulation model. Alternatively, the simulated mind could be assumed to reside in a computer inside (or connected to) a humanoid robot or a biological body, replacing its brain.
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