Rubinium.org » General

Amazon Pre-pre-pre-order

A R Baboon — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 19:18:30 +0000

Looking at my amazon recomendations I came across this pre-order recomendation for Jan 2010. How the heck would I know what I want to buy 4 years from now? Are the going to float the charge for that long? Will I even have the same credit cards? Will Amazon.com be overrun by a meniacal machine intelligence? Me thinks this is a mistake.

Would You Like a Reuben, Mr. Yakomoto

A R Baboon — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 20:40:38 +0000

I had a very sickening experience the other night. The Short Hills Deli (which is more of a diner) now has LCD billboards that scroll advertisements while you eat. I will not be returning to the diner for a sit-down meal until they remove this intrusion. We all know what is next and I do not like it!

The Urine Communicator
New age walking signs
Bumvertising
Etc.

Bathroom Cowbell

A R Baboon — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 19:05:21 +0000

I can’t tell you how bizzare it is to have smooth jazz in the bathroom at work. In any case I got to hear Barry White’s “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love” today and I noticed that the percussion is entirely cowbell. Here is a tracking site, I will be paying more attention now:
http://www.geekspeakweekly.com/cowbell

Fill her up with metal?

A R Baboon — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:12:41 +0000

There is a major problem with modern fuel cell technology, how to get pure hydrogen to the actual reactive membrane. One way is to extract it (usually through electrolysis) at a factory and try to store it in a pure form. This has obvious downsides like what happens to a tank of pure hydrogen at 4,000 psi on impact. Another way is to store it as part of a relatively simple hydrocarbon molecule and then use a permanent platinum reformer to grab off some hydrogen. Think of how much an inget of platinum must cost and you can see this is not feasable. A few years ago a group provided another solution (pun intended) which was to hold the hydrogen in sodium borohydride, a stable liquid that would readily release it. This approach still takes more energy to collect the fuel than the fuel releases when used.

An Israeli company called Engineuity may have come up with a new, more elegant method of gathering some pure hydrogen. They continuously feed a rod of a light metal like aluminum to oxidize in water leaving behind the hydrogen for the taking. With a little heat supposedly the process produces enough of a flowrate. Then the heat produced by the oxidation itself keeps the process self sustaining. The metal oxide is conveniently heavy for filtration and recycling. There is a builtin distilation part of this process so the filtration is not even an issue.

And you thought it was bad for a car to rust. Clearly some companies have been, um, “preparing” for this technology for quite some time. I can only imagine that these companies who have established themselves as the leaders in the rusting car department will emerge as leaders for the new “hydrogen economy”.

Still a couple of problems with fuel cell technology assuming this technology can be brought to market. One is now we have to ship metal around to supply as fuel and reclaim for recycling. The second issue is even though we would not need a platinum reformer, we would still use an expensive platinum membrane for the most promising technology for fuel cell construction (PEM).

Discount Solar Systems

A R Baboon — Sat, 01 Oct 2005 17:42:17 +0000

Wow, I did not even know they put them up for sale yet.

Searching Gets a Little More Complete

A R Baboon — Wed, 15 Dec 2004 16:19:23 +0000

Google is rolling out string completion on its searches. I wish this could have been tab completion, but oh well. Also out is Google Scholar which does seem to contain technical journals and should make my life much easier.

A sad day for the medical profession.

Heather — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 15:41:26 +0000

I called my doctor\’s office this morning, and to my dismay, found out that my doctor has retired. I was completely shocked because she is so young. She just had a child a couple of years ago, so hopefully she has retired to spend time with her family and not because of an illness or something horrible like that.

I have to say that this woman single handedly restored my faith in doctors. Lets just say I had quite a few bad experiences in the past. Enough to make me develop a phobia of going to see a doctor at all.

She had a wonderful bedside manor. She actually listened to ALL of my concerns and would address each and every one. She was on the ball and knew her stuff, and that is more than I could say about some of the doctors I’ve seen in the past (and yes, including the one’s labeled “Best in Philly” by a popular publication.)

I cannot say enough good things about Dr. Dishler, but I hope whatever she is doing now, she is happy.

Transformers breakdancing

Heather — Tue, 10 Aug 2004 13:37:15 +0000

This is too awesome not to post. You must check it out. link

Velvet Revolver

Heather — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 18:06:57 +0000

Velvet Revolver
Contraband
Sucks. No Stars For You!

I had so many hope for this one. But all of my hopes were pooped on. I seriously plan on returning the cd.
Soap Box:
Not only was the music so terrible that I had to stop it, but they are a bunch of sell outs. I attempted to listen to the piece of crap on my computer at work and a license agreement pops up. It asks me to agree to all this bull sh*t and it automatically installed some freakin’ spy ware on my machine. So obviously, I choose not to accept the license agreement. I was confused, because I bought the damn cd, so therefore I own it …right? Apparently not. Because I did not agree to license it made the cd skip. Then as if I wasn’t pissed off enough, when I stopped it it crashed my computer.
I’d like to reference the South Park episode 709.

Putting the “F” back in Funny

Heather — Thu, 05 Aug 2004 18:05:59 +0000

I must see this!

http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/team_america/