Vacuum - Edward Vielmetti in Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104

Pedal powered washing machine

Homeless Dave has this video documenting his design, implementation, and real world daily use of a dual use pedal power system, with a pedal powered washing machine spinning clothes dry, and a separate belt going to a generator for electricity.

We talked on Teeter Talk back in September, and you'll catch a piece of the washing machine discussion there. Naturally there's a sticker.

go urgently, and find some mechanical engineer while you're at it who has powertrain or appliance experience to look at the design and source parts for an improved version.

Technorati Tags: pedalpower, laundry, teetertalk, homelessdave, specialized

Vacuum cooking: the Gastrovac

When you write a blog called Vacuum, you get all kinds of traffic to your site that you don't expect or plan to see any sense in. Then, slowly but surely, you feel an unexplainable compulsion to be an "internet expert" (i.e. someone who quotes really well from real experts) in all things vacuum.

Thus, this note on vacuum cooking, and the remarkable device called the Gastrovac.

A photo of this apparatus on Flickr (I'll thumbnail it here when I get permission).

Time Magazine: "Adoring a vacuum", Sept 2006

The patented Gastrovac is the result of that kind of collaboration. To design it, Torres and Javier Andrés, of Valencia's well-regarded La Sucursal restaurant, joined forces with a team of scientists at Valencia's Polytechnic University. But there's a big difference to the Gastrovac's goal: while Adrià and Blumenthal routinely rely on kitchen alchemy to turn one food into another (this summer's menu at Adrià's El Bulli in Rosas, Spain, features gelatin and olive oil made into "false olives" and melon turned into caviar), the Gastrovac uses technology to make food taste more like itself.

International Cooking Concepts: Gastrovac, the vacuum revolution

The Gastrovac is a compact appliance for cooking and impregnating in a vacuum. It is patented in over 160 countries and developed with the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia and the cooks Javier Andrés (La Sucursal Restaurant, Valencia) and Sergio Torres (El Rodat Restaurant, Jávea). It functions as follows: by creating an artificial low pressure, oxygen-free atmosphere, the Gastrovac considerably reduces cooking and frying temperatures, maintaining the texture, colour and nutrients of the food. Moreover, the Gastrovac creates the “sponge effect”: when the atmospheric pressure is restored, the food absorbs the liquid around it, allowing infinite combinations of foods and flavours.

Details in the owner's manual (pdf)

IN ORDER TO CAUSE THE “SPONGE EFFECT” DURING THE VAUUM BREAKING PROCESS, IT IS ADVISABLE TO PRESS THE VACUUM BREAKING BUTTON SEVERAL TIMES (AS MANY AS POSSIBLE) UNTIL THE MEASURE GAUGE INDICATES ABOUT -0,5 BAR. ONCE THIS LEVEL IS REACHED, WE CAN THEN DISCONNECT THE VACUUM HOSE FROM THE OUTLET ON THE LID, OR PRESS THE VACUUM BREAKING BUTTON UNTIL THE MEASURE GAUGE INDICATES 0. THIS PROCESS WILL HELP THE PRODUCT TO ABSORB THE LIQUID WHERE IT IS DIPED

Technorati Tags: vacuum, gastrovac, food, sponge-effect, la-sucursal, valencia, google-mobile-docs

Identity swap

When Jim Benson opened up his web browser one day, he discovered that he was someone else. One of the perils of using borrowed hardware to establish a temporary identity is that if you are not really careful, you can leave quite a bit of your identity behind.

This is as good a reason as any to put your temporary identity on a thumb drive, so that you don't leave droppings behind that cause confusion (or worse). Jeremy Wagstaff's Directory of Programs Designed for USB Drives is a good place to start for mostly Windows setups; Lifehacker's Carry your life on a thumb drive is good too.

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) demo by Hakon Wium Lie

from Youtube via Ridhi D'Cruz and Michael Gurstein on the community informatics list.

Also on OLPC, this TED Talk from Nicholas Negroponte:

Technorati Tags: olpc, opera

Crank power: generating electrical energy from human power

Every summer, or so it seems, the power goes out. And every summer we wish we had enough at-home generating capacity to keep a radio working, to keep our cell phones charged, and perhaps even to keep some computing equipment going.

I collected some reviews of human powered energy devices under the tag crankpower. Here are some excerpts from what I found. Note that I don't have a good answer just yet from personal experience.

Low power, handheld, suitable for recharging a cell phone: the sort of device you're looking at would be similar to a Datex SuperBattery. It's hand cranked, offers a flashlight plus a series of power tips for a variety of phones. You'll see these in flashlight only configurations in any hardware store but the power takeoff is less typical in retail.

Hand crank with a radio: you're looking for something with the feature set of an Eton radio, which does hand crank powered battery driving a radio, lantern, and again some kind of cell phone charger. These have been given out as premiums to public radio station supporters. Again these tend to be relatively low power output.

Foot pedal operated, portable: the device of most interest is the Freeplay Weza, a treadle operated (also 120V and solar panel ready) generator and battery capable of jump starting a car. You pay for the extra battery capacity, but with the variety of input devices this could be the core of a small off-the-grid power system. An exceptionally good review here

I plan on keeping this little puppy. It will do exactly what I wanted. It is a source of emergency power that will keep small electronics up and running indefinitely. I also purchased a 12 volt battery charger for AAA - D sized rechargeable batteries. I was affected by the multi-state power grid failure about three years ago. I realized that if something like that lasted more than about 5 - 7 days, there will be no gas for generators. Solar is a very good option, but it is not easily portable, and is of course sun dependent and needs a storage battery. For real emergencies , this unit would be easy to transport, and should be ready whenever needed.

Bicycle style, stationary: a variety of homebrew devices beckon, calling the skills of the amateur cyclist who is also an electrical engineer. Typical is this discussion on Otherpower of a project that reuses an old 3-speed bicycle, a furnace blower motor and hard drive magnets to generate 100 watts of power. The author notes

I'll have to admit...it's kind of wobbly and a little bit scary when pedaled at full speed.

Bicycle style, mobile: a good extended discussion at Metafilter about adapting a SON dynamo hub to power on-bicycle electronics. The best detailed information is in German only on Rad Forum Lader with a series of plans for making the conversion. It's an electrical engineering challenge, since the SON puts out

nominal 6 volt, variable frequency, variable voltage power, which greatly restricts your choice of parts for voltage transformation and DC conversion.

Technorati Tags: crankpower, energy, generator, power

Overheard in Union Station, Washington DC

(not an exact quote)

"My entire life is on my Blackberry - they said it would take 72 hours to repair it, I couldn't imagine being without it for that long."

Technorati Tags: crackberry

How to jump start a car

Warning: there are things that can go wrong when you jump start a car that can be hazardous or even deadly. Do not attempt to jump start a car unless you are aware of these precautions.

That said, in most cases, it's pretty easy. From About.com's auto repair site:

The first thing to be right about is the order to connect the cables:

Attach one end of one cable to the dead battery's positive terminal.

Attach the other end of the same cable to the positive terminal of the battery in the starting vehicle.

Attach one end of the other cable to the negative terminal of the battery in the starting vehicle.

Attach the other end of that cable to the engine block of the car with the dead battery. Look for unpainted metal surfaces and be sure it will clear anything moving when the car starts. Do not attach the negative cable to the dead battery itself.

Got that? Dead + / Live + / Live - / Dead engine block. Some jumper cables will have those numbered.

Edmunds.com has a jump-start page with instructions and video

Step Five
Make a final check to confirm that the jumper cables are not near any moving engine parts, and start the booster car. Let it idle for several minutes, depending on the state of the dead battery. If the dead battery is new and was drained by the lights being left on an extended period of time, it will probably start immediately. If it is an old battery or it has sat for a long time (more than a month) it will probably take awhile to charge it sufficently.

Prevent Blindness America has a page of precautions when jump-starting a battery:

1. Check your battery for cracks, corrosion, and loose wires every time you change your oil.

2. Always wear a pair of splash-proof polycarbonate goggles when jump-starting your battery. Your goggles should have a Z-87 label on the frame. This means your goggles are certified use during auto repairs.

3. Never smoke or use anything that may spark when working on your battery. Car batteries contain hydrogen and oxygen, two gasses that could ignite and explode.

Mr. Fixit has a page

Once the car has started run it at fast idle for a few minutes. Assuming that its charging system is up to snuff, this will charge the battery sufficiently to restart the car after the next step. To make sure that you aren't injured I recommend that you now turn off both engines so that you can safely remove the cables without getting tangled in the moving parts like fan blades and belts. Remove the cables in the reverse order that you used to hook them up, taking the ground cable clamp from the engine metal first. After removing the cables immediately re-start the car. If you feel comfortable removing the cables with the engine running have a care about loose clothing and fingers and keep the cables away from moving parts.

"Black and Decker VEC026BD 400 Electromate JumpStarter / Inflator" (Vector)

"Freeplay Energy FC1CG Freecharge Weza Foot-Powered Portable Generator" (Freeplay Energy)

"Black & Decker Simple Start Battery Booster #BB7B" (Vector)

"Xantrex 852-2000 XPower Powerpack 600HD Portable Backup Power Source" (Xantrex Technologies)

Arranging ad hoc meetings with Plazes

Plazes seems to work OK now that I'm spending time on a campus where there's enough density of people during the day who move from place to place that it's handy indeed to know that they're in the building. One almost-meetup this week with Bill Tozier ended up with an off-campus lunch that same day after missing each other for weeks.

I'm reminded of the way that play dates are a lot easier once school starts back up, there's a lot more people on the playground.

Thinking about what it would cost (and how I would fund) a Plazes Mobile account - you need a Series 60 phone and a data plan for it, and though I could tack on another account for my T-Mobile family plan without too much trouble there's the small matter of the phone itself which isn't cheap. (unless I can get it to run on a cast-off N-Gage, there's a thought.)

(now where's my mobile category)

(i'm really after research I can do while I'm out walking around)

Technorati Tags: nokia, plazes, series60, ngage, mobile, n-gage

Walker tracker as a mobile step-logging system

I use Walker Tracker as my step logging system, typing in how many paces my pedometer has gone and a few notes on the day. There's a nice little community there, kept small by the requirement to actually be out and active and to care enough to track it.

Recently I have been exercising my mobile phone as a web device and have discovered to my delight that this site works quite well on a Blackberry. It is slow (I blame the T-Mobile GPRS network for that) but pages render faithfully.

There's something properly self-rewarding about writing how your walk is going while you are walking. It doesn't speed things up in any way - the keyboard typing while on foot is quite slow - and makes you look unearthly. I walk late at night in a quiet safe neighborhood, and that works out pretty well.

Technorati Tags: walking, blackberry

Eli is a rock star.

Just saying.