Sunday, August 30, 2009

lisa! in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!

so this is going to be a long and nerdy post. just an fyi. most of you probably don't care and those that do, maybe you can give me answers to my questions.

so a few years ago i came up with an idea for an electric car that is regenerative. what that means is as the car is using it's batteries to propel the car, it also recharges the batteries which means it will require less stops to recharge the batteries. when i proposed this idea to my brother and my dad a few years ago, they essentially told me i was an idiot and that i had just invented perpetual motion. true. if i had claimed that the car produces 100% + of the energy it was using. unfortunately for them, that is not what i was saying and they were too close minded to understand what i was saying. what i was actually saying was to use the cars forward momentum to supplement the charging of the batteries. it would increase the range of the car, but eventually you would still have to stop and plug in or recharge the batteries in some way.

i have done some research online about this subject and have found that others that have this idea are also met with people telling them they have invented perpetual motion. i say again, open your mind and hear what we are actually saying. not 100% in and out. 100% out, maybe 80% in as opposed to the almost 0% in currently.

so if you just hooked an alternator up to the car, it would basically take 100% of the energy from the motor to push the car forward. this means there is then no energy left to turn the alternator. if you get the car moving and then engage the alternator, you are essentially counteracting the motor with the alternator and the car would come to a stop. so you use regenerative braking systems like in hybrid cars. meaning the alternators do not spin while the car is in motion so that all of the power from the motor is used for propelling the car. when it is time to stop the car, instead of having standard friction brakes that convert forward momentum into heat in order to stop the car, you have the alternator that is designed to counteract the momentum of the car. so pretty much when you hit the breaks you are actually turning off the electric motor and engaging the alternator which will take the forward momentum and turn it into rotational movement and create electricity. the car stops, the batter charges. unfortunately, what this means is that if you wanted to keep your car charged while you are using electricity to propel it, you have to constantly start and stop. aka, driving on city streets. on the highway where there is very little braking so very little spinning of the alternator, which means you are using up all the battery power without recharging.

this is obviously a major flaw in my design and of course is no where near perpetual motion. so step one is to put a regenerative braking system in the car. step two is to find supplemental systems to supply more power to the batteries. ideally, you want to do this without without a negative effect on the electric motor. meaning, a way to recharge the batteries that doesn't require energy from the momentum of the car or what have you. an example, it has been proposed that you could attach the alternator to a fan blade and as the car is driving forward, the blade would spin the alternator and charge the battery. the only downside is that with the friction of the air, it will require energy to spin the blade which basically means the fan blade will make the car less aerodynamic and in turn will make the motor work harder to keep the car moving. i might be possible to add a gearing system to the fan so that on initial start up, there will be no positive production from the fan, but as the fan spins and moves up through the gears, it takes less and less energy to spin the blade, which means more energy being added to the batteries. this system would only be engaged while on long stretches of highway. if you were to use it in the city with the constant starting and stopping, the fan blade would never make it through the gears to a gear that makes it easy to spin, and you would just use as much energy as is being produced.

so what we have now is an electric car with regenerative braking to charge in the city and a geared fan system to recharge on long highway runs. with these two systems, you could probably produce a system that would greatly extend the range of an electric car to a point where it could make long trips like gas or hybrid cars can. but there are other ways to get electricity to the batteries that actually require no extra force from the electric motor and doesn't even require the car to be moving or on. if you just said solar, then you are correct. now if you've researched solar at all, you know that solar powered cars are fairly slow and lack in power. solar, though completely independent of friction and momentum and such, is mostly a low voltage type of power source. the amount of solar panels it would take to power an entire car or charge batteries at the rate an electric car would use it, would be more than you could possibly put onto the surface of a car and at that point, the weight of the solar panels would make the car use more energy to move forward. but, if you placed of the high efficiency solar panels on the roof (similar to the ones the new Yaris uses to power the A/C systems) you could use it as a trickle charger for the batteries. what this means is that while the car is moving, city or highway, it will always have two systems charging the batteries. but it also means that when the car is completely stopped and the first two systems are inoperable, the solar system is still charging. stop lights, traffic jams, stopping to get gas to grab a bite to eat. at all times the solar system is charging the car. that will not only extend the time between a full charging further, but it will also decrease the amount of time an actual plug in charge would take to charge (assuming the car is exposed to sun of course)(this is where the true solar nerd installs windows in their garage roofs to allow the sun to shine even when parked in the garage.)

all of these things would make the electric car usable like a real car. depending on the efficiency of the motor and batteries and all of the components of the car, it would be possible to create an electric car that could make a cross country trip on a single charge.

Friday, August 28, 2009

things you can't do while your wife is asleep in the other room

play the trumpet
clean the bedroom
make cookies (the mixer is loud)
install quarter round
vacuum
yell at the cats
watch a loud movie
practice the speech from braveheart
yodel
play with laser legos (you don't have them...only i do. and they're loud)
pantomime Shakespeare
practice drums on rockband


the only one i actually want to do is the last one. but i can't do the others either. at least not without being a dick. no 1 am yodeling for me.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

you're doooooomed..you're all doooooooommed


That's the front page of the indystar news paper today. in giant 72pt text. at least their not fear mongering at all.
OH MY GOD! I HAVE THE PORK FLU...AND YOU HAVE THE PORK FLU...AND THIS KEYBOARD HAS THE PORK FLU...AND THAT HOMELESS GUY HAS IT....AND THE AIR...AND THE FRIDGE...AND THE BABIES!! THEY ALL HAVE THE PORK FLU!!! I WOULD SHOOT MYSELF...BUT THE GUNS HAVE PORK FLU!!!! AAAHHAAHAHHHAAAAHHH.
man, if i got the pork flu, i would have to stay at home and lay on the couch and eat soup and drink sprite. fuck you pork flu. that's a terrible fate and i refuse to submit to it.....actually, it sounds like a sunday. so i guess mondays are the cure for the pork flu. but what will cure a case of the mondays!!! assume mondays are everywhere.

i think a better headline to replace the one above would be: "official: take vitamins, don't eat like shit and use common sense"

the only good thing that will come of this article will be that the entire world will be terrified of the pork flu. then i can go around and just start coughing on things. once i do, people will assume it is now infected, and i get to keep it.

corvette dealer: cough cough....well, i better get this infected corvette our of your way.
Best buy: sorry i coughed on all of your dvds and wii games. i'll get those out of here right away.
people carrying babies: sorry i coughed on your baby. i guess i'll take it. (i know what you're saying, jason, why would you want to cough on a baby. then you have to take it. and i say, what's the point of building all of those cages in my garage if i'm not going to have a fresh stock of babies to keep in them. didn't think about that did you. side note: huge baby blow out this weekend. all babies 1/2 off. the ones that are infected with pork flu 3/4 off.


this week so far (12:30 on thursday) i have received 340 email at work. this does not include junk mail or stuff like that. these are 340 emails that i have to read and respond to or analyse. no real rant about this other than outlook is becoming a trigger for explosive diarrhea.

also, if you climbed into a car backwards in the back seat, you can't claim that the car is designed poorly. you're just using it wrong. the same principle applies to the internet and web pages. write that down.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

hey homer, way to get marge pregnant

if you've ever received a card from me, there's a good chance it either has nothing to do with the actual event the card is for, or it's just inappropriate in some other way.

this is because of two factors:
1. i hate shopping for cards so i tend to just grab a random card and call it a day.
2. i hate sappy cards even for sappy situations.

example: last night heather and i had to buy a card for a baby shower. i quickly found i was very disappointed in their funny cards for people having a baby. needless to say, they had two cards that were considered funny and they would only be funny to you if you were home schooled and had no friends.

my idea was to make my own card company in which i create funny / inappropriate cards for situations that don't normally call for it. by inappropriate, i don't technically mean gross or something. for my friends graduation, i got him a little pink fuzzy kitty card that said "someone thinks you're special" and on the inside it said "it's me!". inappropriate as in, not related to that subject at all. in fact, i think for my brothers college graduation, i found a thank you card that said "thanks for not using all of the toilet paper". Not sure why there was a card like that, but it worked for my needs.

so since i've discovered this niche, i feel it is my duty to fill the world with cards it didn't think it needed.

Card 1: Congratulations - Baby
the front of the card has all kinds of images from all around the world. the cliffs of moher, the Eiffel tower, the great wall of china...and so on. then on the inside it says: "congratulations on your baby. i hope you enjoyed the cover of this card because those are all places you'll never get to go now.

card 2: Congratulations - Baby
the outside cover is just a picture or drawing of a baby. the inside says: here's to hoping your baby isn't a mongoloid.

card 3: Congratulations - Baby
the outside says: "i hear your being blessed with a baby!" then the inside is a free, fold out for sale sign and says: "you can use this for sale sign to sell your sports car you worked so hard to get"

card 4: Congratulations - Baby
on the outside it just says congratulations. on the inside ( this is a scented card), it smells of baby poop and it just says "get used to this smell"

card 5: Congratulations - Baby
outside: "babies are truly a blessing from god. babies bring endless happiness."
inside: a sheet of sandpaper and a small hammer and the text reads: "babies also bring destruction. use this card to pre-destroy all of your shit.

card 6: Congratulations - Baby
this is one of those audio cards.
outside: it shows a mom and a dad relaxing together, having a bit of wine.
inside: as soon as you open the card, it makes a loud crashing noise followed by crying. the text reads: "babies: ruining romantic evenings since that fateful night when the condom broke"

and so on and so on.

this idea can be applied to just about any subject.

outside: sorry to her that your grandpa died
inside: happy to hear about the classic mustang you just inherited.

outside: a card is the perfect way to say...
inside: that i gave you herpes...
back: and the clap

outside: sorry to hear about your accident. arms don't grow back, but it could be worse...
inside: at least you can't be turned into a midget by accident.

outside: i'm sorry to hear your hair dresser fuck up your head.
inside: at least that shit grows back, you're stuck with that Chinese symbol tattoo forever.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

wild wacky action bike! it's really hard to ride!

i hope danica patrick knows that she's setting her sex back in her sport. she does all of these go daddy commercials where she pretends to be all sexy ( i say pretends because on a scale of 1-10, 10 being hot as the sun, she's about a 3....i don't want to vomit.....but i am counting the seconds until i don't have to see her anymore). so she does these go daddy commercials. the other go daddy girls...what's a good word for them....whores? sure. i don't use that word often. it's one of those words i only use when i mean it. if you have seen any of the godaddy commercials, you understand. their spokes women are good examples of whores. selling out their sex to promote a terrible web host. when danica patrick first came into auto racing i honestly respected her. she was good. compared to most of the women in racing, she had potential. it was nice to see a woman in a mans sport actually doing well. then she started posing for magazines, and she became a godaddy girl and she sold out her sex. now i don't mind selling out. i get it. you have a niche. you're a woman in a man's sport, or you just won the super bowl and you have a catchy dance that kraft wants to use. fine. sell out. that's fine. earn everything you can from your popularity. it's fleeting. but for the love of fuck have some respect. when danica won her first race, i was happy to see it happen, and sad at the same time. it meant she was going to be more popular...and for her, that means more shitty godaddy commercials. maybe this is fueled by my hated for godaddy. or maybe it's fueled by my destruction of respect for someone who could have worked wonders in the position she is in. she's been thinking about moving to nascar. there's only one thing that rednecks hate as much as minorities, and that's women. i'm not saying that she shouldn't try nascar, i'm just saying the transition from indy to nascar is very VERY hard. dario franchitti tried it. he's an amazing indycar driver (my favorite). he tried a season in nascar. he wrecked all the time and lost his sponsor and his ride before his first season was over. he came back to indycar and has won several races and leads the points. he's a great driver. danica is good. not great. please don't use being a female as a launchpad into nascar where you will most likely fail.

just as i type this, commercial #5 staring danica is on tv. fuck you comedy central for only buying 3 commercials for 12 hours of programming.

there was actually a second subject i was going to add to this blog post, but for the life of me i can't remember what it is. instead i spent way too much time complaining about danica. oh and firefox....i updated you once already...if you honestly have 2 updates in 1 day...then i declare you need a better QA dept.