I've seen comments of that nature for the powering of televisions or laptops and it is a neat idea - while you're burning calories you get to Do Something else. Or while you're Doing Something that usually Isn't Exercise you get exercise. I'm not sure it's entirely practical, but I can see the appeal. But there's something even simpler than that.

When visiting sistaur I used her stationary bike for exercise, but the batteries had run down so I didn't get any indication of speed or distance or calories burned. As I had not much else to do I started pondering that. There I was, burning calories (the whole point of the... exercise, yes) and generating motion which was then... thrown away. Okkay, the front "wheel" is a sort of fan so there is some self-cooling involved. But it seems that a small (even tiny) generator, a regulator, and maybe a rechargeable battery, would be the right way to go. Gadget not displaying? Throw some calories at it, it'll come right up! It's not as if you were going to be conserving those calories. They might as well be made useful even if only in a small way.

In the Spring and in the Fall there are times when I don't need to run the rear window defogger or the air conditioner in my car. If I drive mostly highway miles on a tank of gas then, I can get almost 40 mpg. Almost. Somehow I never quite seem to make it to 40 mpg. The last tank, however, did it. I got better than 42 mpg. While it was mostly highway miles, and at speeds of 55 and 65 mph, that's not likely the reason for the improvement. It was the gasoline.

No, really. It's not that it was a special brand, it was that I filled the tank in Wisconsin. Wisconsin, overall, uses straight gasoline. I had been filling the tank, naturally, in Minnesota. In Minnesota, almost all gasoline is 10% ethanol. It takes 1.4 gallons of ethanol do the work that 1 gallon of gasoline does. So by filling up in Wisconsin, I had more energy in the tank than I when I fill up in Minnesota.

Please note that I have not said that ethanol is bad idea. Or a good one. I'm just noting the difference in energy as it presented itself to me.

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Music: S-100 Bus - Frank Hayes

Someone probably thought of this before, but even so, here is a bit of speculation probably loaded with wrong assumptions and horrible oversimplifications.

( Some thoughts on time travel... )

Current Mood: contemplative