Electricity From Thin Air

Sure, we all complain about the humidity on a sweltering summer day. But it turns out that same humidity could be a source of clean, pollution-free energy, a new study shows.

"Air humidity is a vast, sustainable reservoir of energy that, unlike solar and wind, is continuously available," said the study, which was published recently in the journal Advanced Materials.

“This is very exciting,” said Xiaomeng Liu, a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and the paper’s lead author. “We are opening up a wide door for harvesting clean electricity from thin air.”

In fact, researchers say, nearly any material can be turned into a device that continuously harvests electricity from humidity in the air.


Air 'contains an enormous amount of electricity'

“The air contains an enormous amount of electricity,” said Jun Yao, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and the paper’s senior author.  READ MORE...

Slow & Steady

 

Our Great Civilization Called Democracy

Most people with business degrees or backgrounds are conservative and most people with liberal arts degrees or backgrounds are liberals.  Our two parties are Republicans and Democrats respectively.  There are a group of socialists who side with the Democrats and there is a wing of the Democrats that is progressive but not quite socialistic.

Basically, the Republicans want a small central government that favors business and the Democrats want a large central government that favors labor...  although the lines between the two are sometimes blurred, making if difficult to know what side you are really on.

The Democrats want to tax the wealthy to pay for all the programs that they want to give the not so wealthy and don't seem to understand that the wealthy have their money hidden away in off shore bank accounts to AVOID TAXES.

The Conservatives do not trust the rest of the world and want a strong military to protect us against aggression from countries like China and Russia and Middle Eastern Terrorists.

For several decades both the Democrats and Republicans tried to CHANGE THE REST OF THE WORLD INTO OUR BRAND OF DEMOCRACY, not fully understanding nor appreciating the fact that those other countries did not want our brand of Democracy.  Consequently, the rest of the world, dislikes us.

While we disagree with each other at home, the rest of the world is preparing to take us over economically as well as with military force if the economy side does not work.  Americans laugh at that idea and believe it will never happen.  

ALL GREAT CIVILIZATIONS EVENTUALLY COLLAPSE...

Flowing Water

 

Drone Attacks on Russia

Dwindling military resources and a dearth of new targets have left Russian President Vladimir Putin struggling to respond to a rise of troubling drone attacks on Moscow.

Several analysts have noted in recent days that Putin has attempted to downplay dramatic attacks on the Russian capital – for which Ukraine has explicitly denied any responsibility, at least publicly. 

The attacks have gained widespread attention on social media, particularly in Russia, with some observers suggesting that they were the result of a false-flag operation orchestrated by the Kremlin to force national support for a new round of military conscriptions it likely needs.

Yet Putin’s response appears to discount that theory.

Instead of maximizing the attacks for propaganda purposes, the Russian leader’s reaction appears to be an attempt “to avoid exposing the limited options he has to retaliate against Ukraine,” the independent Institute for the Study of War concludes in a new analysis note.

The analysis points to Putin’s explanation earlier this week that Russian forces struck the Ukrainian military intelligence headquarters two or three days previously.  READ MORE...

Amazing Robots

 

Being Present

 

The Pixel Watch

When we reviewed the Pixel Watch back in October, we genuinely liked Google’s first Android smartwatch, and found it to be a solid choice for those not already deep into Samsung’s eco-system. 

One thing we weren’t so keen on was the Pixel Watch’s
disappointing battery life, but if leaked details turn out to be correct, that’s a problem Google plans to fix with the Pixel Watch 2.

As with the original Pixel Watch, Google is expected to announce its second Wear OS-based smartwatch sometime later this year closer to the holiday shopping season. 

Details have been sparse, but according to unnamed sources who recently spoke to 9to5Google, we now potentially know a little bit more about how Google plans to address the shortcomings of the original with the Pixel Watch 2.

Goodbye Samsung Exynos, Hello Qualcomm Snapdragon
The original Pixel Watch arrived with a Samsung Exynos 9110 chipset under the hood, which was already at least three years old at the time, having shown up in Samsung’s own smart wearables a few years prior. 

The Pixel Watch’s interface never felt laggy or like its processor was being over-taxed, but for the Pixel Watch 2, Google is apparently ready to trade-up to the latest W5-series Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset, which will double the number of A53 cores (from two to four) which are built on a 4nm process that will deliver other benefits besides raw processing power...   READ MORE...

In The Water

 

East Tennessee

I am originally from North Carolina, the Piedmont area in between Winston-Salem and Durham.  Because my skill sets were a dime a dozen, I move to Tennessee in 1990 where there was only one other person who had my training.  By 2000, there were hundreds of people like me, but I had gotten there first and had the advantage.   

So, I have lived in Tennessee for thirty-three years.  Actually, I was born in Raleigh, NC and within the year moved up to Alexandria, Virginia where I remained for 15 years before moving to Cairo, Egypt for high school (1962-1966).  In 1966, I went to college in North Carolina and remained there until I left in 1990 or 24 years.  

I have lived the longest in East Tennessee, specifically between Greeneville and Knoxville and just off of Interstate 81.

Our community is full of retirees which makes it nice because there are no loud parties, no loud music, and no loud cars blasting up and down the roads.  Most of the people stay inside but when they are outside, they are neighborly.  Not only are they friendly but they like to help out with projects if you need their help.

From our location:

• It is 2 miles to a Walmart Super Center and Lowes
• It is 28 miles to Knoxville Restaurants
• It is 20-30 minutes to Buc-ee's
• It is 40 minutes to UT Hospital
• It is 50 minutes to Tyson-Mcghee airport
• It is 3 hours to Nashville
• It is 75 minutes to Bristol Raceway (Nascar)
• It is 4 hours to Atlanta, Georgia
• It is 60/90 minutes to Dollywood/Gatlinburg
• It is 2 hours to Cherokee Casino

Please don't tell the illegal immigrants about East TN because I don't want them coming up here and ruining everything.

 

Delivering Balloons

 

Windows Drivers

Microsoft is dealing with a couple of unrelated processor driver problems that are causing headaches for some Windows users.…

Redmond's Windows Update tool is automatically replacing the existing AMD GPU drivers for Windows 10 and Windows 11 with older versions, causing compatibility problems between the newly installed driver and AMD Software already deployed in the devices.


AMD acknowledged the problem and outlined a solution.


Meanwhile, Microsoft issued a temporary fix for a situation where the integrated camera app on some mobile devices, such as Surface Pro X tablets, running on certain Arm-based processors stopped working. The workaround developed by the software maker gets the camera up and running again, though it isn't a complete fix.

In the last couple of weeks, some Windows users were greeted with a dialog box when trying to launch AMD software on mobile and all-in-one systems warning them of the automatic Microsoft Update move and the resulting compatibility problem. When users got out of the warning box, AMD Software wouldn't launch.  READ MORE...

A Special Exercise

 

First Flight

 

Long Lasting Phone Batteries

Phone batteries tend to wear out after only a few years, but the problems don’t end there: the batteries contain heavy metals, which can be damaging to the environment if they are disposed of incorrectly. And yet, figuring out how to dispose of your old phone correctly can be a daunting task. Luckily, researchers in Australia may have just found a way around all of that.


The team of researchers from the RMIT School of Engineering used a nanomaterial called MXene to create a battery that could last up to nine years. ScienceDaily reports that this battery could become a viable alternative to the industry standard lithium-ion batteries, which wear out very quickly and are a challenge to recycle.

MXene has high electrical conductivity, similar to graphene, but with even more benefits because of how malleable it is, according to the researchers.


“Unlike graphene, MXenes are highly tailorable and open up a whole range of possible technological applications in the future,” Professor Leslie Yeo, the lead senior researcher on the project, told ScienceDaily.  READ MORE...

The Fight

 

Saving Money the Easy Way

I found a coffee cup at WalMart for $1 with a lid cover and spill flap and a rubber ring to use when the coffee cup is hot.  I was quite surprised to find anything in WalMart for a dollar anymore.  I have plenty of coffee cups, but they are all packed up because we are moving and the paper cup I was using finally started leaking.

Another store, below the quality of WalMart (if that can be) is BIG LOTS.  They buy non sale items in bulk or discontinued items in bulk and sell it rather cheap.  I know that there a lot of people who claim they would not be caught dead in places like WalMart and BIG LOTS, and those people are usually the snotty wealthy people.  

That is actually strange because while rich people are willing to spend money for quality, they also like to save money when they can, and claim that careful spending is one of the ways they became wealthy.  Who knows???

All I know is that I can paint the house with a $2 paint brush just as good as I can paint the house with a $10 paint brush...  And, I don't need an expensive shovel to dig a ditch...  if you follow my drift.

I remember years ago when my daughter worked for some retail outfit that accepted refunds, telling the story how customers would borrow stuff to use and then return it a few days later (with the receipt) saying they had changed their mind.  One of the most memorable stories was a family buying a set of dishes for 8 people, just before Thanksgiving, and returning them just after Thanksgiving (used but not washed), saying they had changed their minds.

I suppose if you want to save money, this is surely an easy way to do it.

KoolAid

 

Chinese Hackers Target USA

A state-sponsored Chinese hacking group has been spying on a wide ange of US critical infrastructure organizations and similar activities could be occurring globally, western intelligence agencies and Microsoft have warned.

“The United States and international cybersecurity authorities are issuing this joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) to highlight a recently discovered cluster of activity of interest associated with a People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored cyber actor, also known as Volt Typhoon,” said a statement released by authorities in the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK – countries that make up the Five Eyes intelligence network.


In a separate statement, Microsoft said Volt Typhoon had been active since mid-2021 and had targeted critical infrastructure in Guam, a crucial US military outpost in the Pacific Ocean. “Mitigating this attack could be challenging,” Microsoft said.   READ MORE...

Toilet Blues