I want to see a bus covered in these things, running the starfield screen saver! The OLED has finally landed.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - sometimes to my own clown-faced reflection in a cracked mirror (illuminated by a single, dim, non-CF bulb that has somehow survived as long as the peeling wallpaper, with a sway as perpetual and ghostly as its power source):

"If the true price of gasoline was displayed at the pump, factoring in war, health, environment, blah blah blah... the calculations would look a little different." Stick that in your Volt and smell the sweet ozone.

It constantly amazes me that intelligent citizens, who, rightly so, believe in talking snakes and gravity-defying deities, cannot grasp the concept of a level playing field.

I made a post, but it seems to have vanished - very odd. Had not seen your reply at that time.
My points were something like:
-both systems use asphalt. pipes add area plus mechanical cracking.
-hoses spring back into shape (yep, the energy is taken from compression to do that).
-better to use restaurant waste-heat to melt ice.
-light snow turns either system into reflectors.
-idea more about generating power than melting ice, and I felt numbers seemed low (I drive and ride EVs).
-not mentioned, but felt my speed numbers were too low as well. revised to more like 15>2 in a few seconds.
-not mentioned, but idea may work well at stop lights since back-pressure could be modulated.
-not mentioned, but in light of new calculations, it might be a viable idea if $$ was low enough. interesting...

why not the LS2LS7?:

I'm afraid you've possibly misunderstood my implementation of a kinetic-energy harvesting device.

My version captures far, far more energy than the original idea blogged about here. My comparison to driving through sand is fair for my version, so imagine how that would feel when compared to hitting a momentary action generator.

Also, when it comes to melting snow, I mentioned a heat pump, which would multiply the harvested energy several times. Try factoring in the reflectivity of snow as well when doing the calculation you mentioned (sunlight-powered melting).

I'm too lazy, but if you feel up to it, try:

1500kg vehicle. My system slows it from 8km/h to 2km/h in 3 seconds (it doesn't need to brake). That will give you an an idea of the power output. Now if you wanna melt snow or heat water or whatever thermal-endeavour, multiply that energy by 3, then use that to calculate how much snow it melts. Say ambient is 0C to make it easy.

The idea is to dissipate energy from a moving (slowing) vehicle such that less energy goes to heat the brakes. Think of it as driving through sand - you can let off the brake and still slow as the sand is heating up instead of your brake rotors.

The method used at BK seems quite an expensive way to grab a few watts. Off the top of my head, a far cheaper and simpler method would be a series of flexible tubes (like garden hoses) containing fluid (vegetable oil) with one way valves at each end. As the tube compressed under the weight of the car, it would pump very high pressure fluid to a hydraulic accumulator. When the weight of the car is removed, the tube would suck fluid back in from a low-pressure reservoir and be ready to resume the cycle. Using a high-pressure accumulator would allow the use of a smaller, cheaper, generator that only kicked in every time the pressure reached a certain threshold, being much more efficient that way.

The system I just described would be cheaper, more efficient, scalable by simply adding more tubes and/or a bigger accumulator, and could be set up such that it really would feel like driving through sand. On downhill stretches in parkades etc. it would generate a substantial amount of power. During winter it could feed the power back into itself in the form of heat (powering a heat pump to get a few hundred % more efficiency), heating the oil and melting snow.

Just a thought...

I was using my stove (it's one of those glass-smooth types) as a place to situate a laptop whilst transferring some files. I happened to use the microwave, which is mounted directly above, for about 10 seconds - and zap! My laptop was fried, completely. I'm assuming it would be too much of a coincidence to not link the two events. Peees me off. Obviously shielding on the underside was lacking somewhat! (laptop was running on batteries btw, so no power spike)

I saw Short Circuit and Top Gun in the cinema on the same night, by myself, then walked home in the rain. It was a cold rain, the kind of rain that hugs you tight until you stop shivering and can't feel your toes. The kind of rain that washes away your tears and replaces them with less salty ones. A rain not as toxic than the modern stuff. But it was all okay - I was dangerous, I was needing input, Tom was still cool, and the cold lonely moment passed into the recesses of my neurons until now. Ahhh... good times indeed.

I'm sure that in 30 years, max, we'll be able to purchase any favourite sci-fi robot, but some of them may need to be scaled. Since J5 is of a rather utilitarian design, I reckon he'll be a popular buy. I'll pick up a J5 for helping out in the home - carrying me to the can, wiping away my drool, and power-washing the fembot - and a Terminator to drive my limo.

Bring on the bots! May J5 live forever!

I thought it was G M

I don't have many options when it comes to filling my gas car - I generally use gasoline.

My electric bike, however, is content getting its Volts from any source, be it dinofuel or a solar panel (my city is >90% solar).

Point is, electric vehicles allow greater options for 'fueling' and allow one to choose to keep money within the country. Generate locally, use locally if possible - it's much more efficient.

Last rant: an EV allows the grid to pull energy from its battery with the right technology. This is a huge advantage as it can make the mostly-parked EVs of the future into little power stations, which actually helps the grid - meaning less big power stations need to be built.

My twists are a bit different and I'd like to apply them to the entire world of netbooks, which really is the question anyway...

(1) Solar lid. This is a simple request, and would have to be an option due to costs, but a solar lid on such a low-powered device could actually make a huge difference in terms of charging on the run. It fits the concept of ultraportable (not always a plug around), and would provide the hugely useful feature of a base charger for your smaller USB-charging devices. Five watts and a detach option would be nice.

(2) Make a great shell. A really great shell, with quality parts, and allow the user to swap out the guts with as much ease as upgrading the RAM. Let's reduce the waste-footprint of these el-cheapo devices before they become a mobile-phone-like nightmare of scrapped hardware! I'd like to be able to crack the case open and switch out the "motherboard" when it's finally too old, but continue to use the ports, keyboard, screen, speakers etc. Maybe even throw in a blank spot on the case for some future port just in case.

(3) A standard charger for all netbooks within a certain wattage class.

(4) ROM-based OS. As an option when booting, fire it up like my beloved C64. Most of the time we needn't boot all the way into Windows, or even full-blown Linux, when we just want to check/write email or surf. Shirley it's not that hard to write a tiny operating system that would conform to some basic standards?? (Think of it as a super-BIOS, the BIOSOS!). A BIOSOS would have the advantage of using the absolute minimum in power consumption with the fastest boot possible.

Well, there's my mainly green suggestions. Thanks engadget for allowing me to put them where someone might listen (they did for the MagSafe idea).