1) Well to start it off for geek meet weekend I am updating the electric car news, I really think the electric car will be the transportation mode of the future. This site is about the electric mini. Talk about performance, top speed 150 mph, and can out accelerate a Porsche 911 Carerra. This has to be the most interesting direction I have read about lately. They have a electric motor on each wheel, this means there is no loss of power due to transmission to the wheels, they are recovering all energy usually lost in braking, by eliminating mechanical brakes altogether, an added bonus ABS becomes a given. There is a small gasoline engine that can be used to recharge the system while driving, so while you get four hours of electric only around town, by using the engine to recharge the batteries while driving your range is unlimited, at 65-80 miles per gallon. The main thing to remember here is this is a proto-type, when the technology hits the general market over all performance should be improved.
http://www.worldcarfans.com/2) Since it is “Geek Meet 07” I thought I might look for something with a certain level of “Geekness” however I was not sure where to start, so though maybe I should do a little research into the term geek. That’s when I found this site, a wordsmith’s delight, when I put in the word geek it found reference to the word in 34 online dictionaries with links. I thought that was pretty good.
http://www.onelook.com/ I am somewhat fascinated by the way words evolve forming new meanings almost unrelated to their initial origin. The invention of the computer has probably been responsible for more new words, and redefinitions of old words than anything that preceded it. Words like widget, hacker, hack, gizmo, the list is very long indeed. The word geek is kind of like the word bad, used to mean bad, then meant good, now just leaves me confused unless the context of use helps me out. Getting old is often a pain in the neck, beats the alternative of dying young, but often leaves one sort of confused about the process. At any rate I thought for anyone not familiar with the origins of the word “geek” you might be interested.
3) Okay this may not be “out there” to everyone, but it was to me I was looking around for info on the H.A.A.R.P. project. (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program.). When I found a reference to what was called the fungus wars. I said the what?! That, is what led me to discover what is the largest, and oldest living organism on the planet, in my mind, what would have been my guess was the General Sherman Giant Sequoia Tree in California, here is a tree link
http://www.nps.gov/ well a sixty foot diameter tree just pales in comparison to a mushroom measured in square miles, that’s right, miles, 3.4 square miles to be precise, or 1,665 football fields. If that’s not strange enough for you on another page I read that the fungus has over 3,600 different sexes, I thought people were confused, this I can’t even imagine. Age estimate well over ten thousand years, any way here is the link for anyone who might be interested.
http://botit.botany.wisc.edu4) This site is for that part of the group that likes to question stuff; I believe that in order to have an opinion on a subject it is necessary to investigate it from as many different points of view as possible. I like to read about some pretty off the wall subjects, I come from the basic premise that anything is possible, but that does not mean I believe anything written has any basis in fact. Some subjects just need to be considered on the fringe, where that line is drawn is different for everyone. This site has been interesting to me for sometime ever since I heard an interview with Dr. Michael Shermer, he’s with the Skeptics Society and Magazine.
http://www.skeptic.com/ There are quite a few sites of this type, this one is better than most, but some are even more out to lunch that the people they are attempting to debunk. When the numbers get large enough it becomes difficult to argue effectively. If a person sees an elephant in the desert it might be a mirage, ten people maybe what they drank with lunch, 50 people maybe the pot luck dinner was tainted, but when a thousand, or a hundred thousand see the elephant, do you really need a dead elephant to say it probably exists. Some of the debunkers just do not believe in a thing so strongly they make less sense than the believers. We all need varied information to make decisions about what we are willing to accept. I know I accept much more as possible than most, but I also readily admit that the majority of what I believe to be fact is most likely wrong, to quote Mark Twain, “It ain’t the things you don’t know that get you into trouble, it’s the things you know for sure, that just ain’t so”
5) Okay one more then, this is a news story that kind of got me. Sir Paul McCartney, Elton John, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, and a few others are going to try and turn the aliens on to rock and roll music, by blasting it into space aimed at local targets like the Moon and Mars. Yes I know the boys listed in this group are already space cadets, and if any one on earth is actually an alien they are most likely represented here. I just thought it interesting how far these things can go, I mean like farm aid for other planets, they say it will be as big as Woodstock. I suspect this will make the news soon if they manage to get it off the ground, they say they are scheduled for this coming year in New York, Berlin, Tokyo, China, Russia, and London. Even Prince William is going to be there as an interested party, and what a party it should be.
http://www.wayodd.com/
We are doing the show from GeekMeet07 in Boston, MA We wish you were here!
