Want a Spokeless, Hubless Lightweight Bicycle Like This?

Zero by Makota Makita and Hiroshi Tsuzaki, is a hubless, spokeless and very lightweight bicycle powered by cranking magnetic pedals which rotate the tires suspended between other magnets.

The Zero Bike was designed in 1988 (!) by Makota Makita and Hiroshi Tsuzaki, then students at Art Center College of Design in LA.

Rather than spokes around a hub, this concept bicycle has wheel rims cradled by magnets, using the principle of magnetic superconductivity, also used in high-speed trains that are suspended above rails.

Not only does it look mighty interesting, the absence of spokes it is beneficial for the aerodynamics of the bike. Less is more!

However, this design isn’t currently possible to make

While it’s possible to use superconductors to achieve magnetic repulsion, all superconductors operate at temperatures well below normal atmospheric ranges.

While advances have been made in this area of supercoductor research over the last couple of decades, a “room-temperature” superconductor is not even remotely on the horizon.

The magnetic repulsion effect generated by superconductors is not of unlimited strength. The design presented here would require the two sets of superconductors to not only hold up the weight of the cyclist, using a tiny surface area allocated to each wheel, but would also need to counteract the additional forces imposed by braking, cornering, and variations in road surface. The effect of these forces would be magnified by the arrangement of the components, which constitutes a Class 3 lever, with the load being the cyclist atop the bicycle and the fulcrum being the point of contact between the wheel and the ground. In a Class 3 lever, the amount of input effort required is *greater* than the load – hence the forces on the “superconductor” arrangement would be magnified.

Critics have also pointed out that in addition to being technologically unfeasible, this design would also be practically unrideable. Tucking the rear wheel so far forward would give the bike a very biased weight distribution, and the short wheelbase would be super-squirrelly.

What do you think?

Feasible or not?

Want one or pass?

Want a Spokeless, Hubless Lightweight Bicycle Like This?

Bufflehead Photography

Take a look at how great photography of the birds you can see every day is. Here’s three photos of Buffleheads. If you have a photo, please post it in the comments below or submit it to us with a description!

Photo by: Kevin Cole

Male Bufflehead in-flight at the Morro Bay State Park Marina. Shot with 500/f4+1.4 and 40D.

 

Photo by: Richard Griffin

 

Photo by: Ingrid Taylar

This Barrow’s Goldeneye (Bucephala islandica) was a bit too far away from a great shot (cropped). I’m still hoping for some proximity on capturing this behavior photographically. But, in the interim, I love watching the courtship rituals with goldeneyes and buffleheads, as the males skip across the water in pursuit. Photographed at the Ballard Locks, Seattle.

Olympus OM-D E-M1 + Zuiko 50-200mm • ISO 400 • 1/1600 • f5.6

Bufflehead Photography

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This Vibrating Pen Vibrates When You Mis-spell... Lernstift

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Need your hand-written notes to be better?

This pen vibrates when you misspall a word. It’s a Lernstift.

Guess who designed this?

Two German dads, with the hope of alerting mis-spellers world-wide.

Falk Wolsky’s wife helped in conception when after helping their son with his homework.

Guess how the pen is trying to make its next big step?

Kickstarter.

The pen uses motion sensor that combines a gyroscope with an accelerometer (unlike the camera technology in Livescribe pens ).

Inside the pen’s barrel is a processor, memory chip, vibration module, and Wi-Fi antenna.

The pen has two modes: the first is checking spelling; the second is monitoring penmanship, with an aim to improve legibility.

The Lernstift pen contains an embedded Linux system.

Because people’s handwriting varies, the Lernstift uses a handwriting recognition engine that has been tested on millions of smartphones and tabletsaround the world, according to the Kickstarter campaign.

Thre pen has three interchangeable nibs available: fountain pen, ballpoint pen, and pencil.

At launch, the pen will work in two languages: English and German. More will be added later.

Users will be able to add their own words to the pen’s word catalog. They will be able to create punctuation and spelling rules as well.

A statistics app will enable parents to check on their kids’ progress. Learning games will help users practice spelling. Everything will be shareable on social media.

The API will be freely available to developers, so anyone can create their own apps for the technology.

The minimum Kickstarter pledge is $150 will get one Lernstift. A classroom package pledge will get 10 pens, Wi-Fi router, and a tablet, and will cost $2,270.

Lernstift Kickstarter page.

Here’s a couple images of an another Lernstift:

This Vibrating Pen Vibrates When You Mis-spell... Lernstift

World Has In Fact Not Begun Deleveraging Crisis-Linked Borrowing, ICMBS Warns

The world has not yet begun to deleverage its crisis-linked borrowing, a recent report by the International Centre for Monetary and Banking Studies (ICMBS) found. Despite currently prevailing popular opinion that the global economy is deleveraging, the world is in fact not reducing the burden of its debts, according to the organization’s research; in fact, public sector debt in rich countries and private debt in emerging markets–notably China–have not stopped rising, and this may cause a new economic crisis.

“Contrary to widely held beliefs, the world has not yet begun to delever and the global debt to GDP ratio is still growing, breaking new highs,” said the report.

The document, the 16th annual Geneva Report, titled “Deleveraging? What deleveraging?,” was commissioned by the ICMBS and written by a panel of senior economists, and was published on the Centre for Economic Policy Research website.

The total burden of world debt–private and public–has reached 215 percent of national income. For perspective, the whole world would need to consume nothing while continuing current levels of production for two years in order to pay back the world debt.

That burden was only 160 percent of national income in 2001, and under 200 percent in 2009.

The report notes that debt growth was primarily in the private sector of the developed world before the financial crisis. After the crisis, Western governments accepted a lot of debt, which reduced the burden on the private sector.

Meanwhile, developing countries like China increased debt when they saw that Western economies would not be able to sustain the rapid growth, the report found.

The report characterized the combination of record debt and slowing growth as a “poisonous combination” that pointed toward further economic crisis.

The report stressed economies with high debts and persistently slow growth–such as the eurozone periphery in southern Europe and China–as economies that were most concerning.

An author of the report, Luigi Buttiglione, compared China to past miracle economies. “Over my career I have seen many so-called miracle economies – Italy in the 1960s, Japan, the Asian tigers, Ireland, Spain and now perhaps China–and they all ended after a build-up of debt.”

The report suggested a possible model that may explain the current existence of debt bubbles: innovation tends to increase productivity–therefore growth. Market participants become more optimistic and credit is easier to obtain, leading to more loans. Loans are often tied to a project and show up as more growth, which further nurtures optimism and increases loans, even if the underlying productivity gains have run their course.

The authors of the report concluded that in order to avoid another crash, interest rates across the world will have to stay low for a “very, very long” time to enable households, companies and governments to alleviate their debts.

The report was published a week before the International Monetary Fund’s annual meeting in Washington and concerns that the US Federal Reserve will raise interest rates within the year.

By Andrew Stern

World Has In Fact Not Begun Deleveraging Crisis-Linked Borrowing, ICMBS Warns

America's Most Prominent Southern Succession Group Forms Paramilitary Unit for Action

A previously vocal but nonviolent neo-Confederate group–the League of the South (LOS), the most prominent Southern separatist group in the US–has begun training a uniformed paramilitary unit for any-means-necessary style action, according to civil rights watch group Hatewatch, which based its revelations on leaked internal documents and sources within the LOS.

“We are for the survival, well-being, and independence of the Southern people,” said LOS president Michael Hill of the movement. “And when we say ‘the Southern people,’ we mean white Southerners.  We are an ethno-nationalist movement and we want a free and independent South for our people, as our homeland.  That’s pretty much what we are fighting for.”

The move to train a paramilitary unit comes after years of rhetoric threatening violence, Hatewatch reported. The unit has been named “The Indomitables” and is comprised of former Ku Klux Klan members and neo-Nazis, Hatewatch reported.

The unit was conceptualized at a LOS meeting earlier this year, according to Hatewatch. The lead trainer for the unit is US Army and Navy veteran Floyd Eric Meadows, 43, of Rome, Ga., whose online name is Eric Thorvaldsson.

 

Hill responded to the SPLC revelations on his blog, “Even if we are–and you really have no idea on earth if we are or not–setting up a Southern militia or some other form of paramilitary organization, we are doing nothing that free men have not done for centuries. Deal with it and stop your whining.

“The primary targets will not be enemy soldiers; instead, they will be political leaders, members of the hostile media, cultural icons, bureaucrats, and other of the managerial elite without whom the engines of tyranny don’t run.”

Of LOS’s motives, Hill has stated, “We desire that our women and children be warm and snug while the world outside rages. And as our due for that we must face the world.”

The current roster of the group is as follows:

By Sid Douglas

 

America's Most Prominent Southern Succession Group Forms Paramilitary Unit for Action

International Astronomical Union Meets to Define Planets, Votes Pluto Should Be a Planet Again

The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics held a meeting last week to discuss again the definition of what a planet is, and whether Pluto–which had its planet status removed in 2006 after a vote by the International Astronomical Union (IAU)–should be considered a planet. Three experts paneled the meeting, and each voted on Pluto’s status after submitting their arguments. The audience also voted on Pluto’s qualifications as a planet.

Pluto has not been considered a planet since 2006, when the IAU met for the same purpose.

In 2005, the discovery of an object, later called Eris, which was farther out than Pluto, and which was larger and more massy than Pluto, disrupted the nine-planet concept of the Solar System. Astronomers met to make a final decision on the definition of a planet at the 26th General Assembly of the IAU in the summer of 2006.

At the 2006 meeting, astronomers voted on the definition of a planet and the status of Pluto. They had three options: maintain the traditional nine-planet Solar System, add three planets of similar size to Pluto–including Eris and Ceres–or remove Pluto and adopt an eight-planet Solar System.

Controversially, they voted for an eight-planet system. Pluto and Eris became “dwarf planets.”

The IAU decided three criteria needed to be met to be considered a planet: the object must orbit the sun, it must have sufficient gravity to pull itself into spherical shape, and it must have “cleared the neighborhood” of its orbit. Pluto had not achieved the last of these criteria.

Today, many astronomers and the public are still uncertain about what exactly defines a planet, but the meeting last week reconsidered the definition, and Pluto.

Three experts presented their case, and the audience voted on the status of Pluto.

One expert, Gareth Williams, associate director at the IAU Minor Planet Center, who was opposed to making Pluto a planet, argued, “Jupiter has cleared its neighborhood. Earth has cleared its neighborhood. Ceres, which is in the main asteroid belt, hasn’t. Pluto hasn’t. In my world, Pluto is not a planet.”

However, the two other experts thought Pluto should be a planet. Historian Owen Gingerich thought that the concept of “planet” is one that is culturally defined and changes over time, and Dimitar Sasselov, director of Harvard’s planetary program, thought that a planet was the smallest spherical lump of matter formed around stars or stellar remnants, so Pluto qualified as a planet.

The audience also voted in favor of Pluto being counted a planet.

By Joseph Reight

The Full Debate About Planets and Pluto:

More information: Universe Today

International Astronomical Union Meets to Define Planets, Votes Pluto Should Be a Planet Again