Interlude. A screen capture to divert you from your search

I regularly make the mistake of goggling away to engineer my way onto a lot of websites. Part of the reason is that I don't bookmark them and I can't be bothered to scroll through my browser's history. I'm not lazy ... really. I'm just a little disorganized, and I like it that way.

So, when I was looking for The Daily Show recently, I had forgotten that the U.S. site rejects video requests from anything that isn't a U.S. address. Silly me ... but it was worth the few seconds I spent there. (Click to expand)

It's so nice that Canadians get acknowledged! Or could it be ... nah!*

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, this really should be fixed. Since The Daily Show's Most Senior Correspondent is proudly Canadian, don't you think we should be given special status when it comes to watching your stuff?

Hmmm. You may now resume your search.

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* Is it possible that everyone visiting that site from outside the U.S. has free healthcare?

And now for something completely different....

Live in an modern condo? Or even an older one? Are you making use of the balcony, or is there no place to put balcony furniture?

Sandy Lam suggests that if you're not using your balcony you've wasted money on good living space. Where do you put the outdoor furniture?

Back into the deck.

Hat tip Cheryl and the WebUrbanist.

Owls on campus: Owlcam

Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops BC, discovered that they had new residents... in the trees. A Great Horned Owl has established a nest with two owlets in a spruce tree next to the university science building.

According to TRU nesting this close to an urban environment is rare. So, TRU has set up a streaming webcam. Best viewed between sunrise and sunset PDT.

Photo: CanadianNinja at Wunderground.

It makes so much sense we probably all missed it.

Bouphonia is always an interesting visit and Fridays usually have something of a roundup of items which might otherwise have slipped under the radar. This is one worth looking into further.

On those hottest days, when the air conditioner is switched on, doesn't it make sense to have the air-conditioner driven by solar energy?

Now it looks like a Spanish company, Rotartica, has put it all together, by combining evacuated tube thermal collectors with a water-heated absorption chiller, and sized it at 4.5Kw (1.28 tons) for residential use, all packaged in a neat little box. From an operation point of view it is very simple: you put hot water in, you get cold water out, which you can run to a conventional fancoil. The hot water in can come from any source, but evacuated tube collectors, which used to be very expensive, are pretty affordable now.

If you're into the technical side of things it's probably best to check out their website for more information. There's no discussion of the cost, but you can guess, for the time being anyway, it's probably pretty high.

No. Green is not impossible.

How would you like to get 360 miles per gallon over 120 miles - from a real automobile? That's 0.78 litres per 100 km.

It's got three wheels, two seats (plus a child seat rear-centre) and it just looks cool. Take a look.

Cost is dependent upon the type you order. The all-electric plug-in version (limited range) will sell for about $27,000 US. The plug-in hybrid is a little more at $30,000 US.

The developers describe the fuel consumption and range this way:

With the Plug-in Electric Hybrid version of the Aptera(typ-1h) the mileage of the vehicle is difficult to describe with one number. For example, the Typ-1h can drive 40 to 60 miles on electric power alone. Perhaps for such a trip, the engine may only be duty-cycled for a few seconds or minutes. This would produce a fantastic number, an incredible number that, though factually true, would have no useful context, i.e. it's just a point on a graph.

An asymptotic decaying exponential is an accurate way to describe the fuel mileage of the Typ-1h. For example driving say, 50 miles, one might calculate a MPG number that's 2 or 3 times higher, say, 1000 MPG. As battery energy is depleted, the frequency of the engine duty cycle is increased. More fuel is used. at 75 miles, the MPG might be closer to 400 MPG. Again, we're using battery energy mostly, but turning the engine on more and more. Just over 100 miles we're just over 300 MPG, and just beyond 120 miles, we're around 300 MPG. So why pick a number at 120 miles? Well, it's more than double of most available plug-in hybrid ranges that achieve over 100 MPG. It's three times the distance of the typical American daily commute. It's a meaningful distance that represents the driving needs of 99% of Americans on a daily basis. Sure, it's asymptotic, after 350-400 miles it eventually plummets to around 130 MPG at highway speeds where it will stay all day until you plug it back in and charge it up.

Production is scheduled to start in October 2008.