Disqus - Latest Comments for Zack

Re: Tactical Sniper Watch

Zack — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 17:03:29 -0000

You are so right. I'm no sniper, but I'm a pretty shot with a rifle, and whoever does not know what ammo he has loadedc, or what the characteristics of that particular load is, should not be out there to begin with. But I must admit the watch doesn't look half bad, though...

Re: Vortex Bots Suck Bigtime

Zack — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 19:18:10 -0000

What happens when the thing looks down and says "oh, shit"? Besides, the noise could alert any but the deaf terrorists to its approach, don't you think? /Zack

Re: OhGizmo! » Archive » Toothbrush Inspired Sofa Concept

Zack — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 09:09:13 -0000

Maybe here's where the idea came from: Got to:
http://www.smartstuff.se/pages/engelska/eng_okt...
and have a look. Very similar both to the bristle coach and the Pratone George mentioned...

Re: Solvatten: The Water Container Which Harnesses the Sun to Purify Drinking Water

Zack — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 12:48:02 -0000

The Solvatten purifier may be news, but it's not actually new. In August of 2007 we posted on the very similar Solar Bottle that won the Danish Index award that year. Designed by Alberto Meda and Francisco Gomez Paz.

Re: Wash Your Hands With Toilet Water

Zack — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 18:10:17 -0000

I posted a story on a Japanese toilet with a wash basin back in January. That one seemed to be an original, not an add-on, and the trick was that the water you washed your hands in was re-cycled into the tank. So you weren't actually washing with toilet water - you were flushing with wash water...

Re: Rwanda's Coffee Bike Project

Zack — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:53:13 -0000

Perhaps you'd be interested in the fact that this idea is not exclusive to Rwanda. The Worldbike project in Kenya has developed the bike transport idea with a specially developed bicycle extension kit, that allows an ordinary bike to be loaded with lots of cargo. I wrote an entry on it a while back. Read it here:

http://www.smartstuff.se/pages/engelska/eng_jun_07.asp

Re: Amtrak Train Runs Out Of Fuel, Perhaps a Wake-Up Call For America?

Zack — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 01:37:20 -0000

Writing as a foreigner (I'm Swedish) I would be as bold as to say that the problem with trains in the US is not Amtrak, but General Motors, Ford, Goodyear, the oil companies, the motel chains, the fast food industry, and every American business that makes a living and a profit from individual use of the internal combustion engine, i.e. cars in every shape or form.

The USA we know was built on individual use of the gasoline engine, and it worked because the US for a long time has had the strongest economy in the world and also the most efficient distribution of wealth, thus allowing a large middle class that has been the cornerstone of the world's largest consumption society.

This could have gone on forever, but for the shortage of the stuff that made it all possible; cheap oil. Now that oil is no longer abundant, or cheap, America's economy could grind to a stop since everything, trains included, run on petroleum. And such a grinding halt would affect the entire world economy.

I'm not saying that Swedes are in any way smarter, but since we have always been poorer than the US, we have had to use transports and travel that were to a large extent collective rather than individual, because this was more efficient, using electricity rather than fossil fuels because electrical power was cheap while oil was expensive. We have also had governments that for a hundred years have spent tax money to build infrastructures that would never have been profitable for private business. As a lucky result, we are now in better shape to face the end of the fossil fuel era.

Luckily for America, the learning curve should be rather short, since knowledge in using less fossil fuel is readily available. One hard part would be convincing the American people that the automotive way of life they have grown accustomed to during the past 80 years cannot be sustained. Another will be building a new infrastructure based on steel wheels and electrical power rather than rubber tyres and fossil fuel.

Zack

Re: Solvatten: The Water Container Which Harnesses the Sun to Purify Drinking Water

Zack — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 09:48:02 -0000