Chris the Vegan

Okay, still no real updates here. I've moved my main Star Wars site over to it's new domain. BothanJedi.com

Not much going on here right now. Busy on a new Star Wars project - A full size working R2-D2. Check out my new blog for updates.

I don’t think this picture really needs any explanation. But I think that it’s time that the world knew … they’re here.

R2 you seem to have put on some weight

Thought I'd throw up this quick tip in hopes it'll save someone some money.

Last week I broke our Canon Powershot S500 digital camera.

99% of the camera is metal but the door to the compact flash memory card is plastic and notoriously easy to break (as is the one on S400/S410 models). So it was our turn - which ain't bad because we've had the camera a few years now and from day one I was expecting this part to fail.

I did a quick google for the part, and up came a bunch of options to buy a new door. From $15+SH on ebay to camera dealers willing to help out at $21-25 +SH.

I thought I'd give Canon a call thinking they might be a tad cheaper, and lo and behold the part was $2.50. Yes you heard me it's just $2.50 + Shipping.

So I went ahead and ordered a couple just in case. Shipping was very low and the job to replace it super easy, requiring a small jewelers (or eye glass) screwdriver.

Just take out the 4 tiny screws securing the metal place, slide out the rod, taking note of how the spring goes in. The hardest part is making sure you don't loose the screws and spring which do not come with the new door.

So here's the magic information

S500 CF Cover - CD3-2326

Canon Factory Service
100 Jamesburg Road
Jamesburg, NJ 08831
Tel.# (732)521-7230
Business hours: 9 AM to 8 PM (ET) Monday to Friday

Corn plastic is hyped as a green alternative to petroleum-based plastic polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the stuff of almost all consumer packaging. Wal-Mart, for example, introduced it in some packaging as part of their "big corporate goals for the environment." Advocates tout that the corn plastic, formed from polylactic acid (PLA) resin, is biodegradable and can be composted into fertilizer. And it can. Under the right conditions. In the new issue of Smithsonian, writer Elizabeth Royte digs into whether the corn plastic is as good as it sounds. Apparently, it's not.

San Francisco Technology Reporter Gabriel Slate looks at this new way to display video on air. This new technology requires no screens, monitors or other physical surfaces to be able to project and display its images.

"Heliodisplay images are not holographic although they are free-space, employing a rear projection system in which images are captured onto a nearly invisible plane of transformed air. What the viewer sees is floating mid-air image or video. These projected images and video are two-dimensional, (i.e. planar) but appear 3D since there is no physical depth reference. While conventional displays have the benefit of being attached to a physical substrate, Heliodisplay projections are suspended in air, so you will notice some waviness to the quality of the projections."

Interesting, but dubious study concludes that hybrids cost more in terms of overall energy consumed than comparable non-hybrid vehicles. But even more surprising, smaller hybrids' energy costs are greater than many large, non-hybrid SUVs. For instance, according to the study the energy cost of the bunny-sized Honda Civic hybrid is $3.238 per mile vs $1.949 per mile for the Hummer.

I disagree with the conclusions drawn from the study. When comparing a Hummer to a hybrid, the author says that the Hummer has 2 big advantages - total miles the vehicle will last for (300k Hummer vs. 100k hybrid), and much lower manufacturing costs for the Hummer because it is less complex, more generic, and uses cheaper materials.

However, the author ignores the fact that hybrids will never close the gap in those 2 categories if manufacturers continue to shy away from producing them. If hybrids were the norm, you can bet their reliability and total mileage would increase, and that production costs would go down. While the Hummer may currently have a lower total energy cost (which I am not totally convinced of, having not read the actual study yet), hybrids have a lower POTENTIAL energy cost... a lower cost that will take time and effort on the part of both consumers and manufacturers to realize.

From a news report on Discovery.com:

The adage "like a kid at heart" may be truer than we think, since new research is showing that grown-ups are more immature than ever.

Specifically, it seems a growing number of people are retaining the behaviors and attitudes associated with youth.

As a consequence, many older people simply never achieve mental adulthood, according to a leading expert on evolutionary psychiatry.

I can certainly related to this. I find myself more facinated every day with things from my childhood and youth.