In Brazil, women have finally gotten their wish: pink-striped, women-only metro cars. Apparently, there’s a lot of groping and feeling going on in Brazil (shame on you, fellow men!) and it’s so bad they lobbied for women-only cars. Now they’ve got them. The article mentions how women themselves will police the cars, to make sure no men get aboard. They can call on police if needed to evict unruly men. Here’s the link to the article.
Tag Archives: cars
Old postcard of armless driver
Boing Boing has a scanned in postcard of Frank E. Fithen, a man who lost his arms in a railroad accident as a boy. The postcard is from the early 1900s.
Quoting: “Mr. Fithen since that time has accomplished many difficult feats, such as writing, dressing and undressing himself, swimming, bicycle and unicycle trick riding, and above all he operates, drives and controls his own 6 cylinder 60 horse power ‘Oakland’ car. Fithen’s best time to date is 58 miles an hour.”
Wow! (Really, I’m serious! This is pretty cool!) Here is the link.
Course de Cote in a Caterham
A view of the road from the driver’s seat of a modified classic Caterham:
Saw a bumper sticker this morning
I couldn’t help chuckling a bit when I saw it. The fellow driving the car had a goatee and was driving on, oblivious to the fact that someone was looking at his car and at him, chuckling… I couldn’t help wondering if I should honk, but I just chuckled some more…
Minuscule headset powered by novel battery
I was in my car, driving back from lunch, when I got a call on my cellphone. I’m holding out on buying a Bluetooth headset, because they look ridiculous. So I still have to answer the phone the “old fashioned” way, by flipping it open and pressing Speakerphone. I know, what tough luck… But I realized that these wireless/Bluetooth headsets could be made really tiny, and could fit in the ear, if the battery could be made really small. Sure, it’d be a hassle to change the battery, but what if you didn’t have to? What if the battery charged itself? How could that happen? Well, let’s look at three existing technologies on the market today:
- “Perpetual motion” watches: you know, the kind that charge themselves from the movement/agitation of your hand. They’ve been around for a while.
- Microphones: both dynamic and condenser types… They use a vibrating wand or membrane to generate an electrical signal. They’ve also been around for a while.
- The balance pebbles inside your inner ear: okay, this is more like biological technology, but I do find it interesting that they can move and touch nerve sensors, generating electrical impulses that tell your body how to balance itself.
Given these three very interesting methods of generating energy or electrical impulses, why can’t we make a really tiny battery that can charge itself from the movement of our body, our body heat, or the vibrations caused by our voice? We could be charging the battery as we speak, as we move, etc.
This sort of battery could be used in a tiny headset that could be placed in the ear, or in some other fashion, but the point is, it would be really small, almost unnoticeable. I wouldn’t look like a geek, with a big Bluetooth headset strapped to my ear, a menacing blue light flashing on it, as if I were an android. I’m sure many of you share my feelings here. Instead, I would use a small device, no bigger than the tip of my small finger, or even smaller, that could go inside the ear, or hook right outside the ear canal with a thin wire that goes behind my ear. It would let ambient noise pass through unchanged, but would block it when I’d be using my cellphone.
Wouldn’t this be cool?
Are you interested in using this idea? Then please see my rules about using it.
Raoul Pop 