The Bicycle

The Bicycle has got to be a significant technological innovation.

Click here for a summary of Bicycle History.

Over then next little while I intend to update this page with more bike technology.

First the bike transmission. Unfortunately we are currently saddle with chain derailleurs as the ubiquitous bike transmission.
1)They have a hard time covering the range of gear ratios needed. Current tech probably provides gear ratios that satisfy the rider that has spent the time to build vary large and durable leg muscles, but it does not provide adequate ranges for more normal people.
2) Derailleurs require constant maintenance.
3) Derailleurs are difficult to shift well.
4) Derailleurs are difficult to get a continuous set of gear ratios.

Next, what looks like on paper a bunch of decent bike transmission.

Rohloff Speed Hub – 14 properly spaced gear ratios, with no derailleur crap.

Rohloff Bicycle Transmission - 14 properly spaced gear ratios

A user gives his impression of the Rohloff Speedhub – real life feedback, with criticism and comparison to Derailleurs.

Shimano Nexus, Internal planetary geared rear hub

Shimano Nexus and Alfine – nice write up from Sheldon Brown.

SRAM Imotion – Internal geared hub, vendor site requires navigation.

Sturmey-Archer 8-speed Hub

NuVinci - continuously variable planetary (CVP) transmission

Click here for a nice chart comparing several transmissions.

Evidence of Apollo 14 on the Moon

Did man really land on the moon? For me it is just mind boggling that with the technology of the 1960’s, man could get to the moon and back. I’ve been waiting patiently since the 60’s for some sort of evidence. You would think that with all our modern tech we could get a decent photo of the equipment supposedly left behind.

So far the images linked to below are probably the best. It sure doesn’t seem as if our modern photo tech matches those mechanical marvels from the 60’s.

Evidence of Apollo 14 on the Moon?, photo NASA

Get Your Own Domain Name and Host for Free

Here is a newbie guide to getting your own Domain Name and Finding a Host for free.

A Domain Name is just an address on the internet. Another simple way of looking at Domain Names is to compare it to a telephone number. Getting a Domain Name for the web is the same thing as getting a telephone number for the phone system or getting a street address for your house. Now we have to ask ourselves, why should anyone pay for a telephone number or Domain Name or Street Address.

Getting your own Domain Name allows you to do what you want with that address which is quite different from using the services provided by others. For example you might have a Flickr account at Flickr.com. Your account at Flickr gives you a URL or address on the net but you can only do what Flickr allows you to do. Flickr allows you to upload and store pictures and provides a way for you to share these uploaded pictures with others.

To do anything useful with your Domain Name you will need a computer and some software that sits on the web and responds to activity directed at your Domain Name.

With your own Domain Name and host you will have to upload software to your Host to provide any functionality you want resident at your domain name. Writing your own software is a large task but there are many freebies on the net that you can use. One example is the WordPress software that is running presenting this here article.

The Host is the computer that runs your software and it is setup to responds to activity directed at your Domain Name. How is this different from my computer connected to the web you might ask. It really isn’t any different except that currently your ISP will block any Hosting software that you might want to run unless you pay them big bucks. I suspect that one day in the not too distant future the ISP’s will not be charging big bucks for self hosting computers. This is probably only going to change when free self hosting services, provide enough competition.

A Domain Name with a Host and Software allows you to do pretty much anything you might want on the web.

Here is a link to free Web Hosting Services. These thing change constantly so at some point the info will become dated.

Internet Performance

These days our technology is not yet at that special place where we no longer need worry about speed. Just as in the 1970 and early 1980’s we worried about computer processor speed.

Many of the technologies involved in determining our internet speed are not under our control other than to say we use this or that technology.

We can however do something about our page design to improve it’s performance. I notice that Google has authored a tool that will help this goal by measuring the speed performance of our web pages. Check it out here.

Currently I am having a real problem getting our Motorola radio link to the ISP to work properly. One of those things beyond my control.

I also notice that these wordpress pages do not load at lightening speed. Wonder if it is server performance or page performance. Suspect the former.

Android on Linux

Android on Linux will be ganging up on Microsoft.

It’s about time that a major company challenged Microsoft and it’s operating system Windows. Google’s Android is open source and free to boot.

What I Dislike About Apple

I have been following Apple Computer Company ever since the 1970’s, and it’s business practices have always left a bad taste in my mouth.

“Apple’s attempt to quash an effort to help the latest iPods and iPhones work with non-Apple software such as the Linux operating system is out of line, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said Tuesday.”

Superb Solar Cell Engineering

Superb Solar Cell Engineering

Click picture to go to article.

First Direct Image of a Planet in another Solar System

first actual image of a planet outside our own solar system

See this post on Wired Science.

This is the first actual image of a planet outside our own solar system. All other observations where deduced from the behavior of the parent sun. We have now confirmed visually the existence of planets from afar.

Video Convergence

See post on my other blog here.

Video Chat Addition to Gmail

Video Chat for Gmail.