Free Energy? A Lot Of People Are Going To Love This...

[Joseph C.]

[gestalt]

The night vision material is something I have been imagining since I was a teenager. My question being where the hell does the IR come from at night? Say the material was covering the windshield of your car, you would conceivably need to have IR headlamps equipped. Would be great for a stealthy military vehicle, but people not equipped with such tech would not be able to see you coming down the road.

As far as the other concepts go the carbon nanotube windows seems like a no-brainer in the sense of that we need to start managing our heating and cooling of buildings with smarter windows. As to if that tech is actually viable for working into building materials, I would suppose we need to figure out how to mass produce the nanotubes. Seems to be the biggest problem with a material that stands to solve many of our modern day problems. I've also seen some pretty interesting videos of solar water desalination. The results were quite remarkable with a very simple method, basically running the water through a series of solar oven looking things eventually turning the water to steam and purifying it in the proccess.

[Joseph C.]

Yes - I have been dreaming of night-vision in cars for quite awhile. I would imagine fairly weak yellow lights would do the trick nicely.

I haven't a clue where infra red light comes from at night. A wild stab would be that the ground absorbs it during the day and releases it at night or something like that.

There is going to be major upheaval if even half of this comes to fruition. A lot of people are going to have a vast quantity of free time on their hands. I think the days of 100 per cent employment rates may become a thing of the past in the medium future at least. Perhaps until people focus more on what is important to them and work towards completely those goals.

[gestalt]

As culture and as a species we need to re-evaluate how we work, what we are doing and why we are doing it. I was watching Linton Qwesi Johnson take the stage for the first time in the US in over a decade and he had some interesting thoughts. He basically said that we live in a very unique age of mankind. We have increased our levels of productivity technologically in an exponential fashion. It takes so much less labor to make so much more than it did less than a hundred years ago. And we have all we need to make sure that every person has food, clothes, a place to live and an education. We just don't. We need more time for family, more time to educate ourselves, improve ourselves and our surroundings. We need more time for life. He then proceded to perform the song "more time" which I recommend checking out along with other dub jams from Linton.

I am part of the most overworked populace in the industrialized world and haven't had a vacation in any sense of the word in over ten years. And most of what we do here is a sham, complete BS. What we've created here is like some kind of economic overunity device that just does not work and is falling apart. The US no longer has any concept of infrastructure so ideas like what was being discussed at this Ted talk will never be taken seriously. Even without new tech we have what we need to make all of our basic needs and wellness sustainable and very affordable. Especially when it comes to our living spaces and cities. Many of these technologies are very simple and very affordable to implement, a no brainer financially. Could it be that there is a relatively small group of billionaire psychopathic narcissists really running things that do not want us to?

[Joseph C.]

I am part of the most overworked populace in the industrialized world and haven't had a vacation in any sense of the word in over ten years. And most of what we do here is a sham, complete BS. What we've created here is like some kind of economic overunity device that just does not work and is falling apart. The US no longer has any concept of infrastructure so ideas like what was being discussed at this Ted talk will never be taken seriously. Even without new tech we have what we need to make all of our basic needs and wellness sustainable and very affordable. Especially when it comes to our living spaces and cities. Many of these technologies are very simple and very affordable to implement, a no brainer financially. Could it be that there is a relatively small group of billionaire psychopathic narcissists really running things that do not want us to?

The world is much more than the U.S. If what you think transpires in the United States other countries will simply adopt these progressions and gradually everyone else will too. It only takes one nation to lead the way and the others will eventually follow suit. The real question is time frame.

I won't go into too much detail on your last point as I writing something similar to this. However, suffice it to say that there is probably (if I was to give an imaginary percentage it would be in the 99 per cent realm) no fear of a cabal controlling the world or the U.S. No one forces people to use Apple etc.

Besides, even if it was true, as more and more people get laid off - public unrest will foment making such control impossible.

It's almost an act of self-comforting god-substitution to place a select, esoteric group in control of human affairs. People who ascribe to these notions prefer to have someone in charge, nefarious or otherwise, rather than face, what is to some, the harsh reality of existentialism.

And the corollary of companies is of course politicians:

While it is at times easy for certain people to suggest that public figures, politicans et al, are out to screw the 'little people' in reality they probably aren't.

More than likely they are incompetent, arrogant, simply out of their depth and are fixated on short-term changes. As a result, they end up at best keeping the status quo and at worst exacerbating the situation. And the 'mistakes' that do make it through will quickly find that radical changes are very difficult to implement and watered down compromise wreaks their original goals.

In the U.S. where you have two shades of the one party these things are much harder to change than with a plural, proportional representative system. The chances of a non-Republican/Democrat party in the current circumstances getting a president or control of parliament is probably less than winning the lotto twice and getting hit by the lightning three times while surviving two plane crashes all in the space of a week.

[amberwolf]

As culture and as a species we need to re-evaluate how we work, what we are doing and why we are doing it.

Oddly enough, I was just watching this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtWVfTiQQW8
while munching some dinner and browsing ES. James Burke asks some interesting questions; points out things that ought to be obvious but aren't. Wish I had had him for a teacher.

[kold kanuck]

bosch actually has a night vision system, but that film would be such a great addition to the system they have.

http://rb-kwin.bosch.com/en/safety_comf ... index.html

demo video under the owl.

[Hillhater]

Yes - I have been dreaming of night-vision in cars for quite awhile.

Ask you local Mercedes dealer, its already an option on their top range cars .

even half of this comes to fruition. A lot of people are going to have a vast quantity of free time on their hands......

That was the prediction back in the 60,s when the first.. " micro chips" .. were developed... It hasnt worked out that way !

I think the days of 100 per cent employment rates may become a thing of the past in the medium future at least.

Was there ever 100% employment ??

[amberwolf]

My question being where the hell does the IR come from at night?

If it is like typical "night vision", it uses both very low-level light and what is actually Near-infrared (NIR), like your remote controls for various things tend to use. It is easily picked up by silicon CCDs that then convert them to electrons, so it is no surprise that something that does this conversion can be then added to a layer of visible-light-emitting material to make an imager. It is more of a surprise that no one had done it before this.

The device is monochromatic, though, because the photosenstive material doesnt' distinguish between wavelengths--everythign that comes in adds energy (and the shorter the wavelength typically the higher the energy), eventually being enough to force an electron release. That electron then stimulates a photon release in the other material behind it (the one our eyes would focus on). of whatever color the emitting material is made for. Green is probably easier than other colors, partly because our eyes are designed to respond better to it, making it a more efficient color to use.

One could make a tricolor version of the device, the same way we make cameras and TVs, but it would not be as useful or sensitive, unless we created our own "false color" map for it, built into the device: The first device in a "pixel" would have a filter that removed all incoming photons except for the band we assign to "red", whcih would be presumably a section of the lowest-frequency (longest wavelength) light. Then the second device would filter all except a band above the previous one, which we could assign to "green"; this band would presumably be the widest band or the one in the most light-producing part of the average spectrum available at night. The third device would filter all the light except what we assign to "blue", and presumably would be the weakest and narrowest band.

The first device's output would use a red "phosphor", the second green, the third blue. That would simulate an RGB light emitting pixel like we already use on various visual displays. Your eye/brain will assemble these into an average color between them, helping you "see" in darkness with better visual interpretation than if it was only monochromatic. Even though the colors are all "wrong", your brain will still learn to interpret what they mean, and probably will not take very long to do it, either.

You could even completely reinterpret the spectrum so that things that emit heat are red, by filtering out all but heat from the red-emitting devices, all other non-visible light into the blue, and all the actual visible light into the green spectrum. Or perhaps some other pattern of color reinterpretation that turns out to be useful, depending on what the application is going to be.


The nifty thing? You could probably use that carbon-nanotube stuff he was thinking to block/pass the light from the window with to do the filtering, once someone figures out how to filter specific wavelengths with individual nanotubes (which can probably be done, somehow).



There's lots of light at night, just that much of it isn't within our visual range, or it is insufficient to stimulate our fairly-insensitive retinas in the color areas. Since our eyes focus images on the color areas, and our brains are wired up and trained to pay attention to the color areas, we tend to see "static" rather than clear images as random color photon detections happen, and our brains determine this as stronger than the surrounding "dim" lighting that doesnt' trigger our color vision.

Remember also that starlight is the same light (approximately, overall, after being filtered by the atmosphere) that our sun puts out, it's just a whole lot dimmer because despite how many there are, theyr'e so much farther away. So all that light is probably also being converted by this device.

[Joseph C.]

Yes - I have been dreaming of night-vision in cars for quite awhile.

Ask you local Mercedes dealer, its already an option on their top range cars .

Yes, a small screen located somewhere on the dashboard, no doubt. With this I'm envisaging the entire windscreen providing night vision capability.

even half of this comes to fruition. A lot of people are going to have a vast quantity of free time on their hands......

That was the prediction back in the 60,s when the first.. " micro chips" .. were developed... It hasnt worked out that way !

They may still be right. The timeframe is just taking longer than expected.

I think the days of 100 per cent employment rates may become a thing of the past in the medium future at least.

Was there ever 100% employment ??

A semantic quibble. Let's be more precise therefore and call it full employment. And I believe your country, Australia, was the first to declare full employment.

[Hillhater]

A semantic quibble. Let's be more precise therefore and call it full employment. And I believe your country, Australia, was the first to declare full employment.

Political statistics..we all know how accurate they are.
currently Au are officially stating 5 % unemployment , but the "real" figure is probably in excess of 20%
( its bad karma for a government to reveal high unemployment !)

[gestalt]

Joseph C. wrote:
even half of this comes to fruition. A lot of people are going to have a vast quantity of free time on their hands......

That was the prediction back in the 60,s when the first.. " micro chips" .. were developed... It hasnt worked out that way !

Exactly what I'm talking about. Right about the time that the military industrial complex and "the insiders" hijacked our destiny. I don't have a "self-comforting god-substitution", I have a grasp on history and the present conditions that have been built upon it. You can call me a conspiracy theorist but I feel that a majority of people prefer to have a self comforting delusion that the people running the show are incompetent boobs just bumbling along. It's easy to brush off the illuminati, masons, skull and bones as well as the bilderberg group. But I think it's naive to think that these super elite organizations are working for the populaces best interests.

Besides, even if it was true, as more and more people get laid off - public unrest will foment making such control impossible.

Unless the collective unrest and desperation is being used as a tool for such control.

[veloman]

So what's the catch?

[Joseph C.]

So what's the catch?

The catch is we don't have it yet.

[Joseph C.]

Oddly enough, I was just watching this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtWVfTiQQW8
while munching some dinner and browsing ES. James Burke asks some interesting questions; points out things that ought to be obvious but aren't. Wish I had had him for a teacher.

Thanks for posting that, Amberwolf, Just got around to seeing it. Brilliant.

[liveforphysics]

So what's the catch?

The catch is we don't have it yet.

I think part of the catch, is that multi-wall carbon nano-tubes with order cost something like $5,000-20,000/kg, and so far are not possible to grow in larger batches than a few inches at this time.

Likewise, his little IR amp device was a thin film CCD with a film over it, or at least appeared exactly like a thin film CCD complete with it's pixel matrix connection grids on the sides.

Sounded to me like a guy trying to lure in some venture capital money to squander on his own salary. But maybe I'm jaded because I have to deal with those types on a weekly basis.

[Joseph C.]

I think part of the catch, is that multi-wall carbon nano-tubes with order cost something like $5,000-20,000/kg, and so far are not possible to grow in larger batches than a few inches at this time.

Likewise, his little IR amp device was a thin film CCD with a film over it, or at least appeared exactly like a thin film CCD complete with it's pixel matrix connection grids on the sides.

Sounded to me like a guy trying to lure in some venture capital money to squander on his own salary. But maybe I'm jaded because I have to deal with those types on a weekly basis.

You could be right. My first impression of the guy was a pretty negative one. Of course I then dismissed it as cynicism.

Still though - one can dream.

[amberwolf]

Thanks for posting that, Amberwolf, Just got around to seeing it. Brilliant.

You're welcome. I really like watching his shows, connecting things...it's something I like to do myself, but I am nowhere near the master of it he is.

BTW, on this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IH4iLhhL7k
around 3 minutes in, it discusses how our minds decide what we see, and mentions that we can't see both versions at once. But I do....I see the parallel lines as both the same length, even before the background photo is taken away, but I can still see them as different lengths if I choose. I still see both faces, even though I saw the "old hag" first, I can easily see them both at the same time (to me, the young lady is simply standing farther away to the side of the old). I can also see the triangle without the dots, as well as envision the dots and black triangle without the line-triangle.

But...I *don't* see the face as a negative-mold version, no matter how hard I try. I also have trouble looking at maps of cratered surfaces--I see domes everywhere, not craters, despite knowing full well what they are.

[Joseph C.]

Thanks for posting that, Amberwolf, Just got around to seeing it. Brilliant.

You're welcome. I really like watching his shows, connecting things...it's something I like to do myself, but I am nowhere near the master of it he is.

I think you are being very hard on yourself and you are also forgetting that Mr. Burke has a team coming up with ideas too. Plus I'm sure he also didn't come up with this out of a vacuum.

It may be overused but it is still apposite:

'If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants' - Newton.

[amberwolf]

Well, I just try to know my limitations.

[nechaus]

it does really need to change, the way this planet runs on fossil fuels.

even nuclear power is outdated the process of using the reaction to produce heat than steam and moving a turbine.. what a waste

we are still only new to nano scale really..
a hell of alot more can be done.
Cern even broke the speed of light

next 40 years will be exciting in the technology world



We are creatures that need clean gas to operate, oxygen is used in so many different ways in our body.
yet we all are polluting the very thing we breath, the air,

i hope this guy is genuine about helping people like that little girl and that is his main motivation.