Saturday, August 21, 2010
Rotating Solar House Generates Five Times The Energy It Consumes
Rotating Solar House Generates Five Times The Energy It Consumes
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by Matylda Czarnecka on Aug 20, 2010
What’s cooler than a rotating house? One whose solar panels produce five times the energy the house uses. That’s pretty incredible, considering that even zero-energy structures are rare.
German architect Rolf Disch built the home, called Heliotrope, to follow the sun throughout the day. The structure features triple panes of thermally insulated glass to strike a balance between letting light in and keeping the house cooler inside.
A giant 6.6-kilowatt-capacity rooftop solar panel called the Sun Sail slurps up the rays of energy, pumping them into the home and grid. Solar thermal collectors on balcony railings act as water heaters and radiators. On cloudy days, the house can be heated with wood chips and solar thermal heating.
The Sun Sail itself rotates separately from the house, adjusting itself to the best possible position at all times. This gives it a 30% to 40% advantage in energy production over traditional rooftop solar panels.
The house is green inside as well. Waste water goes through a purification system for reuse, and rain water collects in a rooftop basin. The toilet system turns human waste into compost.
Is it nice to live in? Disch must think so, as he resides in the prototype himself. Two other Heliotropes have been built to date, each costing about $2 million to build.
This video tours the house inside and out. Be warned: it’s in German and the time lapse at the beginning is set to some rocking techno music:
Gillmor Gang 08.13.10
The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Danny Sullivan, Andrew Keen, and John Taschek — on Google/Verizon and Oracle/Android. Recorded live Friday, August 13, 2010.
Lady Java Video Marks Exact Point Where Geek Culture Jumped The Shark
Lady Java, whose whiny drone is making me pretty nostalgic for the days when non-developers thought Java was a kind of coffee, is the creation of the supremely dorky folks over at JavaZone in Oslo, Norway. And while you might argue that the Java developer community is still small and tight knit, that thing is currently rounding out 100,000 views on the originally posted YouTube video and countless others on repost.
“I want to program like they do at Oracle …”
I personally blame Twitter for killing geek culture. You know who else has a combined love for coding and Lady Gaga? Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who yes, follows her on Twitter.You know how I know that? Yes, again Twitter.
“Some people prefer other languages, but that’s okay if you’re retarded I guess.”
In case you’re confused, I don’t mean “jumped the shark” and “killing” in the traditional “lose popularity” sense, just that nerd culture is now officially mass culture with whatever decline in quality that implies.
But it’s not entirely Twitter’s fault. Hollywood should at least share part of the blame for making nerd life look somewhat glamorous in the hype surrounding David Fincher’s The Social Network and whatever that newest Google movie is. And for letting Ashton Kutcher weigh in on tech news.
Okay maybe that one is Twitter’s fault.
Tracing the blame is hard, but tracing the tipping point is not (Hint: It’s this video).
However smarter people influencing the machinations of mainstream is not entirely a bad thing; Maybe U.S. teens will finally consider engineering cool, and at least nerds know that Lady Gaga is not her actual name.
SENIOR LAWYER SAYS "BEWARE OF COMING POLICE STATE"
SENIOR LAWYER SAYS "BEWARE OF COMING POLICE STATE"
Clayton Ruby defends Charlie Veitch, second person charged under Public Works Protection Act
I Love “Unconferences”
attended both BarCampOrlando and blogOrlando – I had the best time meeting, socializing and sharing ideas with other web elites.
TWiT Special #32 – The Future of the Web with Leo Laporte
Host: Abby Laporte
Young entrepreneurs give their vision of the future of technology.
Guests: Daniel Brusilovsky, Mark Bao, Joey Primiani and Brian Wong
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