I saw this on fark today, it cracked me up.

Fark is pretty sucky, and it's just an old old joke with a bad photoshop attached.

It's not like it's unfunny though.

That's pretty funny!

"Rolling over in their grave," litteraly.

Cap'n Refsmmat said in post # :

That's pretty funny!

"Rolling over in their grave," litteraly.

 

The prosecution rests.

that`s given me an idea, I wonder how much energy could be gotten from a hampster if you were to attatch a little geared generator to a hampster wheel?

maybe enough for a small radio?

YT2095 said in post # :

that`s given me an idea, I wonder how much energy could be gotten from a hampster if you were to attatch a little geared generator to a hampster wheel?

maybe enough for a small radio?

 

Part of the problem would be the resistance. The hamster would have to work much harder to get it going, or to keep it spinning.

yeah, that`s why I was thinking of using the electric motor and gear box out of a toy car. it`s fairly easy to turn and when put in the center as the axis for the wheel, it should be very easy for a hampster to turn it, even under load

60 rpms should kick out a good 4 to 5 volts at about 50ma, enough to charge a little battery for a radio

60 rpms means one turn per sec, and one tired hampster.

your 1`st part is correct and with an element of the Duuugh factor.

and when you consider that a hampster workout can last in half hour sessions with many thousand revs during this time, it`s hardly an issue

maybe you could have shifts of hampsters, do one every fifteen minutes or so, so the other could eat and nap a bit.

thanx cap, I`ll remember that, shift work!

because I do so much like listening to a radio occasionaly

And, no overweight hampsters!

forget it, yer idea sux!

they`re forming a Union and have already started complaint procedures

I saw this thing on the TV about solar panals, and it had a little part about a type of window that only lets like half the light through. It absorbs the other half and converts it into electricity. They claimed that if a skyscaper had these windows then it could power itself. What if everyone had these windows? Is this sound plausible?

 

PS: sorry if i go a little off topic, and ruining your conversation on over-weight hampters

YT2095 said in post #14 :

forget it, yer idea sux!

they`re forming a Union and have already started complaint procedures

Darn them!

 

-Demosthenes- said in post #15 :

I saw this thing on the TV about solar panals, and it had a little part about a type of window that only lets like half the light through. It absorbs the other half and converts it into electricity. They claimed that if a skyscaper had these windows then it could power itself. What if everyone had these windows? Is this sound plausible?

Yes, it does. THat would be a great idea.

I remember seeing something similar, but this time it was that the windows would reflect a part of the sunlight further into the building to give more sunlight deep inside the building, and thus saving energy for lamps (at least during the day).

 

Anyway, both these and the windows you talk about have a small problem: With a lot of skyscrapers, would there be enough light hitting the windows to make much of a difference? Wouldn't the skyscrapers just create shadows for each other?

That's a problem... maybe you could put skyscrapers of different heights in pattern that lets all of them get max sunlight.

This joke was pretty funny. I love Ashcroft jokes!

Well if we thought of lots of different ways and places to put solar panals in unused space then we could make alot of energy. We could concentrate our research into making better solar pannels and finding easier ways to use them, and use a complutely renewable resource, not put polution in the air, adn not destroy the forsests that are left.

But there is a problem, what do you do at night? Can you use batteries that save some of the energy from the day? And in the winter and there's not much sun? Maybe it couldn't be the main source of energy, but each building could use these things as more of a energy saver than anything else, so they don't use as much energy.

Maybe...

batteries are almost always used in conjunction with solar electric units

as for the winter, the sunshine we get is admitedly less than mid summer, but with modern plastics and construction techniques it need not be a problem, water can be heated in mid winter to quite respectable temperatures even in overcast weathers. this then is used to suplement the existing heating method.