Pretty Women News

Blowing out the candles.....


I Should Really Work On This Myself
So China is working on their geometrically increasing use of plastic bags, and are considering regulating or banning the ultra thin ones that get used in copious amounts in their (and our) grocery stores, in order to reduce the waste that piles up, unburied, around Chinese cities.

Probably a good idea, though honestly they might want to worry about their industrial sources first. I mean, the air in Beijing is almost completely unbreathable, and that's with the draconian crackdown on cars; I can't imagine how the Olympics are going to go anything but poorly there.

*shrug*

Still, maybe after they deal with the bags, they can deal with the people putting lead on childrens' toys and hormones in fish and such.

Also, the idea of creating massive trash burning power plants is hilarious.

Many of China's cities are in the middle of building huge "waste-to-energy" plants that will convert the vast bulk of their rubbish into electricity, but plans to build such a plant in Beijing last year led to protests amid fears it could fire lethal dioxins into the atmosphere as a consequence of burning plastics.

Who'd have guessed giant TRASH FIRES would pose an air quality problem, lolz.

Plus, imagine the perverse incentive; if your power is generated by trash burning, then you can't very well work too hard to cut back on trash, or you'll just run out of juice. It's setting you up on a course to environmental suicide; either you run out of trash, breathable air, or both.

Source: Guardian Unlimited

Boy Scouts Actually Do Things In Other Countries?
Here they just kick out gay kids and atheists, but in the Maldives a Boy Scout stopped an assassination attempt.

Before you get too worked up with enthusiasm, it should be noted the attempt was against an unelected dictator who has ruled the country for thirty years. So not as black and white as the Press might indicate.

Source: AZcentral.com

Super Soaker Science
Did you know the creator of the Super Soaker was a nuclear engineer who used to work for NASA (including on the Galileo mission, of which I am a huge fan)? How about that he's taken the millions he earned from the water gun industry and rolled it into research into battery technology? No?

Well, now, already holding 100 patents to his name, he's come up with a novel heat engine that can, theoretically, harvest heat into electricity with 60% efficiency; his idea is to use it in combination with solar plants that concentrate light to boil water to increase their electricity generation (they are currently about 30% efficient, so that'd double their capacity).

This is all apparently for real and above the board stuff, so it's quite exciting; plus the technology isn't limited to solar energy, so it might one day be used to make electricity from all sorts of waste heat, including cars, and even people.

Oh no... THE MATRIX! THIS IS HOW IT STARTS!

Source: Popular Mechanics

Ok, I Have to Ask
How do you 'gleam' a cube? What does that even mean?

Source: Wikipedia

Free to Eat Ramen
So there's a new anime miniseries out that is apparently very interesting. Katsuhiro Otomo of Akira fame does the character and mechanical designs, so you know it has a pedigree; apparently the animation is top notch, the show is film quality, and the story is novel and interesting.

It's getting a somewhat sporadic DVD release in the US on some very pricey HD-hybrid discs, and so far there's no word on whether the last episodes will come out. That's too bad.

Here's the weird part though: this big budget, arty, cerebral space-drama... is actually an ad campaign. For instant noodles.

And for those wondering about the prominent “Cup Noodles” product placements throughout the series? The series is actually a promotion project for Nissin Cup Noodles' 35th anniversary, so expect to see more of them in the future.

I've been going over this in my head, and I can't decide whether this is a horrible abomination, or an interesting way to harnass the foul wickedness of advertising for a positive purpose.

Source: Anime News Network