Hypermiling: how to increase your MPG without buying a new car

The key is changing your driving habits. When we went to Phoenix for Memorial Day Weekend, we did the Las Cruces -> Phoenix leg at around 65 MPG and got 36-36 MPG over 400 miles and still got there in about 7 hours. I've occasionally coasted down from Cloudcroft to Alamogordo with the car in neutral but the engine still on, but not enough to notice a change in MPG. If I ever get to move back there, it would be an interesting experiment to run over a couple of tanks. It wouldn't work as well going to or from the observatory.

One example in the first article: "Fulton routinely gets 55 mpg from his 1997 Toyota Paseo, a car the EPA rates at 29 mpg."

http://www.wired.com/cars/energy/news/2008/06/hypermilers09

http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Get_More_Than_40_Miles_Per_Gallon_Without_a_Hybrid

Hey, Metallica! Here's a dollar, go buy a clue!

A Metallica rep held a listening party for a guy who writes online music reviews in a blog and previews an early mix of Metallica's new album. At no time is an NDA mentioned or signed. The writer writes and posts a very favorable review, saying it's a good album and a return to form.

Metallica management forces the review to be removed from the web site.

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/06/metallica-kills.html

No more flying without identification!

After 9/11, if you were going to fly and didn't have ID or didn't want to present it, you could submit to a more detailed search and you would still be allowed to fly. Or at least you could do that at airports where the TSA people actually knew the rules rather than made them up on the spot. Well, that's now a thing of the past. Now if you don't have identification, you don't fly. Apparently it's part of a new program to try to profile dangerous people rather than dangerous items, because, after all, terrorists would have such difficulty getting identification.

Don't you feel safer already? I know I do. [/sarcasm]

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/tsa-nixes-flyin.html

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-9962760-46.html?tag=nefd.top

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/10/0057202

Almost got t-boned driving back from lunch today

I have to pass through three 4-way stops, and some twit decided he didn't need to stop at the second.

Lovely. Just lovely.

Paper stronger than steel?

Apparently so. From the article: "Conventional paper is made from cellulose, a crystalline polymer of glucose that's the primary component of plant cell walls. At the nanoscale level, cellulose can be extremely strong, with individual fibers capable of withstanding more stress than glass fibers or steel wire. But paper processing generates relatively large cellulose microfibers riddled with defects that can break apart under stress. That leaves most commercial paper with a tensile strength that tops out at about 30 megapascals (MPa)" Apparently by using nanotube technology and some cool chemistry, the paper can be made to over 200 MPa, steel has a strength of 130 MPa.

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/609/1?

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/10/0033201

I want to move to India and become a Sikh!

They get to carry their big knives (a Kirpan) on airplanes!

(the article with a very long url)

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/06/sikhs_can_carry.html