SCIENCE!

Nikola Tesla is vindicated:

Then it started getting weird, before getting just plain scary.

Intel researchers demonstrated a Wireless Resonant Energy Link. Think of two antennas, one hooked to a a power source, the other hooked to a nothing else but a lightbulb. By using resonant coupling, power was transmitted from the power source to the light bulb, to the tune of 60W at 75 per cent efficiency. Or put simply, the lightbulb lit up, purely on wirelessly transmitted power.

Rattner said the firm envisioned receiving resonators being built into laptops and mobile phones, so that they could be recharged quickly simply by being placed next to a power transmitter. He added that the technology was – probably – perfectly safe, as it relied on resonant coupling, not anything nasty like inductive coupling.

Tesla was working on this a hundred years ago. It's good to see that the rest of humanity is catching up.

On a recent DVD purchase.

Mim and I went shopping last weekend.

We bought a DVD set. We couldn't resist. It called to both of us from deep in our childhoods.


The Mysterious Cities of Gold



6 DVDs containing all 39 episodes, including the little featurette after each one.

And watching the first few on Sunday, they were in a lot of ways really low-budget. The animation was competent, but not inspiring (the story, that's another thing...), and the audio -- listening with older ears, it has a Vangelis tribute for a soundtrack, and a fairly ordinary attempt to have sound effects. (On board ship, for instance, I was actively distracted listening in vain for creaking ropes and timbers, the slap of waves against the ship.)


And yet... Susi and Abi sat in rapture for four episodes straight. They love it.

And so another part of my childhood becomes part of that of my children.