Human Powered Vehicle

Chuck and Charley Breenwood of the company HumanCar have decided that the future fuel is not biofuel but rowing. This vehicle can support four people and the two in the front would steer by leaning. This nethod is similiar to skiing. If powered by four people it can achieve a speed of about a person on a bike. There's also electric motors to help if you are on rougher terrain. They are trying to sell as a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle which frees it from requirements such as airbags and sometimes insurance and liscense. to qualify they need to have a speed of 20mph. Although this is great for people to get in shape I son't see it happening. It is human powered so it has the same limits of a human with the help of some electric motors. I just don't think it's going to happen soon because the idea of cars is to allow people to travel without human restrictions. However it poses some good ideas and I would recommend people to read this article.
Singel,Ryan "HumanCar Powered by Human Energy, Not Ethanol" Wired Blog Network. September 27, 2008 <http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/09/humancar-powere.html>

Homer-Sexist or Feminist

I think that if one were to choose Homer would be more of a sexist than feminist. Most of the women in The Odyssey and The Iliad are portrayed as the stereotypical women. Penelope is one of those women. She sits at home unable to fend for herself and is helpless while she waits and waits for her husband to come back cand chase off the suitors. She is helpless at home doing her chores while Odysseus is away. The serving women in the house of Odysseus are portrayed stereotypically when they sleep with all the suitors. Athena is wise and capable in battle but she is a goddess. Helen has no say in what happens. She is taken to Troy and the winner would take her home. She has no say in the matter and she is treated as a trophy for the winner not a person with an opinion. Whenever a city is raided the women are taken off and they just do what their captors tell them to. They don't try to fight back and al they do is obey the commands of their captors. Obviously there is a lot of evidence to support the idea that Homer portrays women in a poor light.

Algae-based jet fuel?

Is algae based jet fuel a possibility? Solazyme, a company based in San Francisco says that they have manufactured algae based jet fuel that meets industry standards. The fuel is produced by "growing algae in fermentation tanks without sunlight, satisfying eukaryotic organism's sweet tooth by feeding it a steady diet of sugar"(1). In recent tests of this fuel it met certain standards such as "density, stability, freezing point, and viscosity"(1). Most airline companies are willing to give this new fuel a try due to the skyrocketing prices of jet fuel. However will this fuel ever be able to be mass-produced at a cheap price? Right now this is not yet a reality. The amount of equipment needed to manufacture this fuel on a large scale is extremely expensive. The expensive manufacturing costs carries over to consumers making it too expensive for most people to afford. I don't think this will be used on a large scale for a long time. The costs just seem too much to be overcome. However you never know what somebody can discover in each new day.However it was an interesting article and i would recommend people to read it.