Merry Christmas

to everyone who celebrates it!

And HAPPY HOLIDAYS to all of you who have to inclination to read this blog.

Here's a slection of Christmas music for your listening enjoyment.

See you next year!













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Air powered car update

A couple of years ago, I wrote about a car powered by compressed air.

(you can read the original articles here and here)

Well it seems that the idea is still going strong, and the French company that developed the technology was just in the news again. Here's a video from CNN.





And here's a link to the English version of the MDI Website for more information on what they are developing.

It would sure be nice to be able to get one of those cars here. Given a few solar panels, an inverter and compressor it would make running around town a whole lot cheaper.

Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict

The Best Pink Floyd Song Ever?

I always thought so.
Of course that might have something to do with the circumstances under which I first heard the song. (1969, in a camp in the redwoods, after a day of wildcrafting some of the local mushrooms)

From their Ummagumma album





The same album gave us the more conventionally popular "Careful with that ax, Eugene".

Gluten Free January

Here's something to try if you want to do something to improve your health.

I found notice of this on Rob Wolf's blog (along with the groovy picture above).

There's a movement afoot to get people to spend a month gluten free, just to see if it makes a positive difference in their overall health and well-being.

There is a website devoted to getting people to participate in the event, located here. 

For a good number of people there's some real benefit to this, even if they don't show overt symptoms of gluten intolerance or celiac disease. If you have metabolic syndrome or diabetes, it could change your life in a big way.

It's also a great way to drop weight, since gluten containing foods are also some of the most high carb.

Give it a try for a month and see if it makes a difference in how you feel and how much energy our have.

You can find lists of gluten containing foods here and here.

Folkmusikgruppen Irmelin

Or, The folk music group Irmelin

This is an A Cappella folk group singing a rather lovely song called Förglöm mig ej, or forget me not





It's good winter music.

St Lucia Day

It's easy to miss here

But December 13th is St Lucia's feast day. It's one of the events that makes a Swedish winter a bit more bearable.

St Lucy

I've always liked it anyway, and it has an interesting echo of the Pagan past. If you're not familiar with St Lucia day you can read the Wiki entry here

Here's the most rational discussion I have found about Wikileaks

It's been interesting watching the fabric our our society unravel over the last two years.

I have to admit, I thought it would be the tea baggers that brought down the country, but I may have been wrong about that.

The dust up over wikileaks may just shake the foundations of civilization a bit more. We seem to be at the start of something right out of a scifi novel. A cyber-war that may just have more and more lasting impact than all the Muslim and Christian terrorists combined.

Here is one of the more reasonable discussions I have seen on the problem of wikileaks.






and here is one of the more honest takes on it.

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