From Inhabitat:

As part of the Mayor of London’s plan for an increased reliance on energy efficient vehicles to power the city’s transport infrastructure, Transport for London, the British agency responsible for public transportation, has introduced one hybrid bus across route 141. The current hybrid bus is powered by a hybrid diesel-electric engine. Thanks to the mixture of both systems, the bus is able to cover the same distance range as a conventional diesel bus. All the hybrid buses will be marked with a leafy insignia to better communicate to the passengers that they are indeed traveling on an environmentally friendly bus. Here’s hoping that the rest of London, and other cities in the world follow this lead.

“This is a world-first for London marking our commitment to a cleaner, greener public transport network.” said Mayor Ken Livigstone.

Link to Inhadbitat post here.

Transport for London release here.

From “Speeding Bullet World’s Fastest Train You Can Ride Dumps Energy Like a Prius ,” by Alex Hutchinson in Popular Mechanics:

When the latest model of Shinkansen, the Japanese bullet train, was launched on July 1, more than 1300 people showed up at 6 am on a Sunday to pack the seats for the maiden voyage, from Tokyo to Fukuoka. The Series N700 is billed by Japan Railways as the world’s fastest bullet train in service (France’s faster TGV train has been used only to break speed records), with a top speed of 186 mph.

It’s the first bullet train to be equipped with an air spring-powered active tilting system, allowing it to whip around corners without slowing down. Special fabric hoods cover the gaps between cars, turning the train into one long, seamless, aerodynamic unit.

Despite all these improvements, the 5-hour trip to Fukuoka will be shortened by a mere 10 minutes. More important, though, the journey will be quieter and more comfortable, and it will use 19 percent less energy than current bullet trains.

(emphasis added)

Please bear this in mind the next time someone refers to the United States as the most technologically advanced country in the world.

Airline agent (male) put this woman off the plane because her attire was “offensive.” One suspects that he found her attractive and was resentful.

There’s no question that this is unfair to this woman; it’s likely unlawful sex discrimination. But when airline personnel put people off the plane for wearing “offensive” clothing – they’re diverting resources from security. And they are, presumably, in the business of  providing safe air carriage.

Perhaps there’s a niche market for an airline on which passengers’ modest dress as a condition of passage.

From  Xeni Jardin piece Boing Boing

– and a derivative tip of the hat to the ever-vigilant Bruce Schneier.

San Diego Union Tribune piece.

Also of yellow dots.

From Redundant Coding – Individual Sensitivity Differences

(photo credited by FAA to Armor Tile)

Which is part of a training module on the FAA’s Human Factors Research and Engineering Group website. I’ll cop to it: I didn’t know the FAA had this sort of resource. But this section, at least, is well-written and well-illustrated.

If you’re interested in human factors engineering – and we all are, aren’t we, even if we don’t know it or won’t admit –  it the FAA Human Factors Workbench  is pretty cool. And the more use it gets – the efficiently our tax dollars are used.

Minnesota Bridge Blog Roundup at Boing Boing.

My limited understanding of the Twin Cities’ geography is that there wasn’t –  even before the collapse – a lot of redundancy in river crossing. And considerations that make any quick fixes (Bailey bridges, pontoon bridges, and other military combat bridges) unusable – the need to keep the Mississippi passable.

Mine is a multi-Prius clan. I drive one of that first batch of 2,000 that came in in 2001, courtesy of my Dad, who promptly traded up for the new body model. My brother has one of those, too.

So when I say that it seems like years since rumor first had it that PHEV (plug-in hybrid engine vehicle) upgrades were just around the corner, I mean really . I’ve read innumerable profiles of little Mom-and-Pop shops (invariably in CA) performing the conversions, and enough predictions that similar conversion services were coming soon to a garage near me that I put off the road trip. The Canadians are doing it

& the kids are doing it, but the rest of us are just waiting around getting bothered, apparently.

Our best hope might just be with the DIY crowd, which is hard at work developing an open-source conversion guide and launch a fleet of “100+MPG Hybrids”–with the ultimate goal of pressuring the auto industry to do it Bettah.

From ToolMonger’s reporting from Maker Faire:

These people from GreeneMotor brought out a number of motorcycles and scooters that they converted entirely to electric power. They claim that you can ride 450 miles on a single dollar’s worth of juice — even at California rates. Thumb your noses at the Prius crowd — you’re really green now. At least you’d be the first person on your block with an almost totally silent ride.

From  GreeneMotor.com.

ViaToolmonger. Maker Faire is a project of MakeZine

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