“Split-cycle engines have been around for some time but until now have never matched the fuel efficiency of traditional internal combustion engines. That is about to change, with the latest split-cycle engines from the Scuderi Group offering greater fuel efficiency and up to 80 percent reduction in NOx emissions and 50 percent reduction in CO2.

Split-cycle engines feature paired cylinders, so a four-cylinder engine has two sets of paired cylinders working together, with a crossover passage linking the two cylinders in each pair to each other. The four strokes of the engine are split into two groups, with the left cylinder handling intake and compression and the second handling combustion and exhaust. The Scuderi™ Air-Hybrid design adds an air storage tank and controls that allow it to recapture and store the energy lost as the engine operates.

The new design solves some of the problems that have hampered previous split-cycle designs. The low volume breathing problem is solved by outward-opening pneumatic valves and a reduction in the clearance between the piston and cylinder head to under 1 mm, which means virtually 100 percent of the compressed air is pushed out of the cylinder…”

READ HERE

-- Toddler follows a sweet sweet trail of candy to his own doom. By the way, this is also Pedobear's favorite pastime.

Oh, and, - Ooh a Piece of Candy

“Leave aside for the moment the health effects of Pepsi's products, and your rightful concerns about highly-processed food in general, while reading how much Pepsi has done to reduce its environmental impact... Last Friday PepsiCo issued an update on its goals of sending no waste to landfills by 2020, being entirely fossil fuel free by 2023, and making all of its packaging recyclable or biodegradable.

Business Green reports that since 2008, PepsiCo has grown by more than 15%, but has reduced overall carbon footprint by 3.7%, reduced total energy use by 7.3%, reduced water use by 14.6%, and cut landfill waste by 88%.

In the next five years, Pepsi intends on working with its farmers to reduce the carbon and water intensity of producing their crops by 50%…”

READ HERE

“Kevin Ham is the most powerful dotcom mogul you've never heard of, reports Business 2.0 Magazine. Here's how the master of Web domains built a $300 million empire.

Kevin Ham leans forward, sits up tall, closes his eyes, and begins to type -- into the air. He's seated along the rear wall of a packed ballroom in Las Vegas's Venetian Hotel. Up front, an auctioneer is running through a list of Internet domain names, building excitement the same way he might if vintage cars were on the block.

As names come up that interest Ham, he occasionally air-types. It's the ultimate gut check. Is the name one that people might enter directly into their Web browser, bypassing the search engine box entirely, as Ham wants? Is it better in plural or singular form? If it's a typo, is it a mistake a lot of people would make? Or does the name, like a stunning beachfront property, just feel like a winner?

When Ham wants a domain, he leans over and quietly instructs an associate to bid on his behalf. He likes wedding names, so his guy lifts the white paddle and snags Weddingcatering.com for $10,000. Greeting.com is not nearly as good as the plural Greetings.com, but Ham grabs it anyway, for $350,000.

Ham is a devout Christian, and he spends $31,000 to add Christianrock.com to his collection, which already includes God.com and Satan.com. When it's all over, Ham strolls to the table near the exit and writes a check for $650,000. It's a cheap afternoon…”

-- This guy can make domain shopping real hell, but one must also admire the business savvy.

READ HERE

-- No comment.

-- EVER. Skip ahead to 6:38 for the good stuff. Lots of one wheel wonders.

-- I know I know, old news, but someone actually asked me for a clip like this the other day, so here it is. I love Ricky Gervais, he turned another bullshit award show into a roast and Hollywood hates him right now and probably will for awhile still...haha Watch all the best jabs here and if you think he went too far, please keep this quote by him, made before the show, in mind when you watch it and be glad he did not go with his original idea for the intro as per his interview with Conan:

"Gervais, a 2004 Golden Globe winner for starring in the original British version of "The Office," promises he'll never host the Globes again.

"You know I said that last time," he replied. "I mean, who knows? I want to do either such a bad job I'm not invited back, or such a good job that I don't want to do it again."

“WASHINGTON – The U.S. awarded a no-bid, $266 million contract for a lucrative electricity project in southern Afghanistan despite promising last year to seek competitive bids, The Associated Press has learned.

The U.S. Agency for International Development made the change despite criticism over how it has managed billions of dollars spent on reconstruction contracts.

In January 2010, the agency said companies would compete for the project, which was awarded to Black & Veatch Corp. of Overland Park, Kan. USAID had chastised the company for cost overruns and busted deadlines on a diesel-fueled power plant in Kabul.

But the U.S. let 10 months pass before deciding to award a contract without competitive bids, saying that it couldn't spend more time seeking offers.

A rival company that was interested in bidding, Symbion Power LLC of Washington, D.C., said USAID broke its promise and spent more than it should to expand electricity into Helmand and Kandahar provinces.

"I was stunned because of the cost of it," Symbion chief executive Paul Hinks said.

The no-bid contract comes as the independent Commission on Wartime Contracting is examining how wisely billions of U.S. money is being spent and how well contractors are being supervised in Afghanistan. USAID and Black & Veatch executives are scheduled to testify Monday at a commission hearing…”

READ HERE

-- via tylerriewer.tumblr.com

-- NSFW. Not for the dangerously conservative or the prude of heart... ;)

-- I saw this a few days ago, so I am assuming some of you probably have come across it already. Opinions? Would you use it?

GQ: The latest dispatch from our street-shooting man at the shows.

-- Photographer Tommy Ton is at Pitti Uomo, the menswear extravaganza in Florence, and is photographing some of the slickest men in the world for GQ. Go here for your fashion inspiration.

SEE HERE

“An American-led military unit pulverized an Afghan village in Kandahar’s Arghandab River Valley in October, after it became overrun with Taliban insurgents. It’s hard to understand how turning an entire village into dust fits into America’s counterinsurgency strategy — which supposedly prizes the local people’s loyalty above all else.

But it’s the latest indication that Gen. David Petraeus, the counterinsurgency icon, is prosecuting a frustrating war with surprising levels of violence. Some observers already fear a backlash brewing in the area.

Paula Broadwell, a West Point graduate and Petraeus biographer, described the destruction of Tarok Kolache in a guest post for Tom Ricks’ Foreign Policy blog. Or, at least, she described its aftermath: Nothing remains of Tarok Kolache after Lt. Col. David Flynn, commander of Combined Joint Task Force 1-320th, made a fateful decision in October.

His men had come under relentless assault from homemade bombs emanating from the village, where a Taliban “intimidation campaign [chased] the villagers out” to create a staging ground for attacking the task force. With multiple U.S. amputations the result of the Taliban hold over Tarok Kolache, Flynn’s men were “terrified to go back into the pomegranate orchards to continue clearing [the area]; it seemed like certain death.”

After two failed attempts at clearing the village resulted in U.S and Afghan casualties, Flynn’s response was to take the village out. He ordered a mine-clearing line charge, using rocket-propelled explosives to create a path into the center of Tarok Kolache.

And that was for starters, Broadwell writes. Airstrikes from A-10s and B-1s combined with powerful ground-launched rockets on Oct. 6 to batter the village with “49,200 lbs. of ordnance” — which she writes, resulted in “NO CIVCAS,” meaning no civilians dead…”

READ HERE