FMAWG

Sugar, Salt and Fat.  Forget Fire, Earth and Water...Sugar, Salt and Fat are the three essential elements of nature.  These are the things I crave...and if you're honest with yourself, I dare say you crave them too.  Right now.  You're thinking of them.  Well not explicitly those three things, but foods that are high in them.  A food that's high in any of them is good; one that's high in two of them is very good; food with a high count of all three - wonderful.  I just ate a sausage, egg and cheese sandwich on a croissant.  All three essential elements.  In every bite. Mmmmmmmm.

But there is a fourth essential element to make life complete: Power.  A wise man once said: "power is delightful, and absolute power is absolutely delightful."  I think that's correct, but I'm not talking about the power to exert influence over others (This isn't Tony Robin's blog after all)...I'm talking about the stuff that happens when a not-quite-content electron from one atom makes the leap to a spot waiting for it on a neighbouring atom.  It's this fundamental infidelity of electrons that makes our wonderful modern electronic lifestyle possible. If electrons would just learn to be content with the atom they originally settled down with they'd be much happier...but we wouldn't.

For those that are going to quibble...yes, what I just described is electromotive force, not actually power...power being defined as the energy available to do work.  I've always thought that was too limiting...I use an awful lot of power doing play, not work.

"Baby if you're feeling good; Baby if you're feeling nice; you know your man is working hard..." - Kiss: Duece

I am at the airport again, and sitting next to the most beautiful thing in the entire terminal.  No, not Jessica Simpson (that was last week in LAX...but that's a different story not fit for public blogging)...a free AC outlet. Free as in available.  Free as in no cost to me.  Right next to one of the not-quite-comfortable rows of chairs with arm rests not quite high enough to be comfortable, but low enough that if you're stuck between flights late at night you can't lie down across them.  I sit down next to it and whip out my laptop power cord faster than Zoro draws his sword.  I think I stifled the squeal of glee...and pretty sure no one noticed the discrete victory dance.  At least no one commented on it.

Sugar, Salt, Fat and Power - the things I obsess on.  Last night, before packing for the trip, I made sure my pda/phone was in it's docking station to charge overnight...I plugged my laptop in to ensure it's battery was topped up, and I made sure the karmic iPod had a full charge.  It's the same ritual every time.  And then double check the assorted power cables and chargers that I carry with me...and give a thought to the duration of the flight and when I can use my laptop versus other devices.

As cellular phone airtime packages become more aggressively priced, consumers start thinking twice about remaining battery more than package minutes before placing a call.  When getting a cool new phone, the first question people I hang out with (admittedly a tad nerdier than the norm) ask is "what's the battery life?"

"Some things aren't meant to be; some things don't come for free" - Midnight Oil: Put Down That Weapon.

Law of Conservation of Engergy.  One of those big-"L" Laws of Physics.  No free ride...in fact, lots of leaks in the power bucket - light, heat, noise are all dissipating power that's then no longer available to do work (or play).  So when you're CPU heats up on that big ole recalc you've just asked your spread sheet to do...you're doing the equavlent of spilling your beer before you drink it all. And that little fan that starts whirring to keep the CPU cool...we won't even talk about it.

We're getting more and more computing capability in mobile devices, and enough inexpensive memory to actually store programs and data in meaningful quantities.  My PPC-6700 running Win Mobile 5.0 and with a 1Gig compactSD card in it is useful...but when it starts getting warm, I know the little battery guage is sliding rapidly to the left (like the fuel guage on my Father's Plymouth Gran Fury he bought when I was a teenager).  And when all the radios are radiating energy (CDMA/EVDO/Bluetooth/WiFi) looking for another station's signal to bring meaning to their lives, the available charge starts disappearing faster than a Slurpee on a hot summer day.

"There was something in the air that night" - ABAA: Fernando. (no snickers...yes, there is ABBA on my iPod)

But therein, perhaps, lies the secret.  At any given moment, we live in the fields of a vast number of radio transmitters, of various frequencies, blasting out various power signals.  It doesn't hurt.  And scientists are mostly certain that it doesn't harm people (Just don't sit too close to the TV...or put your cellphone next to your head).  It's all 'lost' power...that dissipates as it travels through the air.  Wouldn't it be good if someone found a way to passively harness that power to charge the batteries that power our lives?  Sure, no one source provides enough power to do so...but if you were to gang up a number of minute sources across a broad spectrum, maybe, just maybe, there'd be enough for a trickle charge.  Just for my iPod.  Then I can focus on obsessing on Sugar, Salt and Fat.

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• #1 Comment from jeffsblog 
  2/16/06 2:32 PM | Permalink

  Clearly, what's needed is more reversible computing in your gadgets.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_computing)
  
  According to some folks this is what will power the singularity (http://www.kurzweilai.net/).  Wouldn't want to get left behind on that one, would we?
  
  And really.  Fernando?  I didn't want to know..