Penn and Teller’s award winning show Bullshit is fantastic. You simply have to go out and rent these shows on DVD, or watch them on showcase if you are able. Jonathan first pointed these shows out to me, and I am grateful that he did. Ironically, my views have become more libertarian (see lower post) since watching them. You might find that they use a large amount of profanity, and they do. It turns out that you can’t be sued for using profanity, but you can be sued for calling someone a quack or a fraud.

Season 5 is currently in production, and I don’t think seasons 3 or 4 are available on DVD yet, but you simply must check this show out. Probably the best thing around on television.

This video is a horrible demonstration of how clueless people can be about physics. Companies pop up like this all the time, and make outrageous claims of “free energy”, which of course, violate some of the fundamental rules of physics that we have known for hundreds of years. Indeed, an entire field of physics is devoted to energy called thermodynamics. These fundamental rules allow you to view this very web page, and this company claims that the rules are wrong:

This is the worst kind of hoax, slickly presented, and with flashy quotes, like George Bernard Shaw’s “All great truths begin as blasphemies.” Which actually, is not a true statement to begin with, but I digress. The creators say that the scientific community won’t take them seriously, and this is likely because claiming you have created “free energy” is something that hoaxers and charlatans have been doing for years, and none of them have been proven correct.

Then they claim that the energy companies are against them, which is a laugh. If they really did find a free energy solution, the energy companies would be falling all overthemselves to *BUY* their technology, because free energy represents less cost, and indeed, an effective INFINITE return on your investment. The energy companies are not against them, the energy companies are ignoring them.

They even have the nerve to say “We want science to do what science is supposed to do.” Well, one of the things that science is supposed to do is parse away those things that are untrue, that is, throw them by the wayside, in order to find the things that work. And this is being thrown by the wayside. It is up to them to prove that their idea is valid, to the scientists. And I bet money that they can’t, and that every serious physicist or engineer has laughed at them. Still, after all the hoaxes, people still try to push free energy.

And for reference, here are the 3 laws of thermodynamics:

1) Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed.

2) The Potential Energy in a closed system will always decrease. This is called Entropy, it is a measure of disorder.

3) As systems approach absolute zero, Entropy decreases.

Rule number one there, kinda throws a wrench in their plan.

Here is the flyak, a prototype in a K1 shell, not the surf ski version, blowing the doors of a regular displacement hull K1. It is not legal in a regular flatwater kayak race, but it is legal in many other kinds of races.

This thing is crazy:

The above image of the flyak is a CAD image, so it is not real. But there are functional foilkayak/flyak prototypes using K1 shells. Apparently, this thing can reach speeds of about 27 km/h. A regular Olympic style K1 (which I paddle) can reach speeds over 12 km/h.

The secret to the flyak is the hydrofoils on the bottom, so, you start out sprinting, and once you get fast enough, the hydrofoils lift the boat about 15 cm out of the water, and your water resistance dramatically drops. Thus, it becomes easier to paddle, and you go faster as well. In fact, a sprinter in a K1 foil (single man racer) beat a team of sprinters in a regular K4 (4 man racer) over a 200 M distance - by a boat length. Normally, a K1 racer would be about 5 seconds behind a K4 over a 200 M distance.

It is too bad that you can’t buy these yet, I am almost tempted to buy an inexpensive K1 and fit it with foils… I was looking at eventually buying a Necky Looksha II sea kayak as it is one of the fastest sea kayaks around. In the MOMAR, you can use any watercraft that requires a paddle as long as you don’t use locked oars. The Looksha II fits this description, but so does the flyak. Their product website has not been updated in some time, and I believe all the prototypes are currently in Norway. So much for getting my hands on one anytime soon.

I wrote before on how to Create your own animated MSN emoticons and I wrote a follow up by request on How to resize gif’s to under 150 kb for MSN emoticons. However, some people have been requesting access to just the raw emoticons themselves, that is, some of the ones that I have made that are already animated, and already under 150 kb. Well, here are a few of those emoticons. (Note they will not appear the same size in MSN as they do on this page - remember MSN changes the size of these images when they are imported!)

With your browser, right click and save the images below that you like, and then follow This Tutorial to make them work as emoticons in MSN.

The Animated LOL:

The Ever Popular Bananna:

The MSN Slap Emoticon (Very Useful!):

The Stormtrooper:

ROTFL (Rolling On The Floor Laughing):

A puppy teddy bear:

Boxing Cat Emoticon:

Gasoline Stick Man:

Ball Bounce:

Bowlingball:

Ape (Yes, this one moves in MSN, but it does not animate in all web browsers):

The infamous Scanners Head Explosion:

I am now very comfortable in the Stealth K1. Yesterday, it was an overcast day, and the water on Long Lake was very calm as there were no water skiers out bombing around creating waves. Waves are no big deal for a whitewater paddler, in fact we look forward to them. Unstable racing kayaks are another matter altogether.

However, I found I can now backpaddle the stealth K1, and I was even able to perform a sculling draw with a wing blade paddle. Performing a sculling draw in a K1 is hard enough, but it is considerably harder with a wing blade paddle. I have now finally developed the muscle memory for paddling with my knees in an upright position, and not within knee braces. I have also started to perfect the different kind of forward stroke that you use in this position - as the paddle is much longer than a whitewater paddle, and of course has a wing blade. It is strange how different the paddling strokes are between whitewater and a sea kayak to a K1/surf ski style craft. They all have the same fundamentals of course, but they each suit a different purpose.

Now, hopefully the blisters on the *TOPS* of my toes (from the footstrap in the Stealth) will be healed in time for my next paddling session. Too bad there are no more races with Alberni Outpost for the rest of the year, as I would love to get the Stealth out into those races.