that looks right for me.When I began looking into this I was astounded at the interest out there. I found people who have designed and built their own generators and describe them in loving detail. There's a site for the people who demonstrated their contraptions on Ellen Degenerous' TV show. And there are those folks who participated in a fair some time ago where they charged people's cell phones while they waited.
And there are commercial sites that sell them for prices ranging from $716.45 to $1025.00. While some of these offer converted exercycles, I prefer the bike-n-go type which allows you to drop your own bicycle into the unit for stationary biking to charge batteries [cell phone, robot vacuum cleaner, robotic mop, standard batteries from AAA to 12 volt and higher] and pull it out for biking to the pool or to a friend's home. The cost of the generator itself is $339.00 + $37.50 to ship. The inverter, the thang that converts the DC power into AC, costs $365.95 and that price includes shipping within the US. To ship outside the US, add another $79.00. The pic below is the unit I'm probably going to get.
Now, I consider myself somewhat adept -- at least as a 'that'll do' carpenter. [I build a piece, stand back, squint and say, 'That'll do.'] But, I'm completely self-taught and, therefore, sufficiently respectful [read terrified] of such things as electricity, plumbing and so on, to know enough to hire professionals for those jobs. For the hardier of spirit, Convergence Tech which sells the Pedal-A-Watt system offers the plans to build your own for $50.00. There is a site that offers free plans [unfortunately, I lost that site -- I'll put on my deerstalker's hat, hunt it down again and post it later.]Not having a spare $716.45 lying around at the moment, I'll be putting this off for a while. But, I'm definitely going to buy it asap unless I can persuade Santa to drop one off next week. But, somehow, I don't think I've been NEARLY good enough this year to convince him to make the stop, especially on such short notice.
13 comments:
Wait a minute..what does this thing do? It's a generator that works by peddling? That's kinda cool because then you can get in shape while you charge up your cell phone!
yep, Mary Ellen, that's the long and the short of it! cool, huh?
after I got down here I got a little 1 speed bike for tooling around my community. I'm nervous about using it tho, because-- well-- it's been almost 30 years since I rode regularly and I AM 60 y-o now.
I keep telling myself that, if I will RIDE the dang thing I'll let myself get a 5 speed that fits me [this one is a tad short -- but, hey, it was free!]
so, I'm hoping that, by using it on the generator, I'll begin to feel more confident and will venture out on the streets more often.
also, you can do more than charge batteries with it. you can plug in any small appliance you like and run it till the adapter is all tapped out. about 1 to 6 hours depending on the appliance. I've read that 6 minutes will run a toaster for 2 slices worth.
xxx
btw-- I know you like scary stuff. HAVE you ever seen Soylent Green? if not, I recommend it. a sci-fi/scary flick from the 60's. there's a scene in it of Charlton Heston [I think] pedaling to power a light bulb.
two crows
I'd be interested if you get one and stick with it. Buy a do it yourself kit. You can do it. I almost hooked my TV up to one 20 years ago when my sons were young but they just would have stopped watching TV. If it was an easy convert I'd still do it for myself just for fun. It is a great Idea, thanks!
Hey two crows
Found something from yesterdays post about pot the big scam that I thought would intrigue you. First Solyent Green was important for a few things. I liked the way they signed out, I thought it was just one example that would be our real ture and it looks more real everyday, and the food situation though I hope it never comes to Solyent Green. If it gets real tough I may go to Florida where there at least is a lot of family.
Anyway here you go! Shadow Of The Swastika
An Open Letter To All Americans
By R. William Davis
Documented Evidence of a Secret
Business and Political Alliance
Between the U.S. "Establishment"
and the Nazis - Before, During and
After World War II - up to the Present.
* PREFACE
Before the Gatewood Galbraith for Governor Campaign in 1991, few Kentuckians knew that the plant that the federal government had demonized for over 50 years as "Marijuana - Assassin of Youth," was, in fact, Cannabis Hemp, the most traded commodity in the world until the mid-1800s, and our state's number one crop, industry, and most important source of revenue, for over 150 years.
Today, thanks to the efforts of pioneer hemp researchers and public advocates such as Galbraith, Jack Fraizer, Jack Herer, Chris Conrad, Ed Rosenthal, Don Wirtshafter and others, the federal government's unjustifiable suppression of our state's right to develop our most valuable and versatile natural resource, is facing increasing opposition from an informed public. Hemp is now recognized as the number one agriculturally renewable raw material in the world, and perhaps the only crop / industry which can guarantee us industrial and economic independence from the trans-national corporations.
"Shadow of the Swastika" is a follow-up to my earlier work, "Cannabis Hemp: the Invisible Prohibition Revealed," which I wrote and published in support of the Galbraith Campaign. Since publication of that booklet, there has been growing public acceptance of the evidence that Marijuana Prohibition was created in 1937, not to protect society from the "evils of the drug Marijuana," as the Federal government claimed, but as an act of deliberate economic and industrial sabotage against the re-emerging Industrial Hemp Industry.
Previous investigations by hemp researchers have been limited to the suppression of free-market competition from the hemp industry, and focused on the activities of three prominent members of America's corporate, industrial and banking establishment during the mid- to late-1930s:
WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST, the newspaper and magazine tycoon.
The expected rebirth of cannabis hemp as a less expensive source of pulp for paper meant his millions of acres of prime timberland, and investment in wood pulp papermaking equipment, would soon be worth much less. In the 1920s, about the same time as the equipment was developed to economically mass-produce raw hemp into pulp and fiber for paper, he began the "Reefer Madness" hoax in his newspaper and magazine publications.
ANDREW MELLON, founder of the Gulf Oil Corporation.
He knew that cannabis hemp was an alternative industrial raw material for the production of thousands of products, including fuel and plastics, which, if allowed to compete in the free-market, would threaten the future profits of the oil companies. As Secretary of the Treasury he created the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and appointed his own future nephew-in-law, Harry Anslinger, as director. Anslinger would later use the sensational, and totally fabricated, articles published by Hearst, to push the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 through Congress, which successfully destroyed the rebirth of the cannabis hemp industry.
A prominent member of one Congressional subcommittee who voted in favor of this bill was Joseph Guffey of Pennsylvania, an oil tycoon and former business partner of Andrew Mellon in the Spindletop oil fields in Texas.
THE DU PONT CHEMICAL CORPORATION,
which owned the patents on synthetic petrochemicals and industrial processes that promised billions of dollars in future profits from the sale of wood pulp paper, lead additives for gasoline, synthetic fibers and plastics, if hemp could be suppressed. At the time, du Pont family influence in both government and the private sector was unmatched, according to historians and journalists.
This publication, however, reveals documented historical evidence that the suppression of the hemp industry was only one key part of a much larger conspiracy in the 1930s, not only by the three corporate interests named above, but by many others, as well.
Congressional records, FBI reports and investigations by the Justice Department, during the 1930s and 1940s, have already documented evidence of this wider plot. A list of the corporations named include Du Pont, Standard Oil, and General Motors, all of which were proven to be conspiring with Nazi industrial cartels to eliminate competition world-wide and divide among themselves the Earth's industrial resources and commercial markets, for profitable exploitation.
This conspiracy succeeded. It is now obvious that this lack of serious competition in the industrial raw materials market caused our present - and totally contrived - addiction to petrochemicals. Its success is directly responsible for the most troubling problems we now face in the 1990s; serious damage to our environment, concentration of economic and political power into fewer and fewer hands, and the weakening of the rights of individuals and states to determine their own futures.
It is more and more evident that, given the historical record, the structure of the New World Order is being built upon the Foundation of Marijuana Prohibition, and only the relegalization of free-market hemp competition can save us.
R. William Davis July 4, 1996 Louisville, Kentucky
A few years later, World War I would forge an even closer relationship between corporations and government in the United States, as well as around the world. Anthony Sampson, in his book "The Arms Bazaar," notes that "the American companies, led by US Steel and du Pont, were transformed by war orders. US Steel, which had absorbed Carnegie's old steel company, had made average annual profits in the four pre-war years of $105 million, while in the four war years they were $240 million; and du Pont's average profit went up from $6 million to $58 million. . . .
"Certainly the arms companies had become much richer through the war, and there were widespread suspicions that they were actually trying to prolong it." (9)
The bottom line is, of course, victory or profit, and in what proportions? To what lengths would this nation's top industrial leaders go to secure their share of the profits before and during the next "war to end all war?"
hi AAP--
that is interesting. and enraging.
btw--
do you know about Robert Rouse's request that we post something about marijuana every monday? I had been doing it but have, unfortunately, been falling down on that task lately.
anyway, may I use this or portions of it this monday?
I was going to say what Mary Ellen said...It would be a productive way to exercise.
Two crows
Don't know about your Religion but I wish you a Merry Christmas!
Thank you, AAP
Merry Christmas to you, too.
actually, I've been a Michael student for years -- it's kinda hard to explain.
and -- I'm looking into the gnostic teachings as well--
two crows That's funny!! I was wondering why youall wrote about Pot so much. I could write an A-Z book on that too.
You use whatever you want you know that. On the subject of Agnostics! I have a good friend who is an Agnostic. You may know her. She is 85 and lives in santa Barbara. She is on my blogroll and maybe yours too as littlebill!
HA! AAP--
one of my favorite books of all time: A Child's Garden of Grass [c. mid 70's]. absolutely hilarious as well as some great info. :D
xxx
thanx for the permission. yes, I know you generally say yes -- still, I like to ask.
xxx
hmmmmmmmm--
I don't think of myself as Agnostic.
I'm as sure as I can be of anything that spirit exists.
gnostic -- as in the gnostic gospels -- is something I'm planning on looking into -- when the books arrive. the gospels according to Judas, Mary and Thomas.
my understanding, at this point, is that the gnostic branch of christianity is of the personal pursuit of enlightenment sort. it was labeled heresy during the 3rd century probably for political reasons.
I'd left dogmatic christianity back in the 70's. a case of 'my karma ran over your dogma.' :)
who knew I might return to 'christianity' in my old age???
thanx for the ref to littlebill. I'll check her out.
hey, Poli --
sorry I missed you earlier--
been _so_ busy. at least that's my excuse and I'm stickin with it! :)
yes, that was my thought. maybe I'll do a better job of exercising if it comes along with a bonus like creating electricity at the same time.
I'll keep you all posted if/when I get one.
AAP--
'gnostic -- as in the gnostic gospels --'
correction:
"'gnosticism' --as in the gnostic gospels"
[there's nothing like proof reading before posting --
acourse, I wouldn't know since I obviously don't do it! :) ]
two crows this is little bills new Blog. She is a character and raised her kids in mmid 60's Ca while a single librarian at Berkely. http://pawsdedeux.blogspot.com/ I got you on gnostic. I hate it too when I rush and pass something on then notice a typo. Oh well!
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