Fisher Tykes
First, we'd like to wish some kids in Iowa good luck. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is presenting its Mississippi River Project, a free fishing clinic and contest for children ages 5-15 on August 12, according to today's Quad City Times.

Kiddy participants get a chance to fish, plus educational sessions relating to water safety, bait casting and fish identification and a free lunch.

The afternoon fishing contest, at the Day Use Recreation Area at Lock and Dam 14 in Pleasant Valley, Iowa, will conclude with prizes awarded to those who catch the smallest, largest, most and fewest fish, and other categories. Prizes include fishing poles and tackle, hats, restaurant coupons and gift certificates donated by businesses.

Fish that have been caught in past clinics have consisted of rock bass, blue gill and catfish.

So good luck, little fishermen.

PSA: Beware the Bomb, the Broccoli and Ourselves!
A Public Service Announcement courtesy of Forbes:

The Port of Rotterdam, Europe's largest port, recently found its radiation detection alarms sounding — not because of a bomb, but because of a container filled with broccoli.

Yes, broccoli set off the alerts. The vegetable is known to have a low level of natural radiation, though it isn't dangerously radioactive. It isn't the only natural source of radiation, either. Brazilian beer nuts, for one, emit a small but detectable amount of radiation. Further, beer itself has a small amount of natural radiation. As Forbes has warned:

Beware, therefore, of a container filled with Brazilian nuts, beer and, yes, bananas, carrots, white potatoes, red meat and raw lima beans.

Of course, man-made emission sources such as color TVs, smoke detectors, computer monitors and X-rays add to the already steady background sources of nature. And these products are shipped around the world regularly. Men and women themselves are radiation sources, and they are also receivers.

Easier iPod/Car Stereo Integration…Bye-Bye, Old Radio
Apple has inked a deal with General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Mazda Motor Corp. this week to make it a bit easier to integrate the iPod into car stereos. Apple has come to agreement with the three major car manufacturers to see that 70 percent of their 2007 model vehicles will offer some way of connecting iPods directly.

Drive-time listening remains a stronghold for radio broadcasters, even though many automakers install stereos compatible with competing subscription-based satellite providers XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc., notes Reuters. But an easy iPod link could accelerate the device's use on the road, just as it has become popular for pedestrians and mass-transit commuters.

The iPod integration seems to be as simple as a dock connection in the glove compartment, and iPod control and navigation will be done through the already existing stereo controls. GM will offer the iPod audio connection for $160 plus labor as early as October.

Engineers Pickin' Up Foot Vibrations
British engineers are converting street vibrations into electricity and predict a working prototype by Christmas capable of powering facility lights in the busiest areas of a city, reports Wired.

"We can harvest between 5 to 7 watts of energy per footstep that is currently being wasted into the ground," says Claire Price, director of The Facility Architects, the British firm heading up the Pacesetters Project. "And a passing train can generate very useful energy to run signaling or to power lights."

Vibration harvesters argue that abundant, clean energy is all around us and goes to waste. The challenge lies in how to store the power efficiently so it provides a continual output even if the vibrations from footsteps or passing trains temporarily taper off.

Price has charged Jim Gilbert, an engineering lecturer at the University of Hull, with developing the prototype system for capturing footfall. Gilbert is working with hydraulic-powered heel-strike generators, which he believes could be installed in the floors of busy public places like subway stations. Those stations typically capture the footfall of 20,000 commuters an hour during peak usage — multiplied by five to seven watts a person, that's more than enough to power a building's lights for the day.

GM to Sell First 'Two-Mode' Hybrids in Fall 2007
General Motors will sell the first of its "two-mode" hybrid vehicles in the fall of next year, according to Edmunds.

Two electric motors will work in tandem with a new V8 in a GM Sierra or Chevy Silverado, or both. GM also developed a computerized fuel management system to optimize the transmission and balance between the engine and electric motors.

For a premium of $3,000, owners will get a truck that averages 25 mpg and has 365 horsepower, up from 300 for the current GMC Sierra 2500 model.

If the dual-mode hybrid lives up to the promise, it could reverse slumping truck sales and resuscitate GM. Then again, by the time it makes it to market, the Japanese may have already done it better.

Odessa Celebrates 125 Years of Tracks with Bush Locomotive
Late June saw the commemoration of the 125th anniversary of the laying of tracks on the land that is now Odessa, TX.

Representatives from Union Pacific Railroad incorporated the UP 4141, a commemorative diesel engine modeled after Air Force One, reports Odessa American. The engine was created in honor of the nation's 41st president, George H. W. Bush (a former Odessa resident).

UP 4141 marks only the sixth time Union Pacific has painted a locomotive in colors other than the traditional UP "Armour Yellow" paint. The design team studied photos of Bush Sr.'s Air Force One, with the goal of recreating the scheme for UP 4141. Elements from Air Force One's wings and tail, including an American flag, were placed on No. 4141's rear panel, with the sweeping lines of forward motion representing progress. The SD70ACe locomotive measures 15 feet 11 inches tall and weighs 420,000 pounds with a full tank of diesel fuel. Its 4300 horsepower engine operates at 950 rpm maximum speed.

The Texas & Pacific Railway laid tracks in the Odessa area in 1881. The railway was later incorporated by Union Pacific. The UP 4141 is expected to operate for at least one million miles over the next decade.

Meanwhile, in England…

Barney Chews, Tears, Rips and Savages the King's Teddy
Barney the guard dog has gone savage at a teddy bear exhibition in England and ripped the stuffing out of Elvis Presley's beloved bear, Mabel.

On Tuesday night, the Doberman pinscher guard dog, "after six years' blameless service, went berserk," reports UK's The Guardian: "within minutes Mabel, a 1909 German-made Steiff teddy bear once owned by Elvis Presley, more recently the pride and joy of an English aristocrat, lay mortally wounded."

There's been no suggestion that Barney should be put down, but dogs are now banned from the teddy bear collection.

Forbes List of Top-Paying Tech Jobs, Pt. I: Location
Forbes recently compiled two lists: one (here) ranks the places with the overall highest-paid tech jobs in the U.S.; the other (below) ranks the places where each type of tech job commands the best pay check. To compile the lists, Forbes mined the data in the U.S. government's Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates.

So where do you suppose the top-paying jobs in the U.S. tech industry are? According to Forbes, the best places include Montgomery, Ala., Idaho Falls, Idaho, and Fort Smith, Ark.

For those looking to make top dollar as programmers, systems engineers and hardware technicians, says Forbes, "these seemingly technologically out-of-the-way metros rival better-known high-tech hubs like San Francisco, Boston, New York and Washington D.C., for wages." Such places often have niche local employers for IT professionals, not to mention significantly lower costs of living than the industry's traditional epicenters.

Forbes List of Top-Paying Tech Jobs, Pt. II: Industry
Information research scientists are at the top of the pay heap, earning an average of $94,030 per year across the country, and with those in the southern end of Silicon Valley earning an average of $131,000 per year.

The sweet spot in the computer industry is to be a research scientist working in a wholesale trade. There are only 620 of them, but the top 10 percent earn $143,950 per year.

The next best-paid group within the computer industry is systems software engineers ($84,310 per year on average; with the best average pay to be found in Fort Smith on the Arkansas-Oklahoma border), followed by applications software engineers ($79,540, with York-Hanover, Pa., at the top at $114,110).

The mining industry pays top dollar for computer programmers, with the top 10 percent of jobs paying $115,060 per year. But there are only 860 jobs at any level, and the average annual wage is $72,150.

The cheapest employers of programmers -- of course -- are federal, state and local governments. They employ 16,450 of them at an annual average wage of $54,210, with the top 10 percent earning $74,870 per year.

The average for programmers in all industries is $67,400. Hey, that's still six times as much as a similarly qualified programmer earns in India.

Seriously Messing Up Vehicles
And now, as Jon Stewart says, "your moment of Zen":

What exactly can thrust from a 747 jet engine do?

(about 3-1/2 min.)

Cheers.