World's first commercial solar plant sees the light

In the arid Spanish countryside, PS10, a dazzling array of 624 1,292-square-foot mirrors, directs sunlight to a receiver atop a 35-story tower. There the blast of tight boils water into steam that generates 11 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 6,000 homes. The first commercial-scale power plant of its kind, PS10 came online in March. PS10-type technologies are less expensive to manufacture than photovoltaics, but they work only in very sunny areas. Abengoa, the company that built PS10, has begun a sister project nearby that wilt produce 20 megawatts of electricity. These, together with other planned solar projects at this site, will soon generate 300 megawatts, enough electricity to power 180,000 homes, equivalent to the neighboring city of Seville.

8 Ways to Make the Most Out of Your Last Competition

If competitions are what you make of them--and if your Last big national competition is right around the corner, make sure that you don't let any moments, big or small, flip right past you. Chances are that you're feeling a million mixed emotions right now. After all, your teammates probably haven't just become your closest friends, they've also become like a second family. Whether you plan to cheer in college, become a staff instructor, coach at an all-star gym or hang up your poms for good after this year, vow to make your last big competition unforgettable.

Here are eight surefire ways to make the most out of the season's last competition, plus 10 extra ideas for your teammates and coaches.

1. Get Connected
Remember the Girl Scout song that goes, "Make new friends but keep the old?" One of the best ways to make your last competition count is by mingling with other teams and getting to know their cheerleaders on your own. Bring a notebook to jot down the e-mail addresses and phone numbers of your competitors. Talk to competition staffers if you want to become a camp instructor, and spend time with your coach one-on-one while you're away. After all, who better to get that much-needed college cheer advice from than someone who cheered herself?.

2. Pass It Along
Give the returning cheerleaders something to remember you by next season: Create a spirited poem, inspirational quote page or make a decorative framed picture and give it to your teammates at the Last practice before Nationals. It'll inspire them next year and may even become a squad tradition.

3. Scrapbook It
Take lots of pictures throughout your trip and scrapbook them afterwards. Make sure you collect the little things along the way too, such as plane tickets, restaurant business cards, confetti, hair bows, etc.

4. Be a Savvy Traveler
Make the bus, plane or car as fun as possible by bringing along games, quizzes, magazines and music. While you're at it, why not show off your senior style, too? "We make special bag tags for the seniors' luggage," says Ashley Parish and Alora Price of Oak Harbor HS in Oak Harbor, WA.

Also, consider wearing the same cheer shirts on the plane or sporting cute cheer bows in your hair.

5. Fun in the Sun
Headed to Disney? Competing right near the beach? If there's time and your coach gives you the OK, hit up local attractions like amusement parks, the hotel pool, cool restaurants or beachy spots to get the most out of your trip. Quick tip: You might be able to score discount passes through the competition company or get a cheaper rate because you're a student, so don't be afraid to ask!

6. Pump Up the Jams
You probably sing the songs in your competition routine every day, so why not take them with you as a memento? "Make a CD with all of the songs your squad has used in competition routines," says Katie LeBlanc of the Sparks All-Stars in Stoughton, MA. For a funny bonus CD, speed up or slow down the tempo, or write cute quotes from your teammates on the inside case cover.

7. Host a Sleepover or Nationals Party
If your parents give you the thumbs up and you've got enough space, consider hosting a Nationals sleepover, pizza party or ice cream social at your home. "Throw a slumber party for everyone close to Nationals," says Chelsea Nosworthy of Paul Laurence Dunbar HS in Lexinginton, KY. If space is limited, find out if your coach can rent out a hotel room on behalf of the seniors. "Sometimes we go to hotels, rent out a room and have a swimming party [instead]."

8. Toughen Up
If this is your last Nationals, then you've got even more cause for motivation--how about finally landing that standing tuck or full? "I'm taking private [lessons] to get my round-off back handspring for competition this year," says Heather Maher of the Spirit Celebration All-Stars in Piano, TX. "I want to set a good example for the rest of my team and gain a sense of accomplishment and pride for everything I achieved this year."

Competition Blowout!
If you're not a senior, give your graduating seniors an ultra-special send-off. A cheerleader's last competition is a super big deal, so here are just a few ways your teammates and coaches can show the seniors how much they'll be missed.

By Colleen Leonard

Night Train to Frankfurt

By Marisa Silver

They were going to boil Dorothy’s blood. Take it out, heat it, put it back in. The cancer would be gone. Well, that wasn’t exactly it. The treatment had a more formal-sounding name, thermosomethingorother, a word that was both trustworthy (because you recognized the prefix) and lofty, so that you didn’t really question it, knew you were too thick to really understand whatever explanation might be given you. “They’re going to boil my blood” is what it came down to, and this was what Dorothy had told her daughter, Helen, when she called her from New York. There were statistics, affidavits. There was a four-color brochure from the clinic in Frankfurt, Germany, printed in three languages. As they waited for the train in the Munich station, Helen studied the pamphlet’s fonts and graphics. A frequent dupe of advertising herself–how many depilatories and night creams had she bought over the years, and at what expense?–Helen understood the significance behind the choice of peaceful, healing blue over charged, emotional red, the softening elegance of the italicized quotes from Adèle de Chavigny, a woman from Strasbourg who had not only survived having her blood boiled but had gone on to live a life of graceful transcendence. There were no concrete images of the clinic itself, no pictures of whatever this boiling machine might look like. Helen imagined huge vats like those in a brewery–wide, clear tubes with viscous, viral blood moving sluggishly in one direction, while bright, animated, healthy blood rushed eagerly back toward the patient. On the roof of the brewery, she imagined enormous chimneys expelling the sweet-sour-smelling residue of defeated disease into the air. Poof, poof, the smokestacks would go, and all the German townsfolk (yes, in her fantasy they were wearing lederhosen and small peaked caps) would look up, proud to know that, in their town, death had been conquered.

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Feedback

Net neutrality's double standard I have to disagree strongly with Bill Machrone's opinion piece ("Demand Net Neutrality!," August 22, page 58). I shouldn't be surprised that you, as a tech industry magazine, have a self-serving, knee-jerk reaction in support of the online giants on Net neutrality, Your parochial interests aside, Net neutrality is hugely hypocritical for an industry that has long opposed government regulation of tech and the Internet as unnecessary and contrary to market forces. Now when the entrenched online giants fear the emergence of broadband competition, they change their tune and run to hide behind the government's regulatory skirt for protection from competition.

In its rawest sense, the effect of Net neutrality is a blatant competitive double standard. eBay with Skype, Microsoft with its collaboration software. Yahoo! with its voice product, and Google with click-to-call all want the business freedom to compete, converge, and integrate into communications, but want to make it illegal for communications companies to compete, converge, and integrate into tech and the Internet. How does one-way competition serve consumers or innovation? How is it good for the government to choose market winners and losers instead of consumers choosing them through the marketplace?

The tech industry's naïveté and shortsightedness on Net neutrality is staggering. They think they can invite the government into their sector to hyper-regulate an emerging adjacent industry-competitor, and that the same regulatory appetite won't threaten tech and the Internet. It's playing with fire. I guess regulatory ignorance is bliss.

Be careful what you wish for….

— Scott Cleland

Scott Cleland is the chairman of Netcom petition.org, which he describes as a Net neutrality e-forum funded by broadband companies.

ENERGY CONSERVATION AND SAFETY
Regarding Lance Ulanoff's "Top Tips for Energy Saving" (go.pcmag.com/ulanoffenergy), my dad worked for 44 years for the Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO) starting in 1934. I was born in 1936 and heard the "turn out the lights" song all my life. I sing it to my wife, sang it to my kids, and still sing it when they visit. (Kids who once knew enough to turn out lights develop bad habits in college where no one seems to care; they also believe that dad will support the college-learned 20- to 30-minute shower habit for them, their spouses, and their kids. He won't.)

I have also replaced my incandescent bulbs with fluorescent screw-ins. But in doing so, I encountered one problem. One 20+-watt fluorescent is in our timer-controlled lamp. One day we smelled a terrible odor, like something that was burning. We looked through the house and discovered that the innards of the 20+-watt fluorescent bulb were boiling up around the bulb's tubes. Unlike an incandescent bulb, this fluorescent did not burn out. It burned! Just what might have happened had we been away from home, I don't know. But people should be aware that such a thing can happen.

— Lowell D. Taylor

Wow, Lowell, that's a scary story. I think I'll go double-check all my fluorescent bulbs. — LU

TECHNOLOGY AS STUPIDITY'S "CANARY"
Regarding Lance Ulanoff's column, "Technology for Idiots" (go.pcmag.com/techidiots), I don't think technology creates an epidemic of stupidity, nor do I believe that it is ruining anyone's life by stripping them of their privacy or their security. The problem is human nature. There are a small number of basic human flaws that apply whether you use technology or not:

People tend to be intellectually lazy. They don't want to have to learn anything new, they don't want to study or read, and in fact, they don't even want to have to think about anything. I'm not talking about technologists here — we're a different breed. We like to learn. But most people actively resist anything new or different.
People tend to enjoy being bad. If a scammer can get away with something, it's likely that he'll at least try. There's an inbuilt tendency toward mischief in a large number of people.
People like new, interesting, shiny things. They want them for the status these things are perceived to supply. Of course (see #1), people can't be bothered to learn how to use their shiny toys properly. Most people are using equipment that is way outside their skill level.
I believe that technology isn't causing stupidity; it's acting as a "canary in a coal mine" and drawing our attention to the stupidity that already surrounds us. "Hey!" we ask, "where did all this stupidity come from all of a sudden???" It was here all along, we just didn't notice it until the complexity of modern life made it impossible to ignore.

As to what we can do, I'm not sure that there's anything we can do. We might just have to wait until a younger generation gets old enough to take over the reins. Having been raised in our complex society, they're more adaptable. Until then, I suspect that things will be a little bit hairy.

— Philip Perry

You make some very good points, Philip, although I'd tend to disagree with you on #2. I believe that people would rather be good.

— LU

STEALTH PANDAS
The caption under the whale photo in Connected Traveler (September 5, page 24) claims that the San Diego zoo is the home to the only giant pandas in the U.S. I already knew that Atlanta has two, and a quick Google search reveals that there are nine giant pandas in four zoos in the U.S. — Frank Eskridge

Thank you for pointing this out, Frank, We have also received letters on the subject from irate pandas in Atlanta, Memphis, and Washington.

CORRECTIONS & AMPLIFICATIONS
The picture on page 68 of our August 22 issue identified as the Sennheiser PX 100 (which are supraural headphones, not earbuds as the text calls them) actually shows Shure E4c earbuds.

By: Clelend, Scott, Taylor, Lowell D., L. U., Perry, Philip, Eskridge, Frank, PC Magazine, 10/3/2006

The Must-See Photos Of The Month Sun Burn

Solar storms can knock out power on Earth. New satellites will help us predict where and when

Spewing billions of tons of plasma millions of miles into space, the sun's eruptions, like this explosion captured by NASA's SOHO probe, can be strikingly beautiful. But when they result in what scientists call coronal mass ejections-think seething bubbles of flung-off plasma-they can short-circuit satellites and trigger powerful magnetic shock waves that result in electrical power failures on Earth. NASA's $540-million STEREO mission, whose two satellites were scheduled to launch in late August, is designed to capture 3-D images that identify Earth-bound solar storms days before their effects reach us. Positioned at points ahead of and behind the Earth in its orbit, the satellites will work like a pair of eyes to more precisely measure a storm's size and location-and let us identify it in time to take action and prevent damage.

--Rachel Horn

LOW RIDER

One day. One bullet-shaped bike. One crazy world record

In late July, Canadian triathlete Greg Kolodziejzyk pedaled his recumbent bicycle 650 miles around a California track to break the human-powered 24-hour distance record. Equipped with food, water and waste bags, the 70-pound carbon-fiber machine is capable of hitting 60 mph on a flat straightaway. "Once you get over 12 or 15 mph, 90 percent of your pedaling effort goes to pushing air," Kolodziejzyk says. "The key to going fast under human power is to minimize the hole you punch" in the atmosphere. To build a bike that did just that, Kolodziejzyk teamed up with fairing designer Ben Eadie, who used flow-dynamics software to test dozens of designs in a virtual wind tunnel. See more details at adventuresofgreg.com.

--Tom Clynes

UNEASY BREATHING

In a disastrous year, the mining industry looks more closely at its survival gear

This picture was taken outside Pennsylvania's Twin Rocks coal mine last spring. But it could easily have been taken 25 years ago, mining technology has evolved so little since then. Miner Joe Tenerowicz is demonstrating a self-rescuer, a chemical-based oxygen-production system that provides an hour of backup air. The device, which has been the standard emergency breather for a quarter century, was the only technology available to coal workers in West Virginia's Sago Mine tragedy, which left 13 dead last January. This year has proved particularly fatal for U.S. miners; to date, 37 have died in 21 incidents, a 30 percent higher rate than in recent years. For the industry, it's been a wake-up call. Under the federal Miner Act, which went into effect in June, better devices-including replacement cartridges that increase the breathing time of existing self-rescuers and new "hybrid" units that rely on filters to deal with poor air quality-will be developed in the next two years.

--Nicole Price Fasig

By: Horn, Rachel, Clynes, Tom, Fasig, Nicole Price, Popular Science, Oct2006

The Robotic Giraffe

It walks, it blinks, it seats six, and it blasts Kraftwerk: Meet one man's 17-foot-tall pet project

IT STARTED WITH a seven-inch walking toy giraffe and a desire to see Burning Man from a higher vantage point. A year later, Lindsay Lawlor rode into the desert art festival atop Rave Raffe, a 1,700-pound robotic giraffe sporting 40 strobes, 400 LEDs and bone-shaking speakers.

Lawlor wanted his Burning Man ride to be a true walking vehicle, so with the help of his landlord, Gary Stadler, he copied that toy's locomotion system on a massive scale. The front and back legs opposite each other step ahead at the same time, propelled by an electric motor. When those legs land, hydraulic brakes lock the wheeled feet, and the other two legs take a step. Canting from side to side, Raffe lumbers ahead at about a mile an hour. A propane engine runs only to recharge the batteries, so the beast is quiet and efficient. When Lawlor let Raffe shuffle off alone in the desert, it walked for eight hours.

Now Lawlor, a part-time laser-light-show designer, is busy adding new features for this summer's Burning Man, including computer-controlled flashing giraffe spots, an electroluminescent circulatory system and a gas grill. Follow his progress at electricgiraffe.com.

HOW IT WORKS
10 MONTHS
$15,000
PRACTICAL 5 POPCORN

A 12-horsepower, propane-fueled engine drives three generators, which charge three 450-amp batteries, salvaged from an industrial floor scrubber. Many of the other parts, including the shoulder joints and LEDs, came from eBay.
Lawlor pushes the throttle forward to engage the variable-speed analog drive, which turns a 250-pound drive shaft to propel Raffe ahead. A pneumatic pump raises and lowers the eight-foot neck.

By: Haney, Mike, Popular Science