T w e n t y S i d e d

Take a couple of sine waves of differing wavelength and amplitude. Now combine them. The resulting waveform is going to be a lot like your average road in western Pennsylvania, which is any shape but flat. The only time you’re not ascending or descending is when you’re at a standstill. This is where I learned to ride a bike.

Anyone traveling under their own locomotive power in this sort of setting will quickly come to appreciate just how much energy is wasted getting around like this. When I would hit a gentle downhill I’d think how nice it would be if my efforts could be somehow stored for later (for the inevitable upcoming hill) instead of increasing my speed now. When I’d hit a steep downhill I’d have to do the most painful thing of all, which is throw away some of my hard-earned potential energy by using the brake. When I hit an uphill I’d think about all the effort I just threw away, and wish I could recover it somehow.

I had this in mind when I wrote this chapter of my book, where the protagonist rides around in a futuristic “kinetic bike” that is able to capture some of the energy normally lost when using the brake or when over-pedaling, and release it later when the landscape turns against the rider.

The other day a reader sent me a link to this. A bit pricey, but facinating. They claim it can go 62 miles on a single charge without the rider pedaling, but I’m sure those are flatland numbers. I’ll bet you’d be lucky to get 20 miles out of it here in sine wave country. Still, you can supplement that with your own contribution, and it looks like it still works as a fully functional bike even when the batteries are depleted.

Just outstanding.

Still no flying cars, though.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

First off, Color Jack is a cool little tool, and fun to manipulate. It’s for anyone who’s ever wondered, “what colors would look good with this?”

Now, when I try it in Firefox is works fine. Just slide the points around and they do their thing. In Internet Explorer, the program runs with an agonizing slowness. You’d think that color sphere was comprised of 10,000 bump-mapped self-shadowing polygons. It gets about a frame a second. How can it possibly be that slow?

Very odd.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.