We laughed at the sight of her shopping, nose inches away from the shelf comparing toilet paper prices, and of me walking blocks down the street navigating only by vague green and red blobs at the corners, neither of us with a clue what people at large thought of our respective adventures. We do know, however, what few people do; twenty minutes is a long time to navigate alone in public at -8 diopter.

Could it work between us? dates tantalizingly spent entirely within clear vision range of six inches? If we had kids, would they be so nearsighted that they could see behind themselves? Alas, we shared only a few minutes of commisseration, good humor, and the experience of living with horribly deformed corneas. Then we went our separate (blurry, dialated) ways.

The father in me imagines the inevitable horrific manglings from all the exposed gears and spinning drums of death, but the teenager in me wants to race it through town after a blizzard.

(video link via my dad)

So far it’s only been revealed on this past Sunday’s 60 Minutes show, but apparently Google, eBay, FedEx and a few others have been using versions of the box for several months already. The details are secret, but it sounds like a material refinement of a typical fuel cell, providing twice the efficiency and able to use a wide range of fuels, from natural gas to plant rot methane. Current fuel cells use hydrogen, which has a high cost to produce and obvious logistical problems what with the explosions and all.

The wireless aspect of this is just as fascinating to me, and i wonder how that works in a practical sense. If there was, say, a neighborhood Bloom Box or one in the alley, would every house have some sort of receiver that the home fuse box connected to? It’s a little unsettling, the idea of wireless power signals flying through the neighborhood, but maybe that’s how people felt when radio was just a new idea too.

The idea of the Bloom Box inevitably makes me think of the Stirling Engine. Like the Bloom Box, it was designed to run on any fuel (way moreso than the original Diesel), including solid fuels like wood. Stirlings don’t have the sort of acceleration and power curve of the internal combustion engine, but were meant more as a more efficient version of the steam engine, used in applications where the engine runs at a relatively constant rate and power is managed with a coupling clutch. There are modern Stirling-powered generators available right now, along with a few other commercial products, but adoption has been limited to a niche market.

Still, you have to love the idea of electrical and mechanical power that are compatible with a variety of widely available fuels. A Box in every basement, a Stirling under every hood, and the on- or off-grid question won’t even make sense. It’s easy to be skeptical, but at least with the 60-Minutes piece, the skeptic they included was all about handwaving and big corporate takeovers, nothing specific (though to be fair, there aren’t any published tech specifics to attack). Count me among the very optimistic with this one.

My daughter accidently kicked my nuts
while sweetly just trying to cuddle
I want to make a couch fort and hide in the cushions
but the dog is now threatening puddles

There’s nobody making me coffee
i woke up on the wrong side of bed
This morning is trying to kill me
teamed up with the throb in my head

Thank goodness we’ve cold pizza for lunches
and the girls got their breakfasts themselves
but i’m sleepy, can’t think straight,
don’t want to shovel the walk
and whacked my left ear on a shelf

I made it to work through potholed slick streets
though nowhere quite nearly on-time
Still surly and sleepy and wanting a nap
now taking a break while the caffeine is working
to record a few couplets of rhyme
because surviving a morning like this once a week
is what makes all the better days so fine.