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Ampy and Juse

juseampy

Since man first learned to harness and use the electron, there has been a constant struggle to find new and more efficient ways to generate electric power.  The Greeks rubbed animal hides against amber (as they called it  ἤλεκτρον or ēlektron) while much later, European scientists devised the electrostatic generator and Leyden jar.  While these discoveries and technologies are elegant exploitations of the laws of physics (and great for entry-level electrical science courses), they were ultimately too inefficient to provide any real benefit to society.

As a result, we typically generate electricity by spinning the wheel of an electromagnetic generator whether it be by burning coal, damming a river, or digging a very deep hole in the ground.  We have also made major efficiency gains in our use of this power.  LED bulbs use less power than incandescents, and today’s smartphones can perform calculations millions of times faster than yesterday’s vacuum tubes using a fraction of the energy.

Some recent efforts have tried to combine these two themes by taking what was once a wasteful byproduct and turning it into an energy source making an entire process more efficient.  Hybrid and electric vehicles use regenerative braking where a car’s kinetic energy is captured and converted back into electric energy during stops, and in some gasoline cars, a turbocharger will use exhaust to compress the air going to the engine causing it to deliver more power more efficiently.

There are always a trade-offs though.  The methods used to capture waste energy are usually highly inefficient, so you need to seek out a large source of waste to make it worthwhile.  Sure, your breathing could be used to spin a turbine and a bodybuilder could be hooked to a generator instead of a weight machine, but the amount of energy created these ways compared to the cost and complexity associated with capturing that energy make them ultimately useless.

So let’s talk about Ampy and Juse.

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Indiegogo conducts brief survey on trustworthiness

If you log into Indiegogo today, you might notice a small survey pop up in the bottom left corner of your browser window.

trust1trust2trust3

With campaigns as troubled as Ritot, Smarty Ring, and TellSpec, one wonders if Indiegogo is starting to feel like it’s garnered a reputation as a hotbed for scams.  Features like Flex Funding and the new Forever Funding show that they are doing everything they can to facilitate money changing hands which sets them apart from their competitors who are at least occasionally stepping in when problems arise.  Seems like the place to go if you want to run an additional fundraiser for no reason or copy another campaign entirely.

Let’s hope the results of this survey bring about some changes in Indiegogo policy.