I thought I would post a little guide that might help you with saving some money on fuel. This can work if you have a hybrid or not, but more than likely if you do own a hybrid car you might be interested in Hypermiling. More important than hypermiling and “stretching” your MPG by tweaks to your car, is the way you drive. Sometimes all it takes is slowing down to save yourself money and get a higher MPG. Theres tons you can do like:

Tip #1 – Idling
If you are at a long stop light, or idling for more than 30 seconds try turning your engine off, most of all the newer cars made within the last 10 years or so have starters and batteries that can handle the extra activity. Being in idle means wasting gas your not using.

Tip #2 – Air Filter
Change your air filter every 10,000 or so miles. Just like a marathon runner, your car needs to suck in air without restriction.

Tip #3 – Over Inflate Tires
Keep your tires pumped. Higher tire pressures result in lower rolling resistance so your milage would improve.   Dont over do it though, just a bit more than the recomended pressure.

Tip #4 – Lighten the Load
Reduce the weight of the things in your car as much as possible. The more a car has to carry the lower the MPG. So take out any unnessecary stuff that you have in your car (boxes, junk, etc)

Tip #5 – Price Gauge Future Refueling
This tip is a bit of a tricky one but depending on the situation of things it can save you money. For a while, gas was increasing almost by 5 cents a day, sometimes more. If the trend of things is that gas prices is on the rise (especially for more than a few days) then it would be a good idea to fill your gas tank up completely because by the next time you get to the gas pump to refuel you will have effectively paid less per gallon than you would if you were to fill up only half way – and refuel again only to pay for the same half tank you need but at a higher price now.   *HOWEVER* — If gas prices are stable and are staying roughly at the same price for a few days then it would be a good idea to only fill up your tank 1/2 or 3/4ths full in order to carry around less gas. Gasoline averages to weight around 6.2 pounds per gallon so remember, more weight = less MPG. So ironically it can benifit you more to NOT have a full tank of gas all the time.

Tip #6 – Wax On, Wax Off
Wax your car and keep it clean. Drag [friction with air] reduces fuel economy. A clean and waxed vehicle will have reduced drag, thus providing better mileage. If you have a luggage rack, take it off. If you have a sun roof, keep it closed. Smooth is what you want. When your out driving, try to keep the windows closed as much as possible. If its hot though,  it (sometimes) is better to use the A/C than to have the windows open causing drag. If your at a stop light or simply driving at slow speeds, that would be an exception of course.

Tip #7 – No Speeding
SLOW DOWN! If you are driving at high speeds you are going to get your destination faster yes, (what – 5, 10 minutes?) but it isnt worth it if you are trying to save on gas. If your on the freeway try moving into the slow lane. Decreasing your speed by 10mph will greatly improve your MPG. One rule of thumb is to simply go the speed limit.

Tip #8 – Traffic Un-Jamming
Take the streets if there is traffic jams. This goes right along with tip #7. Driving at low speeds can save gas, but taking the streets instead of being stuck in idle in freeway jams is better. A good thing to remember when driving on streets is to avoid congested areas and streets with lots of stop lights. Also try to take the most direct route with as few mountains/hills as possible. The less you have to stop and idle the better.

Tip #9 – Cruise Control
Use Cruise Control.   Unless you have a hybrid or electric car, then the car’s ability to maintain a constant speed is better than your ability to do so. Small, more precise, and constant adjustments made by the car’s cruise control system will save you fuel. This tip changes a bit when you drive a hybrid or electric vehicle due to the way you accelerate and then learn to “coast” at a speed that only uses the electric battery rather than gas.

Tip #10 – No Racing
Stop driving like your racing the next person beside you. The more you accelerate the gas the more your wasting gas. Use this tip especially at stop lights and stop signs. Its not going to help your fuel economy if you accelerate your car up only to have to apply the brake before the next red light a block later. In summary, only apply the gas to get you to the next light without braking. Its all about learning how to effectively cruise and coast and using only what you need.

Tip #11 – Drafting
When on the freeway and going at high speeds, try to take advantage of drafting behind a truck or big rig. A big truck can break wind resistance up to 95%! Car racers have known this trick for the longest time, now you can take advantage of the same trick by getting behind a big truck (or even a minivan can work sometimes). Depending on how closely you travel behind it, the more you can take advantage of this trick. Although I must advise some caution here and always keep an eye out on the road ahead of the truck just in case. Less wind resistance on your car, the better your MPG.

Tip #12 – Plan Your Trip
By making your trips to the farthest place first then working your way back may not ALWAYS be the best way to save gas. Factor in traffic, hills and inclines, and other things and you might be wasting more gas than if you were to go to the first stop and continue to the farthest place last. Also note the prices at different gas stations as you pass by, and try to remember the best deal you see.

Tip #13 – GPS Navigation
You should also try to invest in a GPS system to help with not getting lost. Remember, if your lost for even 5 or 10 minutes thats 5 or 10 minutes worth of gas you wasted. Most GPS systems also include features like pointing out the gas stations in the area or car mechanics.

Tip #14 – Milk Every Drop
When finishing your refueling at the pump, before pulling the nozzle out all the way be sure to tilt it 90 degrees, or enough to let the remaining fuel thats still inside the nozzle out into your tank. Thats gas that you paid for!

Tip #15 – Tune-Ups
Lastly, make sure your car has its tune-ups and keep an eye on the gauges to make sure no indicator lights are on. I cant stress enough just how important it is to keep things running smoothly and the way it should be operating. This goes from checking the oil, all the way to how the engine runs.

I hope these tips helped. Perhaps one or two alone won’t make a big difference but if you apply and practice all of them whenever you drive you will see a difference in MPG. There are some other handy tools and gadgets you can get to help you keep an eye on how your doing such as the Kiwi MPG Meter.

Either way, drive safe & buckle up! And please, for the love of Nintendo don’t drive like a crazy maniac.

Back outside and holding the camera as still as I could I took some shots of the moon and its halo. At first I couldnt get the right exposure but after importing it into Photoshop I was able to adjust the levels a bit to get the halo more apparent.

I added some more images to my Flickr page if your interested.

Acoording to Wikipedia the scientific explaination is as follows:
Moon halos are mostly caused by ice crystals in cold cirrus clouds located high (5–10 km, or 3–6 miles) in the upper troposphere. Sometimes in very cold weather optical halos are formed by crystals close to ground level, called diamond dust. The crystals behave like jewels, refracting and reflecting sunlight between their faces, sending shafts of light in particular directions.

In another more indepth Wikipedia article explaining 22 degree halos it states:
22° halos form when the sky contains millions of poorly oriented ice crystals. Some of these happen to be aligned perpendicular to the sun light as viewed by one observer which produces the illuminated 22° circle, while other crystals produces the same phenomenon for other observers. An Alexander’s band can be seen inside the halo.

It was quite a remarkable sight and the image is still seered into my brain. I can’t wait to see my next one, and I hope you get to see one too!

PS: See Guso, you didnt really think I wouldn’t take pictures of something so cool did you? ^.~

Geocaching, an outdoor treasure hunting sport where participants use a GPSr to seek out caches (containers) all around the world. With literally hundreds of thousands (and growing) caches placed in hundreds of countries there are limitless adventures you could be drawn into to find a cache. A geocache can hold something as little as a note or trinkets, or even other valuble items for you to find. Usually the rule of thumb is, if your going to take something from the cache you need to leave something behind of equal or greater value. Most geocaches also have a logbook so that you can record your visit.

Geocached items can range from trinkets, toys, cds, books, coins, buttons, to more personal valubles that are sentimental to the previous geocacher who was there. There are also Travel Bugs or Geocoins that can be found which are items that request to be “carried over” to another cache so that it can keep moving. A log is kept and updated online by the person who found it so that the original owner can see where that tagged bug or coin has been. These Travelbugs or Geocoins can travel sometimes hundreds of thousands of miles, even to other continents and across the world.

Geocaches range in size, difficulty and location but most importantly are always intended to be found. So, if you wanted to take a little geocaching adventure what would you need?

a handheld GPSr (Global Positioning System reciever)
a Flashlight (if it gets dark)
some trinkets or goodies you would like to exchange

Its wise to do your research first before heading out in order to obtain the coordinates and have an idea of some sort to know what your looking for. Grab a free account at Geocaching.com and do a search for your address or zip code to find nearby caches.

Happy Hunting!

Some of the panels I joined in on were the “Programmers vs. Managers”, “Social 3D Enviroments”, “Lucid Dreaming Techniques” as well as many others. I also met a few familiar faces (twitters) as well as made some new acquaintances. It seemed that everyone there had a different shape/size/type of portable computing device; from laptops, to palmtops, to iphones, to touchscreen tablets, to OQO’s. The generous hosts also were able to supply free food to the entire group – salads, pizzas, sandwich wraps, and drinks drinks drinks.

I can’t wait for next years meeting, as I’m sure its going to be just as if not more fun. I initially wanted to give a talk about iPhone application/webapps but got there a bit too late. Oh well, theres always next time.

And one last note before I close. I was convinced at Barcamp that I should probobly switch over from Blogger to WordPress. I’ve been wanting to for quite a while but was unaware of the tools that wordpress introduced to import Blogger posts in easily. I also hear they have a WordPress app for the iPhone

Oh, and … HACK THE PLANET!
lol, ok just had to get at least one “Hack the Planet” shout in this Barcamp post.

As you walk into the CSC (California Science Center) you go to the 3rd floor and to the back. I took actually a picture of every single piece in the exhibit but I think I will hold back on showing all of them since I highly encourage everyone to really experience the hard work they did in putting this up and getting it all together.

I’m a star wars fan, and of course not the HUGEST knowledgeable nerd on Star Wars trivia, but I’m sure there are a few people who would like to see these pictures and videos of the exhibit before it opens so, without further ado, the exhibit…

Pictures:
(scroll down to get to video)

Video:

There was also this area of the gallery that allowed interaction with “space stations”, so for example, you would have this booth area you could sit at and a round table in front of you. A small pile of “digital cards” in front of you that you place on the table that detects what kind of card it is and displays the representational image of that on the video screen above you. It was TOTALLY awesome, and the way it worked gave me the impression that future games will rock when they implement this technique into them. (can you image starcraft or other strategy kind of game that uses this? OMG 0.o)

This was another part of the gallery, where they had a video up near the X-Wing model talking about its history. There were videos like these all over the gallery explaining stuff about Star Wars, wish I could record them all but I ran out of memory on my memory card. =P