Human-Powered Everything

[theunchosen]

The thing about the human body. . .virtually all of your calories go into heating you. It takes 4 BTUs just to heat my body 1 degree. Measuring how much heat you bleed off times 1 btu for every degree pound mass tells you how many degrees.

In that sense if you ever want to lose weight the fastest way is A. consume slightly less or B. wear less because its much easier to let your body heat itself than to try and work off the stored energy.

So if you are trying to lose weight human powered is awesome, or if power is not available, but if it is available and you can't stand to lose any weight its not adviseable(food is way more expensive than gas even if you are just eating straight rice).

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by theunchosen

food is way more expensive than gas even if you are just eating straight rice.

Not really that much difference, if you buy in bulk. My local el Cheapo supermarket has about 20 kinds of flour in bulk (I didn't even know there WERE that many kinds, until I started shopping there), with the less-expensive kinds going for around 30-50 cents/lb. Sugar & rice run about the same. Figure 6 lbs of food has the energy of 1 gallon of gas, that's around $2-$3 per gallon-equivalent, so in a comparable cost range.

[theunchosen]

except for the small factor that 90% of your calories are consumed as heat production. So the human bodies idle would be equivalent to like 3500 rpm. . .

[NiHaoMike]

Exertion Instruments
Those are some interesting self-powered electrical instruments. I wonder if they can be improved with TI's hybrid amplifier technology...