Great story! My name is Jay Shafer and since 1997 I have been living in a house smaller than some people’s closets. I call the first of my little hand built houses Tumbleweed. My decision to inhabit just 89 square feet arose from some concerns I had about the impact a larger house would have on the environment, and because I do not want to maintain a lot of unused or unusable space. My houses have met all of my domestic needs without demanding much in return. The simple, slower lifestyle my homes have afforded is a luxury for which I am continually grateful.

Here is one from the strange news files! A couple of fishing buddies from Delaware have been catching more than just bass. They’ve been helping police reel in cars.

Larry Newirth and Dan Cathell spotted a white BMW 750 sedan on June 17. Then on Friday, they found a late-model Honda Accord. Police say the cars were stolen and abandoned. No arrests have been made.

Newirth, a 63-year-old retired carpenter, jokes that he and Cathell better stop finding cars or the police will think they’re the ones stealing them.

Cathell, a 44-year-old millwright, says he hopes the thieves stop dumping the cars from the boat ramp so police don’t close the dock to the public.

Japanese technology is pretty cool, guess what this is?

Looks like a motorcycle?

It is a tow truck?  Wonder how it has the power and stability to pull a big car, but I guess Japan has mostly small sized cars.

These guys from Maine are great for the future of eco-friendly fuel, I think.  They are the ones who became  online sensations by creating geysers from soda and Mentos candies have discovered it’s not just entertainment. It can propel vehicles, as well.

A contraption created by Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz of Buckfield using a bike and a trailer is powered by piston mechanism using hundreds of pieces of Mentos candy and Coke Zero.

On a video posted online Tuesday, the machine traveled more than 220 feet.

The video was directed by Rob Cohen of “The Fast and the Furious.” Grobe joked that the crew is calling it “The Fizzy and the Furious.”

The geyser experiment used Diet Coke. This time, the crew used Coke Zero. Afterward, they toasted their success by sipping Coke Zero from champagne glasses.

That the appliance surfers use to tap this energy is made from petroleum-based foam, polyester resins and chemically treated fiberglass has long been surfing’s quiet contradiction.

A broken board tossed in a landfill will take generations to biodegrade; the plastic fins probably never will. Even the thin strip of wood that runs down the middle to provide strength comes at an environmental cost — a minuscule yield from the raw material it’s milled from. “A ‘green surfboard’ is inherently an oxymoron at this point,” says Joey Santley, 44, a frenetic surfboard shaper and entrepreneur in San Clemente on a mission to create an environmentally friendly surfboard — or at least one with a carbon footprint that’s less titanic. “Hopefully in the future it won’t be.” In recent years, a wave of experimentation has sought to detoxify surfboards by using materials that suggest the Whole Earth catalog rather than the periodic table of elements: hemp, bamboo, kelp and silk instead of fiberglass; foam made from soy and sugar rather than polyurethane, which is composed of toluene diisocyanate, or TDI, a possible carcinogen that can be inhaled and absorbed through the skin; adhesive resins made from linseed, pine and vegetable oils. But changing the way surfboards are made has proved difficult. The few who have sought to go greener have struggled not only with finding just the right materials but also with overcoming resistance from shapers and professional surfers reluctant to fix what they don’t consider broken.

After experimenting with castor oil, sugar and corn, McMahon’s company found that blanks made with soybean oil were as strong and light as conventional foam.

Two years ago, he and a partner formed Green Foam Blanks, which makes rigid foam surfboard cores by fusing polyurethane with recycled polyurethane dust gathered from workshops that would otherwise discard it. That yields more boards per ounce of toxic polyurethane.

The company recently signed a deal with a leading maker of traditional blanks to manufacture and distribute its product in North America, Japan, Europe and Costa Rica. Still, this being a start-up, Santley is not just part-owner, he’s also the chief dust collector. Darting down a gangway between two nondescript buildings recently, he bounds up the stairs of one of the neighborhood’s numerous surfboard factories. Under a whirring cutting machine, he hits gold: a pile of white polyurethane foam shavings as light as Rocky Mountain snow. “This is like a perfect powder day,” Santley says, shoveling the stuff into a trash bag and holding it aloft. “Probably enough for about a dozen boards. And it won’t end up in the landfill.”

Hat’s off to you Joey and we hope your quest for a green surfboard is successful!

Mike Anton – read the full article

Rumor has it there is a new eco-friendly junk car website about to go beta! MrCarJunk.com

WAIL (1997) BMW announced a new feature for its automobiles that would cause animals to move out of the path of the car. Dubbed WAIL for “Wildlife, Acoustic, Information, Link,” the device emitted a high-pitched sound wave inaudible to human ears, but audible to animals. The sound wave sent animals scurrying away from the oncoming car, saving them from possible injury. In the ad a small hedgehog was shown running away from the road as a BMW 7 Series sweeped past. A related web site explained that it was no longer just Dr. Doolittle who communicated with animals.

This one is not very funny but it does score points with me for believability – 7/10

Driver’s Weight Sensors (1989) BMW announced a new anti-theft device that would soon be available on its cars—Driver’s Weight Sensors (DWS). The device would recognize the weight of the driver, and if a driver with a different weight attempted to start the car they would be greeted by gongs and flashing headlamps while a hidden radio signal contacted the police. Interested readers were instructed to contact Hugh Phelfrett at BMW.
Not only is this believable but it is actually kind of cool.

I guess it would suck if your spouse was using it and you forgot to disable it but it would be a good backup for locked doors – 7.5/10

Found a great little post over at www.Wirded.com talking about some famous cars of the past.

John Whosack? Michael J. What? We couldn’t care less about the whiny dweeb protagonists of ’80s cinema. The real heroes of that high-octane age were the wheels — mechanical masterpieces that, if not perfect right off the assembly line, were amped and revamped until they were bitchin’ enough to save (or ruin) the day. We caught up with our favorites to see what they’ve been up to. Is that you, Christine? Gosh, you haven’t aged a bit!

1958 Plymouth Fury
Christine (1983)
There are three Christines still in existence, all owned by obsessed fans — just the way we like it. One psycho sister car is skulking in the UK, but two remain stateside. Bill Gibson of Pensacola, Florida, nabbed his in 2005. Martin Sanchez of Woodcrest, California, bought his — a wrecked stunt car — right after the film’s release and put her back together again. (Don’t worry, Mrs. Sanchez is fine.)

Kuwahara BMX
ET: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Tom Meighan, vocalist for the British rock band Kasabian, thought he bought Elliot’s bike in 2007. But Steven Spielberg’s people say the director held onto all the alien-blessed Kuwaharas. Too bad, because Meighan makes the most of his ride: Word is that the singer likes to reenact the final escape scene in his sprawling flat. That thing is never gonna fly, Tom — it’s a fake!

1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor Hearse
Ghostbusters (1984)
Sony execs loved the two ghoul-getters from the Ghostbusters films so much, they stashed the original movie cars in a secure location and made a replica for the studio tour. Jim Hedges of Galion, Ohio, bought the ersatz Ecto in 2008 and auctioned it off to an anonymous collector in January. Who you gonna call? The guy who shelled out 80 grand for a gussied-up hearse.

DeLorean DMC-12
Back to the Future (1985)
Six DeLoreans were used to film the Marty McFly trilogy, and the locations of four are known. Two are tram-tour heroes at Universal Studios; one is fastened to the ceiling of a Planet Hollywood in Honolulu. The fourth was rotting in a studio back lot until an anonymous collector in San Jose, California, picked it up at auction. The gull-winged sportster is now being restored to reverse the effects of time.

1967 Camaro SS
Better Off Dead (1985)
After carrying a torch for Lane Meyer’s black SS for almost 20 years, a Camaro lover in Florida tracked down the car from a license plate that’s barely visible in the film. He hired a gumshoe to find the unwitting owner, bought the faded hulk in 2002, and spent a year fixing it up — sadly, without the help of a beautiful French exchange student. Now it’s cruising the show-car circuit.

This is a very funny video on a little home repair job of a $500,000 car with two crowbars!

Loved this from the onion