Friday, August 28, 2009

It's All About Performance



Cyclists know it's all about performance. Trackies and hipsters take a hike!

Thursday, August 27, 2009

BolderBOULDER Warehouse Sale! Aug 28

The BolderBoulder is hosting its warehouse sale on Friday, August 28th!

BolderBoulder Warehouse Sale
Friday, August 28th
8am-6pm
5500 Central Ave.
Boulder, CO 80301


The official announcement is here.

The sale, which will somehow feature identical pricing on the online store and in person (how will they track inventory?), includes $5 technical t-shirts by adidas. Check out the tech tees here.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Neptune Mountaineering Hosts Multi-Brand Rep Sale - Aug 14

Neptune Mountaineering hosted a summer clearance and "rep" sale from August 14-23. A rep sale is when sales reps pool their inventory to sell off the sample products they've used throughout the season to try to sell product into retail stores. It's like a warehouse sale, except with a smaller selection and, for apparel, mostly size medium.

Did you make it to this sale? How was it? Let us know in the comments.

Friday, August 21, 2009

SIGG bottles contained bisphenol-A

In a letter posted on the SIGG website this month, CEO Steve Wasik admitted that SIGG bottles manufactured prior to August 2008 contained the controversial chemical bisphenol-A (BPA).

Wasik's letter claims that all SIGG bottles manufactured after August 2008 use a new polyester-based liner that contains no BPA. He explains that (company sponsored?) laboratory testing had shown that the BPA-laced proprietary liner SIGG used did not leach BPA into common liquids like water, juice, soda, etc., and that SIGG continued to sell the BPA-lined bottles believing they were safe.

In an interesting marketing twist, the SIGG website shows consumers how to determine between pre- and post-August 2008 made bottles. I suppose SIGG loyalists (people who enjoy cute, $20 aluminum) may recycle their BPA bottles and replace them with the newer model.

Read SIGG's letter of admission.

The consumer blog Z Recommends offers a timeline of SIGG's misinformation campaign about BPA in its bottles.

SIGG clearly has violated consumer trust.

Read this blog's posts about bisphenol-A.

Monday, August 17, 2009

News for Nerds Update

Biologists are beginning a new round of experiments on life-prolonging chemicals called sirtuin activators that activate the same life-prolonging pathways as the 30% calorie restriction diet.

If you feel like you're in a rut, you probably are, and it's likely been (temporarily) engraved into your brain. To break out of a rut, you need a vacation.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, despite having the word "safety" in its name", seems to have withheld data demonstrating the dangers of distracted driving. "The highway safety researchers estimated that cellphone use by drivers caused around 955 fatalities and 240,000 accidents over all in 2002...'We’re looking at a problem that could be as bad as drunk driving, and the government has covered it up,” said Clarence Ditlow, director of the Center for Auto Safety.'" The Adminstration was pressured by members of Congress to conduct the study and keep the findings private. The telecommunications industry is a large political donor.

There's another reason to run all your email newsletter subscriptions through Gmail: the new auto-unsubscribe button.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

The Real Advantages and Benefits of Electric Cars

I just read about Nissan's upcoming Leaf electric car. Hybrid and electric cars tout all sorts of tree-huggy, heart-warming benefits, but for me to shell out for a car that can only go 100 miles at a time, it has to have some cold, hard benefits to yours truly. Others can sell the emotional benefits; here's my list of immediate, tangible, self-centered benefits of electric cars. Add your ideas in the comments!

  • No more oil changes! For people who pay others to have their oil changed, this means no more attempted ripoffs by grease monkey mechanics. If you're a DIY oil changer like me, this means no more tedious trips to Auto Zone, flipping through a tattered parts catalog, lugging cases of oil home, messy driveway oil changes, and lunchbreak trips to your local HAZMAT disposal facility to drop off a few windshield wiper fluid bottles full of used motor oil that's been sitting in your garage for a year.
  • More reliable: Fewer moving parts means less wear and tear, fewer maintenance costs, and better reliability. Batteries have no moving parts and electric drives apply force directly to each wheel. They're also low heat. This means no more pistons, crankshaft, transmission, transmission fluid changes, radiator, engine coolant, fans, catalytic converters, exhaust systems, mufflers. You don't have to maintain those things, repair them, or burn gasoline moving their weight around. Electric cars should be simpler, lighter weight, and more efficient systems.
  • Less expensive: Better reliability combined with not using gas should make electric cars cheaper than gasoline ones. Electricity is cheaper than gas. Its price doesn't fluctuate as much so the costs are more predictable.
  • No more emissions inspections: Okay, depending on your state, this might be a 1 hour, $25 commitment once every two years. Still.
  • 4WD: Since electric drives can apply force to each wheel, more electric cars should be four-wheel drive or at least all-wheel drive. That should equal safer cars.
  • 4WB: Regenerative braking should be safer. I'm not sure how regenerative braking works, but I think it might involve resistance magnets. If so, then each wheel should be able to brake independently, meaning that more electric cars should have all-wheel or four-wheel braking.
  • More data: Ever since some friends and I accidentally rented a Chrysler Sebring convertible in the late '90s, I've been 0ften annoyed that cars don't offer more data to drivers. We got all excited seeing the Sebring's real-time reports on gas mileage. There's nothing inherent about electric cars that they should offer more data, but they all seem to. After you park, Toyota's Prius rates the efficiency of the driving you just did. Why don't more cars offer higher tech features like this?
  • Safer? I haven't seen any burning or exploding cars lately, but not carrying 10-15 gallons of flammable liquid that is designed to explode when ignited inside a hot hunk of metal seems safer than doing so.