Gym machines like treadmills and even some roads express the slop as “grade” in percentage. For example, most gym treadmills allow up to 15% grade. I’ve left going to gym since last few months and instead I’m doing this Snoqualmie Falls hike almost every other day (which is 0.5 miles one way and 300ft elevation). But occasionally I have to go to gym because of early sunsets. I usually put max grade (15%) and speed walk for one mile burning 350 cal.
They do have Space Elevator Conference, complete with a blog! Looks like MSR is participating too (Microsoft employees gets discount - just $225 for a ride of, uhm…, armchair presentations, for now).
This addictive program can easily keep you busy for rest of the weekend so be careful :). Phun is a physics simulator that even kids can use and its absolutely a delight. I watched the video and had to immediately download to give it a try. At first the interface might seem not as easy but after reading tutorial in main page and forums, you might be able to accomplish everything shown in video in less than 15 min of learning curve!
Since yesterday night the question how Hurricane comes in to existence was eating me away. I resisted googling it and try to find the answer just for the fun. My instinct was that it must all come down to 2nd law of Thermodynamics (as always!). That means if there is high pressure somewhere, the inherent consequence would be to nullify the excess and have an equal average pressure everywhere. So I was mulling over kind of pressure patterns that would be required to ultimately cause slow rotations that we see on a hurricane.