Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with carbon

A carbon air filter that works?

Nish ton — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:36:46 -0800

Have you ever encountered an activated carbon air filter that actually removed odors, leaving the output air clean? Which one? Never in my life have I been so peeved at the whole steaming pile known as consumerism.

I've tried no less than 7 times now to find something that works.

I bought a honeywell filter appliance, a febreze, and a bionaire, only to find that there was something wrong with the carbon filter material itself in all 3 cases. Not only does it not clean the air, but even after more that a week running in the garage (12 days in the case of the honeywell) it was still releasing some sort of awful fumes. I strongly suspect the smell is added intentionally by companies to make the air "smell clean" to ignorant consumers.

After the misfortunes of finding the honeywell and febreze machines didn't work, and having bought and not yet gotten around to returning the bionaire, I decided to try something.

I bought some carbon filter stuff (they call it " paper" but it more like a mat of hair made from Polyethelene terephthalate), the sort they use in air conditioners in office buildings, from Camfil Farr. To remove odors, suposedly. Then I took the filter out of the bionaire machine and taped a few square ft. of filter paper over the intake.

Exactly the same smell and problem after running it for a week. I figured it was just a matter of finding a brand of carbon filter that actually worked. I tried 3 more filter medias from various sources, all with the same problem.

I read up on some of the physics and design principles and it is clear that it is easy to make a functional filter that will absorb household smells, but
apparently it has come to the point now that companies have decided to stick with just duping the masses into accepting useless junk instead, no matter how little effort making a functional product actually requires.

So has anyone ever encountered a filter that works?

BTW this really matters because I live in a house with no provisions whatsoever for bringing in fresh air during the winter.

Fork me!

pdb — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 17:46:50 -0800

I need a new fork for my road bike. How do I shop for one? As a result of a could-have-been-a-whole-lot-worse accident a few days ago, my carbon front fork is broken (Fortunately, nothing on my body suffered the same fate - just a concussion, some bruises and stiffness). I have never shopped for a fork before, the one that broke was the original fork from my bike; what sort of things should I be looking for in a fork?

My bike's aluminum with carbon seatstays, and I do like the carbon fork I had (it was Klein-branded, don't know if they made it or not but that's all I can find on it is the Klein name), but I have no idea whether carbon is better than aluminum, or stuff like that.

Also, pricing - assuming I do decide to go with a carbon fork, how much can I expect to spend for a decent one? I'm seeing things for $2-300, is that typical of a good fork?

What is the carbon footprint of a torrent?

oonh — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 09:36:33 -0800

What is the carbon footprint of a torrent? (or range thereof, depending on torrent size)

How do I get a broken Rio Carbon MP3 player fixed?

Jennifer S. — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 09:36:36 -0800

How do I get a broken Rio Carbon MP3 player fixed? I bought a new Rio Carbon few years ago. After about 6 months of use, it broke.

When I attached it to my computer to refresh rights to the music, my pc couldn’t read my player. And the player would shut down.

I tried using other computers but had the same problem each time.

Rio, the manufacturer, folded right around the time this happened.

Now my Carbon won’t even turn on.

So how do I get a broken Rio Carbon player fixed? I’m not as interested in a site that shows me how to repair it myself, as I just don’t have time (working college student). What I do want is a way to pay someone a reasonable rate to repair my player.

Switching off Traffic Lights

SarahM — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 08:21:19 -0800

I'd like to ask a relatively simple question – what would happen if we switched of traffic lights when we didn't really need them? I'd like to know from an environmental aspect what effect turning off the nations traffic lights would have towards saving electricity and reducing emissions. From a social point of view could the nation's road users manage with such a change? And from a technical innovation view point – could it and should it happen and if so how?

Carbon Footprint of Junk Mail?

gnossos — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:22:10 -0800

What is the carbon footprint for unsolicited, promotional mail for one year in the USA? I seem to get a lot of unsolicited, promotional advertisements in the mail each day. I recycle the paper, but what a waste! If we add in the costs to transport the paper, envelopes and cards across the US each year, the carbon footprint has to be huge! What other factors might be included? Maybe this concept can be used to slow the waste.

Should I give up on gas?

Enroute — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:28:04 -0800

My new gas range is breaking my heart. WTF is wrong with it? And if it is a goner, should I bother trying to replace it with another gas range, or give up and switch to electric? After 15 years of longing for a gas range, I finally got this GE Profile dual fuel slide-in range 3 years ago. It has been a disaster. It fills the kitchen with mercaptan smell, puts out a tremendous amount of carbon monoxide (I forget the exact reading, but it was WAY over the safe limit), and the burners "roar" to a ridiculous degree. It makes me sick to cook with it.

We have had appliance repair guys and gas company guys out repeatedly to look at it, and they can't figure it out. We replaced two parts (and I'm sorry, I can't remember the exact names and my husband's out of cell range right now)--the little round dial thing on the underside of the range that regulates the amount of gas flow, and the thing on the individual burners that regulates the amount of gas they get. No difference. The pressure of the gas coming to the house is normal. The repair guys agree there is a problem but don't know how to fix it.

So here are my questions:

1) Any idea what the problem could be?
2) Do you think it would be crazy to buy another gas range? I'm worried that the problem is with the gas feed to our house and the problem would just repeat with a new range. They say the feed is fine, but of course they obviously don't know everything or they would have fixed it by now.
3) If I do get another gas range, what is a RELIABLE brand?
4) One of the main things I wanted from a gas range was super high heat for stir-frying and such. Is it possible to get this from an electric range? What should I look for?

Is breathing a weight-loss program?

Camofrog — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 09:57:29 -0800

Do we lose weight just by breathing? Since we breathe in O2 and breathe off CO2, it seems to me that we are losing carbon atoms like mad each time we breathe out. This assumes, of course, that for each O2 breathed in a CO2 is breathed out, a straight one-to-one exchange, and that's a huge assumption. Is it correct?

UK air purifier recommendation

urbanwhaleshark — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 03:31:33 -0800

Can anyone from the UK recommend an Air Purifier? I have checked the previous askme questions but they're all US-centric. Honeywell appears to be a popular choice, but they're not available here in the UK.

Specifically I'm looking for one with both carbon and HEPA filters to be used for general air pollution (i live on a busy main road), and dust and smoke particles.

My flat is a small one-bed, perhaps about 40sqft in total, so the purifier can be reasonably small/portable from room to room (and therefore reasonably inexpensive). Ion dispenser is optional since I don't know how beneficial they really are.

TIA

Getting very sleepy...

peachfuzz — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 18:57:45 -0800

This morning, my boyfriend overslept for hours and hours - and woke up to the carbon monoxide detector going off. Now what? The detector's supposed to be sensitive to carbon monoxide and explosive gases. He lives in an old house, with tons of gas combustion-powered appliances - gas stove/range, water heater, furnace, (I think) dryer - and crappy ventilation. How does he pinpoint the source of the trouble? And what does he do in the meantime? Obviously, he's tried to get in touch with his landlord. I think he needs to clear out of there, starting tonight, and then start looking for a new place to live (this is the latest in a long line of issues with the property). Right? Or will he be, quote, "Fine with the windows open"?

(I think there's always been something fishy about that house. We both constantly feel groggy and weird in it - I notice it most, since I don't live there. When I stay there, I notice headaches a lot more frequently than I do at home. And we both get mysterious mild flus - general lethargy, malaise, fogginess - that just linger and linger. Invariably, he feels different - more energetic, clearer, less run-down - when he goes on vacation or travels or is even out of the house for a day (he works at home, and a lot of days he's in the house for 20 hours out of 24). Is this possibly long-term exposure to low levels of carbon monoxide? It's never occurred to either of us that this is a possibility until now, but it sure would make sense.)

Anyway - he needs to Not. Sleep. There. For. Now. Yes?

Which is best for the environment: driving or flying?

JPDD — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 10:56:27 -0800

Is it better for the environment to drive or fly a long distance? I'm currently in Baton Rouge, LA and plan on returning to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada for a couple of weeks over Christmas and I'm wondering if driving or flying would be better in terms of global warming and other environmental impacts. If I fly I would use a commercial carrier and it would involve at least two hops as there are no direct flights. If I drive I would use our 2001 automatic transmission Toyota Corolla and spend a night or two in a motel. I would be the only person in the car.

I was under the impression that driving was something like 30x better in part because flying deposits pollutants directly into the atmosphere but I just heard something on the NPR Environment podcast cites thegreenguide.com as saying driving is 2x worse than flying. I couldn't find anything on their site to that effect however.

So which is best? Flying or driving? I realize that the train is probably best and I may end up doing that.

Find me a software-free MP3 player!

SpacemanRed — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 05:16:22 -0800

GadgetFilter: Find me an MP3 player! Yes, another MP3 player question. I have been happily using a 5Gb Rio Carbon but now I need more capacity, the logical successor would be the Rio Karma but I'm looking for 40Gb upwards and also its not available new anymore.

My major criteria:

I don't want have to use specific software to upload MP3s (Yes, I'm looking at you, iTunes!) - the Rio Carbon shows up as an external hard drive in Windows and all the files can be dragged, dropped and deleted using Explorer - this makes me happy.

I only need to play MP3 and WMA.

Battery life - 20 hours would be nice, like the Carbon.

USB 2 (or faster!).

I don't care about:

Photos, video, radios, elaborate GUIs, coloured cases, white headphones, touch screens or fancy ad campaigns.

EnvironmentalismFilter: Incandescent Bulbs!

sirion — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 17:12:16 -0800

EnvironmentalismFilter: What's the most environmentally responsible thing to do with working incandescent bulbs? Ok, I want to be more environmentally conscious and reduce my carbon footprint, so I'm planning on switching to compact flourescent bulbs. Well what do I do with my old incandescent bulbs? How about my *new* incandescent bulbs sitting around the house?

I inhaled what??

matty — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 05:33:50 -0800

With all the news lately about carbon monoxide poisioning on the West Coast, I've laid in bed wondering about the carbon monoxide testers we have in our house. How do I know they REALLY work?? Is there a simple, safe way to test the detectors - other than hitting the 'test' button - to prove to myself that the things actually work? We have the type that plug into an outlet and have a battery backup.

Global warming and my mother

frogan — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 09:50:49 -0800

Help me ruin my mother's day: Data that compares the carbon dioxide emissions between California and China/India. My mother is a Republican (boo, hiss) and believes that any local action taken by U.S. states to curb carbon dioxide emissions would be pointless, as countries like China and India would flout any international agreements and end up hurting U.S. businesses because they would be hobbled by over-regulation.

I need to burst my mother's Limbaugh-influenced bubble and convince her that doing something about global warming would is a Good Thing.

I have a simple hypothesis: That her state, California, emits more carbon dioxide than China and India combined.

Unfortunately, I have no data to back up this claim.

Hive mind, help me ruin my mother's day.

Please help me GLOBALLY DISABLE font smoothing (anti-aliasing) in Tiger

allterrainbrain — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 14:13:48 -0800

Please help me GLOBALLY DISABLE font smoothing (anti-aliasing) in Tiger. I did it almost-completely in Panther, but the Panther solution needs another step in Tiger. Yes, I'm positive I don't want font smoothing. :)

So here are the two commands I found to use in Panther. Both need to be done as root.
defaults write -g AppleAntiAliasingThreshold 128
defaults write CoreGraphics CGFontDisableAntialiasing YES

(I assume 128 could be any number and it's just "something bigger than the biggest font size you expect to ever use.")

In Tiger (on Intel), using these doesn't work to disable anti-aliasing in the menu text across the top of the screen.

My Panther machine (which I still have, if you want me to report anything about it) is definitely using non-anti-aliased Lucida Grande on all the top menus -- whether in Finder or in any app. HOWEVER, I never got the other kinds of system text (dialog boxes, Preference panels, etc.) to stop using anti-aliasing. So the font rendering in the menus is somehow different from the rendering in other kinds of "system" text.

Unfortunately I didn't keep a record of everything I did in Panther, and it's been a few years now -- I only remember it as a long, roundabout process of googling & trying different solutions. So it's likely that something else I did in addition to these two commands made the top menus stop using anti-aliasing. So what could that extra something have been??

(TinkerTool and its siblings aren't the answer, since their option for disabling font smoothing seems to be just a graphical frontend for the AppleAntialiasingThreshold command above. But of course I'd hugely appreciate any tip about a tweaking app I missed that goes further -- that got rid of anti-aliasing in your top menus, not just inside your apps, in Tiger.)

Can't see the forest for the carbon absorption rates

andifsohow — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 18:49:12 -0800

I'm trying to figure out carbon absorption rates by trees. So far the best source I have is an eBay ad. I understand that this all depends on what kind of tree and any number of factors. But I haven't even been able to get very good numbers on how many trees it takes to offset 1 ton of CO2 or, conversely, how much CO2 100 trees would offset. This eBay ad suggests that three trees can offset 1 ton over the next ten years. How do I find better data than that? It's for a research project on the development of sustainable timber farms.

Aluminum Vs Carbon Fiber vs smoking crack

neilkod — Thu, 25 May 2006 12:30:55 -0800

Compliant-vs-speed filter: Aluminum vs Carbon Fiber, aggressive vs less-aggressive? Steel junkies leave your opinions at the door please. So I cracked a 2004 Specialized Allez Elite (62) near the bottom bracket. While the warranty replacement bike was being rebuilt, LBS loaned me a 2006 Specialized Roubaix Comp (58), which is allegedly a more compliant ride. I rode the Roubaix for a few days, including a Century, and was amazed by how 'good' it felt. It was like riding a full-suspension road bike. It felt like a dream compared to the rattle of aluminum.

Fast forward a few days later (and 170 miles!!) and I'm back on the aluminum replacement. Obviously the ride wasn't as plush as the CF Roubaix. However, I did notice that I was definitely faster and climbed better after getting back on the Allez.

Now here's my question?

Was I faster on the Allez/Slower on the Roubaix because:

1) The Allez is a more compact/aggressive geometry where the Roubaix is designed to be more compliant?
2) The Allez(62) is the right size and the Roubaix(58) was too small? Remember how comfortable I was on the Roubaix. The ride was a dream.
3) I was faster because I did a lot of miles recently
4) No difference, I was smoking crack.

Here's the kicker - Even though I perceived myself to be slower, the ride of the CF bike was just too good to be true. Of course, I have been snookered by my LBS and now I *must* ride CF :). I'm not (yet) a racer, more of a club rider and canyon climber and pain-enjoyer. I've been debating a few CF options and want to know if I should stay in a really aggressive geometry, like a low-end Tarmac, or go for the more luxurious ride of the Roubaix. Now that I've had a taste of a CF ride, I can't fathom getting used to aluminum again.

My cycling goals are to 'go fast' and 'climb better'. Possibly crits. I'm looking for a good marriage of speed + comfort.

Also, I'm looking to stick with Specialized because I'm very happy with LBS and Specialized's service/warranty terms. I could also consider (gah!) Giant.

React!

Do carbon offsets really cook with gas, or just evaporate into thin air?

skyboy — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 15:05:45 -0800

Dang, those new year's resolutions... For the first time, I'm tempted to buy emissions "offsets" for my car in order to support the research and development of cleaner energy choices. Is this a good idea, or would I be wasting my money? Sure, offsets aren't very expensive, but I always want my charitable spending to be used effectively, so I'm seeking some advice... I've heard of TerraPass, and have also considered Better World Club's offsets (mostly because I need to renew my roadside assistance soon) -- are there others? Since neither of these are non-profit orgs, I'm wondering if there are any offset "watchdog" organizations, or even any generally-accepted practices for designating funds obtained from offset sales.

Gentle guidance: I'm looking for thumbs-up or thumbs-down info specifically on offsets, so you don't have to remind me that there's a myriad of other ways to contribute. I already donate to established nonprofit organizations -- ones whose track record I can research, esp. via sites like CharityNavigator and Give.org. And I'm planning to sign up for green power from my electric utility when the option becomes available.

How do I locate the data files for Mac programs?

SeizeTheDay — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 19:08:51 -0800

I'm having trouble recovering my data from my external HDD after I used Carbon Cloner for Mac 10.4.3. I thought my Powerbook hard drive was dying so I purchased an external HDD and used Carbon Cloner to backup all my stuff. Trouble is, I reinstalled Tiger completely clean and now I'm having trouble finding the data files for my programs (Mail, Virtual PC, iBank). Where is my information hiding and how can I prevent this problem in the future? Thanks in advance.

Can I get carbon from the air?

Mwongozi — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 10:20:25 -0800

Theoretically, if I needed large amounts of carbon, could I extract it from the air? How could I do it?

I want to start programming under OS X. Where to start?

slater — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 01:59:36 -0800

I've done some programming in my time (Basic & Turbo Pascal way back when), shifted more to the web side of everything about 8 years ago (procedural PHP server-side and HTML&JS&CSS client-side). Having recently purchased a mac mini, and hearing the gospel of how easy it is to program with carbon & cocoa, does anybody have any recommendations (books) on where to start? I'm not looking into writing the next big MMPORG or anything like that, just little apps and work myself up from there

Name this organic chemistry phenomenon of silicon replacing carbon

ZenMasterThis — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 13:48:43 -0800

Is there a branch of physical chemistry concerned with the synthesis and study of the material properties of originally organic compounds where carbon is replaced by silicon? [+] I'm particularly interested in whether anyone is working on silicon-substituted chlorophyll for a photovoltaic cell. Just plain intellectual curiosity. Thanks.