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12 December 2008

FedEx Express has ordered 10 Modec electric commercial vehicles for use in the United Kingdom. The zero tailpipe emission vehicles will be the first such to join the FedEx fleet in the UK and will operate in the greater London metropolitan area. The vehicles feature a large, removable battery pack and can travel up to 70 miles on one overnight charge.

The new vehicles are part of a growing fleet of more than 170 hybrid electric vehicles in the FedEx fleet worldwide - the largest hybrid fleet in the transportation industry—and support the company’s commitment to improve the fuel efficiency of its vehicle fleet by 20% by 2020. FedEx has also committed to reducing carbon dioxide emissions from its aircraft fleet by 20% per available ton mile by 2020.

Photos courtesy of greencarcongress.com and roadtransport.com

Original Source: Green Car Congress

Related Articles: FedEx Hybrid-Electric Fleet Passes Two Million Miles and FedEx Express and Iveco in joint diesel-electric hybrid Daily van trials. There's 'Green' says Biglorryblog

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Soldier’s Engagement Ring
by LuCxeed

I’ll be gone to the battlefield
Don’t cry, my darling
Just return to me our engagement ring

I’ll be gone to the battlefield
Don’t cry. Don’t cry, my darling
Just return to me our engagement ring

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From pages 53 & 54 of the upcoming book: Love’s Footsteps ~ dedicated to a Bridge for Wisdom to Walk on

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10 Questions for Ted Turner

Time: “What did you think of the $700 billion bailout plan?”

Turner: “When I was running CNN we never had any money and I never asked for a bailout. Where does it end? AIG, you know, they need $40 billion more and we only gave them a hundred billion last week, didn't we? It's just ridiculous. And now General Motors. They said we're going to give them $25 billion to retool. Retool what? They'll run through that money so fast they'll be back wanting more. We can't keep every loser alive.”

Wall Street sputters on weak data, bailout doubts  read more »

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Wikipedia

The Nobel Prize (Swedish: Nobelpriset) is a Swedish prize, established in the 1895 will of Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel; in his will, he used his enormous fortune to institute the Nobel Prizes. The synthetic element nobelium was named after him. It was first awarded in Peace, Literature, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Physics in 1901. An associated prize, The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was instituted by Sweden's central bank in 1968 and first awarded in 1969.

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The daughter of famed poet Lord Byron, Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace - better known as "Ada Lovelace" - was born in London on December 10, 1815. Ada was the only legitimate child of the famous poet Lord George Gordon Byron. Lord Byron's marriage to Ada's mother, Lady Anne Isabella Milbanke Byron, was not a happy one. Lady Byron separated from her husband only weeks after their daughter was born. A few months later, Lord Byron left England, and Ada never saw her father again. He died in Greece when Ada was 8 years old.

Ada had an unusual upbringing for an aristocratic girl in the mid-1800s. At her mother's insistence, tutors taught her mathematics and science. Her mother believed that engaging in rigorous studies would prevent Lovelace from developing her father's moody and unpredictable temperament. From early on, Lovelace showed a talent for numbers and language. She received instruction from William Frend, a social reformer; William King, the family's doctor; and Mary Somerville, a Scottish astronomer and mathematician. Somerville was one of the first women to be admitted into the Royal Astronomical Society.

Augusta Ada King-Noel, Countess of Lovelace (née Byron; 10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852) was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. She was the first to recognise that the machine had applications beyond pure calculation, and published the first algorithm intended to be carried out by such a machine. As a result, she is often regarded as the first to recognise the full potential of a "computing machine" and the first computer programmer.  read more »

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The metric system, that is the system of units based on the metre, was officially adopted in France on 10 December 1799 (19 frimaire An VIII) and became the sole legal system of weights and measures there from 1801.

In France, before the start of the Revolution in 1789, there had been no uniformity of weights and measures. Trading had been difficult and fraud had been easy, so in 1790 the French National Assembly called for uniform new measures to put a stop to the abuses taking place. Charles Maurice Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun, presented to the Assembly a scheme based upon “natural” measures which he proudly stated would be “for all people, for all time”. This was modified by the Academy of Science, which also strongly favoured the new measures forming a decimal system as follows. The unit of length, the metre, was to be equal to the ten-millionth part of the arc of meridian between the North Pole and the equator and passing through Paris. The gram was to be the “absolute weight” of a volume of pure water, equal to the cube of the hundredth part of the metre and at the temperature of melting ice.  read more »