ok that's nice, but here's the thing: the metaphor here is a slow drip of news; your sponsor is a faucet company; thus in my unconscious I have just made the logical connection that delta faucets must leak with a slow drip. I am not sure that is what they intend...

ok, basic order of magnitude calcs. the weight of the thing is going to be like 0.1 kg. figure the energy you give it is equivalent to a good throw, which would, if you threw it upwards with no string attached, send it 5 meters into the air. so that means the energy you give it per throw is m*g*z = 0.1 kg * 9.8 m/s^2 * 5 m = 5 joules. figure it takes 10 seconds for your yo-yo to extract the energy out of each throw gives it a net power of 0.5 W. that's assuming the thing works under fairly ideal conditions. might take a while to charge at that rate

i second post #13--when talking about scales, its only useful to compare things of the same order of magnitude. for example 30 µm is technically a fine sand.

I just wanted to second the questioning of the assumption that most of the fecal matter available for stepping in on the streets of san francisco is of a canine origin.

On a slightly related note, has anyone else who uses an aluminum laptop noticed that every time you put it through the x-ray, either you or it develops enough of a static charge so that a shock happens when you reunite on the "sterile" side? Am I going to fry my motherboard this way?