Walk on the Wild Side – Lou Reed (1972)

The New York Times Magazine came out on Sunday with its 8th Annual Year in Ideas which manages to capture the essence of where we are headed as a society, whether it be the economy, art, sports, entertainment, politics, technology, and yes, even energy, thanks to the ever-wandering mind of the human species. It has an A to Z format that stopped me in my tracks at 'B' with The Biomechanical Energy Harvester.

You read it right.

The core idea is that you become your own electrical plant by donning an aluminum knee-brace-like device that captures your muscle energy as you walk into a small lithium-ion battery that then supplies power to gadgets such as cell phones. It was discovered by Canadian scientists who first reported its viability in the February 2008 edition of Science Magazine. Whilst the wattage may be weak in the scheme of things, it does bring the notion of "power walking" to a whole new level.

And how long before we start developing training classes on the subject matter?