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Having a somewhat disturbing connection with my PC, I have often thought, "Wouldn't it be nice if I had to work out to work." For example, if my mouse weighed 50 lbs, I could probably be a champion arm wrestler in a month's time.

But, instead, I become softer for every minute I spend at this computer, and I spend a lot of minutes here. This YouTube video that I spotted at ecoIron shows a pretty impressive pedal power generating system. The beefy guy on the left does all the work, while the guy behind the camera, one can assume, put together the electronics for the system. They're using an ultracapacitor, it seems, to store and regulate the charge, and have a "watts up" power meter measuring the draw from the device. Zack, the pedaler, seems to have no problem keeping up the 20-30 watts it takes to power the IBM Thinkpad.

I would pay a lot of money for a desk chair that had a keyboard and mouse pad and pedals. The Pedal Chair: Stay fit, use renewable power, and strengthen the man-machine interface. No one was ever this ready for the apocalypse.

Via TechEBlog