"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

BioAlgae For Power Plants

MIT program that's awesome. Using the waste CO2 from a power plant to grow algae for biofuel. It cuts down power plant smog, and recycles the waste carbon into another fuel.

Some neat tricks too:

Berzin and his coworkers “tailor” algae to perform well at a specific power plant. They use a terrestrial cousin of a miniature bioreactor designed for the International Space Station. As algae grow inside the bioreactor, their environment is gradually shifted to conditions they will encounter at the plant. Within three months, the tailored algae are thriving on flue gases instead of air. No genetic engineering is involved. “We just use the natural tendency of algae to adapt to any environment,” said Berzin.

I think there's going to be some huge overlap soon between bioengineering and energy applications. All non-nuclear non-geothermal energy we have is solar at the root.

Fossil fuels come from fossils (well, mostly old algae), which get their biomass from the sun. Getting some crazy plants to jack up the photosynthesis and/or create electricity directly will be a coup, and it should be totally possible.

I'm hoping we'll see cool new stuff from The MIT Energy Research Council soon.

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The Road to Drupal Hell

LO-fuckin-L

Be sure to scroll down to the diagram.

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Big Fish

John Robb, who I link to farily often, gives me'n'Zack the nod for the LC.

Speaking of which, I've gotten a couple of new donations. Need to update that progress bar (it's done by hand, natch). Also, need to push for donors before the Fundable runs out.

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Or This Could Be A Better First Car...

Tesla Motors

This is real smart: starting at the top-end of the value chain. I think these people's biggest problem will be mechanical support. Like, one of my biggest concerns is who can I take this thing to if it breaks down?

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Way to go Sam

The Tressler has launched not one but two new websites: The Common Sense Rag and Tressler Designs.

He now runs three of his own Drupal sites, which is, uh, three more than I have. Better get cracking.

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Job Description

Something that came to me in the email, some sort of mass-email troll for tech workers:

Key Responsibilities

Work closely with designers and team members to develop dynamic, interactive websites and software using HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, Javascript and other related technologies.
Establish and implement site development plan/standards for specific projects.
Provide light design skills with the ability to translate a wireframe and style guide into a production page.
Provide solid experience in graphic manipulation in Photoshop and Illustrator
Resolve bugs and cross browser compatibility issues.
Mentor, coach and manage team members located in India.
Identify tools, templates, and techniques that evolve existing approaches for the larger Creative Design community at ______

Career-wise, I need to push through my current band. Otherwise the future is in bossing a bunch of Indians. I don't begrudge them (or the Polish or Brazillian or other international developers) their work, but I'd like to see the global development community grow as an equitable network of professional participants, not a series of trans-oceanic closed-shop code plantations.

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Definitely My Next New Toy

The Lil Lappy That Could:

As the replacement for Apple's consumer-level iBook line, the new 13-inch MacBook isn't being marketed toward creative professionals. Nevertheless, packed with one of the most powerful mobile processors on the market--a 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo--this little notebook offers amazing rendering and encoding performance. But is it good enough to compete with the MacBook Pros and with desktop G5 systems? Surprisingly, yes, it is.

Still not gonna pay extra for the black one though.

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Space Tourism

$35M to walk in space: 20 large for the trip to the International Space Station (via the Ruskies, natch) and 15 bones to step outside.

This is one of the few areas where I think our massive and possible immorally inequitable distribution of wealth might pay off. If this catches on, it should drive innovation and competition to improve space access for the rest of us.

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Daily Show on Net Neutrality

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Wal-Mart Tries to Be MySpace. Seriously

Advertising Age:

It's a quasi-social-networking site for teens designed to allow them to "express their individuality," yet it screens all content, tells parents their kids have joined and forbids users to e-mail one another. Oh, and it calls users "hubsters" -- a twist on hipsters that proves just how painfully uncool it is to try to be cool.

That's pretty funny.

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