Will algae beat its competitors to become the king source of biofuels?

Environmentalgraffiti.com » Will algae beat its competitors to become the king source of biofuels?

    Pretty awesome idea, to use algae to create ethanol.  I have read and heard about the concerns of making ethanol using corn and other crops saying that there wouldn't be enough of the crop to make sufficient bio-fuel for everyone's needs.  This is just another one of those issue where creativity and simple elegance can make all the difference.  Who says we need to get all our ethanol from corn and sugar cane (like in Brazil)?

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Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales Resigns - NY Times

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales Resigns - The New York Times - Politics - Washington - New York Times

    Looks like the forces of good and right are gaining some ground!

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Make science easier, examiners are told - Times Online

Make science easier, examiners are told - Times Online
    Looks like the U.S. isn't the only country that is lowering educational standards so kids will have better "self-esteem".  No one cared when I was a child if a test was hard or not, that's why you studied!
    Still, there is a podcast about science from the U.K. that I just started listening to that I find extremely informative as well as entertaining.  Find it here:
    The Naked Scientists

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Nokia takes on iTunes in digital music market - Yahoo! News

Nokia takes on iTunes in digital music market - Yahoo! News

     Going to http://www.ovi.com and downloading the press release, it gives a bit more information than the Yahoo! article, but what neither one talks about is DRM on the tracks that they sell.  I couldn't find a reference to that any where.  Although, for the price that they will be selling each track (1 Euro = approx. 1.40 dollars) you would like to think it is DRM free, like the EMI catalog on iTunes (1.29 dollars per track).  Also, there was no mention about bitrate per track.
    One thing I did see that I thought was interesting was the availability of a PC Streaming service for those who subscribe.  This would be a pretty nice deal for those with Media Center PC's, but I would imagine that it will be limited to Windows only, as if almost every other subscription service.

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Miners unearth world's biggest diamond

Miners unearth world's biggest diamond | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

Women the world round are feeling a little tingle in their pants, I think we know why!

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My Birthday!

Yup, it's my birthday. And to celebrate being 31 today I took the day off and went to see the "Bourne Ultimatum". It was great! The entire trilogy was fantastic and worth every penny I spent to see it in the theaters. I've only read the first book and was a little disappointed when I realized they hadn't followed the novels but in this last movie they bring all back full circle and returned some to the novel I loved so much.
This is also a momentous occasion because this ends the string of bad movies I seen on my birthday since I was 16! Movies such as:
"Young Einstein"
"Memoirs of an Invisible Man"
"S.W.A.T."

Hopefully this ends the curse.

Another 24" iMac

Lookks like there is a second 24" iMac with a 2.8GHz processor, 2 GB of RAM and 500GB HDD.

Check it out: The Apple Store (U.S.) - iMac

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Sweet Jesus, it's Beautiful!

Apple - iMac - Design

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Apple Keynote Update

Excellent coverage of the Apple iMac Announcement here.


Major Points:
- No 17" model
- Two 20" models:
- 2.0 Core 2 Duo, 250GB, ATI Radeon HD 2400 HD
- 2.4 Core 2 Duo, 320GB ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro
- New iLife '08, adding "Events" to iPhoto to better organize pictures and albums. Still $79.99.
- New .Mac Web Gallery photo sharing capability. Send pics directly from iPhone to .Mac Web Gallery. 10GB of storage for subscribers.
- New iMovie, easier movie making from HD sources, ability to encode in higher resolutions.
- New iWeb: Add Live web widgets, Google Adsense, ability to index site media and new themes.
- New iDVD: pro encoding features and new themes.
- New Garageband: New styles that you can add to and change (ex: Latin, Jazz, Rock, etc...)
- iWork '08 with new Keynote, Pages and (finally) Numbers! Also $79.99
- New Keynote with Alpha effects and better Media Viewer and animations
- New Pages adds better ability for Word Processing as well as Page Layout.
- New Numbers spreadsheet, allows separate styles on the same sheet for attractive spreadsheets.
- Hints of a Mac mini refresh, guess we'll need to check apple.com to find out.

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New iMac to be announced

As many of the other blogs have posted, there is supposed to be a new iMac being announced by Apple as I type this.  Apparently it is supposed to have a new metallic finish and they will be abandonding the the 17" model (which is fine for me since I went with the 20" any way).  Guess I'm going to have new iMac jealousy issues.

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Another day

Well, it's gotten better. I've actually started writing something, not a lot mind you but enough to get me going. I have realized that I haven't probed my characters enough, gotten to know them enough to keep any momentum in my stories. So what I have begun doing is drawing myself a map of the world I am going to create. From there, I hope to begin filling in detail and seeing what develops.

Mea Culpa!

Yes, I know, it's been a month and a half since I have posted anything.  Honestly, there isn't an excuse.  I have been collecting notes for story ideas but haven't done much more than that.  I am having trouble sitting myself down and actually getting my hands dirty.  I feel like I'm getting something built up though, some kind of story is being formed, although I'm not sure of the entire plot or any thing, things are still a morass of ideas and concepts that I need to hammer down.  I will say that it will be a fantasy story.  That part is for sure, and yes there will be magic.  Other than that I don't want to say since I don't want to peg myself in to anything.  I will try and post more often as I feel I'm doing something here when I do and I believe it helps me get things sorted out.

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Not doing well... yet.

Ok, I understand that I really haven't written much (not that any one is reading) but I've given myself this as a commitment to write something every week and I still haven't been able to pool my thoughts yet.  Sometimes I get the feeling that I'm waiting for something really big to hit me, a whole story in one.  And I know that isn't going to happen.  I do, but I don't want to suck either.  Although, inevitably something I write will (or all of it, who knows?)  So I still need to get things down on paper/pixels.  So, I'm still trying and now I need to actually sit down and do it.

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Why I won't be getting an Apple TV

Seriously, I was looking forward to the release of the Apple TV.  It was small, sleek and looked like it was going to finally bring the content on my iMac to my 30" HDTV.  Well, I guess it does do all that, but in a crippled way.  All my content has to be catalogued in iTunes for that to happen.  As any one whose tried knows, iTunes will not recognize any video content in AVI format, and even if it did, the Apple TV still wouldn't be able to play it unless you apply the hack to it's OS like some have already done, and it doesn't look trivial, at least not yet.

Most of my video content is Divx or Xvid.  I hardly buy ANYTHING off of iTunes, simply because I detest being restricted to 128kbps for music and 480p for video.  So even if my music would play on the Apple TV, my movie collection wouldn't and that is what I want it most for.

The best solution I can think of, and one I would like to implement once I have the spare cash, is a souped up Mac Mini.  Yes, there are tons of articles about using one for an HTPC and they are right.  Just add on a larger hard drive, buy an ElGato hybrid TV tuner so you can record both HD and SD content and you are set.  You can still stream your content across your network with iTunes, and it is now a PVR.  True, you can't get digital premium content but then again, you can buy most shows off of iTunes and your TV bill would still probably be less than what you pay now for cable!

I don't know, maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part, but it doesn't look like any one has it just right yet, and fortunately I still don't have the cash to get it if they had.

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The Flay Four

If any of you are fans of Iron Chef America, you might have noticed a trend in the Battles with Bobby Flay. There are four common ingredients that he normally uses for his cooking:

• Blue Corn Tortillas
• Mango Chutney
• Quail Eggs
• Peppers
  

My wife and I keep count of the "Flay Four" during every battle, and I thought I would share this little game with everyone else.

My Commitment

Lately, I've been wanting to write, yet I haven't been sure what to write about. I like fantasy and I would like to write something like that but I have a hard time coming up with ideas I like. I think what I will do is something that I have to credit Merlin Mann from 43folders for what I heard on "The Merlin Show", about doing something like this. Basically, it comes down to, if this is something I would like to do, then I should commit myself to doing it as though it WAS my job. So, in that case I am going to commit myself to writing a story, crappy or not, every week. So, every Sunday, I should have something posted up here for any one to read. Let's see how it goes. I can't promise it will be fantasy, or that it will be any good, but it will be something and that is what I would like.

300

For those 3 or four people that haven't at least heard about this movie, it is truly one of the most cinematically spectacular movies I have seen. It's based on the graphic novel (comic book) by Frank Miller that re-tells the Spartan Battle of Thermopylae where 300 Spartans stood against the massive Persian army commanded by the God-King Xerxes.
The movie is truly engrossing. I don't expect everyone to love this movie as I did. Those that don't care for the severing of limbs, splashing of blood or just all out warfare need not attend. The film is obviously intended for the testosterone/adrenaline bound and does well at providing both. I found myself griping the sides of my chair a few times when decisive moments in the battle came about, gritting my teeth and wondering what it would have been like to be there. Yes, I am somewhat of a nerd like that I don't care. I have never read the graphic novel and don't intend to any time soon, if I could even find it now. The movie was enough for me, at the moment.
I don't believe I will get my wife to watch this any time soon. I'm still trying to get her to finish watching Star Wars IV: A New Hope, so as you can see, I have my work cut out for me. The only reason I was able to get to watch the Lord of The Rings movies was that we were still just going out and we were still playing that game of "I like everything YOU like, because I want to be with you". That game is long since over, as any married man can attest. Still, I won't give up, she might come around. If not, I still have my brothers to watch these movies with.

New DVD Player - Oppo DV-970HD

Okay, so I have an HD TV, 30" only but I like it. And I have loads of movies in DVD format. I'm not plunking down $500 any time soon for an HD-DVD player or a Blu-Ray, seeing as I don't know which one will come out ahead. And I'm certainly not paying $1000 for the LG player that does both. That is where this Oppo DV-970HD comes in to play. It's an upscaling DVD that makes my DVD's look better than they did before (they can't ever look HD quality, but they look really good). It will also play Xvid and Divx Files I've burned directly to a DVD or CD, as well as Super Audio CD's (SACD) and Audio DVD's. It even comes with an HDMI cable included. It's awesome!
I know that there are DVD players out there that will play Divx for $60 or less, but they won't do upscaling and they don't play all the codecs that I've thrown at this puppy so well! Honestly, for $149 I am so happy I can't even tell you!

Check it out here.

Intro

Here I go again, trying to start a Blog. This time I mean to keep to it. Before I didn't know what to write about really, but now that I've had a little time to think about it, I will be posting things here about my journey in attempting to write, creatively. I might interject a few tech things here and there, that's just the way I am, but mainly I want to keep this blog about creative writing.
I've always had that desire, to write something, always had that burning desire to put down a scene or tell a story but the problem has always been that I don't know WHAT to write. And when I get a feel for something I want to put down I realize once I sit at the computer that it's half-assed, not fully thought out and so I determine it to suck and erase what little I have attempted to write. Part of it is being super critical of myself, the other part is that I just can't seem to allow myself to write something, be it crap or not. That is one of the things I have to get over. I need write, be it what ever it is.