Isaac.Eiland-Hall.com

Link to Article: Treehugger: Holographic Solar: New Method of Concentrating Sunlight Could Be Cheaper

Quote: Prism Solar Technologies in New York has developed a proof-of-concept solar module that uses holograms to concentrate light, possibly cutting the cost of solar modules by as much as 75 percent, making them competitive with electricity generated from fossil fuels.

Now that seems like a worthy goal…

Although I don’t have an engineering or scientific level understanding of the various ways to generate energy, technologies like solar cells, wind and hydro power seem to be surely among the best, from an environmental point of view.

So it seems like generally speaking, any technology that enhances the practicality of these technologies is a Good Thing™.

Link to Article: IfEnergy: Loremo on the Edge

Quote: The one, two combination of light weight and tunnel tested aerodynamics allow this car to travel 157 miles per gallon of gasoline or 1.5 l per 100km!

And it looks pretty spiffy, too!

And here’s a link to the Loremo site...

Link to Article: gizmag Article: New high performance, zero emission commercial vehicle

Quote: The soon-to-debut UK-built Modec van is the first zero emission van that is comparable in economy and performance to diesel equivalents, making it a real and viable urban delivery vehicle.

It has a range of up to 120 miles, and can recharge overnight. Since it can carry two tons, it’s certainly viable for many business situations…

One especially cool fact is that it actually goes farther in start/stop situations, unlike gas- and diesel-based solutions…

Pretty cool. I hope we see this adopted here in the US…

Link to Article: Digital Mars – The D Programming Language

Quote: D was conceived in December 1999 by Walter Bright as a reengineering of C and C , and has grown and evolved with helpful suggestions and critiques by friends and colleagues.

I have no idea of the usefulness of the language, or if it is truly worthy of taking on the name, but I thought it was cool anyway.

C shares that story for being named—it was created as an enhanced alternative to B, as you can read about here.

So I have hope that D will take off successfully, since that would be neat. And maybe in another few years, we can have E to follow up…

New Tech Spy: Boeing 797 to take on Airbus with (1000 seat) giant Blended Wing plane

Quote: Boeing is preparing a 1000 passenger jet that could reshape the Air travel industry for the next 100 years. The radical Blended Wing design has been developed by Boeing in cooperation with the NASA Langley Research Center. The mammoth plane will have a wing span of 265 feet compared to the 747’s 211 feet, and is designed to fit within the newly created terminals used for the 555 seat Airbus A380, which is 262 feet wide.

Well, I wonder if it’s not a little late—seems like there might be a smaller market for super-large aircraft like this… Although I wonder how it would work for cargo…

OTOH, about time to see a major revolution in aircraft design – even if this particular design is way overdue anyway – I know there were similar basic designs back in the 1950’s, if not earlier. Still, I’m rather sure that the design has been modernized in every way anyway, so it’s not like I’m saying they’re using outdated design!

Incredible Machines – Google Video

These really are incredible machines!

Rube Goldberg machines, I believe Japanese in origin. Definitely well-above-average in design—there are truly some remarkable ideas expressed! Nearly thirteen minutes in length, and you’ll probably watch it a couple of times to try and catch everything.

Awesome.

GRYNX » TicTac flashlight

Quote: A disposable torch with long life (I hope I don’t invent the wheel once more) I bought ‘tic-tac’ mint candy and found out that this package must be ideal for 3 AAA batteries to make a small torch (or lamp) with.

Pretty cool!

Maybe not as cool as an Altoid flashlight would be, but I like Altoids better. And, I suppose, Altoids devices are overdone anway…

MousePlanet.com, your resource for all things Disney

Quote: The best strategy for using an enhanced Fastpass

What I would do is gather all the passports after entering the park, and have one designated “runner” and then the rest of the group can go straight to Fantasyland, a non-Fastpass attraction, or just go sit down and have some breakfast. The one “runner” will then go around the park to every ride that offers Fastpass and get a set of Fastpasses for each member of the group. After he collects the entire set, he meets up with the rest of the group.

Basically, this site will help you figured out how to maximise your enjoyment… It doesn’t appear to be unethical, either – simply using the system to its fullest.

So I ran across the original sketch for the Firefox logo, and I decided I wanted to play with it. Firefox rocks, especially the logo…

Here’s the original image:

And here’s my colorized version:

I made gradients from the actual colors from the rendered logo. The gradient is working better on the fox than the world, because the fox sort of follows a gradient, whereas the world is patchy. So I should probably do something else, but for now, I’m happy as a first version.