Interesting Reading…

Exceptional trees - the second photograph really surprised me.

Online library offers 1.5 million works and counting - “The Universal Digital Library, a book-scanning project backed by several major libraries across the globe, has completed the digitization of 1.5 million books and on Tuesday made them free and publically available.”

U.S. may phase out incandescent light bulbs in favor of energy-efficient lighting products - “The Energy Committee of the U.S. Senate is drafting a bill that would phase out the use of incandescent light bulbs in the United States. Incandescent bulbs, the same type of light bulb first developed by Thomas Edison, produce light by forcing an electric current through a thin filament. This filament is heated up and, as a consequence, emits light. These bulbs are incredibly inefficient, however, and up to 90 percent of the energy put into them gets released in the form of heat rather than light.”

Electric smart cars on the road to London - “The smart car is set to go even more green, as Daimler makes plans to bring out an electric version sometime around 2010. Before this, though, London will get its hands on 100 prototypes for use in a huge four year trial. ”

Fuzzy picture for Apple TV - “And a virgin Apple TV is designed to only get paid video from the iTunes Store or free video from YouTube. There are a lot of popular shows and movies on the iTunes Store, but there are also lots of other sources of video on the Internet. Apple TV doesn’t come with a browser, and high-definition shows aren’t offered at the iTunes Store. You can hack it to run Mac OS X, and therefore lots of other applications, but most people aren’t going to do that.”

The Secret to Raising Smart Kids - “Our society worships talent, and many people assume that possessing superior intelligence or ability—along with confidence in that ability—is a recipe for success. In fact, however, more than 30 years of scientific investigation suggests that an overemphasis on intellect or talent leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges and unwilling to remedy their shortcomings.”

A Big List of Sites That Teach You How To Do Stuff - The title says it all.

Southwest Engine Failure - at the bottom are pictures showing what happens when a modern jet engine blows up during flight.

Price drops ahead for solid-state drives - “Micron will start mass-producing solid-state drives in the first quarter of 2008. The first drives will hold either 32GB or 64GB of memory. While that’s less than half the capacity of the average notebook drive today, it’s actually more storage than most business users need, said Dean Klein, vice president of memory system development at Micron. Plus, solid-state notebooks can come out of deep sleep or launch applications far more rapidly.”

Is Ted Turner playing cowboy or hogging land? - “Turner has amassed 2 million acres over the past two decades to become the largest private landowner in the United States. He owns land in at least nine states, with most of his holdings in New Mexico, Nebraska, Montana and South Dakota, and is restoring buffalo, cutthroat trout, wolves, black-footed ferrets and other flora and fauna that filled the Plains before the West was won.”

Ethanol Craze Cools As Doubts Multiply - “Ethanol prices peaked at about $5 a gallon in some markets in June 2006, according to Oil Price Information Service. The price soon began to slide as the limited market for gasoline containing 10% ethanol grew saturated. New plants kept coming online, increasing supply and dropping prices further. Today, the oil refiners that purchase ethanol to blend in need pay only about $1.85 a gallon for it.” [ Wouldn’t it seem that if Ethanol really is priced at $1.85 per gallon, while gasoline is $3.00 per gallon, that some part of the capitaliztic system would take advantage of that disparity?]

Photo in the News: Hi-Res Antarctic Map Unveiled - The new map is more than a pretty picture—for one, it will help researchers plan better scientific expeditions to the remote landscape. Scientists will also rely on the high-resolution data to study changes in land elevation and to map various rock formations. Even the public can explore the polar region via a public-access Web portal found at http://lima.usgs.gov.

Computer Simulation by UCR Physicist Predicts Voyager 2 Spacecraft Will Reach Major Milestone in Space in Late 2007 or Early 2008 - “Using a computer model simulation, Haruichi Washimi, a physicist at UC Riverside, has predicted when the interplanetary spacecraft Voyager 2 will cross the “termination shock,” the spherical shell around the solar system that marks where the solar wind slows down to subsonic speed.”

Google Highly Open Participation Contest: Horrible Name, Good Idea - “Google has announced the “Google Highly Open Participation Contest,” a new contest that aims to introduce secondary school and high school students to open source software development.”

Google’s Goal: Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal - “Google aims to make electricity derived from the wind and sun and other renewable sources of energy cheaper than burning coal, and the Web search giant has pledged hundreds of millions of dollars toward the effort, including tens of millions in 2008. It didn’t release specific figures, but it did set the goal of producing enough electricity to power San Francisco in “years not decades.”"

10 reasons we are doomed - “The following gadgets and gimmicks, featured in the Holiday 2007 SkyMall catalog, prove without a doubt that the human race is going straight to Hell”

[See previous IR]