Links from the Gregg zone

1) Well, we are going to start the week green, I ran across this site following a link about green gasoline. A very promising breakthrough announced earlier this month April 7, in the magazine Chemistry & Sustainability a publication in the biomass field. Link to the article here http://www.nextenergynews.com it seems they have found a new process for handling stuff like switchgrass, cottonwood, woodchips, cornhusks, and the like into green gasoline. The process is cheap and produces a product almost exactly like gasoline, even can be used as jet fuel. The carbon footprint for the process is almost zero, and produces electricity as a by-product to the process. The other thing I like about this site is an extensive amount of videos concerning everything from electric cars and alt. fuels, to geothermal and wind power. A very interesting site, you should not miss this one if the subject interest you.

2) This is along the same line, here is a video I looked up due to a reference on the Jay Leno show, actually, there are several of them here, but this one caught me because you can do it today. Leno commented that he uses zero gas to commute back and forth to work. His Prius hybrid prototype uses only electric power for the first forty miles, his commute is twenty, he plugs it in when he gets to work. Later I saw an interview with a couple of guys who have an add-on conversion kit to boost the Prius hybrid up to 100+ mpg. That got me googling the conversion cost is currently about three thousand dollars installed in one day, which will come down. It can be reversed to the point you can use it on a lease car, remove it and they will not be able to detect it was ever there. http://www.youtube.com

3) This is a link to a short article I ran across I thought some of you might be interested in. Seems that Sony one of the most vocal music piracy companies, is being sued by a small software company for using pirated software in Sony computers. An ironic twist if there is any thing to it. http://www.news.com.

4) However, that previous story link is nothing compared to one Jack sent me about a Rupert Murdoch firm going on trial for tech sabotage. This one reads like a spy novel, the cast of characters include hired hackers, former intelligence agents, Canadians, TV pirates, Bulgarian and German hackers, a UK-Israeli firm, the Israel domestic security agency, a research lab in Haifa, would-be terrorist Yossi Tsuria, code breakers, people disappearing only to be found hanging in the park, I mean this sounds more like a TV movie than a trial over TV smart cards. http://www.wired.com

5) To wrap it up for the week another link sent to me by Jack about one of my favorite things, duct tape. I cannot begin to recall one tenth of the times duct tape has saved my day. I think it is one of the greatest inventions of all time, at least for the handy-person around the house. I had no idea that it was used on the moon to save the day for the Lunar-Lander. What I found most surprising was the comment about it being under the seat in the space ship, I thought the weight factor would have prohibited any such thing. You just have to read this; it will win a beer at the local pub trivia contest every time. http://science.nasa.gov