Via Tresler, here's a neat little start-up: Solazyme. They made jet-fuel out of algae:

Solazyme’s algal-derived aviation fuel as analyzed by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), one of the nations leading fuel analytical laboratories, passed the eleven “most challenging specifications needed to meet the ASTM D1655 standard for Aviation Turbine Fuel. The tested areas included the key measurements for density, thermal oxidative stability, flashpoint, freezing point, distillation and viscosity among others. Of the eleven tested parameters, the Solazyme aviation fuel passed the ASTM D1655 requirements for every measurement. Therefore, the Solazyme algae-based aviation kerosene has passed the biggest hurdles needed to successfully develop a commercial and military jet fuel fully consistent with existing engines and infrastructure” as stated in the SwRI report.

President Obama should give those guys a phat Pentagon contract to get things scaling. Swords into plowshares, bitches.

Another one, from everyone's favorite comic denizen of Rudy's:

Kudos to Katie. I think the "Strong on Women" tagline is fucking genius. It's both mocking of conventional campaign discourse, and also clearly communicative of the creepy, overbearing, paternalistic attitude that typifies the Right's position on all these issues.

Things have been busy to the extreme but thankfully its the good kind of busy that brings a sense of purpose and joy to life.

I've been struggling in my meditative moments -- mostly on mass transit -- with the cyclical trap of self-awareness. Third-person camera vision; thinking about telling a story about a girl to another girl and asking advice about life, and knowing this is on some level a maneuver, and that killing the whole appeal.

Thinking about how this condition of cynical self-consciousness prevents interesting things from happening, prevents simple happiness and authentic experience from emerging, creates an unattractive air of uncertainty, hesitation and pessimism.

And I look across the BART isle and there's a middle aged man, kids-off-to-college age, assembling a book of Magic the Gathering cards, which I remember from high school, and he's got a look of pure and unadulterated joy on his face, putting his new cards into their little plastic holders, arranging them just so. Totally unconscious to whatever else and just loving it in whatever personal world he inhabits. It was a poignant moment for me.

To use a theatrical phrase, sometimes we have to suspend our disbelief in our own lives, perhaps as a precursor to Really Actually Believing again.

Quick little bartblogging while I'm on my way home. Friday night had a taste of the old glory days. Maybe it was AlexUA on the scene, or maybe it was just the first time I'd been out on the town in a long while, but it occurs to me that I'm only going to be young and pretty enough to run with the bulls for so long, and it may be advisable to make the most of it.

Anyway, the Mission these days is out of control. All the trends that were in place when I left have continued to expand exponentially. I hear the same about North Brooklyn (will see in a month or so). Not sure how I feel about all this, but it seems like... an opportunity at least.