Following up on something I noted before, here's another hot Algae Biodesil Plan:

Bolted onto the exhaust stacks of a brick-and-glass 20-megawatt power plant behind MIT's campus are rows of fat, clear tubes, each with green algae soup simmering inside.

Fed a generous helping of CO2-laden emissions, courtesy of the power plant's exhaust stack, the algae grow quickly even in the wan rays of a New England sun. The cleansed exhaust bubbles skyward, but with 40% less CO2 (a larger cut than the Kyoto treaty mandates) and another bonus: 86% less nitrous oxide.

After the CO2 is soaked up like a sponge, the algae is harvested daily. From that harvest, a combustible vegetable oil is squeezed out: biodiesel for automobiles. Berzin hands a visitor two vials — one with algal biodiesel, a clear, slightly yellowish liquid, the other with the dried green flakes that remained. Even that dried remnant can be further reprocessed to create ethanol, also used for transportation.

This will work, people. Algae and other photoplankton are what handle 90% of our C02 as it is, not trees. I love trees and soybeans and all, but if we're looking to do some biodynamic power stuff, Algae's a more likely winner:

One key is selecting an algae with a high oil density — about 50% of its weight. Because this kind of algae also grows so fast, it can produce 15,000 gallons of biodiesel per acre. Just 60 gallons are produced from soybeans, which along with corn are the major biodiesel crops today.

Fuck fuel cells, let's go single-cell. I dunno what it will take to get corporate America on board. Probably a genetically-engineered (2% more efficient, but more importantly: patented) strain, but whatever. I'm still planning for that outhouse to cesspool to biodeisel set up in my mountain fortress, but I think an ambitious public-works program to get this ball rolling would but just what the doctor ordered.

In 1990, Sheehan's NREL program calculated that just 15,000 square miles of desert (the Sonoran desert in California and Arizona is more than eight times that size) could grow enough algae to replace nearly all of the nation's current diesel requirements.

"I've had quite a few phone calls recently about it," says Mr. Sheehan. "This is not an outlandish idea at all."

Maybe not, but I'm gonna keep pimping it.

Work is stressin' me. Can't seem to get ahead, keep working more hours than I want to. I expect more of this if I intend to continue trying to get out of debt this year.

Which probably means I'll have to start smoking grass on a more regular basis again. And going to the gym. Poor me. Oh well.

Gobby

For serious nerds only. THIS IS THE MF SHIZ! It promises to revolutionize my workflow.

How are things? Things are fair to middling. I've been having trouble sleeping; my right-side ribs are still sore from a slush (and lush)-related bike spill nearly two weeks ago. Work is in an "energy of activation" phase, wherein we need to get over a certain hump in order to be in good shape, which has also been draining. I've been feeling somewhat annoyed at my Father for not talking to me for the past 14 months. I've been feeling like a bit of a stooge and a slacker for not getting my life in better order (apartment, accountant, health/dental care, etc) and I need to start taking vitimins or something.

On the plus column, the belle du jour has become the belle du mois and that's been good. I'm not madly in love, but I am enjoying a low-key relationship. I've also been enjoying the return of music to my bike-riding. I use the Shuffle, which is also the President's choice for biking, which gives me an odd sort of cheer. There are a bunch of interesting projects and so forth on the horizon -- including the next phase of getting the book off the ground -- which I am excited for, if a bit trepedatious about having enough mojo to sustain.

I'm looking forward to the new year. I don't usually do resolutions, but I do enjoy the chance to kick off a new chapter. Hopefully I'll get some good habits going. It's the year of dropping the hammer.

I've been staying over at Aaron's place cat sitting and sleeping here the past two nights because I work late and then don't feel like projing on home since it's below freezing, maybe snowing, etc. I've been watching some DVDs too, the first season of Lost, which is another example of the good episodic TV trend.

There was just this episode where the Bhudda-like old man (John Locke, ho ho ho) dosed up the preppie kid with some good old jungle yage and left him tied up in the woods to sort out his demons. This is principally what the show is about -- overcoming your past, your fears, etc, with slightly horrific overtones -- and it's a nice little episode; got me thinking about my own yen for a shamanistic trip from time to time.

It's really a shame that psychadellic drugs are on the wane. It's a shame these things are more easily available to teenagers and college kids and not to young adults. I think we can to a lot better than yayo for kicks in our age bracket, but the question of supply is more or less inscrutible.

I'm a firm believer in the virtue of the psychadellic experience. It can be a sort of psychic scouring, spiritual cleansing, and lately my chakras are feeling a little gummed up. It's not for everyone, but it's been a highly positive influence on my life. It's also been a while.

We ran into some mushrooms on the road this summer, scarfed them down in the misty mountain night of the Shanandoah, but for my part it was just goofy kicks, not enough active ingredients to really blast off. Plus the setting was a little inhibiting, what with all the familiy neighbors and all. "That's the mad cackle that keeps the kids awake." Heh-indeed.

LSD at the DNC was more kicks (and not a little bravado, I might add), and the same batch of Tennessee acid in higher dose at the OCF2004 was good, but somewhat short-circuted by having to deal with our midnight tiki-bar getting busted by security. I have to go back to Burning Man '03 for a really clear jolt of witch-doctoring caliber. Now, that's not the sort of experience you want to hit yourself with every weekend, but I think biannually is a decent frequency. This summer's trip to Black Rock didn't yield, but that's life. It'll happen when it happens. C'est la vie.

A-Stock's birthday last night, in the old neighborhood, where on a Monday the most bang for your buck is a Buddy and a shot of old crow for a five-spot. What did I have, six? Slusarz and I got into it at the end, talking old times. Making a date for Friday night at the Palace. The old days. Yeah.

Back in September aught-two, I wrote the following:

After all this I helped Jeremy and his coworkers pack up (they were there to sell books for Shakespeare and Co) and get cleared out. Victoria (my English crush) was there, but I didn't really speak with her. It was actually kind of weird. I don't think I'll see her again before she returns to her home country, and this makes me sad. I was innocent, but confused. Fascinating to me the way soulful/intellectual attraction still induces palm-moistening nerves, tiny panics and hesitation, the deisre to take a charging dive at the bottle. Much more complex and difficult than the freewheeling zoot-suit character of lust and easy company, but in the end a mite bit more valuable and rare too. Mad at myself for apparently missing out on something that might have happened.

We talk about this girl for a while because it turns out that -- hey imagine that, beautiful witty tall chiquita with an accent -- we were both hooked at the time. It makes sense, seeing how Jeremy tried to wave me off that one time back sitting at that big round dark-wood bar. "Bad Josh," he said in that big-brotherly way he has from time to time. He had a girlfriend already, and a good one, and he's an honorable man, so he couldn't come out and say much more. But it makes sense peering through history. Those were interesting times.

And now to one of those good six-hour-drunk-sleep days of work. Time to rack up some billable hours before my skillset skips off to Bangalore.

A-Stock's birthday last night, in the old neighborhood, where on a Monday the most bang for your buck is a Buddy and a shot of old crow for a five-spot. What did I have, six? Slusarz and I got into it at the end, talking old times. Making a date for Friday night at the Palace. The old days. Yeah.

Back in September aught-two, I wrote the following:

After all this I helped Jeremy and his coworkers pack up (they were there to sell books for Shakespeare and Co) and get cleared out. Victoria (my English crush) was there, but I didn't really speak with her. It was actually kind of weird. I don't think I'll see her again before she returns to her home country, and this makes me sad. I was innocent, but confused. Fascinating to me the way soulful/intellectual attraction still induces palm-moistening nerves, tiny panics and hesitation, the deisre to take a charging dive at the bottle. Much more complex and difficult than the freewheeling zoot-suit character of lust and easy company, but in the end a mite bit more valuable and rare too. Mad at myself for apparently missing out on something that might have happened.

We talk about this girl for a while because it turns out that -- hey imagine that, beautiful witty tall chiquita with an accent -- we were both hooked at the time. It makes sense, seeing how Jeremy tried to wave me off that one time back sitting at that big round dark-wood bar. "Bad Josh," he said in that big-brotherly way he has from time to time. He had a girlfriend already, and a good one, and he's an honorable man, so he couldn't come out and say much more. But it makes sense peering through history. Those were interesting times.

And now to one of those good six-hour-drunk-sleep days of work. Time to rack up some billable hours before my skillset skips off to Bangalore.

Well, that was slightly less annoying than a trip to the dentist. I just mashed up the server AND reformatted/reinstalled my laptop system all in the same day. Fun.

But it feels like progress. The cruft is gradually falling away. Comments are a little wonky (ignore the "Garbage Errors") and some other things remain in flux, but the main juice is flowing again. Hurrah for that.

So this is the ethic: start something.

If you have an idea, put it out there. You don't have to make it on your own; start a damn project. Get your friends involed. See who else in the work is doing things that are similar or connected. Be the first node on your new network.

One thing I want the larger effort around The Book to be is a thing to hook into, a portal for networking, but in a smaller trusted way rather than the huge MySpace way. Fundimentally it's the internet's value at large, the global always-on citizen's band, but people need a little help making the most of it. So we're here to make it happen. We need to grow it, to push around the margins. Value exists at the edges. There are a lot of exciting projects online... and a lot of exciting projects in bringing more of the world on board.

It's imperative that we see the 1st amendment in 21st Century terms as the right to puublish online. A citizen's right. May take a while for us to get a supreme court ruling, but the truth is that we'll never get that if we don't create the facts on the ground.

This is the first step towards participatory media since they regulated Citizens Band and Shortwave radio into obscurity.

It's a big deal. Read this now.

So this is the ethic: start something.

If you have an idea, put it out there. You don't have to make it on your own; start a damn project. Get your friends involed. See who else in the work is doing things that are similar or connected. Be the first node on your new network.

One thing I want the larger effort around The Book to be is a thing to hook into, a portal for networking, but in a smaller trusted way rather than the huge MySpace way. Fundimentally it's the internet's value at large, the global always-on citizen's band, but people need a little help making the most of it. So we're here to make it happen. We need to grow it, to push around the margins. Value exists at the edges. There are a lot of exciting projects online... and a lot of exciting projects in bringing more of the world on board.

It's imperative that we see the 1st amendment in 21st Century terms as the right to puublish online. A citizen's right. May take a while for us to get a supreme court ruling, but the truth is that we'll never get that if we don't create the facts on the ground.

This is the first step towards participatory media since they regulated Citizens Band and Shortwave radio into obscurity.

It's a big deal. Read this now.