Some interesting news: World’s largest solar installation to use Stirling engine technology. 20-year purchase agreement between Southern California Edison and Stirling Energy Systems, Inc. will result in 20,000+ dish array, covering 4,500 acres, and capable of generating 500 MW — more electricity than all other present U.S. solar projects combined.

News.com also profiled the company and its CEO, David Slawson: Start-up sees new dawn for old solar tech. It is interesting to note that they say their technology is about three times as efficient as silicon-based photovoltaic solar cells. If true, that might be putting it into the efficiency range of wind or nuclear.

National Geographic magazine has a good story on the challenges of alternative energy in this month’s magazine – Powering the Future.

While not really practical for every day driving, it is interesting to note what can be done – Pulse And Glide – Getting Maximum Fuel Economy In A Prius – On August 7, 2005 five men took an unmodified Prius nearly 1400 miles on a single 12.87 gallon tank of gas. That’s 109 mpg! They did it by using a technique called “Pulse and Glide”.

Wired has another story on DIY plug-in hybrids.

Hah, I love it: A research team in Singapore have developed a paper battery that is small, cheap to fabricate, and which ingeniously uses the bio-fluid being tested (urine) as the power source for the device doing the testing. This should be a great thing for bio monitors, but I can’t wait until I have to pee on my cell phone to charge it.

Sunset mag has some pictures and a profile of the newest glide house

Very cool: The old man and the tree – Fearing boredom during retirement, Jack Barnhart nears completion of his dream treehouse after five years of work.

This is a depressing read: Four Amendments & a Funeral

“…To understand the breadth of Bush’s summer sweep, you had to watch the hand-fighting at close range. You had to watch opposition gambits die slow deaths in afternoon committee hearings, listen as members fell on their swords in exchange for favors and be there to see hordes of lobbyists rush in to reverse key votes at the last minute… In the first few weeks of my stay in Washington, Sanders introduced and passed, against very long odds, three important amendments. A fourth very nearly made it and would have passed had it gone to a vote. During this time, Sanders took on powerful adversaries, including Lockheed Martin, Westinghouse, the Export-Import Bank and the Bush administration. And by using the basic tools of democracy — floor votes on clearly posed questions, with the aid of painstakingly built coalitions of allies from both sides of the aisle — he, a lone Independent, beat them all. It was an impressive run, with some in his office calling it the best winning streak of his career. Except for one thing. By my last week in Washington, all of his victories had been rolled back, each carefully nurtured amendment perishing in the grossly corrupt and absurd vortex of political dysfunction that is today’s U.S. Congress…”

I saw some of these in Peru, interesting that they are just now starting to figure them out – Cryptic string-based communication system used by ancient Incan administrators may at last be unravelling, thanks to computer analysis of hundreds of different knotted bundles.

The permafrost of the world’s largest peat bog (size of France and Germany combined) in Siberia is melting. It is estimated that the west Siberian bog contains some 70 billion tones of methane, a quarter of all the methane stored on the land surface worldwide. This could unleash billions of tones of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. Positive feedback loop, our old friend.

Guns, Germs, and Steel’ Reconsidered. Inside Higer Ed follows some of the discussions taking place on savageminds.org about Diamond’s methodology. I enjoyed the 3 part PBS show on his work, check it out if you haven’t already.

I thought this was pretty interesting. Mosquitoes seem to be more attracted to people already infected with malaria. The malarial parasite might be orchestrating its own onward transmission from within the human body.

Now onto the topic du jour – Bird Flu. New Scientist says that if Asian bird flu mutates into a form that spreads easily between humans, an outbreak of just 40 infected people would be enough to cause a global pandemic. And within a year half of the world’s population would be infected with a mortality rate of 50%.

It is also spreading across Asia. And even the Freakonomics guys think you should think about bird flu.

Bah you say, there is a vaccine for it! Well, yes and no. Bird flu vaccine? Taking the (very) long view.

Back in June, Anna and I went to the main San Diego INS/USCIS office in Chula Vista to be interviewed for my residency application. We weren’t sure what to expect. Would they separate us and interrogate to expose our choice of toothpaste? Well, no. Nothing like any sort of movie description happened. But, it was a bit weird. She went through the expected questions at the start. When did you meet, where were you married, did family come to the wedding, etc. She asked us if we had our rings inscribed (no, is that normal?) or if we brought our wedding album with us (uh, no). We replied that our wedding photos were all on our web site, and she could use the computer in front of her to check them out if she wanted. She said they weren’t allowed to use the internet. Homeland security issues I guess.

The interview changed in tone and she started asking questions like: Are we going to have kids? If not, then why? Why did you (asking me) marry someone older than you? Why do you like her? Does it bother you that she might not have kids? At this point I was thinking, jez, you’re kind of being a dick. She abruptly stopped, and gave us a sheet of paper outlining things we bring back to show as proof that we were married. Wedding photos, photographs together, proof of travel together, joint taxes or holdings, proof we live together, etc. She was apparently not convinced we were married and we had no clue why. We were frustrated. The interview letter only said to bring our existing forums and official documents. If we had thought we would have needed any of this ‘proof’, we would have brought it. Why weren’t we told to bring it anyway?

The more we thought about it afterwards, the more it seemed that the woman didn’t know what to make of us. We may have been a pretty big anomaly for her personally as well as professionally. I would guess about 90% of the people going through this USCIS office is (or was) Mexican. Marring older in life, with an age gap in the opposite direction (woman older than the man), having a minimal wedding, and having kids late in life (or possibly not at all), are not exactly usual things for most people that come through this office. Who knows, maybe we are reading too much into this. It is just hard to shake, her questions and reactions seemed so unusual.

We rounded up all the information she wanted and dropped it off at the office a few months back. All was silent until last week. Finally they wanted me to come in, get my passport stamped, and wait for my permanent resident card. I did that yesterday morning. My resident card, once I recieve it, will not be permanent. It is only good for two years. At that time we have to reapply, and I assume, prove we are still married. I just hope I get my card before I have to renew my passport (early next year). I was told the stamp could not be re-issued, and to keep my old passport. There is a problem with that though. Canada requires that I submit my old passport to apply for a new one. Maybe I will ‘loose’ it if I have to. Fun fun.

As a side note, if you do happen to be in Chula Vista on 3rd Ave, I highly recommend a visit to Tropicana 100 for some nice fruit, sandwiches, and smoothies. I think the Mexican-American businesses do fresh fruit better than anyone else. You can almost always be assured that the fruit will be the ripest and sweetest possible. Though I gotta say, I’m not a fan of the Mexican Papaya (Carica) which frequents the fruit mixes (Hawaiian is fine). To me (though others seem to like it), it has a bile-ish smell and aftertaste. Maybe I need more chili and lemon. It is too bad really, because the giant fruit is cheap and easy to come by in the markets around my house.

In my last Burning Man post I found the Thermokraken grant page online and was excited that the Kraken might be coming back to Burning Man this year. I emailed the Therm guys to ask what the outcome was. Unfortunately they told me the Kraken only received 40 votes from the Borg2 community, which means no funding. It will sit in Oakland rather than the playa. I was happy to hear that it got out and about at the Fire Arts Festival at The Crucible in Oakland a few weeks back. If anyone has any serious venue or funding ideas, please check this out and contact Orion. The Kraken is an amazing piece and I hope more people can enjoy it.

While checking out the wiki for Burning Man, I was surprised to see the sudden growth last year. 2002 had a bit of a growth spurt (12%), but from 1999 to 2003 Burning Man grew relatively slowly. For some reason, 2004 brought an extra 5000 people or 17% more. I wonder what caused the surge last year. Good press?

TheHun has a write-up on the DPW BBQ for Gerlach and fixing the 100 year old water tower roof. There is also a webcam shot of the BBQ here.

Surprisingly, and for no good reason, I don’t have any contact with the San Diego Burning Man community or their events (Fuego de los Muertos, Xara Dulzura). But they are great people, go check them out.

SFGate does a story on the carpenters of Burning Man that make the man – The heart of burning man; Volunteer carpenters craft festival’s namesake totem for its moment in the moon

SFGate does a story on BORG2 – Artistic sparks; Creative ‘revolt’ falls short, but group gets own spot at festival

I’m not a fan of pork in bills, but it looks like one good thing for San Diego made it into the Transportation Bill – 11 million to take the trolley up to the UTC/UCSD area. I’m sure it is going to be a while before it happens, but they can’t start quick enough in my books.

The transportation bill also means that starting today, people who own hybrid cars that get over 45 MPG (Toyota Prius, Honda Civic Hybrid, and the Honda Insight) can apply for a Clean Air Vehicle Stickers (REG 1000) that lets them into California carpool lanes with a single driver. Doesn’t seem to be too simple for some areas though, as you have to deal with FasTrak as well. The idea is simple, give people who commute a lot an extra incentive to purchase a fuel efficient vehicle. However, I have doubts that there is extra capacity in the HOV lanes. Time will tell.

KPBS has most of their programs as MP3s/podcasts right here. These Days did a bit on hybrids and HOV lanes, the mp3 is here.

Econo-Almanac takes a look at the similarities between the UK and San Diego housing and economies. In short, they both have had a similar pricing ramp up and both economies are dependent on housing growth. The UK started tightening rates about 8 months before us and their economy is taking a hit as the housing market stays flat.

The UT has a story on the group behind the multimedia report, Tijuana: Mother of Invention, and the book Aqui es Tijuana. Capturing Tijuana – Authors bring city’s paradoxes to a new book, web site.

Last night Anna, Pete, Paul, and myself drove up the coast highway looking for the red tide glow. We saw a bit at Torrey Pines but wanted a stronger glow, so we kept heading north. We were almost to Solano Beach when we passed over the little dog beach, sort of near the inlet. It had a lot of waves, and a lot of glow. It was unreal. I have seen red tide many times, but never this bright. Keiko (Pete & Paul’s dog) would run through the low surf barking. It looked like he was skating on lightning. After we did the usual stomps and kicks to watch the pixie dust, we headed up to watch it break on the rocks and the cliff. This was also quite bright. Waves would break, lighting up the side of the cliff. Then you would see little glowing rivers flowing back down to the water through the cracks of the rock. It looked like a green lava flow.

Pete jumped in to play and convinced the rest of us to go swimming. We stripped down to our skivvies and jumped in the water. What a fantastic experience. It was as if your whole body was on blue-green fire. I have never seen it that bright. You could see fish swimming around under the water because they left phosphorescent trails. It was really amazing to see waves breaking over you, or to move your hand underwater to ghostly effect.

I had been planning to bring my camera, but I had it in the underwater case getting ready to go snorkeling. I didn’t want to bother with taking it out of the case or trying to put it on a tripod. Damn me. I sure wished I had just brought it with me. Some things are probably better kept as a memory anyway.