A New Place for Solar Energy: Highway Right of Way – “On both sides of I-15 all one can see is scrub, weeds, debris, and power lines. Highway departments must keep their right of way clear of invasive weeds such as Russian thistle(tumbleweed), cheat grass, etc. Mowing or pesticide spaying operations are the most common methods. Instead of spending all those tax payer dollars trying to control photosynthesis, why don’t we use photosynthesis to create electricity along these highways?”

Getting renewable power to the people – “Strong sunlight bathes its open plains, even in winter. Powerful winds stream through its mountain passes. Fractures in the earth along the San Andreas Fault heat pools of underground water – the perfect fuel for geothermal power plants. There is, however, a problem. Most Californians don’t live there…”

Obama Planning to Scrap Shuttle Replacement, Says NASA – “President-Elect Obama’s transition team is planning to scrap NASA’s Ares program, the successor to the Space Shuttle, say NASA advisors. The transition team is demanding deep cuts from the agency, and is investigating whether old military rockets such as the Delta IV and Atlas V could be used in place of Ares…”

Burning Coal at Home Is Making a Comeback – “Problematic in some ways and difficult to handle, coal is nonetheless a cheap, plentiful, mined-in-America source of heat. And with the cost of heating oil and natural gas increasingly prone to spikes, some homeowners in the Northeast, pockets of the Midwest and even Alaska are deciding coal is worth the trouble…”

The Comics Are Feeling the Pain of Print – “What do you do when the distribution method you have relied on for more than a century begins to falter? In the last two months, two syndicates have revealed their hands…”

The Case Against Patents – “But don’t ever refer to yourself as an inventor or act like one, for you are certain to end up done in very badly. Do not ever let anyone even suspect that you are capable of inventing anything…”

First look: Linux kernel 2.6.28 officially released

Banish your daemons for a faster Linux PC – “A daemon is a task that runs in the background, and there’s a small army of them that are started when you fire up your machine. There are daemons for controlling automated tasks, daemons for managing power and CPU use, daemons for printing and daemons for writing the system logs. Some denote their status by ending with the letter ‘d’, while others prefer the anonymity of names like ‘binfmpt-support’ or ‘brltty’…”

Ford’s Fusion hybrid is a real gas-sipper – “Ford has grabbed the fuel-economy crown in the nation’s largest car segment — just in time to see gasoline fall to its lowest price in five years…”

The Quest for the 300-mph Helicopter – “The Speedhawk was funded by the Army to test the possibility of pushing existing helicopters to reach speeds up to 200 knots (360 kilometers per hour)…”

LG’s LH95 is World’s Thinnest LED-Lit LCD TV – “The LH95 television due for unveiling at CES 2009 makes it sound like LCD technology has just taken an incredible advance. That’s because LG is branding it as the world’s thinnest LED-illuminated LCD TV…”

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