Wow?! Excellent? Yes!

Chris Pummer at MarketWatch recently published a «it's time to take our medicine» piece. He enumerates nicely why we should relish the coming gas pains as an opportunity to set ourselves back on track as global citizens, political and economic participants, and family members.

1. RIP for the internal-combustion engine
2. Economic stimulus
3. Wither the Middle East's clout
4. Deflating oil potentates
5. Mass-transit development
6. An antidote to sprawl
7. Restoration of financial discipline
8. Easing global tensions

Way to go MarketWatch for putting that yucky medicine in the spoon for us. Who's ready to plug their nose?

Writing faster web pages is great for your users, which in turn is great for you and your company. But it's better for everyone else on the planet, too.

An excellent example of how careful and considerate work in the design of a website has ripple effects across the user experience, CO2 savings, the web host's bottom line in terms of electrical bills, and ease of maintenance for the developers and administrators.

Steve (creator of YSlow) uses Wikipedia to illustrate how much energy they could save by adopting some best practices with some pretty convincing results.

Via: Ajaxian

or at least teaching us how to capture it.

This whole biomimicry thing is gonna catch on sometime, I swear.

This piece from Technology Review explains how scientists, and now this Canadian group, Whalepower, are deciphering the bumps on the fins of whales, called 'tubercles', to make more efficient blades, from an aerodynamic standpoint.

Basically, these leading bumps delay the stalling point for the leading edges providing more efficiency and safety to things like plane wings by creating small vortices around the wing and therefore creating more lift. The consequences for a wind generator are impressive, as well.

'...the delayed stall doubles the performance of the turbines at wind speeds of about 17 miles per hour and allows the turbine to capture more energy out of lower-speed winds. For example, the turbines generate the same amount of power at 10 miles per hour that conventional turbines generate at 17 miles per hour.'

So here, again, nature, when given the chance, has plenty to teach us.  In this case, what appeared to be imperfect in fact jacks up the efficiencies of wind turbines and the amount of energy we may ultimately collect for the low, low price of being curious and willing to learn.