Ethanol

I do not profess to being an expert in ethanol but all that I've read is that ethanol is NOT the solution to our energy needs and may even cause more harm than good. For example, cities such as Houston and Los Angeles that switch to ethanol saw a decrease in overall air quality. In addition, a recent article states that it takes approximately 4 to 5 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of ethanol, and this does not include the water and fertilizer corn needs in the field. This issue was brought up because an ethanol plant recently began to tap water from the Minnesota River after it depleted the local groundwater supply w/n a year of opening up...

Here is a great site with all your ethanol related questions

Retconning

Found this interesting article about something called retconning or retroactive continuity , which is "deliberate changing of previously established facts in a work of serial fiction."

Probably the most famous retconning was the Han Solo and Greedo encounter in Star Wars. Marvel Comics did this recently with it's One More Day story arc...Apparently, Marvel's editor-in-chief decided that the marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane should never have happened because he wanted Peter to be single again! Interestingly, J. Michael Straczynski, the writer, was against the idea of retconning Peter and Mary Jane's wedding.

J. Michael Straczynski talks about OMD...
JMS states that "there’s a lot that I don’t agree with"

Upside down

Today was a great day for backyard birdwatching...I saw Northern Cardinals, House Finches, Gold Finch, European Starling, Robin (still protecting the crabapple tree), Sparrows, Juncos, Blacked-capped Chickadees and Red and White-Breasted Nuthatches.

An upside down Red-Breasted Nuthatch enjoying a suet block

Northern Cardinal and Junco

Persepolis

This pass summer I noticed a graphic novel called Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood at a local book store and was intrigued by the story and art -- it was drawn in black and white. I was unsure how much I would like the graphic novel but decided to buy it nevertheless. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed both the story and art. I am a great fan of black and white medium (art, comics, photos, movies) and Marjane's black and white art did not disappoint me. In Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi writes and draws her life as a young girl who grew up in Iran just before, during and after the Iranian Revolution as well as the Iran-Iraq war.

The movie, based on Persepolis and Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return, is now in limited release...
A few reviews of Persepolis:

• Roger Ebert
• StarTribune
• NY Times
• NY Post
• USA Today

Pay as you download ISP solution

Recently read a story that Time Warner will test a new pricing structure that will be based on the amount of data a user downloads. This 'test' will start with new subscribers in Beaumont, Texas. Time Warner states that 5% of the users account for 50% of the bandwidth and they need to ring those evil downloader in. As far as I can tell Time Warner has not release pay structure.

I wonder if I am one of those (not a Time warner customer) as I like to watch quite a bit of streaming video on the Web via Hulu for example. And, I find this to be ironic as iTunes just started to rent movies online and how happy the movies studios are...that means more data bits moving here there and everywhere...For now, I need more information but am still not happy with this...

Cedar Waxwing

Today I saw 8 - 10 Cedar Waxwing birds hanging out in our neighbor's crabapple tree. Apparently, the Cedar Waxwing birds are ferocious fruit eaters...And that is exactly what I saw this afternoon as they were eating the crabapples.

This is the first sighting of the Waxwings in our backyard. I did see, on numerous occasions, a huge flock in downtown St. Paul this summer.

Energy issue blog

I've recently started to read an energy blog, called R-Squared, and thought that I would share a few of it's recent postings that I have found to be of interest. R-Squared is written by Robert Rapier.

I find his blogs to be straight forward and insightful in regard to energy issues that we, as a nation and world faces. Here are a few of the more interesting blogs he has written about:

• Solar is the solution
  
• FTC investigates carbon offsets
  
• Cellulosic ethanol reality check
  
• Ethanol debate

It's official

Sony has announced that it will begin selling DRM-free music on Amazon.com by the end of the month.

Living in Ikea

This is one of those 'you can't make this up' kind of story. Apparently Mark Malkoff, a comedian and film maker, is living in a NJ Ikea store while his apartment is fumigated. You can follow Mark's adventure at http://www.marklivesinikea.com/

Mark is the same guy that visited AND purchased something from 171 Manhattan Starbucks store in one day.
http://www.171starbucks.com/

Invited!

I've recently been invited to the private beta of Hulu, a streaming video service run by NBC. The number of shows are limited but thus far I have been happy with the service and user interface. I can create playlists, RSS feed my list, browse shows by title, network or most popular titles. In addition, to a number of current running shows such as Heroes and The Office, Hulu has quite an eclectic mix of older programs such as Dragnet, Miami Vice, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. A few of the networks that provide content includes Bravo, FX, Fox, NBC, SciFi, 20th Century, and Sundance.

Hulu allow users a way to embed shows or share via email...For example, here is an embed of Season 3's last episode of Battlestar Galatica...

DRM-Free rumors

It appears that Sony/BMG will be selling DRM-free songs with Amazon. Although, Sony may try to have some kind of watermarking...hmmm, sound kinda Suspicious...I'm, however glad that this is finally happening. As much as I like Apple and the iTMS, competition is good for the consumer. I've downloaded DRM-free songs from Amazon and have been quit happy with their quality as they are 256kb mp3s as oppose to Apple's 128kb AAC format.

In addition, Sony will be giving away 1 BILLION songs in a Super Bowl promotional partnership with Pepsi and Amazon...

Books from 2007

Here is a list of books and graphic novels (a poor name for a comic book that is in a book format...) that I have read this past year...

• A Thousand Spendid Suns
• The Alchemist
  
• Into The Wild
• Into Thin Air
• The Secret Life of Bees
  
• Omnivores Dilemma
• What's the Matter With Kansas
• Fastfood Nation
• All The Pretty Horses
• The Road
• Stormy Weather
• Monkey Wrench
• Tyrannosaur Canyon
• The Andromeda Strain
• Deep Black: Jihad
  

+++++ Comics +++++

• Persepolis
• Box Office Poison
• American Born Chinese
  
• 300
• Planet Hulk
• Invincible: Ultimate Collection Vol. 1 and 2
  
• Y: The Last Man (numerous TPB volumes)...Love this series
  
• Ultimate Spiderman (numerous TPB volumes)
• Batman: The Long Halloween
• Runaways Vol. 1 and 2

Wikipedia has a nice list of award winning graphic novels...

Happy New Year...

I have been negligent, or down right lazy, in not posting since end of Oct. I can say that a lot has happened since then. But most have not been that interesting.

On the bird front I was able to identify my first Northern Shrike. The Shrike is predatory songbird that likes to eat little chickadees and other birds that I have been trying to attract to our backyard. In addition, I noticed a Robin that has claimed our backyard neighbor's crabapple tree as it own and have been chasing other birds away. It's kinda interesting to see this...

Just purchased a ringtone and realized what a ripe-off it is. We paid $2.49 for a 15 second snippet that goes off whenever you get a call....Also, they have something call megatones, which is a poor excuse for a ringtone and paid $1.99 for that priviledge...Another reason why I hate phone companies.

Northern Shrike