So as gas climbs to $4 and beyond, suddenly there seems to be a host of companies rushing to the rescue with their enviro-friendly car. So much so that I thought I would assemble them into one place for easy shopping. Interestingly many of these cars are not a friendly to your pocketbook as they are mother Earth.

Tesla Roadster - $109,000

• Fully electric
• 0-60 in 3.9 seconds
• 125 mph (limited) top speed
• 220 mile range
• 2 seater

Tesla just opened a dealership in LA, but there is currently a 1000 vehicle waiting list since production was slowed due to transmission problems. Full production should be back up in December with the backlog cleared up by Spring.

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This summer should be a hot time for slick phones. The 3G iPhone is due out - hopefully with some additional tweaks. Also the HTC Diamond is getting launched. The Diamond is the successor to the Touch - the closest a windows mobile phone could come to an iPhone.

With a much improved user interface, an accelerometer, and a size that will make iPhone owners jealous - things should get interesting. Below are some comparison shots.

So I’ve realized that one of the main reasons “Do Good-ers” annoy me is not so much that they are trying to help - but that they make suggestions and try to fix things that they really don’t understand. Even a little.

So the following is an example of some do gooder physics I recently had to correct surrounding water powered (HHO/Hydroxy) cars:

DO GOODER (exact quote):

4-cylinder engines are nice, because they are slightly more efficient than their V8 counterparts. But take a look at this:

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So apparently American Cinema isn’t as big in Japan as it should be. Because the Japs don’t see the sheer folly in giving their robots lasers and teaching them how to fight.
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Everyone knows (or should) that our world is speeding up. Technological advances have gotten us to a place where we can build on other tech speeding the process of creating newer, better, shiner things. Along with this technology has come a more and more affluent American middle class. In comparing real luxuries, the average American is doing better and better. This comes from a combination of increased real spending power and cheaper and cheaper stuff. (Thanks Capitalism!) Below is a chart detailing our progress.

For the past few weeks Intel & Nvidia have been taking swipes at each other in stock market analyst meetings. Let’s face it in the world of geeky computer tech, video cards are about as hip as it comes. Wether you’re helping macboys be creative in Photoshop and Final Cut Studio or helping gamers frag in Q3A and actually run Crysis… graphics is what the cool kids are all about.

Apparently the CEO of Nvidia didn’t like the idea of stogy Intel all up in its grill and trying to hang with his peeps. So what was Jen-Hsun Huang to do, but throw down:

“We’re going to open a can of whoop ass”…

Intel’s integrated offerings [are] “a joke,” but that even if Intel manages increase graphics performance by ten times by 2010, that’s barely up to par with current NVIDIA offerings…

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From the people that brought you the much acclaimed Eee PC (mini laptop w/ 7″ screen starting at $199), comes the Eee PC Desktop starting at $350 and “good enough performance”. No really that’s actually how it was displayed at a recent trade show:

• matbe.com

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We all can agree that the TSA agents tend to be operating at just above your average McDonald’s employee. (Perhaps this is part of why the Jihadists hate us - their inability to get past such simpletons) If not here’s some more proof: TSA didn’t believe the MacBook Air was a laptop (and therefore must be a bomb). Really though, if you’re going to make a laptop bomb wouldn’t you go for the 12lb gaming rig instead of the super thin 3lb MBA? Perhaps this terrorist was saving the rest of the C4 for later?

I am equally amused at the whole “turn on your laptop to prove its not a bomb” theory. As the MacBook Air proves, you can fit a fully functional lappy into a small space. Put the MBA innards into a Dell 17 inch “desktop replacement” and you have room for a 10+ lb of plastique! Hello TSA! Am I the only one that sees this stuff?

I’m standing, watching my laptop on the table, listening to security clucking just behind me. “There’s no drive,” one says. “And no ports on the back. It has a couple of lines where the drive should be,” she continues.

A younger agent, joins the crew. I must now be occupying ten, perhaps twenty, percent of the security force. At this checkpoint anyway. There are three score more at the other five checkpoints. The new arrival looks at the printouts from x-ray, looks at my laptop sitting small and alone. He tells the others that it is a real laptop, not a “device”. That it has a solid-state drive instead of a hard disc. They don’t know what he means. He tries again, “Instead of a spinning disc, it keeps everything in flash memory.” Still no good. “Like the memory card in a digital camera.” He points to the x-ray, “Here. That’s what it uses instead of a hard drive.”

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In a move this is bound to have many a wild-eyed programmer choking on his energy drink, Microsoft has announced an official nod to open source.  While they will not be taking the plunge themselves, they promise no to sue open source programmers working with MS products (among other things). The move is not a total shift to the open model it is a significant step to at least play nice with OS projects.  Here’s the meat of the press release:

As an immediate next step, starting today Microsoft will openly publish on MSDN over 30,000 pages of documentation for Windows client and server protocols that were previously available only under a trade secret license through the Microsoft Work Group Server Protocol Program (WSPP) and the Microsoft Communication Protocol Program (MCPP). Protocol documentation for additional products, such as Office 2007 and all of the other high-volume products covered by these principles, will be published in the upcoming months.

Microsoft will indicate on its Web site which protocols are covered by Microsoft patents and will license all of these patents on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, at low royalty rates. To assist those interested in considering a patent license, Microsoft will make available a list of specific Microsoft patents and patent applications that cover each protocol.

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Been doing a little star gazing lately (no not on E!), and found this helpful guide to planets apparent size. The chart breaks down how much magnification it would take to make each planet appear the same size as the moon to the naked eye. These numbers are “best case” since they are when the planet is in opposition to Earth (closest in relative orbits).

Mercury 250x
Venus 75x
Mars 100x (ave)
Jupiter 40x
Saturn 100x
Uranus 500x
Neptune 750x
Pluto 400x (just to be visible)