A Canadian firm has developed a method of making solar cells that may increase efficiency and reduce costs by as much as 25%. They are using an electrode in lieu of typical silver conductors, which lets them expose more of the top layer to sunlight. It also lets them use a thinner top layer of silicon (most panels have two layers) which lets more sunlight reach the second layer. All in all, the new cells should be more efficient and may be available within the next 1 to 2 years.

This would be one more step in making solar more affordable and more efficient. I am betting that within the next few years solar, wind, and biofuels will become much stronger competitors to oil.

The link to the story is below:
Solar

In another sign that the real estate and consumer spending bubble has popped, there is a new startup in San Francisco that lets people pay their mortgages, auto loans, and education loans with a credit card. It’ll be interesting to see when this credit bubble pops in turn. With the mortgage market suffering and foreclosures rising, there has been an accompanying rise in credit card balances, as people use their credit cards to stay afloat. Letting people put mortgages these other loans onto their credit card merely piles up the credit card debt, all of which has astronomical interest rates. While the credit card companies love this due to the fees collected, I can’t help but feel this house of cards is going to fall down in the next year or two and cost credit card companies a bundle. I’d assume they get some of it back since they have paid off the legislatures to tighten bankruptcy laws in the last couple of years. However, there’s still gotta be some pain for them, and it may result in tighter credit for the rest of us.

Link to ChargeSmart article:
ChargeSmart

My wife bought some dried Dragon Fruit this week from Trader Joe’s. I had never heard of it, but gave it a try. I don’t know about the fresh version, but the dried version wasn’t too bad. A little crunchy, slight sesame flavor, and sort of a mix between sweet and sour. I went online and found out a little more about the fruit. Wikipedia link is below:

Dragon Fruit

Not content with the damage they’ve done in the last 8 years, the Bushies are apparently at it again. The Department of Health and Human Services is circulating a draft proposal for review that would redefine pregnancy to start at the moment of conception, contrary to current medical definitions. It would also require medical facilities to not discriminate against hiring anti-abortion personnel, and prevent the denial of funding to any medical facility that does not provide abortions. Adding icing to the cake, it would also classify certain forms of birth control (like the morning after pill, IUD, etc) as abortion.

Social conservative groups are also hoping that in general it will reduce the availability of contraception and also reduce the number of insurance companies that include birth control in their list of benefits.

The next step is probably an increase in the number of abortions, which in turn will give the anti abortion protestors more to protest about. You’d think that someone would figure out that increasing the availability and use of contraception would help reduce the number of abortions. However, given the large number of rabid male supporters in the anti abortion movement (and you know how we men are sometimes slow to figure stuff out...), I don’t hold my breath. If the debate were strictly limited to women, I have a hunch something would be worked out in some way.

When the men get involved, issues such as keeping women barefoot, pregnant, and submissive, and condemning the “harlots and tramps” are always floating around in the background. If these guys were serious about helping kids, they would push contraception, push the enforcement of child support, push counseling prior to marriage, and focus their efforts on helping the kids who are already here. There are tens of thousands of kids across the country that are malnourished, abused, mistreated, and so forth. I’ve yet to see any of these anti abortion fanatics make a real effort to help these kids. It seems it’s a lot easier to rail on about the injustice to unborn babies than it is to actually go out and help some living human beings.

Two links below. One is news article and one is Christine Anne Piesyk’s blog.

HHS draft article

Christine Anne Piesyk blog

Well, kites seem to be the pervasive theme lately. A friend of mine reminded me of a kite photography site, pictures taken from a kite. I may have blogged about it last year, but I can't remember, so what the hell, I'll mention it here perhaps again.

Lots of very cool pictures. Link to the site is below. If you go, you'll see salt flats prominently in the first page or two, but the later pages are more cities and other stuff. So be sure to poke around a bit.

KitePhotography