Beutelevision

My friend Mary Reynolds Thompson hosts teleclasses on writing at WriteTheDamnBook.com. Mary’s coaching has helped many writers actually finish the book that they started.

Coming up is a teleclass on blogging by expert blogger Britt Bravo, creator of the Changeblogger Network. Blogging has become an important element of writing books. Some writers even field test their work with their blog readers and find that by tapping their reader’s extensive wisdom, they can reinforce their writing with more information and better examples.

GM-volt.com has pictures of the production version of the Volt. I like it. Actually, I like it a lot better than the concept car.

Meanwhile, it looks like GM and the EPA might argue about MPG. It all depends on the battery charge at the end of the trip.

It was interesting that Google used a comic strip to effectively communicate the reasons why they are introducing a new browser called Chrome. I was especially taken in by the discussion of processes and tabs, a topic that would normally be rather dry.

Comics were recently used to communicate legal concepts to First Nation tribes in BC.

Geoff Brown recommends “Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art”, a book that discusses the use of comics for communication. It was written in 1994, but is still #1 in Amazon’s “Cartooning” category.

I woke up this morning, my beauty sleep totally uninterrupted by that loud car honk sound I had selected on my iPhone for text messages. OK I admit it, I already heard the big news last night.

But still… what happened? I know that it must be you. It sometimes takes two hours or more for voicemails to show up. I know, I shouldn’t complain–I live in San Francisco, and maybe the city isn’t a priority for you, technology-wise.

Oh well, at least the email was only 7 hours late. 😉

Update: I never received it – oh well. I don’t hold this against the campaign in any case. Technology isn’t perfect.

Later Update: Information Week reports that 40%-50% didn’t receive the text.

Here is a nice Charlie Rose interview with Bob Lutz, talking about the ideas and progress of the GM Volt. It’s about 56 minutes long.

One of the things mentioned (at about 41 minutes in) is that the show car had a drag coefficient of about 0.43, which was too much – it reduced the range to 35 miles instead of 40. The new design has a drag coefficient of about 0.28.

The exciting news is that 1BOG has selected an installation partner and the installer will be visiting my house tomorrow. I can’t wait to see what the whole process is like.

I have two questions in particular:

1) I will definitely be getting a plugin hybrid car when they are available in 2-3 years. I’ve been told that driving a PHEV about 10K mile a year would be easily covered by an additional 1.5KW of solar panels. Should I get a larger system now, even though PG&E will not pay me for electricity over and above my usage? Or should I wait until I actually get the car?

2) I live west of Twin Peaks, meaning that July and August are foggy for most of the day. Should I get a larger system to compensate?

The pricing is pretty darn good even for the larger systems, so even if PG&E gets electricity for free, I don’t think I would worry too much about it.

By the way, the installer is Real Goods Solar. They have a wonderful store called Solar Living Center up in Hopland.

Lot’s of interesting news in the alternative energy field:

MIT creates a catalyst based on photosysthesis that produces hydrogen from water.

LS9 uses synthetic biology to produce oil from algae.

Energy Innovations gets the first UL listing for a solar concentrator.

I saw an interesting demonstration recently of WiMAX (specifically the mobile version, 802.16e) and needless to say, I am impressed. The demo should consistent data rates exceeding 10 megabits/sec in a moving vehicle. The kicker was that upstream speed was better than 2 megabits/sec.

Talk about disruption in the marketplace! This far exceeds 3G of course, and for that matter, it exceeds most cable, DSL, and FIOS installations too.

In San Francisco, FIOS is not even an option–we really have only a choice of AT&T or Comcast at speeds up to 4mbs. But I can imagine a day when somebody like Sprint puts a WiMAX installation on Mt. Sutro tower and makes truly high-speed internet available for San Franciscans. All that would be required is a small receiver mounted on the house and pointed to the tower. Finally a competitive alternative to cable and DSL.

I can see why Comcast is thinking of joining rather than fighting WiMAX. Where will that leave AT&T?

CollegeDegrees.com has over 100 tips, tricks and hacks for your Kindle. My favorite tip is how to put your own reference content on the Kindle – I have over 300 pages on a personal Wiki that I would want to transfer.

I just discovered a nice in-depth article by Pat B Doyle titled Publish an Ebook in Amazonâ??s Kindle Book Store!. It includes a 8-point guide that includes formatting tips, setting up search terms, and how to prepare a product image. I’m looking forward to following this advice for a book that I’m working on.