Merry Christmas searches

http://www.google.com/search?q=christmas

Thanks to Googlified

A hybrid can save you money

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2006/12/my_hybrid_saved.html

Corporate sex-offenders

http://www.perverted-justice.com/index.php?pg=cso

The fate of the electric vehicle

It's important to try to stay somewhat aware of what's going around in the corporate world around us. One of my major concerns of late has been the environment and the energy crisis that all countries will soon face. To that end, I've started to do some research about the electric vehicle that GM developed in the late '90s, trying to dig up what happened, why they shredded the vehicles, and where the patent for the batteries went.

While I'd love to assemble some sort of synthesis of the data, it makes more sense to put together a list of references that have tried to shine some light into the dark world of big oil.

For starters, here's a sort-of-sloppy site http://www.ev1.org/ which, honestly, looks like a conspiracy-theorist gone wild. Give it a chance. The site claims that mutual funds owning 42% of GM own more than 10x that market share in oil companies, and had a strong incentive to use this controlling position in GM to shut down the electric vehicle. While I don't hasten to believe that it's a matter of collusion among Wall Street mavens, I can't help but see that big oil has a strong interest in having the EV silenced. Billions, nay trillions, are on the line here. Of course, on the other hand, so are the glaciers in Montana's Glacier National Park.

Next, take some time to do a search on the US Patent & Trade Office's website and notice that numerous patents on NiMH battery technology are held by a company in Michigan called Ovonic Battery Company, Inc. or Texaco Ovonic Battery Company, Inc.Here's The Motley Fool's assessment of Ovonic, a company that has been sitting on NiMH battery patents. While they take a rather technically pessimistic slant, others suggest that sitting on these patents genuinely hurts progress.

A one-year old post to Americans for Energy Independence talks about the beneficial effects that could be realized from moving from oil-based energy to solar- and electric-based energy.

Toshiba has developed a battery that uses nanotechnology to recover as much as 80% of its full capacity within a minute.

What we are seeing is a convergence of the technology that is needed to turn the electric vehicle into a reality. All that is needed now is a "good" company that's willing to make some money off of a good thing - that is, helping America to achieve energy independence... A place not constrained by the legacy of big oil or deep-seated greed and uncertainty. Hopefully we'll see these vehicles hitting the road soon.

More links:
Doug Korthof, a leading EV spokesman (interview)

DontCrush, promoting plug-in cars

Tesla, demonstrating EV can be hot... Get yours for only $92k

Phoenix MotorCars, another company on the cusp

Chevron's press release, re: Ovonic

What's the riddle in "The Riddle"?

I listen to the radio a fair amount and the song "The Riddle" [lyrics] [block that page's pop-ups with Google Toolbar] by Five For Fighting has come on frequently of late. Now, I don't often think about songs I hear on the radio, but last time I heard this one I started thinking about the lyrics.
"The Riddle" as a whole seems to be (and is, according to FFF's myspace page) a message of love from a father to his son, painting a picture of close personal moments with their children that I think many fathers aspire to...

Yet he also touches unflinchingly on the personal. The CD's debut single "The Riddle" is a song he wrote for his children, while the companion video features his beloved blue Mustang (a car passed down to John from his father and the inspiration for the song "65 Mustang). Says John of the single, "A lot of my songs touch on mortality, but at its heart it's a love song from a father to his son." [link]

This aspect of the song nearly brings tears to my eyes, because it reflects a part of the father I hope someday to be. While this is a nice explanation of the meaning as a whole, I still can't help but get put off by the shallowness of some answers to the question "What's the riddle?"
So I ask: Is there a riddle other than pondering "the reason for the world" contained in the song? And if so, is there an answer deeper than "You and I"? And if not, what did some of those other 100 drafts look like?

Props to a good post

Just wanted to increase the visibility of this post about using WiX to write an installer, and how to make it easily upgradeable.
http://blogs.msdn.com/johnls/archive/2006/11/13/how-to-upgrade-software-with-a-windows-installer-package.aspx

The Loafer Principle

A book my uncle wrote, and an enjoyable read.

Order one today :) at http://loaferman.googlepages.com/home

Quicktime

One thing that Apple never seems to get right with quicktime:
REMEMBER MY PREFERENCES AND DON'T SHOW ME THE CLUTTERY SYSTRAY ICON!!!!

I don't care if you wipe out all my preferences when you install a new version, if you'll keep that one preference set.