diesel, produced by special strains of E. coli bacteria

A group of scientists from the University of Exeter, with support from Shell, has developed a new technique which makes use of bacteria to produce diesel fuel. While this new method still faces a number of problems on its way to commercialization, the diesel, produced by special strains of E. coli bacteria, is almost identical to conventional diesel fuel.

This means that it does not need to be blended with petroleum products as is often required by biodiesels derived from plant oils. It also means that the diesel can be used with current supplies in existing infrastructure because engines, pipelines and tankers do not need to be modified. Biofuels with these characteristics are being termed ‘drop-ins’.

Why We'll Never Meet Aliens?

In a long essay, makes the case that we'll never meet aliens. And his conclusion is that we'll never meet aliens because once they've developed the technology to travel the great distances between stars, the trip will be meaningless.

I think there's a lot of validity to this argument. We anthropomorphize aliens based on our current state of technology. We imagine aliens flying around in their alien spaceships, sipping their alien coffees, perusing alien laptops. "We come in peace."

But you have to comprehend the compounding effect of exponential technological advancement. iPhones didn't exist 5 years ago, now we consider smartphones a commodity. Once an alien has the ability to travel from star to star, they'll probably just be getting their robots to do the work for them - in fact, they'll probably be indistinguishable from robots themselves.

Once you're far enough along that technology curve, it all just comes down to energy. What's the most efficient way to get more energy? Traveling to other stars probably isn't it.

Stars provide energy, and planets give you a place to stand on. But they come with tricky gravity fields, that aliens might decide just aren't worth the effort to vist.

When will wireless power reach the tipping point?

If you’re waiting to see when wireless power will hit the mass market, then you’re not alone. Delivering power wirelessly is perhaps one of the most hyped, long anticipated changes to the way we design and use products and machinery since the invention of electricity itself. But if you’ve been watching this space, you’ll know these solutions have been slow in coming to market and are anything but commonplace.

Why is that? What’s it going to take for this technology to hit the mainstream? Over the past two years we have witnessed first generation implementations of wireless power, mostly in the smartphone after-market. These come in the form of sleeves and charging pads but are rarely sighted amongst early adopters. Each claims to be supporting the best technology — the one that will lead the world in becoming completely unplugged. Yet, in my view, what we have seen and heard so far are a combination of impossible claims and poor end-user functionality.

WiTricity CEO Eric Giler imagines a future where power devices are embedded in the walls and carpets of homes, making for a truly wire-free household. He says with a big enough power supply and small wireless repeaters, one could even power a grocery store or office building. Conventional charging devices such as the cord for a cell phone use electromagnetic induction to transmit power. Through electromagnetic induction, an electric current is sent through a magnetic field generated by a power conductor to a smaller magnetic field generated by a receiving device.

Scott Tallman Powers

Powers began drawing as a child with his father who was a medical illustrator, photographer and fine artist.  While watching and learning from him, his love of art began. Scott’s education began in high school with two extremely influential and supportive art instructors.  This led to four years of intensive study at the American Academy of Art in Chicago. There he trained under many important instructors in the fields of Oil painting, Watercolor, Drawing, Anatomy and Sculpture.  After his time at the Academy, Scott spent many years as an illustrator in a Chicago ad agency before pursuing his dream as a full-time fine artist. Scott is a signature member of the Oil Painters of America and is the founder of "The Plein Air Painters of Chicago" group. Scott gets a lot of his inspiration from many different cultures from all over the world, including our own.  The human element is at the core of his journey.  The people, places, and experiences have sewn there way into Scott’s inspirations for  many years; giving him a better understanding of the world we live in. He has travelled extensively to many countries to find the inspiration he thrives on and searches to find the balance between cultures. Scott’s goal is to express the stories and experiences as honestly, sensitively and with as much integrity as he can.  This is a passion which is growing day by day and mile by mile. Scott has works in many private collections in the United States and around the world along with having paintings in three museums: The Wengyuan Museum of Fine Art and the Shaoguan Museum of Fine Art in The Guandong Province of China, and The Academy Museum in Easton, Maryland. Scott has received many awards from the Oil Painters of America as well as many other National shows. And has participated in many prestigious invitational exhibitions in the United States, China, Israel and Europe. Scott work has appeared in many publications including American Artist, Art of the West, Western Art and Architecture and has had features in The American Artist “Workshop” Magazine, Southwest Art Magazine and Western Art Collector.

The HTC One

we promised a review of this device when I got my hands on one, so here goes.

we picked up the One on AT&T yesterday. I haven't really used an HTC device in quite awhile, and I'm pretty happy with this phone.

The very first thing I did was to unlock the bootloader. HTC (like everyone) got this very wrong in the past, but they finally got it right. The production device is fully unlockable on the AP side using an unlock code from HTCDev. It only took a couple of minutes to follow the prompts on the site and I was greeted with the UNLOCKED message in HBOOT. Installed CWM and did a backup.

This hardware is sexy. It's got clean lines and feels very solid when you are holding it. The 1080p display is gorgeous and bright, although I'm not convinced that I would pay a lot of extra money for 1080p on a phone if all other things were high-end. Oddly enough, the phone looks like the little brother of my Samsung Series 7 laptop which is a good thing. There are only two capacitive buttons, which took a bit of getting used to- you have to double-tap the home key to see the recent apps list. It's a good design, and it makes plenty of room for the front-facing stereo speakers.

HTC has taken a very different approach to software than Samsung has, and has chosen to focus on media and content instead of UX features. You're immediately greeted with the Sense launcher which has a full-screen pane that aggregates data from various social networks and news feeds. It works well and I find myself actually using it. There's so much room for improvement and additional data sources, but it's a good start. The launcher in general is pretty decent, at least until you open the app drawer. HTC has decided to go with a 3-column app drawer with a vertical tray that doesn't do free scrolling. It's very painful to use if you have a lot of apps. Folders are supported in the drawer which makes it a little easier, but it's still not the best experience. One feature that HTC did well is the lock screen. It supports a number of different layouts (I use "productivity") and shows you quick information without having to unlock the device.

The performance of the device in general is off the charts. Under the hood, it has the same chipset as the Galaxy S4, so the performance of both devices is similar. It's probably more horsepower than most people will need for quite some time.

Overall, I like where HTC is going with this. They have decided to skip the "kitchen sink" approach to really focus on a few things, and it works. It's also developer friendly, which is important to me and probably to most people reading this. I really think HTC might be back in the game with the One. It's an awesome device. They will of course have to contend with Samsung's unstoppable marketing machine though.

If I had to make the choice between the One vs the S4, my head would probably explode so I'll just carry both I think :)

Cool Leaf Keyboard

The COOL LEAF adopts one single board, thus enabling easy input surface cleaning and clean maintenance at any time. It also adopts an innovative design in which characters appear on its mirror panel, which uses a light guide plate-type backlight. The design is highly sophisticated, with functionality that has envisioned applications for medical treatment, home theaters, food manufacturing factories, clean rooms etc.

3 Types of Leaders Who Never Succeed!!!!

Do you rise again and again to the very edge of success, only to fall back down? You may be guilty of one of these leadership styles.

It's an oft-quoted leadership trope: Because of his sin in striking the rock twice, Moses never lived to see his people into the Promised Land. That role fell instead to Joshua, despite Moses having dedicated his life to paving the way, including those 40 years spent in the wilderness.

Business leaders can, sadly, befall the same fate. Call them the Never-Gonna-Get-There Leader. The saddest part is that unlike Moses, for these perennially unfulfilled leaders, there's no real reason why it should be so--except for their own self imposed limitations.

There are a lot of hyphenated leaders: the Wanna-be leaders, Always-on leaders, Glory-grabbing leaders. But there's none so heartbreaking to work with as a Never-Gonna-Get-There leader. This is someone who rises again and again to the very edge of success, only, as in some twisted version of chutes and ladders, to fall back solely as a result of their own subconscious, success-restricting traits.

Here are the three main categories of Never-Gonna-Get-There leader, and, if you recognize yourself or a colleague amongst them, how to avoid Moses fate:

1. The Epiphany Junkie

The trendy new book absolutely everybody must read. The new social tool we gotta dominate. The perfect sales page layout that will send hidden buy messages on our web site...

That's the Epiphany Junkie, dropping the latest in their rapidly accumulating grab bag of realizations / discoveries / imperatives.

Problem is, while they think they're confirming the fact of their genius, and leading their team to even greater heights of brilliance, the team is in reality simply being distracted from getting on with what's really important.

If you think you might be an Epiphany Junkie, write down the last six epiphanies you dropped on your team. I have a two-fold challenge for you: (a) Were you actually able to recall the last six pearls of must-do wisdom you laid on your unsuspecting colleagues; and (b) What real, lasting impact did they each have, apart from unnecessarily distracting everyone for a few days?

The answer? When you come back from that conference, or read that book, or stumble on a stunning meme on your Twitter, keep it to yourself. Just shut the blank up about it for at least two weeks. If it's truly important, you'll see ways to integrate it quietly and seamlessly into what your team is doing.

If it isn't important, you'll have found something new to fixate on soon enough.

2.The Strategy Yanker

"We're going to grow by 50 percent over the next two years."

A month later: "Growth can't be our main objective. We're going to focus on customer service."

Six weeks later: "Profitability is all. We're going to deliver a 25 percent increase on the bottom line."

That's the Strategy Yanker, pulling their organization from pillar to post in a self-imposed search for the perfect plan for success. They strain everyone's patience, drain everyone's motivation, and rapidly lose credulity with everyone forced to listen to the next whiplash change of direction.

The fundamental problem with the Strategy Yanker is that they're usually intelligent people so all of the proposed (and subsequently ditched) strategies are valid--if only they would choose one and stick with it.

Working with a Strategy Yanker is like getting into a car with a driver who knows 10 different routes to the place you want to go--and can't make their mind up as to which to take. You end up hopping from one route to another, then changing to another, never getting any closer to where you want to go.

The answer? A dose of the bleeding obvious. Pick a medium term strategy and stick to it. If you can't, get out of leadership before you seriously hurt some people.

3. The Hero to Zero Myopic

Leadership isn't a solitary occupation. By definition, a leader leads others.

Those others are exactly like you and me--varied, competent in some areas, not so hot in others, a mixture of strengths and weaknesses, all of us trying to travel north in a southbound lane.

Some Never-Gonna-Get-There leaders refuse to see people as they really are. Instead, they view everyone as either spectacularly great (She's the best salesperson I've ever seen!) or woefully dreadful (I can't bear having him around me. Get him out of my sight.) Often they change their opinion of a person from one extreme to the other literally overnight.

Sound like you? Then you need to take responsibility for the hiring function. You need to put yourself in a position where having a zero on the team is clearly, transparently no-one else's fault but yours. Because chances are, it already is.

300 Workout

Warmup: five minute of shadow boxing/jogging/jump rope

Advanced: (300 reps)
50 Push-Ups/Press-Ups
50 Jump Squats
50 Sit-Ups
50 Lunges
50 Tricep Dips (dip using a chair/sofa/bench)
50 Back Extensions (as illustrated or using a fit ball)

Intermediate: (200 reps)
40 Push-Ups/Press-Ups (2 sets of 15, 1 set of 10)
40 Jump Squats (2 sets of 20)
40 Tricep Dips (4 sets of 10)
40 Sit-Ups (2 sets of 20)
40 Back Extensions (2 sets of 15, 1 set of 10)

Beginner: (100 reps)
20 Push-Ups/Press-Ups (4 sets of 5)
20 Jump Squats (2 sets of 10)
20 Tricep Dips (4 sets of 5)
20 Sit-Ups (2 sets of 10)
20 Back Extensions (2 sets of 10)

Sleep Time Calculator!

Want To Get A Good Night's Sleep? Try This Sleep Time Calculator!

If I want to wake up at 6:00 AM each workday (as I do), this calculator tells me this: I should try to fall asleep at one of the following times:

9:00 PM or 10:30 PM or 12:00 AM or 1:30 AM

This website calculates what time you should go to bed depending on what time you have to get up. It's not based on how many hours of sleep you need but rather where in the cycle you would wake up. Waking up in the middle of a sleep cycle leaves you feeling tired and groggy, but waking up in between cycles lets you wake up feeling refreshed and alert.

Please keep in mind that you should be falling asleep at these times. The average adult human takes fourteen minutes to fall asleep, so plan accordingly!