Yahoo Mail No Messages

Since yesterday my Yahoo mail inbox has been empty. Somehow the option to automatically forward the mail has been activated. Yahoo has been forwarding my mail to a non-existent email address which I used around 10 years ago. I suspect this was an issue with Yahoo mail as I found another couple of users complaining the same thing. You can fix it by removing the old email address and setting it to POP in the POP and forward option in the Email Options page. But you can’t recover the forwarded mail.

Inspirational Advertisement from India

This advertisement covers everything. Despite the corrupt and ineffective politicians and authorities countries move forward.

Fossil Fuel Equivalent of a Barrel of Crude Oil at $30

In September, a privately held and highly secretive U.S. biotech company named Joule Unlimited received a patent for “a proprietary organism” – a genetically engineered cyanobacterium that produces liquid hydrocarbons: diesel fuel, jet fuel and gasoline. This breakthrough technology, the company says, will deliver renewable supplies of liquid fossil fuel almost anywhere on Earth, in essentially unlimited quantity and at an energy-cost equivalent of $30 (U.S.) a barrel of crude oil. It will deliver, the company says, “fossil fuels on demand.”

Read the story at The Globe and Mail here

Breakthrough conversion of sunlight and waste carbon dioxide (CO2) directly into liquid hydrocarbons that are fungible with conventional diesel fuel.

This landmark achievement in industrial bioprocessing clears the path for large-scale renewable fuel production, addressing the cost, resource constraints and energy-intensive steps associated with biomass growth, harvesting, extraction and refining to reach an end product. The entire process produces more net energy than it consumes and yields sulfur-free, ultra-clean diesel.

The integrated platform will enable productivities above any other closed-system approach, with a commercial target of 15,000 gallons of diesel per acre annually. Joule’s pilot operations are currently underway, with commercial production targeted for 2012.

[From the articles in http://www.jouleunlimited.com/]

This will change the world as we know it.

Ender’s Game

What makes a book or a film so great is when the end is so unexpected but at the same time very plausible. In the last few days I read Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game. Earth has been invaded by a species called buggers twice. Humans are preparing for the third and the final battle. Ender Wiggin is their best hope. I’m looking forward to reading the sequels in the series from Speaker for the Dead. Nobody has yet to make a film out of it so far.

Harry Potter Film Wizardry

Harry Potter Film Wizardry, a book about the films, was released recently. I got the British edition which has a different cover than the American edition. The British edition got delayed for some reason. This is a huge book weighing  more than a kilo, 160 pages of pictures and writings about the films and some props from the films. The level of detail  they have gone into designing the sets and the props was always amazing. Harry Potter movie sets are like museums. There are tons of things to see and examine if you can.  Each object is meticulously designed or acquired specially. For example you may find a set of mismatching antique plates laid out on the dinner table gotten from some serious shopping in the secondhand shops. Some of these artwork is not even shown in the films or only get half a second glimpses. They had even designed a complete Quidditch World Cup programme. There were sculptures made from thousands of real tea cups and saucers of different shapes, colors and sizes in the Trelawney’s classroom. The book includes reproduction of some these props from the films notably the letter from Hogwarts, World Cup programme and folded Marauders’s map. I really don’t like the films but the film sets and the props are so amazing. The book is a great memento for the films.