Algae as a Biofuel

Yesterday I was able to attend a roundtable discussion on algae based technology for performing wastewater treatment and bio-fuel production. This is a process that is currently being explored in Virginia with the anticipation that the whole of the process would:


Provide a renewable biodiesel fuel that would be produced locally and economically competitive with fossil fuels

Provide a fuel that would result in carbon emissions lower than those for fossil fuels, with the aim of producing a zero-net-carbon-emissions-fuel

Become a catalyst for cleaner coastal waters

Be a producer of marketable credits for removal of nutrients and carbon dioxide from discharges and emissions.

The above are paraphrased from the invitation to the discussion, and a very interesting one it was.

As is a common situation I find myself in, just about everyone around the table knew more about the topic than I did. Whether it was the research scientists from WSU, the UWT and North Dakota State, the businesspersons who had already created functioning processes to extract biofuel, the community leaders looking for green solutions or the folks who help to articulate solutions from IP to product they were formidable in their knowledge.

What I enjoyed, was seeing how each mind set and area of expertise fit into the bigger picture of an executable solution at a larger scale. It is the essence of a strong team to bring area experts together for a common goal.

Yesterday was only a discussion but I hope that a project comes from it.

This might be an excellent birds of a feather conversation following the South Sound Technology Conference in November.

The above image was taken from the National Museum of Natural History.

"50 Cent Words" from Quillpill

Quillpill continues to evolve as an enjoyable, micro-blogging writers application. More features are being added on an ongoing basis including mark up language addition and the ability to export your writing to email. The latter was added to provide support for the brave souls who are not only jumping into the NaNoWriMo (National November Writing Month) novel writing initiative this year, but are going to do so 140 characters at a time.

How might that get done? According to information gathered from one of their users on the site:

What does it take to write a NaNoWriMo novel on Quillpill? Here are some calculations from Aden Penn, who was our first user to express interest in using Quillpill for her NaNoWriMo participation:

50,000 words=339,115 characters
339,115 characters divided by 140 = 2422 characters
2422 characters divided by 30 days =81

So you would have to make generally 81 posts or more a day.

Another milestone for founders Derek Maune and Elissa Rose is that they have published the first quarterly literary magazine from submissions created from the site itself. "Quillpill Quarterly" hit the stands on September 9th and carries short stories, excerpts and poems from several of it's early users.

Quillpill announced the occasion on their blog and explained in part:

Quillpill has released the September issue of the Quillpill Quarterly Literary Magazine, “50-Cent Words.” We’ve hand picked some of the most interesting and highest quality work on Quillpill to showcase the mobile and micro fiction genre. The fully illustrated 24 page magazine comes to you with work by E.T. Chevalier, Aden Penn, Eric Rice, Andrew Fry, Freeman Powell, and Dennis Loney, Science Fiction author Ken Brady’s article, “Redefining Literature 140 Characters at a time,” and an interview with Quillpill author Nikolas Bates.

Included in the issue is the piece I did on the Chalk Off Challenge, so that is just one more milestone for the art slam happening at Frost Park of chalk to pavement.

Magcloud has a short review of it plus several page samples as well.

Micro Nano Breakthrough Conference

I am attending the second day of the Micro Nano Coference and it
continues to enthrall. Right now I am attending the session on
Biological System Interactions with Stacy Harper from OSU among
others.

Thank goodness yesterday I went to the Nanotechnology 101 session by
Paul Burrows. If I hadn't I would never have understood the ISO
conference conversation I had with John Martin this morning.

This is also my excuse to try posting this via the email to blog
feature available through Blogger.com.

If this works, check out the "How do I post via email" Section of the site.

Living and Working Filling Up

Once or twice during the year I teach a course called "Living and Working in a Virtual World". When I first introduced the course, about 11 students signed up and it went through its inaugural quarter. Some students thought it was too technical and some thought it was not technical enough.

One of the reasons I started this blog was to support the course. Activity here picks up whenever it is being taught. Among the reasons that the activity increase occurs is that I am more active in discussing the topics that would best be posted here.

Easily the most active day on this blog is during our virtual scavenger hunt.

As of today, there are 30 students enrolled in the class and I have opened up some additional spots. This could be interesting.

For those students who have stumbled across this blog before the quarter has begun, you may want to scan back through the posts (excluding the origami and theater ones) to get a feel for some of the things we will be discussing.

Riding, Rafting, Floating, Hiking

Got off the horse around two hours ago after a morning ride through the trails down by the river. I've been down the river twice so far and likely to hit it again very soon. The first was in a canoe with a young'n the second was solo in a kayak. Been up to Tumalo Falls for a hike and on many bike rides.

The deer are out in force with a family of six cutting through by the cabin nearly daily. Last night the coyote's howled it up at around 3:00am and I've spotted a few blue heron's down by the river.

This morning is the first time I've touched a keyboard in a week, and it will be a few days more before I type again.

End of Quarter Colloquium Today

Photo credit to the UWT's rotating display of images from the campus.

Today is the last Friday of the Summer quarter 2008 here at the University of Washington, Tacoma, and for the Institute of Technology, that means student presentations on research, readings, internships and graduate capstone projects. End of quarter colloquiums occur four times during the year on the Friday prior to finals week.

There is a lighter number of presentations than usual today, which is surprising to me because there is so much going on within the CSE and CSS programs. However, to be eligible for course credit in our program you have to complete a set of core courses which in effect means you are of senior status. A number of juniors were looking to intern this Summer, and though many were unable to gain course credit (which means no end of quarter presentation), many they still were able to gain experience and no doubt earn some money.

This morning, an alumni sent word of twenty programmer positions opening in Issaquah and a week doesn't go by that I am contacted by a company or organization looking for Bachelor of Science graduates or seniors who can intern or apply.

Which is why I am pleased that this Fall quarter for 2008 looks to be the largest enrollment of students for the Institute since its inception. The counts are not official and there is still a month to go before school begins, but it looks like we will be enrolling around 200 or so future software developers, database architects and computer engineers come October.

Husky Escaping Cranes and Display

Not too long ago I held a small workshop at the UWT library on floral origami. Since that time the library hosted librarians from all the campuses over the weekend. As one of the many preparations for the event, they wanted to change over some of the displays and asked if I would be willing to showcase some origami, with contributions from the workshop.

The workshop was fun, and as part of it we made some simple tulips, the traditional origami lily and some compound roses. You can see the tulips on the bulletin board that was created from the workshop and you can catch some of the lily's in the floral display case. The folks who were there were fun to create with and were gracious in letting some of the end models be used.



Additionally, I assembled one of my favorite projects which I call "escaping cranes". You may have seen them on this blog before. This time I went with the host colors and created a "Husky Escaping Cranes". For some reason I had a difficult time focusing the darn camera, so I don't have a good long shot as yet. I have included a poorly shot version just to give you an idea.



If you would like to make some cranes as part of a larger project, save Oct 9th and come by the UWT library for another workshop.