Since the 2006 elections, the cruft level at DailyKos has become unprecedentedly (is that a word?) high.  That is my view from the cheap seats where we mostly-lurkers hang out, eating ballpark hotdogs and swilling beer (or maybe eating canapes and swilling pinot grigio in the opera balcony).  I guess it is since there are no actual elections to focus folks' attention, as was the case then, but everyone is all over the map with many of the the goofiest postings I have seen here in years.

Herewith, I note a few methods I use to filter diaries down to those that might possibly have some interesting content (jump over the shark with me).

The recent discussions, here and elsewhere, about Microsoft claiming that Linux and Open Office infringe on 235 of their patents moves me to this diary about software (really algorithm) patents in general.  Please join me Over The Shark.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO, with the American Solar Energy Society, has published a report (180pp, 10GB PDF download) about technologies developable now to address global warming via carbon emission reduction within the 2030 timeframe.  The overall editor is NREL's Charles Kutcher, with a Forward by NASA's James Hansen.

The front page is here, and the Table of Contents offers downloads of individual papers (also PDF).  These are much-reviewed technical articles; if you look at only one, Kutcher's "Overview and Summary of the Studies" (38pp) should be it.

I referred to the last paper in this collection in a previous posting.  I really like the U.S. map that shows near-universal availablilty of geothermal energy (at 6km down!).

Complete Table of Contents is around the corner.

MIT Technology Review has an interview with Jefferson Tester, a chemical engineer at MIT who has been researching new technologies for accessing geothermal energy sources almost anywhere on earth, to generate electricity at costs competitive with using fossil fuels.

While Iceland and California have exploited easy-to-use geothermal energy for decades, technologies developed for oil extraction can be adapted to make practical geothermal facilities anywhere.  In total, there is so much available energy that harnessing a small fraction of 1% of it could supply enough electricity, near where it is needed, to run everything that could connect or run off a battery.  As a bonus, this is a virtually pollution-free energy source.

Tester has co-authored a technical article containing lots of quantitative information with a friend of mine, another chemical engineer, who works at NREL in Golden, CO.  I've seen and commented on a draft, as an "educated ignoramus", since they want their paper to be a little more widely accessible.  IMHO, this is A Big Deal.