DISQUS

It's not working for me. But I just realized something: I have my blog set up as a Custom RSS/Atom feed. Is that it?

Looks like maybe someone tweaked it last night. It's rendering just like Firefox now. :-)

Great upgrades. Looks nice in Firefox, Giannii, but it's ugly in Safari. Be happy to send you a capture ...

With threaded comments, the blog owner can easily comment on a comment to highlight its importance. This feature is now live in WordPress 2.7, and in distributed comment systems such as Disqus and Intense Debate.

TypePad comments, too, come to think of it. All three support social media profiles to a greater or lesser extend, along with user voting, Open ID, and so on.

There's a lot not far down the turnpike.

Wwelcome Anton and Giannii -- and we're all looking forward to seeing the shiny new toys. ESPECIALLY the spam control improvements. :-)

Mike, thanks for including me on this list! Some great folks here ...

I'm the same: my iPhone is tucked in my pocket right now, well away from Sol's influence.

I suppose an iPod might be exposed more often (I don't own one). But assuming the efficiency of small solar cells remains similar to current technology, I have to wonder what sort of device Apple plans to mate with this technology. A laptop, maybe? A tablet device? Surely something more likely to be exposed to ambient lighting.

Glad you found us, Rita. Yes: as we mentioned in Friday's Daily Five, predictions of runaway oil prices tend to be self-fulfilling. Ultimately, however, high prices tamp down consumer demand -- forcing price reductions. Little comfort with fuel prices driving up everything they touch.

Today's runaway oil prices are, unfortunately, just a taste of what will happen as supplies really begin to thin out.

The Solio is a fun little device which is primarily marketed as a charger for use in remote areas or in emergency situations (which is why I have mine). It's green in the sense that it's a cute demonstration of solar power -- the first most people will have ever put their hands on. Anything which makes solar power real to new users is a good thing.

Shabazz is right: a $100 investment can save you a lot more energy than the Solio. I have a Kill-a-Watt on my desk right now, and it's an eye opener. $30 will buy you a decent set of NiMH batteries and a charger these days, and devices like the GreenPlug power strip will keep unused electronics from leeching power without much thought from the user. You could get two of these energy savers (maybe all three) for about the price of a Solio, and they're well worth the money.

$100 will also outfit several rooms with CFLs, weatherstrip a bunch of windows, or replace a standard home thermostat with a smart model that will recoup its purchase price in energy savings within several months, depending on your particular needs.

I'm sure we'll be reviewing all of these. As far as this site or any other being a green marketing tool, we'll be talking about a lot of products and companies as we go along. We'll call out the greenwashers and praise the innovators on their merits. But if the green revolution isn't in the marketplace, it's not a "revolution" at all. It's just posturing.

@Marshall: Thanks for the nice words on your site. I agree that alternative fuel vehicles have a way to go, but petroleum is going the way of the Dodo bird. In 50 years, whatever is left of our dwindling reserves will be unaffordable for transportation as we currently know it.

@Dave: I thought this article was on target: "Renewable Energy Is Not the Answer."

http://postgreen.com/2008/05/05/renewable-energ...

Conservation is our best first play, period.

@Farhan: The YouTube video just loaded for me. But the video is also available on Urwerk's site:

http://www.urwerk.com/watches_200.asp

Enjoy.

@sonomabob: It helps because that light energy can now be harvested using much smaller solar cells, sharply reducing cost of deployment and the array's overall footprint.

@Marnus: Several people have suggested various heat-harvesting ideas. I can't speak for the designers, but I'm thinking there are two reasons SUNRGI hasn't done this: keeping the cost down, and prioritizing the reliability of their system. More stuff means more to break, though I agree there's heat a-wasting.

I really think this is a step forward. The really exiting part is that five cents per kw/h might actually be beatable as technology improves and production scales up.

We've really left alternative energy development too late: the cheap oil is gone, and building new infrastructure will take decades. But I'm convinced that if we get over the hump, the Age of Fossil Fuels will seem as quaint to our immediate descendants as the Bronze Age seemed to those who learned to hammer their world flat in iron and steel.

@MattKelly: A bit pricey, I agree. A top-quality commuter bicycle will set you back about $1500. Electric assist, if you want it.

@BGreen: After the 2008 U.S. Presidential primary season, I don't think you'll find too many people who wouldn't go for a shorter election cycle. ;-)

I was actually a bit surprised at the negative tone toward hydrogen taken in the WSJ article. Honda seems to think it's worth pursuing. We'll see how their real-world road testing goes.

Thanks much, Jordan and Jolly Green Girl. Our official site launch is next week, but it looks as if everything is working fine. Hope you'll be reading along.

This isn't new, and it certainly isn't secret.

I don't have a commercial relationship with StumbleUpon. I'm just a blogger and a regular SU user (my screen name is moreminimal).

> No one else I quizzed about it seemed to have heard about it either, so it very well could be new, or just a well kept secret.

It's nota secret from Google, and you could have found this SU page with that handy little search box on the corner of your browser:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/ads/

It should answer most of the questions you raise here -- particularly that of disclosure. paid stumbles display a special symbol on the toolbar:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/promote_faq.html#dif...

Most stumblers know this. If the site is crap, it gets a thumbs down. If not, I generally treat a sponsored site like any other.

> I can tell you that the pricing on the traffic is very steep, especially when compared with pop-under traffic (which is what this type of monetization is closest to).

Have you priced AdWords recently? SU is a bargain. As you point out, it's quality traffic.

I'm looking at one of my site's metrics right now. The bounce rate from Digg traffic is about 75%. From SU, it's 32%. This is because the traffic is so qualified: Stumblers are actually looking for what you offer, and tend to explore a good-looking site once they arrive.

I value Stumblers as much as my direct traffic. A nickel per would be quite reasonable, though I've never needed to actually buy stumbles.

About the only thing SU doesn't seem to do for me is push RSS subscriptions. I think this is because Stumblers prefer to spend their discretionary browsing time in discovery mode, rather than on Google Reader.

In any case, I don't think paid SU traffic represents any imminent threat to the quality of the StumbleUpon user experience.

The fix worked well: thanks.

I chose to make the corrections manually, rather than risk formatting characters from the cut-and-paste. And, like Francois, I was unable to get my term option to save until I changed the term_ID to term_id.

Seems to be all good now. :-)