Billionaire oilman, philanthropist T. Bone Pickens has a plan to wean us our dependence on energy imports. He plans on building the worlds largest wind farm. It’s a far more detailed plan than either presidential candidate has laid out. But then again, the best plans always rise from the private sector.

From Forbes:

At 80 the oilman and financier is healthy and having some of his best years in business. “Of all the taxes I’ve paid, 90% of them were after I was 70,” says Pickens, who forwarded $200 million of his capital gains to the U.S. Treasury last year. Worth $3 billion at last count, he’s still drilling for oil and buying water rights. His Mesa Energy in May bought 667 wind turbines from GE and has spent $2 billion so far developing a 4-gigawatt wind farm, the world’s biggest, in the Texas panhandle.

From Cleantechnica:

When one of Texas’s richest oil men bets big on wind energy, it gets attention. Yesterday NPR’s Living on Earth broadcast an interview with Mr. Pickens, who shared the salient facts about his planned wind project:

• It will be the largest in the world, he reckons, at 4,000 megawatts
• It will provide enough power for 1,300,000 homes
• It’s a $10 billion dollar project from which he plans a 15%-25% profit

Asked why he is investing in wind now, Pickens replied:

“For a number of years I’ve watched the wind turbines develop — and I feel like it’s time for it. I think that oil has peaked at 85 million barrels in the world. We’ve got to develop other forms of energy — wind, I think solar will be next, and I hope I’m still around to be in the solar deal.” (Pickens is 80 years old.

So Pickens has a plan. Sounds like a good one. I applaud this man for stepping up and doing something with his brain and his money.

Most posters these days are either tired or boring. So it’s refreshing to see some very unique retro inspired posters. Check ‘em out over at theposterlist.com. These babies are definitely worth the paper they’re printed on. Only $11 bucks! ($10.99 to be exact)

What’s the best way to avoid paying $8 bucks a beer at a concert? Simply bring it along in your fake Beerbelly. What a concept. Its surprising that no one else thought of it before. What to do if you already have a beer belly? No worries, you just gained another 20 pounds overnight. I mean, who’s going to notice anyhow?

Don’t worry girls – they have a product just for you. It’s called the Winerack and it’s just like you guessed it. A bra that you fill up with – what else – wine!

This kid is amazing! The fact that he’s doing it all on a unicycle is unbelievable.

Here’s a site that animates anything you type. It takes your type and animates via flash with the male and female sign. To see the animation again, simply mouse over. To give it a whirl, click on the mindtoss type.

Tonight, while rummaging through some of my flickr photos, it dawned on me that I snapped these photos 10 years ago! All were taken on a very early Sony digital camera. Each image, at full resolution, is a whopping 72dpi and 1024 x 768. Very primitive compared to today’s cameras. The photos were taken in and around Miami, Florida.

There is a grainy dull quality that I just love. To see all the photos from this set, click here.

Imaging cruising the outback in this killer all terrain camper custom built by Unicat. It’s not really a garbage truck but it sure does resemble one. The windows are only visible when the camper is parked. Once parked the roof raises to reveal windows and to give the much needed headroom for the kitchen and loft bedroom. This is also a built in security feature. More photos are available here.

These flags charts are the striking work of Brazillian artist Icaro Doria. Each flag is amazing and overwhelming at the same time. Although the representation may not be 100% accurate, they certainly make a point.

Click the link below to see larger versions of the flag

Via brazilianartists.net

Would you post your secrets online? Even if it you would remain anonymous? These folks did over at postsecret.blogspot.com. It’s interesting that you have to write on a postcard and actually mail it in via snail mail. Now that takes effort!

After spending five and a half hours on the tarmac in Austin Texas late last year, It was interesting to read that 2007 was one of the worst travel years on record.

Here are a few of my favorites from a USAtoday article:

• A passenger in first class on a British Airways Delhi-London flight in March awoke to discover that a corpse, upgraded from coach, had been propped in a seat in his row.”She kept slipping under the seat belt and moving about with the motion of the plane,” Paul Trinder told Britain’s Sunday Times. “When I asked what was going on, I was shocked to hear she was dead.”
• A 64-year-old man was hospitalized earlier this month after chugging a liter of vodka rather than surrendering it at a checkpoint in Germany’s Nuremberg airport.
• SkyWest airlines apologized to a passenger who said he was forced to urinate in an airsickness bag during a short flight in March because the only restroom was closed due to a malfunctioning light. The man told the Salt Lake Tribune he’d had two “really big beers. It was like I had no choice.” The pilot called police upon landing in Salt Lake, but the airline later gave the passenger a travel voucher in addition to the apology.
• In July, a flight from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Turkey turned back after the crew was unable to break up a fight involving three inebriated men. It started, said the Russian News and Information Agency, when one of the men was “given the cold shoulder” by a woman he was chatting up and hit her in the face.
• Toilets overflowed on an Amsterdam-Newark flight on Continental Airlines in June, causing passenger Collin Brock to tell a Seattle television station King 5 News, “I was forced to sit next to human excrement for seven hours.”
• Passengers weren’t the only ones guilty of bad behavior in 2007. In April, a Northwest Airlines pilot locked himself in an airline restroom, where he had a loud, obscenity-laced conversation on his cellphone as passengers boarded his flight in Las Vegas. When confronted by a passenger, the pilot cussed at him. The flight was canceled as a result of “inappropriate language by a crewmember,” the airline said.
• A stowaway squirrel on an American Airlines flight from Tokyo to Dallas in February caused the plane to land in Honolulu. An airline spokesman told the Associated Press the pilots were worried the “varmint” might damage the plane’s wiring.
• Nepal Airlines personnel sacrificed two goats on the runway in front of a malfunctioning Boeing 757 to appease the “Hindu god of sky protection,” Reuters wire service reported in September. After the goat sacrifice, the plane took off for Hong Kong.
• Not even Vatican-backed Mistral Air was willing to appeal to a higher power when authorities confiscated holy water from pilgrims returning from the Roman Catholic shrine at Lourdes, France. The airline’s president cited rules that ban carry-on containers holding more than 3 ounces of liquid, telling the Associated Press, “These (regulations) have to be respected.”

[Thanks JC]

Faith SFX is a talented beatboxer. It’s great how he grabs regular people of the street and has them beatboxing in no time.

Sure there are a lot of cool iPhone / iPod Touch stands out there. This one is 100% green! Never tested on animals and completely recyclable.
[Hint, it will also work with a $1 bill]

via swissmiss