This week's theme: helping Hawaii be more eco-tech-friendly.

1) Keep Act 221 to high-tech, and make a new act specifically for television and movie production. The two industries have different needs, timelines, and budgets, so why not incentivize them differently - and keep the controversy out of Act 221 at the same time?

"Hawaii back in spotlight - Isle workers are excited by the flood of possibilities from Hollywood":

2) Support blending ethanol with gasoline, and support the growth of local ethanol manufacturers. Which raw (waste) materials are cost-effective to import to Hawaii to produce ethanol? Does importing have to be done?:

"Ethanol bill heads to committee":

A company has found a way to develop ethanol from waste straw and wood chips on a commercial scale, a world first:

3) How about this for a cleanup-inducing pilot project? But use the voices of well-known locals:

Berlin's pilot program of talking trash cans that congratulate you when used have proven to be a huge hit, prompting some citizens to go back for more:

4) Endorse the use of lead-free computer systems, at least by government:

The world's first lead-free motherboard (the main component in personal computers) has been developed!

And Intel plans to cut the lead content of computer chips by 95%:

5) Support sustainable architecture and treat architecture as part of the environment:

"The McMansion Next Door - Why the American house needs a makeover" (10/2003):

The first fully-sustainable house has been developed - it's powered by solar and runs entirely on hydrogen:

Taking another cue from nature, airplane wings that morph in flight like a bird's with fish-like scales are being developed:

A review of the first electronic paper- based reading device and its implications for libraries, books, and traditional reading habits:

A new technology using nanowires promises storage capacities of 40GB per square centimeter:

With five million installed systems, the open-source database MySQL is the most popular database in the world. Its corporate site receives more traffic than IBM's, and large companies are migrating to it from Oracle. How did it get so popular? This article explains the phenomenon:

The winners of the 2004 "Lyttle Lytton" contest, for the worst opening line:

Some of the best entries in a Photoshop contest. Theme: merge two animals!

Here's two of the grooviest Flash-based movies I've seen in a while:

A new take on an old art form? Nifty homemade "lava light" movies:

Voting machines company Diebold may face criminal charges:

One third of email is now spam:

Due to a budget crisis in California, the U.C. college system is turning away eligible students for the first time in over 40 years:

Dissatisfied with the mainland, a lot of people are moving to New Zealand these days, leading to a housing boom and sketchy developments:

Like the razor and the toothbrush, the yo-yo is getting more and more seriously high-tech:

Gone are the days of the fix-it-yourselfer - new cars are getting too complicated to fix:

A fellow dot-com veteran invents a new "Clip-n-Seal" product in hopes that it will finally get him out of Web design:

"Hawaii tops nation in extinctions":

"Rate of Ocean Circulation Directly Linked to Abrupt Climate Change":

Study: "less soft drinks reduces obesity":

If you listen to a CD I give you, will you be busted? As part of a nationwide crackdown, the FBI raided Deer Valley High School:

RIAA Radar has been around for a while now, but their tools are getting better - support non-RIAA labels and check out their top 100 lists - there's some great music here:

Technology has been developed that takes images of old, damaged vinyl records and produces restored music. Many ramifications for the historical preservation of recordings: