Outside of mass-consumption commercial interests, advanced technologies can be relied upon to have prosaic names that tell you exactly what they are. Hence, no illusions over the nature of the European Southern Observatory’s proposed ‘European Extremely Large Telescope’ – it will be a European telescope of ridiculously prodigious size, whose final design stages have just been funded and authorised.

Ever wondered why it is that so much of the technology we consider to be ubiquitous is so prone to malfunction after a short life-span? Here’s someone sympathetic to my cynical belief that broken gadgets are the best way to sell new ones.

Police in Arizona are using a laser gun that can measure the distance between two cars in an effort to catch tailgaters. About effin’ time, as far as I’m concerned — I’d much rather see people getting tickets for tailgating than speeding. [slashdot]

Boeing-Spectrolab, with Department of Energy funding, has produced a solar concentrator cell that converts light to electricity at 40 percent efficiency. Compare that with the current standard of 12 to 18 percent — solar’s going to take on a bigger piece of the power pie soon. [slashdot]

Someday I’m going to quit pussyfooting around with Linux and get serious about my geekitude (youtube). When I do, the The Linux Equivalent Project will be a great resource for getting my software needs fulfilled. [digg]