Books & Music...

OK, let's be honest -- most of us are still looking for our genius side, forget good and evil. But in Gavin D.J. Harper's book Solar Energy Projects for the Evil Genius, Harper appeals to the eco enthusiast by showing you how to turn some everyday electrical possessions into objects powered by the sun.

Harper's book may seem like a working contradiction of sorts as he explains some environmental issues like telling someone for the first time what global warming is then unloads a diagram on you to convert something into being powered by the sun. However, any book that shows you how to make a solar-powered hot dog cooker is hot!

Enjoy this green nugget ... and go make something useful--and solar:

"As present, the bulk of our energy comes from fossil fuels—gas, coal, and oil. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons, that is to say that if we look at them chemically, they are wholly composed of hydrogen and carbon atoms. The thing about hydrocarbons is that, when combined with the oxygen in the air and heat, they react exothermically (they give out heat). This heat is useful, and is used directly as a useful form of energy in itself, or is converted into other forms of energy like kinetic or electrical energy that can be used to "do some work," in other words, perform a useful function. ...

"Even the fossil fuels which we are burning at an unsustainable rate at the moment, actually originally came from the sun. Fossil fuels are the remains of dead animal and plant matter that have been subject to extreme temperature and pressure over millions of years. Those animals fed on the plants that were around at the time (and other animals) and those plants grew as a result of the solar energy that was falling on the earth."