I returned from Sydney on Saturday evening, and although I was going to do my own take on the experience, my travelling companion has done a marvelous job of recounting the adventure.
I will however point to some photos I took while there, over here.

Using the sun to create fuel cells
One quote that will disrupt the proponents of wind farms:
Nocera cites a calculation by Caltech chemist Nathan Lewis that power demands in 2050 will be so great that just to keep carbon dioxide emissions at twice preindustrial levels, a nuclear plant would have to be built every two days. […]

While trying to find out the NZ Telco plans for the internet infrastructure here, I stumbled across this. Being pedantic and frustrated at being unable to have a worthwhile say in the next election I wrote the following letter:

Dear Sir/Madam,
The following paragraph:
“The existence of software with known vulnerabilities running on machines connected to the Internet […]

Such a classic hacker quote, but I only just found out its source:
Stewart Brand, the editor of the Whole Earth Catalog, said it while speaking at the first Hacker’s Conference in 1984. The transcript of the conference printed in Brand’s May 1985 issue reads: “On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it’s […]