Everyone is feeling the crunch with the rise in gas prices. Higher gas prices not only affect our pockets but that of companies. Higher gas prices leads to higher costs for all goods that you purchase. It leads to higher costs for air travel as well. It is just one factor in our great economic struggle that is building.

On top of the high gas prices is the mass exodus of American jobs. As many businesses close their doors and even Starbucks is closing 600 stores, we will see a yearly job loss perhaps as high 1 million jobs by the end of 2008.

That’s 1 million new people living on welfare, or food stamps, or collecting unemployment. That’s 1 million people potentially homeless if things don’t change…

But there is a shining sun behind every storm cloud, and here’s an opportunity that I’m taking to make some lemonade from the lemons, so to speak.

First off I’m going to give ways to save on gas, as I’m sure we all could benefit from these:

1. Take walks to save gas. Not only will you be burning less gas, but you will start burning more calories, and who can’t afford a little less gut these days?
2. Buy / Ride a bicycle instead. Heck even a horse and buggy would be better and more cost effective if you can afford one, and it’s of course legal in your area to ride one. Of course an added benefit of riding a bike is it helps the environment and helps your waistline.
3. Carpool if you can. This is an obvious way. If two people are going to the same place it just makes sense that they share the trip.
4. Plan each trip that you take. Knowing exactly where you’re going and having a plan, will help you to not get lost, or distracted. If you have a goal of where you’re going, you won’t spend extra gas / time driving around looking for what you need or want to do.
5. Learn fuel-efficient driving. Experts relate that it’s possible to save as much as 25-30% off your fuel if you make a few simple changes to your driving. These include:
   • Turning off the engine for stops over 10 seconds long - Idling is never good for your car or gas mileage - and idling to warm up your car is bad read more.
   • Keep a moderate speed. Don’t drive above 60mph, and be use your cruise control to maintain a consistent speed.
   • Make sure tires are properly inflated.
   • If driving a car with a manual transmission, be sure to drive in the correct gear for your situation.
   • Know when to use the A/C and when to turn it off and roll down the windows. A good rule of thumb is when it’s hot use your windows for city miles, and roll them up and turn on the A/C for highway miles. When driving higher speeds having the window down creates drag, but when driving slower having the A/C on can lower your gas mileage.
   • Drive smoothly, avoid rapid acceleration and hard braking. Try to maintain a steady speed. If you can coast down hills and try to keep your foot off the break as much as possible.
6. Buy tires with lower rolling resistence. Less friction means less wasted energy means more money saved.
7. Don’t buy premium gas unless you absolutely have to. If you’re car is designed to run on regular, premium won’t help it, and will just eat up your money.
8. Buy a fuel efficient car. Of course most of us can’t afford a new car right now with the economy the way it is - but buying a fuel efficient car or hybrid will save you gas in the long run. If you’re debating a vehicle purchase anyways, you might as well buy one that will save you hundred a year in gas. When gas hits $7 per gallon in 2010 (just 2 years), you will be glad you bought that hybrid.
9. Get cash-back on your gas purchases. Last but not least, try getting a credit card that pays cash-back on gas purchases, a good one to get is the Discover more card. You’ll receive around 5% back for gas purchases. Apply for the Discover® More Card
   

Alrighty I’ve talked long and hard now about how to save money on gas, now let me tell you why I believe that the hike in gas prices may be a blessing in disguise. Here are ___ reasons:

1. It gets gas guzzlers off the road. Due to the high gas prices many people are trading their SUVs and Hummers for smaller more efficient cars.
2. Of course with less traffic, means better environment. There’s less emissions, and so at least the environment may stand a chance of healing itself.
3. New green technologies are on the rise. With people struggling to pay for gas, green technology companies are growing in leaps and bounds. The technological advances that the higher gas prices have brought is extraordinary to say the least.
4. High gas will help stamp out Obesity. How? People who can’t afford to drive will walk more, take bikes, or take public transportation - but even with public transportation you still end up walking more than if you were driving yourself around.
5. People are now taking closer look at finances. People are in debt over their heads, they’re losing their cars and houses at record rates. With the rise in gas prices people are watching every little penny. Gas prices bring up the prices for just about everything that people buy, when everything costs more we’re each going to have to take a hard look and decide if we need a plasma tv or if we can make do with our 32 inch old style tube tv.
6. Higher gas prices will lead to better public transportation. Now that people can’t afford to drive themselves around, we need to relook at our methods of public transportation. In Europe you can travel to almost any big city by train, I think we need to look at our current rail systems and possibly expand them.
7. The rising fuel costs are leading to more gas friendly perks for their employees. Some employees are beginning to allow telecommuting, some are switching to a 4 day work week instead of the traditional 5 hour. Utah is implementing a plan to make all government jobs work four 10 hour work days instead of five. This not only saves the workers’ gas, but it also cuts back on the costs of energy to run their computers, and the lights in their offices. Of course important jobs like emergency personell will still work normal shifts, but this will be a huge experiment to see how much it will affect the environment.
8. Less travelling means better communities. As people are travelling less to see friends, and relatives they will need to reach out to each other for their socializing needs. People will stay closer to home, and the community will grow as a result.
9. Finally, the government may actually consider increasing fuel economy standards. In Europe - non-hybrid cars routinely get 50+ miles per gallon. In America we’re stuck with cars(non-hybrid) that get 30 mpg or less. Maybe we’ll get some of the European models.
10. High gas prices may help the internet. If you blog, or run an online business, high gas prices may actually help you out, if people can’t leave their homes they’ll stay home and surf the net, which could mean more advertising dollars for your blog or website.

Also - I’m going to take this moment to let you know about a contest running. You can win a free $25 gas card, and who couldn’t use this? Check out the contest here, or Read some tips from their site on  “Saving Money at the Gas Pump”

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Lasers may Revolution the way data is passed on Computers, replacing wires completely.

Sun has begun research on a new computing technology that may or may not even be possible.

Currently, there are thousands of small wires that run along the motherboard and other cards that are used in computers.

Those wires are a lot of what causes a computer to run slow, and need time to think.

Sun is researching a method of using lasers instead of wires, this could theoretically speed up computers by 10000x after all what’s faster than the speed of light?
Moore’s law states in laymen’s terms that technology basically doubles every two years, (in technical terms, it states that the # of transistors that can be inexpensively put on a circuit board doubles every 2 years)…

The reason I bring that up is that with this new technology, which they say has a 50% chance of failing altogether - they are boasting that it would destroy Moore’s law.

I personally think it’s pretty cool, probably wouldn’t show up in personal computers for 5-10 years, if it’s possible, but the speed would be pretty amazing.

Related Links:
 

• Sun Microsystems: Breakin’ the law, Breakin’ the law? 
• Replacing Wire With Laser, Sun Tries to Speed Up Data - New York Times
• Sun aims to speed up data by swapping wires for frickin’ laser beams