Phyco.org News

The MediaWiki Bad Behavior extension has been causing some problems, I have noticed. I haven't logged in for a while, so I don't know how long this has been going on.
However, I plan to post some updates to Phyco.org soon, and also, I have upgraded the extension, fixing the problem.
Also, my contact information has been updated. See the Members section for more details.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

The conference was a huge success! Lots of awesome people attended, a lot of cool networking occurred, and the classes were very informative. I've got about a dozen pages of notes about various things that I would like to share through this wiki. Also, remember that in many of these blog posts, they hold more extended information in the link.

One of the questions asked at the conference was 'Could algae cellulose be processed into ethanol?'
The big problem here is that algae do not produce cellulose, but instead produce something much better for fermentation; simple sugars. This is due to the algae's lack of a cell wall.
I've known this for the last few months, but didn't think much of it until they asked this question. Then my heart sank, as I realized that algal cellulose was mentioned several times on this wiki.
I'm in the process of correcting this error. I just want to set everyone straight, though; algae do not usually produce cellulose.

Getting back to the conference itself, there were some really awesome classes. Most of them focused on various aspects of biodiesel; there were generally two tracks for the conference-- one that focused on the business aspects of biodiesel (planning, distribution, case studies), and the other on the technical aspects of biodiesel (safety, production, testing).

Some of the interesting people I met there were:
* Bob Armantrout of Biodiesel Industries, a real visionary and has lots of hands-on knowledge on the commercial production of biodiesel -- http://www.biodieselindustries.com/
* Michael Mullins and Jason Burroughs of DieselGreen Fuels, awesome guys with an amazing amount of experience in the distribution of biodiesel -- http://www.dieselgreenfuels.com/
* Two guys with a keen interest in making algae in a free and practical manner, Charles Rich and Vince Renteria, want to include me in their plans for a Southern California project. Algae there grows year-round!
* Another cool person there, Tony Cobian from Boulder, has some big ideas for algae.

Also, a big thanks goes to Graydon Blair, Jonathan Meuser, and John Bush for putting on this conference!

This year's conference begins tomorrow! I'm very excited, and I'll try to take notes and bring back some good information.
http://www.collectivebiodiesel.org/

Phyco.org has been under neglect for about a year now. I recognize this, and I must apologize to our small community for not doing my job. I have cleaned up a good deal of the spam on this site, and I will work on adding new content soon.
An update on my personal life-- I have been working closely with algae for the past two months, at the Environmental Sciences and Engineering department at the Colorado School of Mines, courtesy of Jon Meuser and Matt Posewitz. I fully intend to add the knowledge I have gained from this experience to this wiki.

Phyco.org has been upgraded to MediaWiki version 1.9.0, which implements a number of new features, bug fixes, and incompatibilities with old Phyco.org extensions. Old features will be re-implemented over the next few days with newer versions of the extensions.

Whew! That was a long absence. Nobody did much of anything with the wiki while I was gone, which is rather disappointing.

Another feature that will be implemented over the next few days will be Bad Behavior 2.0, a spam blocking program. It's been out for a while, and as I said in a previous post, it would be a good idea to use it. The developer seems very competent. Perhaps then I could enable comments on this blog.

To those who come here from the Co-op Conference in Golden, Colorado, please re-visit this site during the next few weeks. We will soon have more information from Jonathan Meuser's stimulating presentation. This is a wiki; feel free to muck around and perhaps even add information! Also, be sure to head over to our affiliate: OilAlgae.com.

What a great conference! I sure had a lot of fun. I'm sad, however, that many people got turned away after registration closed. At any rate, it was a great event, and many people have been turned on to the idea of algae. Perhaps we'll get more visitors and our community will grow. Thanks to Mark Fischer for creating the forum community of OilAlgae.com, as well.

The Phyco.org Member Map North America is online:
Member Map North America

Instructions as to how to add your name are on the page. Sorry if I
wasn't very descriptive, but it should be relatively simple.

If you wish to make a Member Map for your own country or region, do
this:
1) Create a new page, IE "Member Map Australia"
2) Follow the usage here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/
Google_Maps_Extension#Usage
3) Experiment with what settings look best for your member map
4) Spread the word about Phyco.org Member Maps!

Please tell me if you think I should change anything on the page--
Or, better yet, do it yourself. :P

As work on the Algae Cultivation & Processing Primer goes slowly, I have taken the first step in creating a multilingual wiki:
http://en.phyco.org/
Please use that domain for future use. The old wiki will remain online, but its database will be locked.

My work on a photobioreactor concept goes well. I will be able to upload a preliminary version soon.

I would also like to thank the ever-helpful Sneaky_Bastard of #apache on irc.freenode.net.

To Brion Vibber: Yo, I have to kiss you, coz these guys gave me thirty bucks. :)

There are two things happening at Phyco.org right now:
1. A few people have expressed interest in creating an Algae Cultivation & Processing Primer. I'm working with these people to make this a reality.
2. I'm attempting to add even more functionality to Phyco.org. Expect multilingual wikis sometime soon!
Click for more.

I'm glad that there's interest in making an algae primer. I'm hoping that this primer will make the concept of oil from algae, as well as Phyco.org, more popular. Already, the statistics for Phyco.org are through the roof compared to those of last month, and the month before.

About the multilingual wikis, I'm really struggling with that aspect right now. If anyone is familiar with setting up Apache, please contact me. I need a few tips. Also, please contact me if you would like to offer to translate pages on Phyco.org. Translators are, of course, essential to this project.

As an added note, spam has been getting out of control on this blog. I added a feature that I had hoped would differentiate spammers from people, a Captcha, but unfortunately I don't have some libraries necessary to make that work. I need serious help with this webhosting thing. At any rate, the Captcha breaks the commenting system here, making it so that no one can post anything. That includes spam. Mission accomplished. If you wish to contact me, my details are on the wiki, and you may also post on the Oil From Algae Yahoo mailing list.

If you're unhappy with all the recent spam, please donate to the Bad Behavior project. Once the developer has completed version 2.0 of his software, I will then install it.

The problem I've found is that spammers have developed a new method of spamming, so the regular stuff won't work. Sort of like antibiotic resistance.
I'll most likely update the MediaWiki software running this site sometime soon, as well.
I'm glad that this website can be of use to the few people who visit.