Java Book... Gooood!

Browsing through the IT wiki at work, I came across a link to “Thinking in Java” by Bruce Eckel. So besides being a programming guru with oodles of experience, he is an established technical author that gives his books away on the Web. Sweet! “Thinking in Java” is the kind of book you wish you had read first, before the Deitels and O’reillys. This book gets it right from the outset by talking about how you get you head into the subject matter. The typical approach it to start defining features and giving examples. Boring to your average wannabe code monkey. What Eckel does (IMHO) is bring the topic to life with actual writing style. Read this book first, then browse through the others for reference and code variety.

Hydrogen Fuel Cells and You

http://world.honda.com/FuelCell/

This is a very exciting technology, I just hope the test release goes well, and that Honda [honda.com] can begin full scale production. The initial release will only see a very limited test market in the southern California area. With a $600/month lease price, it is not exactly being marketed to the average Joe. The real question to be asked, is will Honda sell these at a loss for the first few years to get them into the mainstream of the market place like Toyota [toyota.com] did with the Prius? I hope so.

AMP Motorworks [ampmotorworks.com] has developed another vehicle that some people can get their hands on in the near future. This Cincinnati startup is converting the Saturn Sky [to a full electric high performance sports car. The first 300 'Charter Members' will see a price point of about $50K - $60K, but as wee all know it does not take very long for prices in the new technology sector to fall.