Will Allen fishing for tilapia by cpentecost via flickr Earlier this year, Sami recognized the good work of the organization Growing Power. The John D and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation took the praise one step further and named the organization's co-founder and CEO as a "MacArthur Genius". Will Allen is one of over two dozen recipients - including doctors, scientists and artists - of the foundation's $500,000 no strings attached fellowship award for 2008. Check out the foundation...

One of the largest wind farms in development, onshore or offshore, the 1 gigawatt London Array just got one step closer to reality. Abu Dhabi’s Masdar— of self-proclaimed zero carbon city and alternative energy investment fund fame—just announced that it has acquired a 20% stake in the project. The on-again, off-again, offshore wind farm has had a rocky road in the past few years, but hopefully with the participation of Masdar the £1.5 billion ($2.55 billion)...

photo: Chandra Marsono Now that the legislative dust seems to have settled and the issue of renewable energy tax incentives resolved, at least for the time being, in the United States it might be tempting to overlook the following announcement coming out of Gainesville, Florida, but you shouldn’t. In a plan outlined on Monday, Gainesville has indicated that it is considering adopting feed-in-tariffs for renewable energy along the lines of the program which has enabled Germany to become a world leader in the industry. If adopted, the plan would be the first of its kind in the nation:...

This is a reconstruction of a previously published post lost when a Porsche crashed into our server farm. A commenter at BoingBoing noted that our roundup of container housing did not include the Redondo Beach house by DeMaria Design; I am pleased to rectify that herein. The house is a hybrid design that takes advantage of the best attributes of containers, (cheap, strong and rigid) and minimizes their defects (narrow inside) by combining them with conventional construction to create impressive space...

Letterpress is literally a dying art; the inks were toxic and printers often died young. It is almost completely extinct, practiced only by a few hobbyists and craftspeople. As a teenager I used to visit a neighbour who did letterpress in his basement; I loved watching his hands fly over the galleys of type and I loved the way you could actually feel the letters pressed into the paper. Graphic designer Douglas Wilson loves letterpress too, even though he acknowledges that "it will force us out of house and home." Wilson delivers simple messages that resonate in these difficult times, preserving a technology that we may need again someday....