I was reading the latest issue of Business 2.0 the other night, and a VC wants to put a Blackberry on the steering wheel of your car with a heads-up display. Not a bad idea, I thought, since people are using the things while driving anyway, laws be damned.

The part that gets me is that he is willing to back it with a COUPLE OF MILLION dollars to see if it works. Why not just give me a Blackberry and a hacksaw? A little careful cutting, some duct tape, and a mirror to reflect the screen image onto the windshield and the proof-of-concept is done. It would take two days and less than a thousand bucks to see if the idea works. Why the need for millions?

The Washington Post says that bio-diesel is on the rise - and it is only 105 years after it started. Most people don’t realize that the engine displayed by Rudolph Diesel at the 1900 world’s fair was run on peanut oil. Widespread acceptance and availability of bio-diesel would be a nice way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and to stop paying farmers not to farm.

An increase in the number of diesel cars would be nice for the U.S. too - in Europe 40% of cars sold are diesel, whereas here in North American that number is probably less than 1%. I have owned a Mercedes Benz in the past that was diesel powered and loved the 500 mile range between refills.