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For the type of things you're looking for, I'd recommend LocalWiki. While so far it's been used mostly by communities vs municipalities, it includes robust permissions, is under active development, and is built w/ some nice geo-extensions for where that's applicable. It's very easy to get up and running and you could run a micro EC2 instance to test out for (practically) free.

LocalWiki is the outgrowth of the amazingly successful http://daviswiki.org/ which spawned http://wikispot.org/ Encouraging and supporting this type of local non-commercial wiki is great for any community.

Drone aircraft, best known for their role in hunting and destroying terrorist hideouts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, may be coming soon to the skies near you. Utility companies expect they can help monitor oil, gas and water pipelines. Farmers believe drones could aid in spraying crops with pesticides. Police agencies want drones to launch Hellfire missiles at Occupy UC Davis protestors so that individual police can't be identified."

I live in Davis, CA fools! http://daviswiki.org/Bicycling

The reliability tests that are used to certify panels today are the result of 30 years of study and testing of panels in the field. They are the best ways we know to test reliability to ensure the rated lifetime. Its fine to be skeptical, but go study the science and at least be an informed skeptic. One good place to start would be this History of Accelerated and Qualification Testing of Terrestrial Photovoltaic Modules: A Literature Review(pdf).

The fact that I have personally seen old panels still working is not an anecdote. Especially as it's used to illustrate the point that there is existence proof that at least some panels can last that long. The facility I visited is called PVUSA in Davis CA, it was built in 1986. Its well worth a tour to see how solar technology has evolved over the last 25 odd years often in response to the reliability issues discovered there.

We respect to recycling, First Solar offers a recycling program today. This is mainly to address the issues of the Cadmium in the panels escaping into the environment if the panels were dumped. However it is very reasonable to assume that the precious metals in a solar panels can be recovered using methods that exist today to recycle old electronics. The materials used are very similar (glass, Silicon, Aluminum, Copper, Silver, numerous organic resins & some polymers). Whether it will be economic or not remains to be seen.

Since we are veering off topic anyway, that particular practice (requiring a minimium charge) is banned by almost all the major credit card companies.

If a store pulls it on you, and you aren't in a kind mood, file a complaint with the credit card company.

At UC Davis, the service is called Classical Notes. In this program, the professor does nothing at all, and may even be completely phobic of computers. Students apply for positions as note-takers, attend the lectures in question, and sell the transcribed notes for a reasonable price through Classical Notes, a division of the student government.

Given this background, and the fact that a $1 fee on the professor's part is by no means extortion, the article looks like a non-story to me. University professors have a lot of freedom in how they conduct their classes, and little services on the side like this are absolutely nothing to have a fit about.

I live in Davis, California about a mile from "Moller International" home of the Skycar.

There is some debate over whether or not Moller is actually a scammer vs. an unlucky inventor lacking funds to complete his work. Lots of folks have poured money into his venture and never seen anything come out of it.

In fact, the Skycar has never even flown off tether...

I live in Davis, California about a mile from "Moller International" home of the Skycar.

There is some debate over whether or not Moller is actually a scammer vs. an unlucky inventor lacking funds to complete his work. Lots of folks have poured money into his venture and never seen anything come out of it.

In fact, the Skycar has never even flown off tether...

I know that they do something similar to this in the VR Lab at UC Davis http://www.daviswiki.org/Institute%20for%20Data%20 Visualization%20and%20Analysis "In order to get 3D images (i.e. stereo images), each tile has two projectors behind it, shuttered to alternate images (at about 60 hertz per eye) for each eye. The user then uses shuttered glasses synchronized with the projector shutters."