"The TFA reveals the study is..."

You can't say "The TFA", that's as redundant as saying "ATM Machine"!

Ah, that's a good point... whether you're using fancy casimir forces, or "just" gravity, in the end all I've described is something pulling on something else, but nothing is actually moving anywhere.

Another idea I've always thought would be cool is finding something that produces energy when it's crushed, and then build a layer of it under every house, so each household generates it's own small energy supply simply by virtue of being heavy.

I suppose the same limitations apply there too in that the crushing would have to result in some compression of the material to generate the energy, and the resulting energy would be a function of how far the material is compressed per unit of time.

I assume there is some reason this wouldn't work, but could we harness this "force" and convert it into useable energy?

Just attach something to the back of both these plates that will be pulled on by the plates as they try to move together. The "something" would not allow the plates to get together, but as far as my understanding goes, the plates would "perpetually" try to move together and you'd have a constant generation of energy.

But current physics laws don't allow endless energy for free, so what's the catch with this one? Is the amount of pull so small it would take ages to build up enough energy to be usable?

Are you referring to that brown graphic with the 2 (or 3) heads tied to the chat text display window?

No, that's not it.

Why is it not near the top left corner closer - generally reserved for the default character portrait position, along with party portraits and warband frames underneath, don't you think that would be a better place to have it?

That's exactly where it is. I suggest you look again next time you log in. It's a little dark circle hanging off the lower left of your character portrait, basically right where the 3 second pop-up notice opens. I'd say that is fairly intuitive.

You can click that little circle to see all the open groups in your zone. It shows their distance from you in minutes/seconds, how many people are in each group, and what that group is doing (PvE, RvR, PQ). It's really quite nice. I frequently open it when I hit a PQ, sort by distance, and see if anyone near me has a group going. If you want to start your own open group there is a check box on this screen that says you are interested in starting an open group, then people will see you when they check the list.