Rackspace Partner

Just signed up as a Rackspace Partner.  We've been happy with their servers, and now we can offer them to other people.  Full-scale managed/dedicated servers and hosting.

http://www.ayamba.com/hosting.html

Pizza Delivery Via Facebook - WSJ.com

Great article, particularly these paragraphs:

Rick Hendrie, senior vice president of marketing with Uno Chicago Grill, says the pictures have another effect: People ordering online tend to buy more food. "They order with their eyes. Over the phone, you go with a default order," Mr. Hendrie says. It's a sentiment echoed by Papa John's, where online sales are about 10% higher than orders placed over the phone or by walk-ins.

Mr. Hendrie and others also note that orders placed online tend to be more accurate. As one tester noted, "It's sometimes hard for the pizza place to hear the difference between pepperoni and green pepper when you're talking on the phone."

http://sec.online.wsj.com/article/SB122955636646916031.html?mod=most_viewed_leisure24

The One Thing You Need to Know Before You Donate to Charity | Tactical Philanthropy

A concise article that seems to speak to our discovery team methods.

http://tacticalphilanthropy.com/2008/12/the-one-thing-you-need-to-know-before-you-donate-to-charity

GETDATE in SQL SSIS Packages

Using things like SQL GETDATE() functions in SSIS Packages doesn't work (similar issue in user-defined functions).  It will always use the date value that was present when you first save the package, which is not very useful.  For example:

SELECT orders FROM TABLE WHERE orderdate >= DATEADD(m,-1, GETDATE())

would get you orders from the last month.  However, to make that work in an SSIS Package, here's a simple fix, though probably not the best from a performance standpoint:

Create a view names something like ExportDate with a function like this:

SELECT     GETDATE() AS DT

Then, update your query to be:

SELECT orders FROM TABLE WHERE orderdate >= DATEADD(m,-1, (SELECT DT FROM dbo.vwECR_ExportDate))

The view will update when it's queried, so you're all set.

And no, apparently you can't edit SSIS packages you've saved to the server, at least not with SQL Management Studio.

.Orgs vs Orgies

"46 percent of women and 30 percent of men “would rather swear-off sex for two weeks than give up the Net.”"

Which would you choose?

When the Internet beats sex - THE WEEK
http://www.theweek.com/article/index/91641/3/When_the_Internet_beats_sex

Auto Bailout Pork

We get votes the old fashioned way - we buy 'em.  For example, in this ridiculous Detroit Big Three bailout going around now, one House vote was purchased by putting a provision for pay raises for federal judges.  Excuse me?  What does that have to do with the automakers?  Can't we just debate a bill based on it's own merits, and either vote for or against it?  Do we really have to fill them all with pork to get anything done?  Or is it because without the pork, none of the bills would pass, because everybody knows they're just government crap...

Adobe Edge: An introduction to PureMVC for Adobe Flash and Flex

http://www.adobe.com/newsletters/edge/december2008/articles/article6/index.html?trackingid=EFBLD

Ben Stein - Change? To Washington? Ha!

Analysis (biased, probably) of Obama's choice of Geithner to replace
Paulson. And that it in no ways resembles "change".

http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/yourlife/126180

Paul Brest: Strategic Philanthropy in Tough Times

A good article that speaks to the effectiveness of giving through SVP - at least that's how I read "this may be a good time, especially for small foundations, to consider the possibility of riding the coattails of trusted foundations or other organizations rather than doing their grantmaking in house"

And more importantly, the overall non-profit shakeout: "we need to ensure that the best organizations -- those that are delivering real outcomes -- weather the storm. We're not going to be able to salvage them from the bottom of the sea after the storm is over. On the other hand, we shouldn't use precious assets to keep poorly managed organizations afloat either."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-brest/strategic-philanthropy-in_b_148309.html

Drinking water for fishing?

Seriously?  We pump potable water into a little lake so people can fish?  You gotta be kidding.  Who thinks this stuff up?

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20081208/news_1m8chollas.html

Endowments getting hammered

Think this is a problem?

"In California, the public pension fund CalPERS says state, local and county governments may have to chip in as much as an additional 4 percent beginning in mid-2010 to cover its pension losses. Its total assets had fallen from $260 billion last fiscal year to just $178 billion on Dec. 1."

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20081204/news_1b4endow.html

Black Swan Events

No idea the source on this, but interesting stock market analysis:

There have been 14,284 trading days since January 1, 1950.  On 33 of those days, the market fell 4% or more.  On 35 of those days, the market rallied 4% or more.  So there have been 68 moves out of 14,284, showing such days are very rare occurring just 0.4% of the time.  Leming goes on to point out that 28 of those 68 rare events occurred over the last three months.  That's a whopping 41% of all these very rare (Black Swan??) events since September. 

How many trillions?

You may think it's only $700 billion here, $800 billion there, but there's been a whole lot more going on behind the scenes...

Bloomberg 11/24/2008:

U.S. Pledges Top $7.7 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit

The U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday. The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.
...
It’s nine times what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congressional Budget Office figures. It could pay off more than half the country’s mortgages.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=an3k2rZMNgDw&

Poodle-dog bush

Apparently this plant likes growing after the fires, and has properties similar to poison oak.

http://www.calflora.net/bloomingplants/poodledogbush.html

FEMA Trailers Making Children Sick

Our government is awesome... hope someday they can save me, too.  Course, this is really just one example of how theoretically minor levels of chemicals actually do have a health effect.  I sure hope they find a cure to cancer, cause I think my generation is guaranteed to get it.  Growing up on tupperware was just the beginning...

http://www.grist.org/news/2008/11/25/trailer/

voiceofsandiego.org: Broke San Diego

This paragraph pretty much says it all, and how we're going to deal with a $43 million deficit.  And that our city is apparently set up to always have a budget deficit, where we're completely designed to always spend more than we take in (not just stupid, but actually set up wrong).  Works great in bull markets...

"Taxes. The city's two main sources of revenue are sales taxes and property taxes. The third is hotel-room taxes. Sales taxes hit the poorest residents hardest. And in order for increases in sales taxes to work, there have to be, you know, sales. With retail activity dropping precipitously, an increase in sales taxes might do little more than cushion the fall and it might even accelerate it. An increase in property taxes too might only provide a feather bed for our falling revenues as thousands of San Diegans scurry to have the tax assessors revalue their property downward."

http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2008/11/28/opinion/lewis112708.txt

voiceofsandiego.org: News... Go Walk, Young Man

WalkSanDiego interview, about walkable communities.

"San Diego has one of the country's highest rates of pedestrian-related car crashes"

I'm not surprised, I sometimes feel like it's dangerous to cross the street at an intersection, even with a crosswalk and walk signal. Especially at night when walking the dog.

http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2008/11/27/news/grimes112708.txt

A New Role for Community Foundation | Tactical Philanthropy

Community Foundations have to change.  They can't continue to be passive, they have to start getting active in their communities.  Which means they are going to have to stick their neck out and take positions, a terrifying prospect for them - but a great prospect for the rest of us in philanthropy!

http://tacticalphilanthropy.com/2008/11/a-new-role-for-community-foundation

Bark Beetles Kill Millions of Acres of Trees in West - NYTimes.com

We've seen tons of dying trees when out hiking.  The beetles attack pines, but around here we've seen mysterious killers of oaks and eucalyptus, too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/science/18trees.html?_r=1

Teenagers’ Internet Socializing Not a Bad Thing - NYTimes.com

So spending time on the net is good for literacy and technical skills and even is considered healthy socially, so says the MacArthur Foundation.  Does that mean reading this blog is a good thing?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/us/20internet.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

Small Business CRM | BatchBook

Is this actually as small and easy and efficient as it sounds?  And cheap?  Hope so, going to try it with a local non-profit...

http://www.batchblue.com/index.html

Excel Sum with Errors

How to do a sum in Microsoft Excel when there is a #N/A field or other such error in the values to be totaled?  There seems to be a ton of posts on the net, but only a few had the simple solution:

SUMIF Function

For example: =SUMIF("A1:A20","<>#N/A")

You can get more complicated with your earlier formulas using ISERROR to avoid the error in the first place, but that's probably more trouble.  If you want to re-produce, you can generate the error value with =NA().

GM is Largest Buyer of Viagra

I'm not a fan of the bail-out, and here's one example... I knew they liked muscle cars, but still...

Ockham Research finds an amusing parallel: "You cannot help but laugh when you hear that GM is the world's leading purchaser of Viagra. The Detroit News reported in 2006 that GM spent $17 million dollars on the 'little blue pill'. Admittedly, this is a relatively small portion of the more than $5.6 billion per year that GM spends on health care for their employees... but the Viagra problem is a symptom of an overall cost management illness."

Raw Material Prices and Recycling

So it really just comes down to the money... recycling only works when stuff costs enough.  Does that mean inflation is good for the environment?

"Thousands of tons of recyclables in the United Kingdom -- including bottles, cans, and newspapers -- are sitting un-recycled following the sudden collapse of materials prices a few weeks ago. Recycling companies are asking the government to ease regulations temporarily to allow them to store the mountains of rubbish in secured warehouses and former military bases until prices rise again."

http://www.grist.org/news/2008/11/06/rcycl/?source=daily#comments

Marriage Makes you Fat

"Many of us gain 15 or more pounds in our early adult years, but people who live with a partner often gain more. Within five years, newly married women gain an average of 24 pounds, and men gain an average of 30 pounds, according to a study presented at the Obesity Society annual scientific meeting."

Are gays sure they want the right to marry?

-- UHC

Green PC Of The Future - LawnPC

The LawnPC will probably never make it to production, but interesting to think you might actually be able to power a computer with solar cells embedded in fake blades of grass.  And cool the cpu with a nice design aesthetic, as well.

http://devicedaily.com/desktops/green-pc-of-the-future-lawnpc.html

Low-Carb Equals Depression

And fast eating makes you fat.  Two new studies out.

Harvard Health Letter says low-carb diets drop serotonin levels, which can make you sluggish and depressed.  So you might be losing weight, but you won't be happy about it!

And another study says that eating too fast generally leads to eating more calories, since the appetite flags take a little while to work.

Conclusion: eat whole-grain bread slowly?

The Real Impacts of Micro-Credit : Philanthropy Action

True controlled study of micro-finance in Hyderabad makes us wonder yet again if we really know how to do any good for the poverty stricken.

"These early results are evidence that we really know almost nothing about the real impact of micro-credit and how or whether it works. "

http://www.philanthropyaction.com/nc/the_real_impacts_of_micro_credit/#When:01:11:15Z

Netflix and TiVo Together at Last

Finally Netflix solves the last-mile problem by partnering with TiVo for direct delivery.  Course, there's also been the Roku for a while.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/30/technology/internet/30tivo.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

New Trail Signs in Balboa Park

Our Balboa Part Trust was a major sponsor of this initiative to add trail signs throughout the Park to help runners and walkers find good routes. Seems like the project had a lot of support. Personally I'm a little doubtful as to it's use, but if all the groups think it's a good thing, let's go for it. And assuming the signs can avoid frequent vandalism.

I do like the extra idea of expanding the routes to incorporate other areas and bring them to the Park, particularly for tourists in downtown that may not realize it's such a short run from the Convention Center to Balboa Park.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20081025-9999-1m25trails.html

Big Study Concludes Pollution Is Bad

Duh?

http://www.grist.org/news/2008/10/24/effingpollution/?source=daily#comments

California's Place in the Debate: Housing

Interesting article about housing crisis, and how California relates to the nation.  A few tidbits:

Los Banos, CA house prices are already down 66%.  20% are in foreclosure.

Population of CA is 12% of the nation.  But the mortages here are average 34% of mortgage-backed securities.

"Economist Chris Thornberg responded to that: "California doesn't have a Wall Street problem. Wall Street has a California problem.""

And after all this: "California is politically irrelevant. Weird."

http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2008/10/22/survival/417wsj102208.txt

Undecided Voters for McCain

Thought after listening to an NPR story this morning about undecided voters (barely snuck in between their pledge drive begging - how annoying): Most undecideds are probably Republicans/evangelicals/Bushies.  What they haven't decided is whether they're going to break with their roots and vote for Obama.  Normally they'd vote conservative, but they are so dismayed at what the Bush White House has done that they can't decide whether or not they can bring themselves to vote for McCain.  I'd guess most of them won't, if they're still undecided.  So then we should consider most or all of the undecided voters (8 points, right?) going to McCain.

McCain vs Obama on Healthcare

A great story on NPR's Day to Day comparing the two candidates on their healthcare policies.  Neither appears great, but McCain's is definitely worse.  At least Obama's might be a step in the right direction, but lacking a ton of detail not to mention any method to pay for it.  Sounds a lot like welfare, and I'm not sure how they'd keep companies from just stopping offering group policies.  McCain's on the other hand just sounds ridiculous and would accomplish almost nothing.  A tax credit of an insufficient level to do any good, and at the same time taxing benefits from employer-sponsored programs?  At least he's dealing with the financial aspect a bit more, but uselessly.

At least according to this Trudy Lieberman person.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95899422

Real Charitable Loans to Non-Profits

Awesome, glad somebody figured it out.  And note they key focus: project-based, not general operations.  That's definitely how to make sure you can measure outcomes!

http://www.fjc.org/programs-ALF-overview.shtml

If It's Hip, It's Here: Wearing The Hair Of The Dog.

Maybe we should get long-haired dogs, then we could make our own clothes out of dog fur...

http://ifitshipitshere.blogspot.com/2008/10/wearing-hair-of-dog-portraits-of-people.html

South Park has it Right

They raped Indiana Jones.  I was stupid enough to Netflix Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - thank god I didn't pay for it in the theaters.  Has to be one of the worst "blockbusters" ever.  I didn't even finish it, didn't care what happened.  And I've watched some bad movies, and usually you at least have some desire to know how the plot resolves itself.  If I thought Indy might have died, I'd keep watching, just to have made sure there was no way they'd bring him back and do this again.

If they ever bring MST3K back, this one should be at the top of the list!

Homeless Couples Problem in San Diego

There's a homeless couple that's been hanging out near our house for a couple months.  They seem fairly with it, have never seen them visibly drugged or drunk.  The woman's had some health issues and can't work well any more, but the guy says he wants to work, so I thought I'd ask around.  I contacted one of our local charities, Alpha Project (http://www.alphaproject.org), and they've been very helpful.  They sent their outreach team to do an assessment and see if there's anything to be done.

However, through the discussions with Alpha, they explained that there are very few services for couples.  Almost none of the transitional housing or shelters or programs around here will take couples.  They separate the men and women, which means that couples like this won't go use the services and get a roof over the head because they wouldn't be together.  I'm sure there's good reasons for this, and I have no idea what percentage of the homeless population is couples, but it seems like a problem when you have people that apparently don't want to be homeless but are limited on their options without a significant sacrifice.

Course, one of the real problems with their ability to get off the streets is that they don't really want to work, because they're collecting SSI / disability.  And if you work, you lose it.  I've heard this over and over from a variety of perspectives, and we have people that are scared to take a job because then if they can't keep the job they're hosed.  What a mess of a welfare system.

Small Site Launch

Added a small site to our hosting: http://www.mytinnitusrelief.com/

Tinnitus Relief & Treatment - Help and Information for People Suffering from Ringing in the Ears

Tesla Says It Will Lay Off Employees and Delay Its All-Electric Sedan Until 2011 - NYTimes.com

Too bad, the Tesla seemed like such a good idea... guess trickle down wasn't going to work in this case.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/technology/start-ups/16tesla.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Race Starts With Little Fuel, and Goes Uphill From There - NYTimes.com

Awesome eco-fuel race concept.  There should be an eco-fuel NASCAR circuit!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/us/13eco.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Brita Pitchers contain BPA?

Lots of posts say no.  I wrote to Brita, didn't get a response, but apparently other people have.  So sounds like the pitchers are safe - at least from BPA.

http://www.google.com/search?q=brita+bpa&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Great Scary Quote

At the rate the markets are falling this week, we'll hit zero in about 3 more weeks!

VIX Record

"The S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) has soared to its highest levels on record—completely shattering previous all-time highs on nearly-unprecedented levels of panic across global financial markets. At over 73 percent, the VIX now shows that options traders expect that the S&P 500 will fluctuate an annualized 73 percent in the coming month of trade—or approximately 21 percent."

http://www.dailyfx.com/story/market_alerts/fundamental_alert/S_P_500_Volatility_Index__VIX__1223654773796.html

Green Building & Co-Housing Movement Starting to Take Off

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_14979.cfm

An Obama landslide? - THE WEEK

Amazing what outspending 3-1 can do...

http://www.theweek.com/article/index/89638/3/3/An_Obama_landslide

Facebook application causes a food 'frendzy' | Venues Magazine | The Daily Collegian Online

Online games for free stuff!

http://www.collegian.psu.edu/venues/2008/10/09/facebook_application_causes_a.aspx

Retirement accounts have lost $2 trillion

That can't be good... buy and hold, right?

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081007/meltdown_retirement.html

Six Products, Six Carbon Footprints - WSJ.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122304950601802565.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

New Solar Cell Easy As Pizza To Make

"The iJET is a new type of solar cell that's cheap and easy to make, requiring not much more than a pizza oven, some nail polish remover, and a common inkjet printer. Australian scientist Nicole Kuepper describes her invention."

NPR
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95394225

Google will do What Toyota Can't

New Google philanthropy aims to build super-efficient hybrid car | Grist | Daily Grist | 14 Sep 2006

http://www.grist.org/news/daily/2006/09/14/5/?source=daily

TED says: Learn about XDR-TB

Extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis.  Bad thing for some countries.  Bad for the world. (?)

http://www.xdrtb.org/

Dymondia as a Lawn Replacement?

Supposedly drought tolerant and a great groundcover.  Better than grass?

http://freshdirt.sunset.com/2008/06/dymondia-margar.html

SodaHead.com

Interesting concept...

"Create and vote on public opinion polls, share knowledge and express opinions in a dynamic social community."

http://www.sodahead.com/

'Tax Extenders' Add To Cost Of Bailout Bill : NPR

The Senate added $110 billion of pork to the $700 billion bailout bill to get it passed.  Note some of the examples!  Nothing but politics and pork, this has nothing to do with helping main street.  Not even sure it's about helping wall street, mostly just about helping politicians.  Disgusting.  Time for a revolution - and Obama ain't it.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95320567

So Long, Water Testing

Holy crap!  Now it really is "Swim at your own risk"!  Or maybe the problem is just that there's so much bacteria and pollution in the water, there's no point in testing...

http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2008/10/02/this_just_in/584solong100208.txt

What the Next President Will Face

Foreign policy problems for whoever gets elected.  And do you think any of the candidates would answer even one of these questions with any specifics?

From John Mauldin, originally from Stratfor:
http://www.investorsinsight.com/blogs/john_mauldins_outside_the_box/archive/2008/10/01/the-new-president-and-the-global-landscape.aspx

The conclusion and ten questions (no, not like Passover):

U.S. national strategy is expressed in the defense budget. Every strategic decision the president makes has to be expressed in budget dollars with congressional approval. Without that, all of this is theoretical. The next president will have to start drafting his first defense budget shortly after taking office. If he chooses to engage all of the challenges, he must be prepared to increase defense spending. If he is not prepared to do that, he must concede that some areas of the world are beyond management. And he will have to decide which areas these are. In light of the foregoing, as we head toward the debate, 10 questions should be asked of the candidates:

   1. If the United States removes its forces from Iraq slowly as both of you advocate, where will the troops come from to deal with Afghanistan and protect allies in the former Soviet Union?
   2. The Russians sent 120,000 troops to Afghanistan and failed to pacify the country. How many troops do you think are necessary?
   3. Do you believe al Qaeda prime is still active and worth pursuing?
   4. Do you believe the Iranians are capable of producing a deliverable nuclear weapon during your term in office?
   5. How do you plan to persuade the Pakistani government to go after the Taliban, and what support can you provide them if they do?
   6. Do you believe the United States should station troops in the Baltic states, in Ukraine and Georgia as well as in other friendly countries to protect them from Russia?
   7. Do you feel that NATO remains a viable alliance, and are the Europeans carrying enough of the burden?
   8. Do you believe that Mexico represents a national security issue for the United States?
   9. Do you believe that China represents a strategic challenge to the United States?
  10. Do you feel that there has been tension between the United States and Israel over the Georgia issue?

Barack on Broadway

Way better than most political ads, if you're a Les Miserables fan...

Les Misbarack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3ijYVyhnn0

Cereplast

Is this company any good?  Seems like good stuff, but no idea if it's real or greenwashing...

http://www.cereplast.com/homepage.php

Bailout Plan just Politics as Usual

"The Fed increased its existing currency swaps with foreign central banks by $330 billion to $620 billion to make more dollars available worldwide. The Term Auction Facility, the Fed's emergency loan program, will expand by $300 billion to $450 billion."

This happened even before the vote.  Why in the world do they need to vote on this $700 billion bailout, when they can just print $630 billion with no oversight whatsoever?  Just a bunch of politicians and their pork.  Disgusting.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&refer=home&sid=aP5hzUWla7Jg

California - Ballotpedia

Seems like a good site if you want to read about the propositions and such on the ballot.

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California

The Entire Debt of Africa Is Only $350 Billion

What kind of good could be done with $700 billion?  From Sightline:

http://daily.sightline.org/daily_score/archive/2008/09/25/the-entire-debt-of-africa-is-only-350-billion

Thinking People Eat Too Much: Intellectual Work Found To Induce Excessive Calorie Intake

Best diet plan: stop thinking.  Which would imply stop working.  Spend all day on the beach drinking beer and you'll be skinny in no time!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080904102804.htm

Study shows fuel efficiency of plug-in hybrid cars | The San Diego Union-Tribune

What a surprise, the electricity company says plug-in hybrids are good.  Sure, they're right, but still, it just smells dirty...

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080925/news_1b25plugin.html

Got an idea to help the world? Here's $10 million - CNN.com

Google funding some as yet unknown projects.  Project 10^100.  Pretty cool.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/biztech/09/24/google.project/index.html

Coastkeeper on Desalinization in Carlsbad

Strongly against this Carlsbad option.  Not sure I'm in agreement with their lawsuit, but if you read their analysis, seems that this is a very bad environmental idea.  Huge energy hog.

http://www.sdcoastkeeper.org/content/programs/waterSupply/overview.htm

Keppean Scalar Motor

A motor that takes 1/4 of the normal electricity?

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Keppean_Scalar_Motor

Grand Canyon Rim-To-Rim-To-Rim

Made it!

A great two-day adventure in the Grand Canyon. 46 miles (23 each way). Lots and lots of climbing and good scenery. Sure, there was one super-fit couple that were running the whole thing in one day, but I wasn't jealous. Not sure I'll be jealous of anybody attempting this in general...

Synopsis: A grand accomplishment, very satisfying. South Rim is a total circus (like Whitney Portal), not sure I'll ever need to go back there. And frankly underwhelmed me visually, as well. I'm plenty used to seeing desert canyons. However, the North Rim, and really the entire North Kaibab Trail, were gorgeous. If there wasn't the lure of the Rim-To-Rim claim, I think a great trip would be to just do the North Kaibab. Even in two days if you can stay at the bottom.

Route: South Kaibab and North Kaibab, both ways. Started on the South for the shorter drive, slept on the North, and then turned around. Stayed at the Kaibab Lodge, which is about a half-hour from the North Rim but they have a shuttle and are friendly, and it's located in a beautiful alpine meadow.

How it unfolded: This was my normal hiking buddy Helgi's genuis idea. Okay, maybe I put the idea in his head when he once mentioned something that sounded like "Grand Canyon". I just casually mentioned I've heard of this whole "rim-to-rim" thing. Perhaps we were still delirious after Whitney last summer. Helgi took it from there, made all sorts of reservations, and then all that was left was to con in a few more suckers: Helgi's daughter Sesselja with her fiancee (and still fiancee) Greg, and my buddy Mike. Oh, and that whole training thing. Not enough of that happened, of course.

Set out friday morning driving the 8ish hours from San Diego, and slept in a Days Inn motel in Williams, AZ after dinner in beautiful downtown Williams (not so much). Breakfast saturday morning in the car with a 5am departure from the motel for the hour drive to the rim. Some people were worried that we wouldn't make our 4pm shuttle reservation, though I would have voted for a little more sleep. Course I think I was up about 3:30am anyway ready to go. As it turned out, good thing we got started early.

Set out from the rim right about 6:30am after a photo at the top, walking down the South Kaibab. Along with plenty of other people. Reading all the signs about how people die all the time, and how you should never try to get into and out of the canyon on the same day. Quite motivating.

Very steep, lots of wooden log stair things placed just far enough apart that they were totally non-useful. Lots of dust and well-used trail. Maybe they're just right for the mules, which we watched carrying the lazy people that couldn't be bothered to walk. Looks like a miserable trip on a mule (for both people and mules), these mules don't move fast and you'd be out there a long long time.

Walked down down down (6,800 ft to about 2,000 ft) for about 6 miles, multiple official bathroom spots and views of the canyon, but no drinking water. We were led to believe the bottom was 6 miles in, but not so. Crossed the river closer to 7 miles, then still another half-mile-plus to Phantom Ranch, the popular spot at the bottom that apparently books up over a year in advance. With a nice Park Ranger asking questions like "How many in your party?" "Where are you going?" "Are you idiots?" "Do you really think you'll make it? It's gonna be 100 degrees on the trail." "We really don't want to have to life-flight your sorry ass out today, please don't go." After a rest at Phantom Ranch (9am lunch), we went anyway, against everybody's better judgement.

Next 7 miles or so were a very slight incline, great for some real fast hiking - even passed a few runners, which was odd and motivating. Winding right along the big creek (Bright Angel Creek, I think) with tall canyon walls on both sides. Beautiful. Plenty of shade this early in the morning. We split up a bit, but not too far. Mike caught me at a rest spot about 5 miles up, and then we set off again together. Another good long rest break at Cottonwood, a camping area about halfway up the North Kaibab. Very pleasant so far. Feet were a bit tired at this point being 15 miles in, but not so bad.

Somehow we had it in our mind that the North Kaibab was 14 miles total, and a gentle incline the whole way. At this point we noticed on the GPS that we hadn't gone up very far. North Rim is up at 8,000 ft, so there was a good incline still ahead of us. And boy did it go up. And up and up and up. Beautiful, but at this point everything was red. At one point I swore we were on the Hillary Step. I kept moving on, and would wait for Mike every so often, and then we'd rest together a little and keep moving. Consider Mike hadn't really moved for a few months as he was finishing his PhD, and thus carrying an extra 20 lbs or so, he was really impressive.

We did get lucky with the weather, as the clouds rolled in and it actually stayed fairly cool - almost cold at the top.

As it turned out, the trailed climbed to almost 8,200 feet, and put our total for the day at over 22 miles. Definitely more than we had planned on! Felt great at the top, though. I got there at about 3pm - 8.5 hours travel time. Mike followed about a half-hour later. Shuttle showed up an we begged her to stay and then listened to a variety of Kaibab stories. Greg finally showed up somewhere around 5pm as we were freezing and cramping (we should have gone to get some food and come back, but we weren't that bright), and said Helgi was having trouble. Then we worried a bit. About 6ish they made it, thankfully, though near collapsing at the top. Apparently there was a bit of a bonk. But everybody made it, and we cruised to the lodge and cleaned up. After dinner everybody felt better.

Unfortunately, not better enough. Mike in the middle of the trail had already decided he was probably bailing on the return trip, and catching the 5 hour ride back around the canyon, even if it cost $200 (turned out it was only $80). That sounded good to everybody else, too, so sunday I was on my own for the return trip. One advantage was that I could steal all their good food they didn't need any more (goo!), and give them things I didn't need to carry, like my dirty clothes. No complaints there.

Sunday morning I ate two orders of oatmeal and some fries, and set out from the North Rim at 8am. Waited for a few mule trains, which gave me time to put on sunscreen and those sorts of things while waiting for spots to pass. Down down down. I quickly figured out that my feet hurt a lot less if I sort of jog-walked and let gravity take over, dropping that 4,000+ feet in 5 miles or so. Kept the weight off my heels, although I knew I was greatly sacrificing my quads and such, since I'm normally not a runner. Anyway, it was still fun and I cruised a good pace. At 1.5 hours in I was already at Cottonwood, about 7.5 miles or so. Feeling good.

Then realized that if I hurried, the next part of the canyon would still be in the shade (no clouds today), a great benefit. And knowing that all I had to do was make it to the bottom of the South Kaibab and then I could suffer as long as I wanted. So I ran some more, jogging the downhills and just fast walking the uphills.

Got to Phantom Ranch, feeling a bit tired and sore on the feet, and rested for a while. Talked to some of the same people doing the same trip that I saw the day before (mostly some 26ers, an LA running club), that informed me the majority of their group had bailed as well. Ate a bit, and satisfied with the knowledge that there was less than 8 miles to go, all uphill but just required some effort and I'd make it. Loaded up with 7 liters of water and set out.

Took a couple rests, but overall kept moving nicely. Basically like going up stairs for 5+ miles. Didn't even get too hot, didn't even finish all the water and donated some to a woman at one of the restroom areas. Made it to the top in under 3 hours, for a 6:20 total transit, broke 5 hours of moving time. Thumped my chest a few times at the top, and headed out to find the rest of the group.

Uploading pictures (mine and the rest of the group's) over time here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/davidalynn/GrandCanyon#

And if you really need it, here's the motionbased GPS data for both trips. GPS signal quality is crap, so don't rely on this for more than a general guide:

South to North: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6827272
North to South: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6826852

Energy Czar Palin? | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/9/17/13743/2973?source=muck

What San Diego Contributes to Global Warming

Voice of San Diego article about how much we San Diegan's love our cars.  Maybe if we had some good public transportation we'd have a choice, but we haven't managed to pull that off.  Remember that scene in "LA Story"?  It's true.  People drive to their neighbors.  I mean, it's not like the weather's nice enough for a walk, is it?

http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2008/09/18/news/02ghginventory091808.txt

Money Supply and Oil

So the dollar has had a huge correction lately (see my holdings of Gold and international bonds - ouch). And Oil has come back down even more dramatically. This large movement seems highly correlated, at least contemporarily, with the rapid disappearance of credit in the US and collapse of banking institutions. If there's a huge credit squeeze, then that would seem to imply that 1) demand should lower, and 2) dollar should strengthen. The latter may be significantly important. If other economies believe that we have less abundant credit, then our creditworthiness should increase - meaning our currency should have more relative value.

And we wonder why cancer rates are so high?

From Grist:

Us and Chem
Companies move toward nontoxic chemicals and products

Here's a crazy fact: A baby's body contains nearly 300 chemical compounds by the time it takes its first breath. It's the consequence of a chemical industry that has long paid little mind to where its products end up or what they do to people and the planet; of the estimated 83,000 chemicals on the market, some 80 percent lack basic health and safety data. But in reaction to stricter regulation and increased consumer demand, manufacturers are using green chemistry to cook up nontoxic versions of everything under the sun. It's not about "simply choosing the next, less-bad thing off the shelf," says chemistry professor Paul Anastas. "It's about designing something that is genuinely good." After all, why use petrochemical-based paint when water-based is just as durable? Companies are finding that they can make polyester with cornstarch, household cleaners with coconut, plastic with sugarcane -- and money with green innovation. Says Method cofounder Adam Lowry, "The companies that don't do it will become the dinosaurs."

source: Los Angeles Times

Compare Candidates on the Environment

Not sure I like any of them...

http://www.grist.org/candidate_chart_08.html

Patriotism

Is it possible that being a patriot breeds intolerance/prejudice/discrimination? How can one believe one's own country is the best country in the world, without then believing that all other countries - and their inhabitants - are inferior?

So is patriotism a good thing?

Too Much Money

In digesting all these recent banking crises, it seems that there is simply too much money in the system. Japanese banks, for example, have billions in exposure to Lehman and other formerly-worthy institutions. Assuming that their investment teams are rational and intelligent, and if you believe the news, then their exposure to our failing institutions was not a significant part of the portfolio.

There's just a huge amount of money that has to get invested somewhere, somehow, each and every day (example: CalPERS). How do we ever expect to avoid such meltdowns when all "banks" are essentially forced to find somewhere to put their money? They don't have a choice, they have to loan it out, find a willing borrower. Which would imply these problems are inevitable and continual, impossible to avoid. The money needs a home. Water flows downhill. Fills the lake, lifts all ships, and then eventually overflows the dam.

How to Make a Density Map

Well, sort of, but what do you expect for free?

JeffreyBarke.net » Blog Archive » Density map tutorial—Prototype, Google Maps API and the HeatMapAPI

http://jeffreybarke.net/2008/07/density-map-tutorial/

Exercise Power

http://daily.sightline.org/daily_score/archive/2008/09/08/gym-dandy

Prius getting 100 mpg

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/378351_plugins09.html

And this is the battery maker you can buy it from:

http://www.a123systems.com/hymotion

If only they would make one for the Toyota Highlander soon, I'd be a buyer...

Candidates' Charitable Giving

Biden gives almost nothing to charity.  But Palin hasn't reported yet.

http://philanthropy.com/news/government/index.php?id=5685

Currency Markets

$1 trillion per day.  Wowsa.

Why People Start Banks

John Mauldin:

"...for every $1 million in capital you have, you can lend out $10 million. The profit you make is the difference in the cost of your capital and money your borrow to lend and the interest rate you charge. If your are paying 4% for your money and charging 8%, you would make 4% times $10 million, or gross profits of $400,000. That is a return of 40% on invested capital, which is why so many small banks are being started all over the country every year. Nice business if you can get it."

Exposure to pesticides in utero linked to obesity, study says

Isn't there a chance that unhealthy diets during pregnancy tend to continue during childhood?  So if mom ate unhealthy early on, then so did you for a number of years.  Which might make you fat.  Are we sure it's a causal link, and not just a correlation?  Like saying "Parents that don't exercise and watch a lot of TV tend to have fat kids."

From Grist.org:

Toxic Waist

Exposure to pesticides in utero can double a child's chances of becoming obese, a new Spanish study has concluded. The study, published in the journal Acta Paediatrica, measured the level of the internationally banned (yet still freakishly persistent) pesticide hexachlorobenzene in the umbilical cords of over 400 children born on the Spanish island of Menorca. It found that the kids with the highest levels of HCB before birth were twice as likely to be obese at age six and a half. Previous studies have linked bisphenol A exposure to obesity in animals, and other studies have linked phthalates to obesity in adult men; the Spanish study honed in on the effects of HCB in young and unborn humans. "This is very important. It is the first good study of the effects on the fetus," said Pete Myers, a scientist at Environmental Health Sciences in the U.S. "Its conclusions are not surprising, given what we know from the animal experiments, but it firmly links such chemicals to the biggest challenge facing public health today."

sources: The Independent, The Telegraph

UCSD Planting Solar Trees

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/university-of-california-san-diego,528871.shtml

Residency Requirements for Voting

Not too late to pick a state to move to!

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781452.html

All He Is Saying Is 'Give Peas a Chance'

From Grist:

U.N. climate chief urges eating less meat to combat climate change

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said this weekend that eating less meat may be the best way for people to reduce their personal carbon emissions. "In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity," he said. Pachauri advised the world's omnivores to "give up meat for one day [per week] initially, and decrease it from there." In 2006, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization analyzed the livestock industry's contribution to climate change and found that its total impact worldwide (including deforestation, grazing, and the methane-intensive burps and farts of livestock) contributed more to global warming than the entire transport sector. "I'm not in favor of mandating things like this, but if there were a [global] price on carbon perhaps the price of meat would go up and people would eat less [of it]," Pachauri said.

http://www.grist.org/news/2008/09/08/unhumane/index.html

Wind Wing

W2 Energy Development company has some a new product they claim will be way more efficient than the standard windmills, and work in lower speed winds.  Hope it works.

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/aug/26/the-wind-beneath-their-wings-quotwe-want-to-get/

“Community Funded Reporting” Spot.Us

Another kick-ass idea?  Or flash in the pan?

http://blog.spot.us/about-spot-us/

Online Fundraising Article

Simple article about online fundraising on GiveForward:
http://www.giveforward.org/blog/ethan%E2%80%99s-super-awesome-strategic-fundraising-model-a-modestly-named-guide-to-developing-a-successful-online-fundraising-campaign

Follow-Up Post from Zoosa

More than a comment, I thought it deserved it's own post:

Mike McGlade
Zoosa, CEO

Thank you for the mentioning Zoosa! I'd like to provide some additional background for your readers.

Zoosa was founded during my first year at Harvard Business School and continued to grow this past summer thanks to a grant by Harvard’s Social Enterprise Initiative. We currently have the equivalent of 2 full time employees and 6 interns and we’re looking to hire additional interns during the fall 2008/spring 2009 academic calendar.

Zoosa is different from existing sites in that we integrate working, volunteering, and getting elected into the same system with plans to add legislation in the future. These sections are all linked by an “issue of social responsibility” (ISR) with each posting mapped to up to 5 ISRs. By including social enterprise jobs & high impact volunteer positions in the same location, professionals can quickly find opportunities which match their socially conscious area of interest, even if those opportunities were not part of their original plan (work vs. intern vs. volunteer & non‐profit vs. for‐profit).

As a courtesy to organizations which utilize our service while in the beta stage, Zoosa is extending discounted access for all employment & volunteer postings (events are free). I am working individually with organizations to provide the discount code and can be reached at mmcglade@zoosa.org.

Thank you!

Great Abortion Interview on BBC Radio

I'm not sure there's a single broadcaster-journalist team in the US that could - and would! - pull this off. Whatever side you're on, I think this is a good interview, with solid information.

And an interesting stat: Apparently the Netherlands has way more sex education than us prudes in the US do. And abortions are legal. Yet somehow they have less unwanted pregnancy and less abortions than the US. Does our government know anything?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/the_interview.shtml
"Carrie Gracie talks to American abortion doctor Susan Wicklund on The Interview"

Sarah Palin Gender Card | The Daily Show | Comedy Central

Seriously?  Does anybody believe anything these people (are Republicans still people?) say?

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184086&title=sarah-palin-gender-card&byDate=true

Zoosa.org: Professional Skills, Social Impact

Maybe this'll actually work...

http://www.zoosa.org/

Maybe we really are warming up

Grist: "The infamous "hockey stick" graph, which shows the northern hemisphere beginning to rapidly warm around the industrial age, has been backed up by new research."  And here we thought Al Gore was just making stuff up because he had a hydraulic lift he wanted to use.

http://www.grist.org/news/2008/09/02/hockey_stick/?source=daily

WebGUI CMS

Content management system in Perl?  Might like that...

http://www.plainblack.com/wg

Traffic School or Not?

Allstate says 1 point on your record doesn't change your insurance.  2 points and the good driver discount goes away.  Points stay on your record for 3 years.  They always recommend going to traffic school so that it stays off your record, but then of course if you get another one in 18 months you can't go again.

I think I'll roll the dice and skip the school this time.  If I get another ticket in the next 3 years, then I go.

Cool Firefox Add-on

So tired of browsing to upload files, now I can drag and drop!  Why didn't I look for this extension before?

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2190

Holy Fees

Banks collected $45.6 billion - yes billion - in overdraft fees in 2007.  Are we sure they needed credit cards and mortages, too?

No more polar bears

Arctic is now expected to be entirely ice-free in summer by 2030.

http://www.grist.org/news/2008/08/29/NonextantExtent/?source=daily

Buffet's Right

Dividend's are bad, at least according this article.  GM spent $20 billion on dividends between 1996 and 2000.  Think they might be doing better if that had gone into R&D?

http://www.theweekdaily.com/article/index/88168/3/Business_columns_When_satisfying_shareholders_can_ruin_a_company.html
Source: Sanford M. Jacoby, Chicago Tribune

Cash is Gross

US money is covered in cocaine, more than any other country.  Not to mention all the other bacteria and such.

http://www.theweekdaily.com/article/index/88105/3/Health_scare_of_the_week_Dont_lick_your_money.html

Flying is Bad

From Adele Horin, The Sydney Morning Herald, as quoted in The Week:

One round-trip flight from Sydney to London emits 9 tons of carbon dioxide per passenger—the same amount of pollution the average person produces in a full year of “eating, driving, and heating and cooling their home.”

http://www.theweekdaily.com/article/index/88076/3/3/Staying_put_for_the_good_of_the_planet

Google's New Browser

Cool.

Google Launches Cloud Operating System, Calls It a Browser
Yahoo! Finance

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/52101/Google-Launches-Cloud-Operating-System-Calls-It-a-Browser?tickers=goog,msft,aapl

Household Budgets

Food is 15% of the household budget; energy is 10%.

Offshore drilling and the environment

Great overview from The Week about offshore oil drilling.  Why the current ban exists, and what the new effects might be.  The intro:

"How much oil lies under U.S. coastal waters?
Quite a bit. Geologists generally agree that the waters off America’s east and west coasts, on what is known as the outer continental shelf, hold about 18 billion barrels of oil—enough to satisfy U.S. energy needs for two and a half years. That oil is currently off-limits, though, because of a longstanding federal ban on offshore drilling. Oil drilling is allowed in the western half of the Gulf of Mexico, which holds an estimated 70 billion barrels and where about 4,000 drilling rigs are currently in operation. Oil from the outer continental shelf would provide a small boost in available supplies. But even if the drilling ban were lifted tomorrow, production wouldn’t begin until 2017."

http://www.theweekdaily.com/article/index/88073/3/3/Briefing_Offshore_drilling_and_the_environment

Iraq vs US Bonds

Theirs are considered safer than ours!  Which is strange considering it's probably our debt that's helping back them...

From John Mauldin:

And it can get much worse for some banks. In the "for what it's worth" department, Iraq's bonds are now considered safer than those of many US banks. The country's $2.7 billion of 5.8% bonds due 2028 have gained 45% since August 2007, according to Merrill Lynch &  Co. indexes. Investors demand 4.84 percentage points more in yield to own the debt instead of Treasuries, down from 7.26 percentage points a year ago. The spread is narrower than for notes of Ohio  banks National City Corp. and KeyCorp, suggesting Baghdad  may be safer for bond investors than Cleveland. National City and KeyCorp, based in Cleveland, have debt ratings of A and spreads of 959 basis points (9.59%) and 7.55 basis points (7.55%), respectively. Iraq  debt has no ratings. Clearly the market is ignoring the rating agencies which give the banks an "A" rating. Their debt is priced at the junk level. Go figure. (Source: Bloomberg)

Why Taxes Don't Matter Much Anymore - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Institute

If only the government actually cared about it's debt, and politicians weren't slimy bastards.  Or at least pretended like they were accountable to something.

http://mises.org/story/3093

Industry Rethinks Moneymaking Software Practice - NYTimes.com

Awesome!

"Before they ship PCs to retailers like Best Buy, computer makers load them up with lots of free software. For $30, Best Buy will get rid of it for you."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/technology/28software.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Reading List

Current:

A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin

On the table:

Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam
Inspired Philanthropy by Tracy Gary
Groundswell by Charlene Li

Past:

A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin
Hey, it's fantasy, what do you expect? Entertaining, although so many threads maybe a bit harder to follow than the earlier ones.

Villages by John Updike
Fun read, although some parts maybe a little too close to home for some of us geeks. But the relevancy is what makes Updike good.

Idoru by William Gibson
Not my favorite Gibson book, but entertaining. Especially if you always wanted to sleep with your avatar.

Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins
Hilarious and deep. Of course.

The Human Stain by Philip Roth
Classic (?) Roth. Great.

Freezers and Costco

Apparently freezer sales are up 7% while all other appliance sales are down 8%. Theory is people are buying more food in bulk since prices have risen so much. Which explains Costco's success in this market: more bulk, especially food.

Extrapolated from today's Marketplace.

Thanks.

--David

-----------------------------------------------
sent via blackberry

Philanthropy: Spending Vs. Investing

Some good points from the Tactical Philanthropy blog:

Posted: 19 Aug 2008 11:26 AM CDT

One of the big shifts that is occurring in philanthropy is a change in the way donors perceive how charitable giving fits into their overall financial picture. The most fundamental aspect of this shift is a movement from seeing giving as a “spending category” to seeing it as an “investment category”. There are a number of implications:

1. When donors view giving as an investment category, they view it as a positive aspect of their financial picture rather than a negative cost. For example, if the cost of your grocery shopping goes up, it negatively impacts your budget. But if the amount you are saving goes up, this is a positive change to your financial picture.
2. Donors can begin thinking about giving as a percentage of their assets rather than a percentage of their income. Wealthy donors in particular have far more assets than income and so thinking about giving as a percentage of assets would dramatically increase giving. This is the argument put forth by investment manager and philanthropists Claude Rosenberg in Wealthy & Wise. The book demonstrates mathematically that donors can give far more to charity without jeopardizing their financial well being if they think about giving as a percentage of assets.
3. Donors can begin thinking about nonprofits as organizations they want to support rather than “sellers” of “goods” whose costs they do not want to support. When you buy something from Target, you don’t care about their operating costs, you just want the lowest price. But when you invest in Target you recognize that quality organizations take money to run and you are supportive of well spent operational costs.
4. The value that donors expect shifts from a short term perspective (such as “buying” the right to feel like you helped someone) to a long term perspective (such as “investing” in the continued success of a high impact nonprofit).
5. Nonprofits stop seeing donors are “customers” who they must separate from their cash (or even fight a war over) and start seeing them as investors; literally stakeholders of the organization.
6. Corporate donors also see a shift where “corporate social responsibility” moves from being a cost that they attempt to reduce to an investment in the community from which they derive their profits.
7. More mission related investment opportunities open up as people become comfortable with blended investments that offer financial and social returns.
8. The field of philanthropy becomes more focused on building a philanthropic market place as the importance of functioning financial markets becomes more clear.
9. Wealth managers begin serving the philanthropic needs of their clients as they begin to recognize that giving is not a cost for their client (that should be minimized) but is instead an asset allocation question that is directly intertwined with their clients’ broader wealth management needs.

Importing Gmail Contacts into Thunderbird

Why can't any of the e-mail programs map to each other nicely? Is there an extension I've missed?

Anyway, to do the import, I exported from Gmail in CSV, then in the Thunderbird import cleared just about everything and arranged just the few fields I need in TB: Name and E-mail addresses. Like so:

Storing Fruits and Vegetables

I always get confused which humidity drawers and settings to use in the refridgerator, so here's some details:

for long-term storage, "Produce Facts" from the Postharvest Technology Research and Information Center at the University of California-Davis (http://postharvest.ucdavis.edu/) recommends a relative humidity of:

• Higher than 98 percent for carrots and celery.
• Higher than 95 percent for bell peppers, broccoli, cabbage, cauli-flower, lettuce and snap beans.
• Ninety to 95 percent for apples, bananas, cantaloupe, cherries, grapes, peaches, nectarines, oranges, pears, plums, strawberries, eggplant and tomatoes.
• Eighty-five to 90 percent for honeydew and watermelon.
• Sixty percent for winter squash

(from http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~news/story.php?id=43)

A Cure For Real Estate Amnesia

Great dig at McCain from those liberals at NPR.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93944377

Wireless Power

Cool! Sounds like they're up to 3 feet. How far will we really be able to get? Think a solar panel on your roof could ever power everything without having to be connected? Then you'll probably get neighbors stealing your electricity just like the internet...

http://www.localwireless.com/wap/news/text.jsp?carrier=google&sid=103&nid=293905871&cid=102&scid=-1&title=&ith=1
Thanks.

--David

-----------------------------------------------
sent via blackberry

Time for universal health care?

No surprises here: doctors think insurance companies make bad decisions.

http://www.localwireless.com/wap/news/text.jsp?carrier=google&sid=70&nid=294329585&cid=124&scid=-1&title=Ohio+News&ith=0
Thanks.

--David

-----------------------------------------------
sent via blackberry

San Francisco Says Bikes Cause Pollution

I assume this article has made the rounds at Move San Diego, but thought I'd pass it on in case it didn't...

San Francisco Ponders:
Could Bike Lanes Cause Pollution?

City Backpedals on a Cycling Plan
After Mr. Anderson Goes to Court

By PHRED DVORAK
August 20, 2008; Page A1

SAN FRANCISCO -- New York is wooing cyclists with chartreuse bike lanes. Chicago is spending nearly $1 million for double-decker bicycle parking.

San Francisco can't even install new bike racks.

Blame Rob Anderson. At a time when most other cities are encouraging biking as green transport, the 65-year-old local gadfly has stymied cycling-support efforts here by arguing that urban bicycle boosting could actually be bad for the environment. That's put the brakes on everything from new bike lanes to bike racks while the city works on an environmental-impact report.

Cyclists say the irony is killing them -- literally. At least four bikers have died and hundreds more have been injured in San Francisco since mid-2006, when Mr. Anderson helped convince a judge to halt implementation of a massive pro-bike plan.(It's unclear whether the plan's execution could have prevented the accidents.) In the past year, bike advocates have demonstrated outside City Hall, pushed the city to challenge the plan's freeze in court and proposed putting the whole mess to local voters. Nothing worked.

"We're the ones keeping emissions from the air!" shouted Leah Shahum, executive director of the 10,000-strong San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, at a July 21 protest.

WSJ's Phred Dvorak reports from a Critical Mass event in San Francisco, a monthly bike ride that draws hundreds of cyclists. She talks with bikers as well as disgruntled drivers.

Mr. Anderson disagrees. Cars always will vastly outnumber bikes, he reasons, so allotting more street space to cyclists could cause more traffic jams, more idling and more pollution. Mr. Anderson says the city has been blinded by political correctness. It's an "attempt by the anti-car fanatics to screw up our traffic on behalf of the bicycle fantasy," he wrote in his blog this month.

Mr. Anderson's fight underscores the tensions that can circulate as urban cycling, bolstered by environmental awareness and high gasoline prices, takes off across the U.S. New York City, where the number of commuter cyclists is estimated to have jumped 77% between 2000 and 2007, is adding new bike lanes despite some motorist backlash. Chicago recently elected to kick cars off stretches of big roads on two Sundays this year.

Famously progressive, San Francisco is known for being one of the most pro-bike cities in the U.S., offering more than 200 miles of lanes and requiring that big garages offer bike parking. It is also known for characters like Mr. Anderson.

A tall, serious man with a grizzled gray beard, Mr. Anderson spent 13 months in a California federal prison for resisting the draft during the Vietnam War. He later penned pieces for the Anderson Valley Advertiser, a muckraking Northern California weekly owned by his brother that's known for its savage prose and pranks.

Running for Office

In 1995, Mr. Anderson moved to San Francisco. Working odd jobs, he twice ran for a seat on the city's Board of Supervisors, pledging to tackle homelessness and the city's "tacit PC ideology." He got 332 of 34,955 votes in 2004, his second and best try.

That year Mr. Anderson, who mostly lives off a small government stipend he receives for caring for his 92-year-old mother, also started a blog, digging into local politics with gusto. One of his first targets: the city's most ambitious bike plan to date.

Unveiled in 2004, the 527-page document was filled with maps, traffic analyses and a list of roughly 240 locations where the city hoped to make cycling easier. The plan called for more bike lanes, better bike parking and a boost in cycling to 10% of the city's total trips by 2010.

The plan irked Mr. Anderson. Having not owned a car in 20 years, he says he has had several near misses with bikers roaring through crosswalks and red lights, and sees bicycles as dangerous and impractical for car-centric American cities. Mr. Anderson was also bugged by what he describes as the holier-than-thou attitude typified by Critical Mass, a monthly gathering of bikers who coast through the city, snarling traffic for hours. "The behavior of the bike people on city streets is always annoying," he says. "This 'Get out of my way, I'm not burning fossil fuels.' "

Going to Court

In February 2005, Mr. Anderson showed up at a planning commission meeting. If San Francisco was going to take away parking spaces and car lanes, he argued, it had better do an environmental-impact review first. When the Board of Supervisors voted to skip the review, Mr. Anderson sued in state court, enlisting his friend Mary Miles, a former postal worker, cartoonist and Anderson Valley Advertiser colleague.

Rhonda Winter/San Francisco Bicycle Coalition

San Francisco cyclists protest bike-plan delays in front of City Hall.

Ms. Miles, who was admitted to the California bar in 2004 at age 57, proved a pugnacious litigator. She sought to kill the initial brief from San Francisco's lawyers after it exceeded the accepted length by a page. She objected when the city attorney described Mr. Anderson's advocacy group, the Coalition for Adequate Review, as CAR in their documents. (It's C-FAR.) She also convinced the court to review key planning documents over the city's objections.

Slow Pedaling

In November 2006, a California Superior Court judge rejected San Francisco's contention that it didn't need an environmental review and ordered San Francisco to stop all bike-plan activity until it completed the review.

Since then, San Francisco has pedaled very slowly. City planners say they're being extra careful with their environmental study, in hopes that Mr. Anderson and Ms. Miles won't challenge it. Planners don't expect the study will be done for another year.

Meanwhile, Mr. Anderson and Ms. Miles have teamed up to oppose a plan to put high-rises and additional housing in a nearby neighborhood. He continues to blog from his apartment in an old Victorian home. "Regardless of the obvious dangers, some people will ride bikes in San Francisco for the same reason Islamic fanatics will engage in suicide bombings -- because they are politically motivated to do so," he wrote in a May 21 post.

"In case anyone doubted that you were a wingnut, this statement pretty much sums things up!" one commenter retorted.

Mr. Anderson is running for supervisor again this November -- around the time the city will unveil the first draft of its bike-plan environmental review. He's already pondering a challenge of the review.

Write to Phred Dvorak at phred.dvorak@wsj.com

 

Bridle Trail is a hidden treasure at Balboa Park

Nice article about our local Bridal Trail, which I walk regularly and our Balboa Park Trust has helped improve.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20080814-9999-1cz14hike.html

Digital Domain - Goodbye, Passwords. You Aren’t a Good Defense. - NYTimes.com

Anti-OpenID?  Not to mention this approach seems to assume you are always on your own machine...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/technology/10digi.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=login