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