Really bad idea for 10pm- start using the neat Firefox web designer plugin to trry and validate your site’s HTML and CSS.
Now I have to learn what makes valid HTML and CSS 🙁
I guess it’s something to do over the weekend.
Update Diane has some advice about this.
“Middle Of the Road and Off the Grid.” You could call them Moogs, Wired coins the term “hygrid”. Ordinary households across the US are aiming for energy independence with solar power, wind turbines and wood burning stoves. They’re still connected to the power lines, because sometimes they can’t produce quite enough power and sometimes they have a surplus to sell back, but their bills have plummeted.
This is energy policy I want to see my government backing. One or two Smith or Patel families in each neighbourhood slashing their energy bills by over a half would do more to speed uptake of energy saving and micro generation than any amount of woolly promises Tony could make. Once again- don’t waste money trying to sell nuclear power- fund a few power stations in Acacia Avenue and see the benefits roll in.
Technorati tag: Micro generation, Hygrid, self sufficiency, Technorati tag: Solar Power
Do not stare at this under the influence of anything.
Technorati tag: Optical Illusion
“Middle Of the Road and Off the Grid.” You could call them Moogs, Wired coins the term “hygrid”. Ordinary households across the US are aiming for energy independence with solar power, wind turbines and wood burning stoves. They’re still connected to the power lines, because sometimes they can’t produce quite enough power and sometimes they have a surplus to sell back, but their bills have plummeted.
This is energy policy I want to see my government backing. One or two Smith or Patel families in each neighbourhood slashing their energy bills by over a half would do more to speed uptake of energy saving and micro generation than any amount of woolly promises Tony could make. Once again- don’t waste money trying to sell nuclear power- fund a few power stations in Acacia Avenue and see the benefits roll in.
Technorati tag: Micro generation, Hygrid, self sufficiency
Create a film in just nine hours from scratch. Anyone without a video camera and Powerbook need not apply.
I do have a plan for shooting a film in one day, but that’s a different thing again.
Technorati tag: Film making
Technorati tag: Green Tags, Renewable Energy
The Rand Cam rotary engine is lighter, more efficient and easier to maintain, with only two moving parts, the vanes and rotor, compared to 40 in a simple four cylinder engine. It also works particularly well with clean burning fuels such as hydrogen and propane.
One of the most anticipated uses for the new technology is among the blossoming hydrogen-powered automobile industry. The development of the Rand Cam(TM) engine has sparked considerable interest among environmentalists and eco-friendly manufacturers because of its ability to operate using a clean-burning hydrogen fuel cell. “Hybrid electric vehicles and engines that run using cleaner-burning fuels such as hydrogen, propane and natural gas are the future of the automotive industry,” said John Robertson, CEO of Reg Technologies and its US subsidiary, REGI US. “Our society has recognized the benefits of exploring hydrogen-based technologies, and we are happy to be contributing towards the development of more sophisticated engines that operate using hydrogen and other clean burning fuels.”
via Jalopnik
Technorati tag: Transport, Fuel Efficiency
How to keep a house clean in less than twenty minutes a day. I know I ought to, but will I?
via Lifehacker
Technorati tag: House
via Treehugger
Technorati tag: Environmentalism
I had been planning to have an “official” birthday barbecue this weekend, trying to make a tradition of something I started for my third of a century. However, with Daz and Emily away, Clare in revision mode and Damian and me needing to practice climbing hills in advance of an assault on Sca Fell Pike I guess I’ll put it on hold.
You might have noticed that Spinneyhead has been a bit subdued for the last week and a bit. Basically I came back from a lot of travelling over the Bank Holiday weekend to go onto a bullshit Gateway to Work course. I shouldn’t be there. It’s useless to at least three of us (out of ten) but it’s in the rules of New Deal so we have to go. I should have been on a course preparing me for going self employed (as a professional blogger[!!??] it’s one of those things that confuses people more the more I try to explain it) but the funds were cut. It seems that, now that Tony’s back in, the funds have mysteriously reappeared. Pisses me off lots.
The one good thing I’ve gained from this course is an understanding of why I’ll need to get away from the PC when I go back to doing this full time. Between the “how to do an interview” videos and awful time filling quizzes I have managed to write up a press release and business plan. If I were at home I’d be fulfilling my first duty as a problogger- delivering lots of timely information garnered from teh Internets but I’d be slacking on the sitting down and writing original stuff because it’s just too tempting to go and check the RSS feeds every hour or so.
Technorati tag: Spinneyhead
Biomass- coppiced willow etc.- is the UK’s prime source of renewable energy. DEFRA even has a dedicated grant scheme.
Technorati tag: Biomass
Swarms of small, wirelessly connected sensors are to be deployed in forests and other habitats to provide deeper, more consistent readings of the environment. They’ll give longer term data, can track animal movement through body heat and are to be deployed throughout America (maybe the rest of the world can roll out their own versions, I’d love to be able to log on to a real time sampoling of the barrier reef for example) for a “long-term investigation of temporal, climate or human impact”.
“The potential for environmental science is amazing,” said Dr. Alexandra Isern, a program director at the National Science Foundation. “With this technology, we can start to understand what is an event and what is normal. We’re recognizing more and more how different processes in the environment operate at different frequencies. To comprehend that, you need to take measurements all the time.”
Technorati tag: Environment
GreenHybrid.com provides lots of information about owning a hybrid vehicle, including fuel consumption figures garnered from over 5 million miles of driving. It looks like the Honda Insight is the way to go, with Ford and Lexus’ offerings doing no better than a normal car (though, to be fair, the Lexus data is based upon the mileage of only two vehicles, a larger pool of data would be preferable).
via Slashdot
Technorati tag: Transport, Hybrid Vehicles
The PHP cheat sheet. I’ll be downloading this and printing it out some time soon.
Technorati tag: php
Two items originally posted on Spinneyhead-
The Nest of Dragons, a great resource for oddball planes.
Lone Sentry– “Photos, Articles, and Research on the European Theater in World War II”
Technorati tag: Scale Models, Reference
Learn Morse code. Apparently in less than a minute as well.
Learning Morse code is on my list of 100 Things to do
Technorati tag: Morse Code, 100 Things
Steven Grant has a sharp, if bleak, take on the US’s prospects as far as fuel goes. It’s about half way down the page.
If I appear to have no sympathy for this, it’s because I don’t. For a minimum of 30 years, we’ve known the energy crisis was the coming state of things, not just a brief blip during the Carter years.
This is also why I have no sympathy for tobacco companies or tobacco growers. There’s an 1888 medical textbook that directly links tobacco to cancer, specifically lung cancer so the terminal health risks of the weed were known long before the ’50s. Did tobacco companies expand into other areas and divest themselves of tobacco? No. Did tobacco farmers phase out tobacco crops in favor of other cash crops? No. If you have decades to deal with a problem, and you don’t, when someone comes along and says “Take care of it right now!” do you have the right to bitch there’s not enough time? Of course not.
Technorati tag: Transport
The sex lives of America’s extreme rightwingers.
Last night, anti-abortion extremist Neal Horsley was a guest on The Alan Colmes Show, a FOX News radio program.
[…]
AC: “You had sex with animals?”
NH: “Absolutely. I was a fool. When you grow up on a farm in Georgia, your first girlfriend is a mule.
[…]
Horsley said, “You experiment with anything that moves when you are growing up sexually. You’re naive. You know better than that… If it’s warm and it’s damp and it vibrates you might in fact have sex with it.”
via Fleshbot (NSFW)
Technorati tag: Sex, US Politics
Whisky, in small doses, can be good at preventing cancer. A single malt can contain more of the antioxidant ellagic acid than red wine, which has been touted for its free radical busting benefits for several years.
Dr Swan, who is currently assisting four new distillery start-ups, was speaking to the EuroMedlab conference hosted by the Association of Clinical Biochemists. He told the Guardian: “We are talking about the odd dram. I am not talking about a bottle a day,” adding that the effect would be greater in well-aged whisky rather than a cheap blend.
It’s not for everyone but the Scottish Executive is pushing to have local authorities allow residents to put mini wind turbines on their roofs. Personally, I’d find these five bladed turbines a pleasant and inspiring sight, and they’re practically noiseless, but there will always be NIMBYs.
Gillian Bishop, a spokesman for Views of Scotland, an umbrella organisation representing wind farm protesters, said the devices would achieve little and could be more controversial than satellite dishes.
“It seems so much effort for so little power,” she said. “They are just twiddling around the edges and I think if these things are spinning around all over the place it could drive neighbours crazy.”
via Sustainablog
Technorati tag: Wind Power