Deep Green Crystals

« August 2008 | Main | October 2008 »

September 30, 2008

Nancy Pelosi's wickedly partisan hatred filled speech that killed the rescue package

don't let anyone tell you the republicans killed it. 95 democrats voted against it. And Pelosi played politics and tried to make this a Bush failure. This speech turned back all the good work McCain did to get house republicans on board. She undid it in one speech. Listen to the partisan rant. It will turn your stomach. This is why Americans hate politicians.

Posted by Martin at 2:09 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

What is the actual rescue package?

With all the finger pointing and sound bites, i am confused as to what was actually proposed and voted on. No longer. Here is the exact text of the bill. I look forward to reading the new one.

Posted by Martin at 12:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

OSU investment club outperforms the market

About five years ago, I gave my college, Oregon State University, an endowment to start a real money trading account for the finance club. It is much more interesting to actually invest real money than play money, it changes the dynamics of learning very significantly. After three years of managing this small endowment, the club has a track record and has attracted $1M in investment from the OSU foundation. Very cool to see a small investment of mine pay off big and to create real learning opportunities. Article here.

Posted by Martin at 11:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

breakfast in sfo

breakfast in sfo


Originally uploaded by ministeroforder

Testing Flickr blog integration. Very good actually. Just enter my mt.cgi path and give password. Then you have a blog this button on all your pictures. Very cool. This is breakfast this morning at the St. Regis in Sfo.

Posted by Martin at 11:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 26, 2008

just set up a meeid

Very simple user home page, possibly portable reputation later.

Posted by Martin at 5:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

washington Ewaste recycling law

over 17 states have passed laws requiring ewaste recycling funded by the manufacturers. Washington's law is here. e-takeback.org has the full list and tracks all these laws. I believe these laws will create lots of business opportunities.

Posted by Martin at 4:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

how to use MTurk for audio transcription

I was very interested in automated transcription for awhile. But after the recent downtime of the PhoneTag system, I turned off the service. People kept getting a fast busy when their service was down. I had though to writing a script to send my voice mails to MTurk. Over at Waxy the guy did something similar and explained it very well, code included. It is the best MTurk audio transcription guide I have seen. It still ends up costing $.40 per minute which is about $.20 per :30 seconds. In volume you can get a contractor in the philipenes to do that for $.10 per :30. Still too much to support with ads, but WAY cheaper than doing yourself.

Posted by Martin at 2:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 25, 2008

Play the consumer consequences game

over at public radio. Figures out your environmental footprint in a fun way.

Posted by Martin at 3:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

McCain does the right thing

by suspending the campaign. Obama and the media saying McCain is somehow scared of a debate are totally not understanding how serious this frigging thing is.

Posted by Martin at 2:41 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Create islands of oil independence now!

Posted by Martin at 11:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 24, 2008

iPhone continues to be useless

I don't know if all my iPhone problems are related to contacts, but the thing is totally useless now. I can't play music, play a video, browse the web, or use any application at all for more than 2 minutes. Every application crashes.
unbelievable they sell this piece of junk.

Posted by Martin at 6:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 23, 2008

ShopGoodWill has its own auctions

Goodwill has it's own auction site because they don't want to pay 11-15% to ebay. good for them.

thanks KK for pointer

Thrift store hunting isn't just a pasttime. It can be an honest living. Finding and flipping used goods for profit has been the main source of income for one of my friends for more than a decade. Though picking through racks of clothing, bins of electronics and boxes of watches -- or trolling eBay and Craigslist -- can be fruitful, another weekend-thrifter friend also swears by Goodwill's online auction site, which features 18,000 items daily that have been handpicked by several stores nationwide. You're getting access to the cream of the crop, but not every storeworker knows the value of what they have or how to describe it -- and every bidder doesn't necessarily know either (the market for vintage Levi's has become so lucrative that people try to pass off faux-jeans to less-discerning eBayers). Whether you're looking to join the flip economy or you enjoy stumbling on old, rare, cheap stuff, Goodwill's site is a great resource. Here's a bit of what I found recently (followed by current bids): Kodak Colorburst 50 Polaroid ($4.99), Ronco Rhinestone & Stud Setter ($5), Harley-Davidson Men's Boots - size 11 ($11), Nintendo 64 System ($15), Hohner Student IV Accordion w/Case ($9.59), and a Minolta Hi-Matic F 35mm ($8).Warning: shipping can be expensive. Also, items are purchased 'as is' and cannot be returned.-- Steven LeckartGoodwill Online Auctionshttp://www.shopgoodwill.com/listings/listbycat.asp?catid=8

Posted by Martin at 7:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 22, 2008

how to be an evangelist

Guy Kawasaki reminds us of the basics of a good product evangelist....
I am looking for one by the way....

Posted by Martin at 8:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Why I hate the Iphone

I got the iphone thursday. My blackberry curve finally just died. The track ball fell out and is forever lost. The Blackberry Bold is not out yet, so I decided to try the iPhone because they finally added Exchange integration push which is a must have for me. After five days of hell and complaining I am ready to spike this piece of junk. The people at the Apple store were very nice and courteous today as they told me that having 8,000 contacts was my problem and I should cull those down and no their programmer error on how they page contacts in/out of memory is a feature not a bug, but I am rambling...

The reason the iPhone sucks eggs for a long term crackberry addict like myself is actually very easy.

Here are the features that are important to me in a mobile device in priority order, Most important to Least Important

eMail push
Calendar, contact, task wireless sync
Phone
text messaging
Camera
browser
Bluetooth
RSS readers
add on applications
game platform
media player

Here are the features that the IPhone is good at in BEST to WORST

Media Player
Browser
game platform
add on applications
Camera
Phone
text messaging
Calendar, contact wireless sync (no task)
email

Notice that the list is pretty much an exact inverse. The IPhone sucks at all the stuff that is important to me and excells at all the stuff that I don't really care about. Going back to the Blackberry.

Posted by Martin at 8:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

interesting traffic graph

of paperbackswap, swapthing, swaptree, freecycle.org
freecycle tends to get a hit when they get press. Swaptree is steadilly growing. Swapthing has much smaller traffic than their PR would lead you to believe. And the vertical market around books is actually larger than the general markets.
click here

Posted by Martin at 11:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

go Brammo

They just got $10M. Congrats

Posted by Martin at 10:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

review of Zwaggle

Been reviewing swap sites lately. One that has been sent across my radar is Zwaggle. Here is a first impression:

good:
- have virtual currency "zoints"
- have wish lists
- have simple "items in my neighborhood" button (searches zip codes near you).
- has ability for charities to register and for you to direct your gift to a charity.
- condition of items having drop down values
- some algroythm used year of purchase, condition and original value to calculate "zoints".
- four options on shipping, drop off, shipper pays, pick up, receipent pays.
- choose fed ex or usps media mail
- groups is good.
- decent marketing, press coverage, but very thin for how long the site has been up.

bad:
- terrible UI, very 1980.
- Too long a sign-up procedure, ask for too much information before I can use the site. Ask for duplicate information.
- no standard for Zoints assignment.
- national footprint from get go means only 700 active listings, very thin geographically.
- no integration with meta data provider
- forces you into massive item categorization. This is good for search results, but bad as a user experience. User should have option to use lots of categorization or little.
- five screens to fill out when posting an item. way too many.
- when you donate to charity, you don't actually donate the item to charity, you donate your "zoints" to charity. Apparently then the charity can come to the site and get stuff it wants from the site. This is a weird transaction.
- no ezplanation of how zoints are calculated or how they are valuable. The zoints calculation does not relate to any real world "garage sale" value. For example it estimated my VHS tape was worth 11 zoints, when that tape would be worth $.25 from good will.
- internal message system very kludgy.
- way to many clicks to do anything.
- when making an offer for an item, you can only choose shipping methods that the "giver" clicked. what if i want to offer to pay shipping but the giver didn't select that? i should be able to make that offer. Maybe the giver would change their mind.
- i tried to "take" five things. 100% failure rate. Nothing was available. Got back messages from the system saying the items were no longer available.
- the site crashed 3 out of 5 times I used it.
- very limited product focus to "family" items.
- facebook applicaiton is confusing and takes you to another app.
- twitter integration is lame.

Conclusion: Missed the mark. ignore for now.

Posted by Martin at 8:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 16, 2008

wow glasses, i must be getting old

Posted by Martin at 6:48 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

September 15, 2008

trying out catch the best

one of the keys to consuming less resources is to use virtual copies of everything you used to buy and spend resources for. One of those is employee recruiting. I am trying a new web site with some workflow in it. Want to work for my new startup? I have the free account so they have their branding on the page. They should have a free private label version. The branding sucks.

Posted by Martin at 8:06 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

New top level category

In light of the carnage going on in our financial system and the behind the sceens heroic efforts going on to preserve the very American way of life, I thought it was time to start point some of these events out and the good/bad things going on. So this category "Averting Economic Collapse" will have all that stuff. Paulson continues to impress me. The history books of this time will most likely credit him with saving the WORLD financial system (if it works). The politicians are largely followers and onlookers. Let the financial professionals do their job. And lets hope the poll watching vote sluts don't mess it up with some knee jerk red meat for the base.

Posted by Martin at 8:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Special letter on Lehman collapse

Mark sent this around last night. He is right, We are closer to the beginning than the end. Look out mark to market accounting. In an upward spiral this is good for balance sheets. In a downward spiral marked by multiple firesales this is hell on balance sheets. More losses to come.

From: Strategic News Service
To: Martin
Sent: Sun Sep 14 23:02:40 2008
Subject: SNS Special Alert: U.S. Treasury Out of Bullets?

Lehman declared bankruptcy tonight, and B of A announced it was purchasing Merrill Lynch for $50B.

Here is my blog post from yesterday:

This weekend finds Lehman Bros. twisting in the wind. Guys who remember 8th grade dance class remember the feeling, as the Teutonic teacher loudly and suddenly announces the Sadie Hawkins dance, where girls get to pick boys, and there you are, still sitting along the wall. (Of course, for girls, every dance offered this delightful experience.)

Welcome to the world of Lehman.

People are fond of reciting the phrase: The darkest hour is often just before the dawn. It seems to me, on local as well as global stages, that the opposite is just as often true: the moment of greatest peril is when you think the challenge is over.

So it is for the U.S., and therefore global, financial system. And I dont say this with any intended hubris. I doubt that any reader would argue long over the posit that a failed U.S. financial system would cast the world into complete economic chaos. In this particular and key universe, the U.S. is still in the World Series hunt, and China is a farm team.

With the rescue of Fannie and Freddie (may we make that assumption? on paper, at least), my prediction to my British friends and co-bloggers has come to pass: there was no way Secretary Paulson was going to let them fail, and he didnt. It was never about moral hazard, it was about the complete collapse of the U.S. lending system.

But now what? Paulson has, just as wisely, met with Lehman and the leading global banks last night. While I havent seen any transcript of the meeting, my guess is that he has told them he will not be bailing out Lehman, that he will be glad to help with the meetings part, but the money and risk assumption will be theirs. Support, but no money.

This, too, is exactly the right move, in my opinion, but it brings up a difficult question. What if, in this game of chicken, no one blinks?

I have little doubt that Lehman is a basket case, based solely on their losses announced to date. But I have the same feeling about Merrill Lynch, one of the supposed saviors in last nights meeting. Other than Goldman Sachs, there are a lot of walking wounded out there right now, who, despite all the triage and medical care, will take a couple more years to heal their balance sheets.

The Congress, and the Treasury, are probably on the same page regarding additional bank failures: let them happen. But what will be the result, if they do?

The chances of another bank failure, starting with Lehman, are, I believe, very high. When these failures occur, they will probably be like Palins self description: pigs with lipstick on. In this case, that probably means, for example, a sale to someone like Bank of America on such draconian terms that all equity value is effectively wiped out, the managers are fired, and huge headcount reductions follow.

Was it a sale, a fire sale, or just a fire, with B of A sweeping up the ashes?

And if it turns out to be the latter, as I expect, will the ensuing damage to the markets be manageable? Once? Twice?

I think the Treasury is essentially out of bullets in this war to save the U.S. financial system, and if so, the next few weeks and months will be those of greatest peril, even as many on the Street are heaving sighs of relief and writing about how the danger has already passed.

--

The disappearance of Lehman and ML as independent banks over the 24 hours since this was written underlines the danger the U.S. financial sector is facing. No one can blame B of A for taking Merrill instead of Lehman; no doubt, some will try to blame John Thain for selling Merrill, but one should keep in mind that it is what we don't know, rather than what we know, that probably led to the (forced) sale.

This double event confirms my concerns about the elevated level of peril the banking industry is in today.

Mark Anderson
CEO
Strategic News Service

Posted by Martin at 8:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

interesting solution to the mortgage crisis

I have been saying for some time that the current economic crisis is actually a crisis of confidence not a fundamental problem with any particular business. It is a problem of Trust and Faith. things the scientific among us are very bad at managing. The core problem here is that investors have lost their bearings. The old "rules of thumb" are not working. Rules like "Bear Stearns and Lehman Bros are credible co-parties". Rules like "A house is worth what the assessment says". The basic problem is that money is frozen because parties are finding it too hard to assess the risk of lending it around. There is no way to come to a "clearing price". The market is illiquid. So how do you set prices that everyone can agree on and get the risk takers to start taking risk again (probably for a higher price now). Well in home markets, Michale Lissack has an interesting idea: I like it, pass it on.

Fixing the Financial MessUGH!
Procrastination has led us to what may be a financial precipice, but there is a solution.A vast portion of the mess is caused by the mark-to-market accounting rule and the lack of liquidity (and thus a market and thus a meaningful market price) for uncertain and "tainted" assets (mostly mortgages, credit card debt, and related derivatives).
The mark to market rules ASSUME a liquid market and thus meaningful market prices. Such is not our present environment. It is too late in the gain to suspend the mark to market rules. That solution would have worked well a year ago, but today investors would merely be even more spooked by the uncertainty.
The solution lies in recognizing the shift between equity and debt which the market turmoil has created. Since the government now control Fannie and Freddie it also controls the very mechanisms to solve the problem.
Fannie and Freddie should mandate that every conforming loan outstanding be subject to an appraisal for the underlying property. If the appraisal suggests a loan to value ration in excess of 110%, it is time to recognize that a PORTION of the loan is in reality an equity investment. All such loans should then be subjected to a mandatory split such that 90% of the appraised value receives a Fannie/Freddie guarantee and the other piece does not. The first piece would have an established market value based on par for the principal and current interest rates. The second piece would become in effect participating equity. Banks and borrowers should have the option of exchanging the second piece for up to 75% of the future appreciation in the property valuing each 25% of future appreciation (above the current appraised value determined above) at 5% of the current appraised value of the home.

These two steps would restore value to perhaps 70-80% of the currently illiquid uncertain mortgage assets plaguing the US financial markets. The mess would be over.Please pass this message on to your elected officials AND your bankers.

Posted by Martin at 8:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The dynamic duo let us down (rated 1 star)

Posted by Martin at 7:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A story about "Defenders of the Faith"

Posted by Martin at 7:38 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 14, 2008

Free is a very good price

A corollary to conserving resources, reuse of resources, is to get something for nothing. Yes sometimes Free is a very green price. So I have become a bit obsessed with the depth and breadth of free offers. Now I am not talking free things that actually have a cost like Radio and TV. The cost being your attention. Free email with ads. Some minor attention payment is fine, but major attention sucker like Evite is too much. So what is out there that is truly free? Or free "enough" with minimum attention cost?

Therefore a new category "Free is a very good price". Here you will find not only reuse commerce but also offers from companies of free stuff. I will post stuff that I think are actually attractive offers. Where the "cost" in attention or contact information is small enough to be worth the free item.

One of the first to catch my eye was 000webhosting.com. 250MB disk space, 100GM data transfer and zero ads. All the stuff you expect from web hosting but no costs. They support it because they know you will need more space, more domains, more email, whatever. So you will upgrade. These are very effective offers. Just like the drug dealer. The first one is free. Razor and Razorblade. I like. And many times the first one maybe all you need.

Posted by Martin at 10:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Alt-A mortgages, the other shoe to drop

Ok, we have all heard of sub prime. But did you know that there are only about $855B of them? The next level up the rung (from the bottom) of easy to get mortgages are Alt-A mortgages. Those are also called "stated income". Basically no W2 required. Mostly made to small businesses or to people with lots of non wage income, they just said "my income is XXX" and there was little verification. Estimates of overstated income range from 5-50%. And then these small businesses are not doing well in the current environment. In the second quarter default rates of this kind of loans went into double digits. Hummm... More coming.

See where all the bones are in Alt-A mortgages over at Bloomberg.

Posted by Martin at 10:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

corn ethanol bust continues

Very hit it home story from bloomberg

As I pointed out months ago, we are WAY long on ethanol.

"The 168 plants had capacity for 9.96 billion gallons as of Aug. 26, almost 1 billion more than the U.S. requires this year, the Washington trade group Renewable Fuels Association says. Another 43 plants scheduled to be built or expanded would raise capacity to 13.8 billion gallons. Most make ethanol from corn."

Posted by Martin at 10:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

trying google talk

Posted by Martin at 4:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 11, 2008

eztradein

there are lots of sites where you can try to sell your ewaste yourself. Then there are sites that will buy it from you and even send you pre-paid postage. They basically then resell it on ebay and make a margin, but it is no longer your problem. The best of these is probably eztradein.com. just joined their affiliate program. I like the recommerce aspect of it. They take care of everything. I just put in my laptop, a three year old IBM thinkpad that cost $2,800 and they said they would give me $101, while new ones on ebay are $900-$1200. I bet a used one would be $500. That would be a 5x their money. Not bad.

Posted by Martin at 12:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 10, 2008

getting to know McCain the man

Read this from Worldnet

Why haven't we heard these very personal and very telling stories about McCain. I hope every American gets to know the McCain I know.

There's another factor we need to consider seriously in picking a president, as Karl Rove insightfully noted in a Wall Street Journal column.

Rove tells of a recent dinner date with Col. Bud Day and his wife. A congressional medal of honor recipient and former fighter pilot and Vietnam POW, Day was John McCain's superior officer and roommate at the "Hanoi Hilton" prison.

"When it comes to choosing a president," said Rove, "the American people want to know more about a candidate than policy positions. They want to know about character, the values ingrained in his heart. For Mr. McCain, that means they will want to know more about him personally than he has been willing to reveal."

In pursuit of this goal, Rove related a few of the stories Day told him, including one about what happened to Day after escaping from a North Vietnamese prison during the war:

When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm and said, "I told you I would make you a cripple."

The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day's will. He had survived in prison on the hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able to fly again. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out of his arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm would heal at "a goofy angle," as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, he never would have flown again.

But it didn't heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe punishment, Messrs. McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison courtyard to use as a splint.

Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the floor of their cell and, using his foot, jerked the broken bone into place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his own wounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day's splint in place. …

Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complimented the treatment he'd gotten from his captors. Mr. Day corrected them. It was Dr. McCain who deserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again.

Another story the Days told him over dinner, said Rove, involved McCain's role as one of three de facto chaplains for his fellow POWs. Day, the senior officer at the Hanoi prison, appointed McCain to help administer religious services to the other prisoners. As Rove explained it:

Today, Mr. Day, a very active 83, still vividly recalls Mr. McCain's sermons. "He remembered the Episcopal liturgy," Mr. Day says, "and sounded like a bona fide preacher." One of Mr. McCain's first sermons took as its text Luke 20:25 and Matthew 22:21, "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's." Mr. McCain said he and his fellow prisoners shouldn't ask God to free them, but to help them become the best people they could be while serving as POWs. It was Caesar who put them in prison and Caesar who would get them out. Their task was to act with honor.

Already well-known is the fact that McCain refused early release from the Hanoi Hilton, due to his father's position as a U.S. Navy admiral. Comments Rove:

Mr. Day recalls with pride Mr. McCain stubbornly refusing to accept special treatment or curry favor to be released early, even when gravely ill. Mr. McCain knew the Vietnamese wanted the propaganda victory of the son and grandson of Navy admirals accepting special treatment. "He wasn't corruptible then," Mr. Day says, "and he's not corruptible today."

However, the stories the Days told Rove went beyond the Vietnam War era. In 1991, for instance, "Cindy McCain was visiting Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh when a dying infant was thrust into her hands," Rove writes. When it became clear the orphanage couldn't provide the medical care necessary to save the child's life, Cindy McCain brought the child back to America with her, where she was met at the airport by her husband.

When Mrs. McCain explained that the child desperately needed surgery and years of rehabilitation, and said to John, "I hope she can stay with us," McCain agreed. "Today that child is their teenage daughter, Bridget," writes Rove.

While Rove says he was aware of this story, what he didn't know previously was that Mrs. McCain had brought back a second infant – a little girl that ended up being adopted by young McCain aide Wes Gullet and his wife.

"We were called at midnight by Cindy," Gullett later told Rove, and "five days later we met our new daughter, Nicki, at the L.A. airport wearing the only clothing Cindy could find on the trip back, a 7-Up T-shirt she bought in the Bangkok airport." Today, Nicki is a high school sophomore. And, Gullett told Rove, "I never saw a hospital bill" for her care.

Rove, who calls McCain "one of the most private individuals to run for president in history," described these details of the candidate's private life not only "deeply moving," but "politically troubling" – troubling because, in Rove's words, "if Mr. McCain is to win the election this fall, he has to open up."

To be sure, explains Rove, Americans need to know about McCain's vision for America's future, including "his policy positions and domestic reforms." But, he stresses, "they also need to learn about the moments in his life that shaped him. Mr. McCain cannot make this a biography-only campaign – but he can't afford to make it a biography-free campaign either. Unless he opens up more, many voters will never know the experiences of his life that show his character, integrity and essential decency."

Although John McCain is far from a perfect person or candidate, he has demonstrated both the strong character and the core American values we want and need in a president. Barack Obama, whose entire campaign is based on dazzling as many people as possible with beguiling words while concealing at all costs his breathtakingly destructive, far-left agenda, has not demonstrated the character needed to be president.

Friends, please don't bother e-mailing me about all the wrong things McCain has done over the years. I've been a newsman for most of the past 25-plus years. I've heard it all, and then some. Our nation has never had a perfect chief executive, and we frankly don't require one. What we absolutely do need, as Rove put it, is one with "character, integrity and essential decency."

Posted by Martin at 10:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

considering evernote and google notebook

looking for a quick note application to keep track of diligence on web sites I review. Neither of these tools are any good for that. Google notebook is an overarchitected to do list only accessible in browser (no good) and evernote you have to pay for (and i don't understand how to use it). I don't see that much difference between firefox bookmarks and evernote. Why add another tool?

Posted by Martin at 10:23 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

more frustration on craigs list

this one is funny and has alot of "f" words in it, so i am linking for the family audience.
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/5267/blocksjb0.png

Posted by Martin at 4:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Democrats on an escalator

This is totally the Democrat's approach to problems. Wait for someone else to help.

Posted by Martin at 11:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 8, 2008

Here is a cool widget

estimates your trade in value for electronics in the future. Of course, you have to buy INSURANCE from TechForward to get these values, but that is the cost of being green dudes!

Posted by Martin at 5:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

ecycling gets mandate

Thanks EcoGeek. While companies will be required to buy back e-waste. I am sure they would prefer to have it reused for as long as possible. I smell opportunity.

Posted by Martin at 5:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

craig's list humor

ok, really potty humor.

1960's era round toilet, light-beige color. This seemingly uncloggable toilet is in good working condition (replaced by a white toilet) and in the year that I have known it, has never clogged, backed-up, or otherwise inconvenienced me.

Posted by Martin at 10:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

more frustration on craig's list

people have a pile of stuff and they want someone to take it all and to show up. From Craig's list free listing. You can hear the frustration in this post (one of many).

Big pile of free items, but you MUST TAKE ALL, not just what you want.. Bag full of misc. size shoes for girls,, bags of girls toys, new pictures for girls room (like Hillary Duff and Brittany Spears) new stuffed animals, etc. Must go today!! or going to thrift store first thing in morning, if not tonight . Will not hold, if you email and say you are coming, I will give you enough time to get here, then will offer to next person, my time is important too.

Posted by Martin at 8:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

now this is neighborly

Nice to see people are sharing the fruits of their bounty locally. Seen on Craig's list free section:

I've got a 1 1/2 trees of plums, much more than I'll use. Probably fill a 5 gallon bucket or two. I'm up the hill from the Old Cannery. Email for specific address. If you've got excess fruit/vegi's, bring them with you and I'll trade ya picked plums, otherwise, it's a u-pick deal. If you've got to ask where Edgewood is, it's probably too far away for you to come!

Posted by Martin at 7:43 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

frustration with Craig's list

While I love Craig's list, there seems to be growing frustration with the flakes on there. See this post today:

This is a repost due to liars - please do not say you want these unless you intend on picking them up. Most people on craigslist are honest, it would be nice if we could weed out the bad ones. If you change your mind, all you have to do is send an email! No big deal. Why is this so hard to do for some people? Oh well, here it is again: these are picture frames, very nice, new -

2 5x7
2 8x10

3 of 4 of them still wrapped in plastic

free - you pick up in Spanaway/Graham area

Posted by Martin at 7:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 6, 2008

was going to sign up for DocStoc but now am not

Read the fine print....

you agree that DOCSTOC is free to use such Submission for the purpose of providing you with the associated services and you grant DOCSTOC a sublicensable, nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to (in any media, whether now known or not currently known or invented) link to, utilize, use, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce, distribute, modify and prepare derivative works of the Submission.

I just want somewhere to store and sync my files. I don't want to grant a license...

Die docstoc

Posted by Martin at 8:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 5, 2008

this is all you need to know about the presidential race

observe the spongy tire...

Posted by Martin at 2:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 3, 2008

You probably saw this ad during the conventions or olympics

join WeCanSolveIt.com. This was just a drop in the bucket against the $427M that the oil and coal industries spend in the first half of 2008.

Posted by Martin at 11:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I support McCain's "all the above" energy policy... with one exception

don't drill in Alaska until you have drilled everywhere else. We have huge undrilled fields that are permitted in the gulf. The drilling won't make a difference before 10 years anywhere. Do all the above that can have an effect in the next 2-3 years.

John McCain: "Offshore drilling, we've got to drill now and got to drill here and we've got to be And I know that there's some here in California that disagree -- that disagree with that position. Could I also mention very seriously about this issue. My friends, you know that this is a national security issue. We're sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much, that some of that money is ending up in the hands of terrorist organizations. We cannot allow this greatest transfer of wealth in history and our national security continuing to be threatened.
"And Rick, I know we've got a lot of issues to cover but let me say it. At the town hall meetings that I have every day, that's the issue on people's mind is energy. If I could take one, 30 seconds. One, we've got to do everything. We've got to do wind, tide, solar, natural gas, hydrogen cars, hybrid cars, electric cars. And we have to have nuclear power in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and save on our energy costs.
"By the way, in case you hadn't noticed it, the French, 80 percent. We love to imitate the French. 80 percent of their electricity is generated by nuclear power. If they can do it and reprocess, we can, too, my friends. And by the way, if you hadn't noticed, we now have a pro-American president of France, which shows if you live long enough, anything can happen in America."
Watch It Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXCVLmwXIag

Posted by Martin at 11:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Totally hillarious Nancy Pelosi video

she is such a chicken

Nancy Pelosi Techno Chicken from wreckandsalvage on Vimeo.

Posted by Martin at 10:37 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 2, 2008

some things are better done in person

just spent half an hour trying to use USAA deposit at home to scan and deposit a check for $7.39 (my 1.1% of the securites fraud class action against 360 Networks). It failed numerous times with driver conflicts with the Dell scanner and color problems. three checks deposited fine about 3 minutes each. Some things are better done in person at the bank.
oh well.

Posted by Martin at 9:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Bad free searching experience

Ok, i need a couple new white boards for my office. Thoughts drift back to the couple dozen at Imperium where there are now no employees. White boards just hanging in empty offices. So I go to Craig's list free listings. Search for "white board" lots of results, but nothing that is actually a "white board". Lots of things with the words "white" and "Board" separate, but no white boards and no way to search for the two words together. So I go to SharingisGiving.org. Seattle site. Last post of something was from July 31, 2008. No traffic. Ugh. Same problem, nothing. But at least there I have the Yahoo Group targeted adds where I get three very specific white board ads. WhiteboardDepot.com, Murerase.com, billyboardsmfg.com. All highly relevant if I wanted to buy. This is actually more helpful to me than Craigs list who just left me with nothing. That is good, but I still want it for free. So I go to Freecycle.org. Lots more traffic and postings. Since they are on Yahoo, I get the same three sponsored ads. Good. No "offered" white boards but a coupel Wanted. So I take that way. I post a "Wanted". Notice this "Wanted" is only there for other "givers" to notice and maybe take pity on me by giving me what I "want". "Wanted" postings are discouraged in the guidelines. What I would really like is to save my search for white board and be notified when one comes available. If I don't get an offer by tomorrow, I will unfortunately be forced to go buy some whiteboards from china. Another consumption needlessly enabled by an inefficient reuse market.

Posted by Martin at 8:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

saw on craigslist

the reverse guilt trip on a free stuff listing:

"Remember, if you don't come and pick up all of this crap that I don't want to haul around or take responsibility for any more, it will wind up in the dump and on your soul come judgement day, and somehow it will all be your fault, and not mine, so come and save it (and your soul) now!"

Posted by Martin at 8:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

recycling by making new product

Making something new out of something old is another way to reuse a thing. Thanks Rob for sending over Recycled Waders. they take old fly fishing waders and make wallets, messenger bags and other things out of them. I love this idea, not sure it is a big business. This is one step beyond just making a messenger bag out of fabric spun from recycled PET bottles like the Fleurville bag. My favorite recycled messenger bag is the one from Alchemy Goods made from old bike innertubes.

Posted by Martin at 4:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

New Area of interest for me

I have been thinking over the last couple of months about what problem to focus my brain cycles on now. I still worry about renewable energy and biodiesel quite a bit and will continue to post on that, but am looking for something a bit more actionable. My thoughts have drifted back toward technology a bit and to that intersection of technology and energy. I am also much more interested in flanking maneuvers versus full frontal attacks. Imperium Renewables was a full frontal attack on diesel. Frontal attacks are very costly and the defender has the advantage of being dug in with heavy fortifications. While I love the thrill of the frontal attack, I don't have the stomach for another one of those just yet.

While casting around for a flanking move against big oil, I got to thinking about the overall consumerism culture which has been enabled by cheap oil and how that may change with sustainably higher price oil. When labor and transportation from China are both cheap, outsourcing makes sense. But what about when transportaion (fueled by oil) becomes expensive? And the labor starts to want the modern conviences requiring oil? I watched the video over at the Story of Stuff and wondered how that cycle will be affected by long term expensive distribution cycles and higher commodity prices across the board. Then I hear that EBay listings from individuals are up significantly as the economic downturn causes people to try to monitize their extra stuff. After tripping over an old work out bench of mine in the garage one to many times, I decided to get rid of it. It was basically new three years ago and hardly used. Not land fill material yet. It cost $399 new. I listed it on Craig's list for $50. Taking the picture and posting was kind painful for such a small priced item. No takers. Two weeks later I listed for $25. Two takers, five phone calls and three missed pick-ups later both buyers flaked. My time spent was now more than the revenue I would garner. So I decided to give it away for free. I posted on both Craigslist and Freecycle.org. Got about 10 calls/emails. Another 30 emails later and multiple phone calls, all five people I offered it to flaked. It still sits in my garage. I am now have about 20 hours invested in giving something away for free and have multiple failed transactions.

Yesterday a friend sent me an e-mail with a recommendation of a book to read. One cut and paste and two clicks on Amazon and the book is wizzing my way. Less than 30 seconds of work. Wow, something is really wrong in the low end of transactions. Especially person to person transactions.

So my new area of interst I am calling "Recommerce". Recycling, reuse, sharing, bartering, loaning of stuff. Keep it out of the landfill. Prevent purchasing. Share with your neighbors. Extend the life of goods beyond 6 months. I have created a "Recommerce" category on the blog and will be posting to that category.

Some of my favorite/inspirational sites in this area include:

Craigslist free listings
Freecycle.org
Freesharing.org
Paperbackswap.com
Sharething.com
RecycleBank

this is going to be fun

Posted by Martin at 1:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 1, 2008

thinking about mileage tools

Thinking about mileage these days. I drive a VW Touareg V10 diesel. Now it gets about 20mpg which is pretty good for a big fast truck. And i run 100% biodiesel, so I don't need to feel like getting 100mpg because I am not burning any dinosaurs. But lately I have seen a rash of press on services that will track your mileage and help you improve it. I like these sites. I personally use Propel Fuel's Cleandrive program, since that is where I buy all my biodiesel. But that is only for their customers. I recently joined Fuelclinic which is a web site for everyone. Unfortunately you have to enter all your fuel purchases and mileage yourself. Over at Propel, they have my credit card on file and I when I fill up the site is automagically updated to show me mileage, CO2 reduction, everything. I hope the people at FuelClinic get some integration to the credit card companies or something soon. That would make it WAY more useful. For now I am going to stick with Propel and you should as well if you drive a diesel in seattle. But if not, join FuelClinic....

Posted by Martin at 9:27 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

GE org chart

I always wanted to know what it was....
2159664_1217006578_ge_organization_chart.pdf

Posted by Martin at 7:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

just installed drag and drop.io

As frequent readers know I love drop.io. Just installed their firefox plugin and it rules. Can't be any easier to share files... the screen capture with developer voice over is a nice feature as well. Quick and simple.

Posted by Martin at 7:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

world wide map of solar, wind and hydro resources

found 3tiergroup who have a cool web product that maps all solar, wind and hydro resources with google maps integration. type in your address and see what your average wind speed is, or check the solar data. the company hopes to make money selling this data to commercial project developers, but it is a fun thing to do for your house. They add in things like incentives to give you a "score" which is pretty unique.

Posted by Martin at 7:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack