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March 27, 2009
Presentations from Green:Net
Very good videos and powerpoint presentations from the GigaOM Green:Net conference at which I spoke Tuesday this week. If you can only watch one, watch Saul Griffith. If you haven’t gotten enough of my mug, watch me.
Posted by Martin at 2:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
New Features at Kashless.org for spring!
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March 25, 2009
Yahoo Green points to all free stuff sites
Very good overview article. No mention of Kashless, but we are still in development.
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March 17, 2009
Hawaii again proves they value surf over jobs and progress
Those silly protectionists have succeeded in stopping the Super Ferry again. The private company has investors who funded this major new investment in transportation infrastructure for the islands. They have been opposed by people who hate progress at every turn. The project has had to do costly extra studies, delays and “improvements” that have made the return for investors go down the tube. Now with tourism in the tank in Hawaii, you would think the natives would like infrastructure for tourists. But no. They want the islands without tourists. I guess they are going to get it.
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Tried MacBook Pro, going back to Windows/Dell
the allure of the sleek macbook pro was haunting. All our Devs at Kashless have them. They are the “cool” hardware. I want to be with the cool cats. I even got a Kindle recently. So sunday I decided to take the office extra MacBook Pro and live with it for two days. Took it on a trip to Arizona. I hated it. And am going back to windows. While most of the issues I had are solvable over time, I don’t see the upside payoff for the brain damage. Brain damage included:
1. no office. I of course could pay AGAIN. but the Open Office didn’t work well for me and I had already paid for OFfice on windows.
2. I actually like Outlook. on the Mac the Mail app is separate from the iCal. You can’t sync with google calendar without making your calendar public (or paying for another service). The contacts didn’t sync directly with google, only Yahoo, exchange and Mobile ME (yet another fee).
3. Google talk didn’t work correctly.
4. I hate the one click mouse. too many years of two clicks. And my external Microsoft wireless mouse required extra drivers.
5. Verizon software for wireless data modem didn’t work well.
6. Not having the same folder structure was a pain. Having to figure out things I am used to doing like “Send via mail” from explorer you can’t do in Finder. You have to drag the item to the desktop then drag it back into another application. Not worse, just different and a pain to learn with no discernable upside.
I am done with mac laptops.
Posted by Martin at 9:43 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 13, 2009
Well they have done it again
put me on the 5:00 evening news tonite.
Posted by Martin at 8:41 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 12, 2009
Kindle unboxing video
thanks @lindvall for the video…
Posted by Martin at 9:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
what a difference bandwidth makes
I was getting about 30KB/s sustained out of my 2MB/s up 6MB/s down Comcast. Crap. Backblaze said my backup would take 419 days. Today I upgraded to 6MB/s up and 20MB/s down. These speeds were confirmed by Ookla. Now BackBlaze says I will be backed up in 119 days. Still too long, but better. I suspect it will get even better over time.
Posted by Martin at 2:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 11, 2009
Another of those chain-emails that touches a special place in my heart around the economic stimulus package
Sometime this year, taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus Payment. This is a very exciting new program that I will explain using the Q and A format:
Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.
Q. Where will the government get this money?
A. From taxpayers.
Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
A. No, they are borrowing it from China. Your children are expected to repay the Chinese.
Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.
Q. But isn’t that stimulating the economy of China ?
A. Shut up.
Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the US economy by spending your stimulus check wisely:
If you spend that money at Wal-Mart, all the money will go to China.
If you spend it on gasoline it will go to Hugo Chavez, the Arabs and Al Qaeda
If you purchase a computer it will go to Taiwan.
If you purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala (unless you buy organic).
If you buy a car it will go to Japan and Korea.
If you purchase prescription drugs it will go to India
If you purchase heroin it will go to the Taliban in Afghanistan
If you give it to a charitable cause, it will go to Nigeria.
And none of it will help the American economy. We need to keep that money here in America. You can keep the money in America by spending it at yard sales, going to a baseball game, or spend it on prostitutes, beer (domestic only), or tattoos, since those are the only businesses still in the US.
I am going to get another tattoo.
Posted by Martin at 2:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Very inspirational article over at Earth911
about the Waste hierarchy. In our opinion, Reuse is the most underdeveloped bar in this whole scheme. Sure, you re-use shopping bags, but what about all that stuff in your garage that isn’t really trash yet. That is the problem Kashless.org is solving. Have a read. Earlier this year they also did a primer on REUSE specifically.
highlights:
- According to the U.S. EPA, in 2006, Americans generated about 251 million tons of trash. That’s about 4.6 pounds per person, every day. Of this 251 million, 82 million tons of it was recycled. This recycling saved “the energy equivalent of more than 10 billion gallons of gasoline.”
Reuse
Reuse is simply the act of finding a second (or third, or tenth or hundredth) use for a product to prolong its life. Reuse is an important step after you’ve already reduced, but before you are ready to recycle.
Most of us reuse everyday without realizing it. Any time you buy or sell a product secondhand, such as from Craigslist, eBay or Goodwill, you are providing an additional use for this product, while at the same time, not requiring another one to be created.
To really get in the habit of reusing, focus on:
- Reusable shopping bags
- Lunch boxes and Tupperware containers
- Buying in bulk
- Borrowing from others instead of purchasing
- Rethinking your “trash” – you may be able to make something new out of that old desk
Posted by Martin at 12:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Kindle 2.0 first impressions
Got the Kindle yesterday. Unboxing. very cool packaging. Very Apple. totally recyclable no large manual, no device driver software, just a quick start guide, the device and a power cable. Good stuff.
Using the kindle
- I somehow thought it had WiFi. But no EVDO for 3 years. Slower, but ok. Makes the UI easier to use, no passwords, etc. Good decision for them.
- There are no free books on the Amazon store, you have to go to a web site that serves them, download, and copy using USB over to the Kindle. The process is ok for a techie like me, but lacks the love of the iPhone store. Since the first thing I wanted was free books, the first thing I did was go to other places and NOT the Amazon store. If they had free, I would be there looking for free and probably buy other stuff (like Apple).
- The Mp3 player thing is cool. But it won’t play QT files which is a pain
- The Audible integration is a hack, would like to have it tighter.
- my daughter LOVED the text to speech. You can have the device read you any book, very cool.
- The browser, while no javascript and optimized for a small list of sites, does a good job on any site with an M. implementation. First site i went to was M.twitter.com and posted a tweet. Worked like a charm! very cool.
- The dictionary is a blast to use. Finn and I spent half an hour this morning just looking up words.
- They need more younger childrens’ books like 6-10. The children’s section is really teen with books like Twightlight, etc. They need The Giggler Treatment, and more books on poop.
- Love the tactile feel of the keyboard.
- They made alot of UI decisions that make the device incredibly easy and intuitive to use and NOT like a computer. That is good. Stuff like you just start typing on the keyboard and the search box starts filling in, no need to open a separate box. Having a next page button on the right AND left to allow right/left handed people is good. Having no backlight is good because of the longer battery life and more book like feel.
- i HATE the fade to black flash back to white screen refresh thing when it changes pages or when it loads a new screen. It looks like flicker. The refresh of graphics is slow.
- The browser does a good job of rendering color pictures in monochrome. I could browse my blog www.deepgreencrystals.com and see all the pictures just fine.
- I am not paying for reading any blogs, that is whack
- I like the magazine integration, I am subscribing to Technology review.
I am reading 20,000 leagues under the sea. for free.
Posted by Martin at 8:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
New Clean Energy Trends report
from my friends at CleanEdge. out yesterday (i had an embargoed copy for awhile).
interesting points:
- last year Brazil drove their cars on more than 50% ethanol meaning their total petroleum consumption is on the DECLINE. This is possible in our time.
- Wind industry had sales of > $50B last year. This is not an industry for startups.
- The bankruptcy of Verasun and other ethanol producers is totally ignored.
- The report is very rear view facing.
Posted by Martin at 8:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 10, 2009
New Logo’s in high definition
here are our new logo’s in PDF and EPS.
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March 9, 2009
the official specs on my Night Rod
Bought this NightRod from Nick down at Custom Performance in Phoenix last year. It is down there getting a tune up now. Back next week in Seattle for the summer riding seasons. Finally found the official specs:
1250 Engine, Trask black on black turbo system, SE Race Tuner Module, 163 HP, 108 Ft Lbs Tq
Posted by Martin at 10:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 8, 2009
Gerald Celente predicts revolution
if this guy wasn’t right before, he would sound crazy.
I hope he is wrong, but fear he is on the right path.
America was founded because of Taxation without Representation. We can’t borrow our way out of this by nationalizing the economy.
Posted by Martin at 8:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 3, 2009
New features released last night
The Kashless Krew continues to crank out the features and respond to your feedback. We had a mini-release last night including stuff like:
- Separate account “preferences” and “Activity” pages. The “my account” page was getting a bit long and busy.
- Fixed a bug in account funding that showed incomplete paypal transfers as funds added to your account (I Wish!)
- You can now add multiple profile credentials to your account preferences page including your FreeCycle email address, Craig’s list, and Twitter. More coming soon! These will default to your post creation when posting a new item
- Saved searches in navigation now estimate the number of results. Handy eh? Still looking for that skull highball glass…
- improved post an item workflow, including the ability to e-mail notify people directly and post pictures from KL directly to CL.
- added our slogans “Because you’re broke…” and “Set your stuff FREE!” thanks !
- more frequent SMS notifications.
- you can now get to the service at either kashless.com OR kashless.org (finally :)
- you can now join FreeCycle directly from Kashless.org (still just Seattle).
More to come!
Posted by Martin at 8:55 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Results of my ebay/CL/Kashless trial
So last week I posted a Tour of California side bag on Kashless, Craig’s list (for sale) and ebay (for sale). I was interested in comparing the marketplaces. The results are in:
Ebay: auction ended with no offers: about 30 views, cost : $.50
CL: listing expired with no offers. no traffic stats given
KL: still active but no offers yet.
Humm. Can’t give this away eh?
Posted by Martin at 9:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack