The first line of this article outlines my personal bias against electric vehicles, but I do support the ingenuity that goes into their creation.
Brammo electic motorcycle
Archive for August, 2009
Orange Juice – Mostly Symantics
I’m listening to CBC’s Q as I type away here: http://www.cbc.ca/q/
You can download the specific radio show, it’s an old one, from May 21, 2009 (I hit “ctrl F” to find ‘Orange’). They’re just running through old shows during the summer.
http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/pastpodcasts.html?42#ref42
Alissa Hamilton’s exposé of the way orange juice is made, is by an author who’s alleging many, many different things including that the taste of “not from concentrate” is chemically created becasue once the orange juice is squeezed out of the oranges, it sits in 1,000,000 gallon oxygen free containers. During it’s storeage the liquid loses its flavour because the chemicals that create flavour are volatile and are removed when the oxygen is pulled out of the vats.
Secondly, she says there’s a real difference in the two phrases, “squeezed from fresh oranges” and “fresh squeezed”. Which I agree with because if you take a moment to think about it, “Fresh Squeezed” says, I can see the orange being squeezed, and now I’m drinking it. “Squeezed from fresh oranges” merely implies that the juice came from fresh oranges; this could have happened moments ago, an hour ago or a year ago.
What did the orange juice lobby say? That the public knows that the orange juice isn’t fresh because it lasts 60 days, and nothing that last 60 days is neither ‘fresh’ nor ‘un-preserved’. Which is a very logical statement, but admittedly, it had never occurred to me.
Darn. I used to love orange juice that was ‘fresh’ and ‘not from concentrate’!
Listen to the podcast. I thought it was very interesting, although it did slow me down at the office as thoughts of “OJ” were pushing “spreadsheets” out of the way.
Yamaha BWS seat latch
Seat latch broke today. The fuel goes in under the seat. I have a half a tank to get this fixed.
These guys are helpful and nice, they’re going to do it for me this afternoon: http://www.northshoresuzukiyamaha.com/ I called another place in Vancouver but they weren’t as nice. I’m a fan of nice. And helpful.
Tesla Moving to Palo Alto
Tesla‘s decided to pick up shop and move over the next few months to Palo Alto California to a 350,000 +/- square foot location in the Stanford Research park.
In researching this article I did find several others such as this by Wired Magazine which I found to be oft quoted and an official link to their blog directly from Tesla’s own website.
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/08/tesla-palo-alto/
And I also found this neat list of blogs, including one by Tesla founder, Elon Musk.
Enjoy!
Wheeeeeeee!
Now, if only there was some way I could drive an electric vehicle that works for LESS than $109K. I guess I’ll just have to wait a little bit longer. I understand that I can FIND electric cars for less $ but aren’t they limited to 40kph? Hardly a realistic expectation. It’s why I drive a scooter. Sure it burns gasoline, but it’ll do 65kph on the flat and I’ve gotten it up to 80kph on the downhill, and there’s no shortage of gas stations in Vancouver.
I’d love to see Electric Vehicles able to be driven like gasoline ones. Then we may see some adoption of the technology. Until then I think it’s still a bit of a pipe dream.
SFU Pipers make it 6 in a row!! – Skytrain’s Canada Line free today!
I had a big plan today to write how the Sky Train Canada Line was open ahead of schedule and under budget and free today from 1pm onwards. Here’s the link: http://www.canadaline.ca/OPENING/opening.html But lets be somewhat frank about this. Really, I mean really, doesn’t the skytrain end up being free most of the time anyway? (I’m a cynic, guilty as charged – It’s what makes me special ;))I can’t wait to check it out, and I’ll pay to do it, but not today.
What I discovered this morning, and what I’m personally far more excited about is the SFU Pipe Band winning the World Championships YET AGAIN. 6 in a row!!!
I’m not going to lie, there’s something about the effort that goes into winning 6 in a row, the music, and the synchonicity of the performance that can move you to tears. I hope you enjoy their medley as much as I did!
It’s not on Youtube yet, so I couldn’t imbed the file, but here’s the link.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/music/worlds/2009/
Here’s the official channel of SFU’s pipe band on Youtube. Special stuff!!
http://www.youtube.com/user/sfupipeband
Here’s the link to World Pipe Band Championships on Youtube.
We can turn waste fabric INTO brand new bags! (but we need your help!!!!)
A year or so go, one of my customers came to me and asked if I had any suggestions for their waste fabric. At the time I took a look at the fabric and couldn’t manage to align a use for its reuse, or recycling. I tried, but no feasible solution presented itself. We’re already doing a great job recycling their waste wood products turning them into pulp or chipping them for use in new construction and so it was a logical progression to fabric but the logistics weren’t working in our favour.
Last week I received an email from Jenny at Bring Your Own Bag. Jenny and Elizabeth own this local company and if you haven’t heard of them already, you surely will. They’ve an impressive Media page on their website and they’re at the tip of the spear when it comes to getting rid of plastic bags and deciding to use fashionable, fabric bags.
I met with Jenny this morning along with a member of my customer’s Environmental team, and unfortunately it didn’t suit the needs of BYOB. The fabric was either too small, or because it’s used out in the public – was either ripped or had graffiti tags on it from “ne’re-do-wells”. So… What to do….
Turning Garbage into a NEW PRODUCT. The pinnacle of Recycling as I see it and I think we need a little help!
Does someone in Vancouver work in a clothing factory themselves or know of someone that does? We’re looking for waste fabric generated that people are paying to throw away as garbage. We may not be able to save them money on the hauling, but we can certainly divert it from landfill.
I did a little research on the web and I found this article with a bit of background info which was pretty recent:
Novella Carpenter on CBC’s Q
Listening to the radio on-line this morning as do my data entry and strategize world domination 1 garbage can at a time, I couldn’t help but enjoy listening to the interview with Novella Carpenter discuss her new book Farm City on CBC’s show Q. A delightful interview with a smart and funny woman. Please check it out.
Fresh Start Recycling Blog 