pointing out the obvious

Ever get frustrated trying to clear a level on the wii, ps3, xbox 360, whatever?  Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could pay $1 to clear a level, so you’re no longer stuck?  I would.  I’m guessing others would.  The game makers already have most of the infrastructure setup, they just need to build a game that way.
Facebook charges $1 per icon.  They have no value other than ‘fun’.  People buy them (by the millions).

How about paying $1 to unlock an awesome car in GT4?  $1!!  For a dollar each, I’d unlock the coolest cars and pay off the licensing board to make sure I finally passed my international drivers test.  That thing is nuts.

It should be ridiculously easy to log everything I have listened to on my ipod touch, into my last.fm profile. Unfortunately, this is not the case. It doesn’t matter what version of last.fm, or scrobbler I use, they all can’t seem to figure it out.

While I’m thinking about it, I’ve read that if you do get the ipod touch / last.fm thing working, tracks within a podcast are not tracked. I recall last.fm mentioning that podcast id3 tags are less reliable than single song id3 tags. Surprising. Aren’t both user generated?

If and when I get my cbc radio 3 podcasts properly logged in my last.fm profile, I’ll ask the next question - why aren’t the last.fm recommendations very good? I thought collaborative filtering would work better than this…

I might get the chance to think about this problem a little more at work.

This personalized experience makes me feel cold and alone.

Simple changes can make a big difference. Example? Viewing a black screen on a computer uses less energy than a white screen, by a few watts. Given the number of hits google gets every day, if they changed their search page background from white to black, it would apparently save 750mWh per year - enough to power 1000 fridges for a year. Interesting.

It just goes to show you that even the most ridiculous changes can have a dramatic effect.

Check it out - www.blackle.com .

While driving up Hwy 10 through Shelburne last weekend, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in the middle of a wind farm. If you have ever driven through or past a wind farm, you understand that it can be an awe inspiring experience. This setup was the Melancthon Wind Plant by Canadian Hydro, which boasted 45 turbines and was completed in March 2006. It’s nice to actually see a plant at work in Ontario.

I’ve had the opportunity to drive through the wind plants in California, they are an experience to say the least. If you ever get a chance, you have to see them in person to understand. There must have been thousands of turbines setup on the mountains, all turning in the wind - somewhat hypnotizing. It was akin to my Newfoundland experience - when the ferry pulled in to Port aux Basques NF from Sydney NS and you first saw the terrain, you felt as if you had landed on another planet. Unbelievable.

Before anyone comments on the fact that I’ve done a few roadtrips, remember that driving is more responsible than flying. I also have a fairly economical car with a 1.8L engine, that gets 600km per tank in the city without hypermiling. I posted some 700+km tanks during my roadtrip before even knowing what hypermiling was. If I did the same trips now, I’m sure I would post 800km tanks.

While poking around on linkedin’s “who looked at your profile” feature today, I stumbled upon a colleague who now works at PlanetEye.  Interesting name, so I tried the domain and it’s locked down.  I googled it and figure out the company is working towards capitalizing on digital cameras equipped with GPS - which no doubt will become standard hardware at some point.  I think there is great opportunity in this space, I posted something about the idea a little while ago on the old blog and would love to see someone take full advantage of it.

Aside from the obvious privacy concerns, imagine all digital photos geo-tagged.  Pretty neat.  But imagine it one step further, where digital images are not only geo-tagged, but tagged with directional information - i.e. inclination and right ascension (never thought I would use those terms again!).  So you know where the photo was taken AND the angle the camera was at the time it was shot.  Imagine a database of images coupled with this information and little luck…  You might be able to render 3D images of almost anything, bring mapping to a whole new level, maybe apply the maps to games, who knows…

I’m glad someone is taking advantage.  I can’t wait to see what they come up with.

Incandescent bulbs are on their way out - in Canada and Australia anyways. Fluorescent are the new cool way to make a difference. HomeDepot, Rona, Canadian Tire, Home Hardware and others now have so many bulbs to select from that you could lose an hour trying to find a ’standard’ bulb.

I like fluorescent bulbs, don’t notice any flicker or difference in colour. However, the mercury thing has always bothered me a little. I know it’s better than incandescent, but now everyone has a little piece of mercury in their homes. What is the likelihood of those people recycling the mercury? For those who aren’t aware, you drop them off at one of the local drop-off depots, or environment day.

Why aren’t LED lights more popular? Why didn’t they catch on? They seem to exist for cars, flashlights, outdoor lights, and other applications - but not household bulbs? I suppose they haven’t tackled the directional light problems yet, but you figure someone would be working on that.

Until ‘depot, crappy tire, rona, home hardware start carrying LEDs to the masses, we can watch and hope that EcoLEDs make some quick progress and become more affordable. Apparently they last about 20 years, have no toxic components and use less power.

I’ve got my fingers crossed.

Akismet is an awesome spam filter - no question.  It’s successfully caught over 2000 comment spams correctly so far.  Unfortunately, it catches spam AFTER the user submits it.  So my little host is still being destroyed by traffic as a result of these spammers.  So, I put in a quick javascript check field into the comments.  I did it in 10 minutes, while waiting my turn here at jury duty, so please let me know if it causes problems for you.

Spammers - why do you do it?

While contemplating a green car recently, it struck me that I am doing exactly what auto makers want me to do - purchase a new car. I want to support green cars, and show that there is interest in producing more sustainable vehicles, however, I also want to curb the consumerism, which is just as much a problem as non-sustainable products.

A comment left by Aleem Kanji got me thinking more about consumerism and how it affects my life. The comment was a little misleading, but it brought thoughts of consumerism front and centre in this discussion. Somehow, I’ve reached a point in my life where purchasing things gives me this small rush of happiness, and I’m not sure how I got here. Case in point - I purchased an Airport Express last week because I thought I needed it. After opening the box, setting it up and playing with it for a few hours, I haven’t touched it. I need to break the connection between purchasing things and gratification, it’s a vicious circle that isn’t helping my bank account or the values that I’m carving out.

With this in mind, I took a different angle to the green car research - car coops. The idea behind car sharing is simple - there is a pool of cars that the car sharing company has at your disposal any time of day or night. Of course the ’share’ part of this idea means this same set of cars is also available to anyone else subscribing to the service, but ultimately, it means there are less cars sitting in driveways, thus less cars produced, and a smaller overall ecological footprint for all of us.

I struggled with the idea for a little while, trying to determine the difference between an auto share and car rental company. The main differences of an auto share are hourly rates, included insurance, included gas, and local availability. The two auto shares that I’ve seen in Toronto are AutoShare and ZipCar. Both offer very similar cars, which are mostly low impact vehicles, a few hybrids and a few vans, both have decent pricing, and both have cars parked in areas close to my house. There is a great article comparing AutoShare with ZipCar written by Torontoist - if you’re serious about the service, you should give it a read.

I’m still in the ‘thinking’ stage of the game, but I’m thinking this might be a great overall solution. I can always try it out for a few months, see how it works, and comment from there.

Oddly enough, most cars that are considered green are diesel. Why? Because the ‘green’ factor of a car generally focuses on two factors, it’s CO2 emissions / km driven, and fuel efficiency.

Unfortunately, we are only comparing the green factor at the consumer end of the transaction. It would be prudent to compare all factors when determining which cars are the most eco-friendly. These unconsidered factors include:

• all emissions, not just CO2
• gas vs diesel refining costs
• battery disposal

Soot. This is the biggest non-CO2 emission as a result of burning diesel. Although diesel outputs less CO2 per km driven in general, it outputs MUCH more soot (up to 10x) because emissions standards are not yet as strict as that of gasoline burning engines. This should change by 2009 when diesel engines must meet the same output requirements as that of gasoline, but for now, the soot output can be brutal.

Refining costs. Did you know it takes 25% more oil to generate diesel than it does to generate gasoline? While diesel is generally thought of as more fuel efficient per litre by approximately 33%, this savings is simply pushed up the chain. 33% more mileage comes from 25% more oil, thus in reality diesel is approximately 8% more efficient when we consider it in terms of oil, not cost per litre. Weird huh?

Battery disposal. What happens to the batteries when their lifespan is over? It turns out that Toyota uses batteries that are recyclable, include a phone number and a $200 ‘bounty’ on each of their batteries to encourage returning them to recycling facilities. I’m not sure how other auto manufacturers handle the battery disposal, but Toyota seems to have a great solution here.

So, although this doesn’t cover everything and doesn’t provide all of the answers, it does bring a few other factors into play when deciding to go for a green car.

And yes, this is part of my ‘pre-green car purchase’ research. The prius is the #1 pick so far, as I drove one for a week in los angeles on business. Interesting car, but please.. turn the LCD off to prevent crashes! It’s very distracting!

If anyone out there is having issues with comment spam, the akismet comment spam plug-in for wordpress is amazingly effective. 27 for 27 so far over the last 24hrs - apparently pharmacheaps.com is on a marketing rampage.

Update - 141 for 141. Awesome.