So I mentioned that I’d started gardening and being the kind of crazy tinkerer that I am, I couldn’t just plant some stuff. So I went over to instructables and found this awesome potting idea.

It’s a rather clever idea, nice and simple with a dramatic appearance. I didn’t want to go full scale for the first try though. The author, jholland, used a 12 inch pot as a base with 8 inch stackers. I went with an 8 inch pot and 4 inch stackers. It was way more cost effective because the pots I purchased were a little on the pricey side. Come to find out they were about double the cost of those at Walmart (though the Walmart ones aren’t quite as nice a shape).

So I went and assembled the materials I needed

Then I added the bracing

A shot from the side with the rod of bamboo I used as the pole. The soil’s in the background on top of the tires.

Now with a bit of soil

More pictures to come. I’ve already done a sample stacking so I can gauge what I want these to look like. I’ve also set a bunch of seeds to grow in a bit before I transplant them into the pot. So it’s all coming together. I’ll probably have the pot itself set to go this evening, but it will likely be a couple of weeks before I can get anything green in there.

So rather than push hybrid technology, which works well in urban settings but not well for highway driving, the US automakers took on FlexFuel (reduces emissions in both the city and highway) vehicles as an environmental centrepiece. Turns out that it wasn’t such a good idea as it’s not been terribly successful towards the end goal in the US and has been a total failure in Canada.

The goal is to reduce emissions. So in Canada, while you can find some ethanol stations out and around, it’s a rare exception to find one that carries E85 (85% gasoline, 15% ethanol). I’ve heard there’s a rumoured one for federal government use, but I still haven’t heard of any that the public can use. The lower percentage ethanol fuels, particularly 10% ethanol and less can be used in a regular vehicles without and fancy upgrades so while they technically factor into the number of ethanol stations in Canada, they really don’t count as far as the new FlexFuel initiatives are concerned.

Over and above that, the increased demand in the US for the raw elements of the fuel (e.g. food) has caused some competition, driving up prices. You can’t make fuel from your food. It’s an economically insane idea. You can argue semantics there, arguing that oil and gasoline are components in making food already, but having something as an incidental cost compared to creating direct market pressures makes for a case of comparing apples to oranges.

A colleague of mine is 100% behind hydrogen as the obvious next step and I have to admit that he’s got me convinced. Battery technologies are ok, but the batteries themselves are a pretty toxic and can sometimes be a challenge to recycle. Most critics suggest that hydrogen is generally insanely explosive as anyone who knows the story of the Hindenburg is aware of. Recent developments in technology have opened a few venues for safe storage of hydrogen. A bit more work in the field with some real money behind it and I would like to think that we could solve this problem fairly easily.

The death of the US auto industry may help re-allocate some of the research funding towards the more progressive automakers and a solution that’s a bit more workable with fewer downsides. We’ll just have to wait and see what emerges from the wreckage.

“The Revolution Will Not Be Televised“, is a phrase that anyone with any amount of subversive spirit will be familiar with. I always knew what the phrase was alluding to, but it has been repeating in my head over and over as I watch clips and read accounts of what’s happening in Iran.

It’s so striking to see such a significant event unfold, only through the tiny keyholes provided by grainy videos and anonymous accounts. Watching Desert Storm each evening was a formative event when I grew up. I grew up in a world where there is 24/7 information. Whether it’s accurate or not is a whole other issue.

The lack of information is very odd to someone of my generation. I’m sure that the more mature out there probably find it a little different, but since they lived through a youth where information was delivered on the news at suppertime for an hour, it’s not likely to be as alien to them as it is to me.

This event comes not only as a tremendous event of change for the Iranians, we all need to look around at our own situation. If there was need for revolution within our own country, could we tell the world our story? China has an Internet firewall like no other, Australia is enforcing country-wide censorship of its Internet users. Germany is now headed down a similar path while Canada, the US and Britain are simply content to monitor every phone call, text message, digital connection, etc… their own citizens initiate. It’s time for the rest of us to push back. If we don’t, not only will the revolution not be televised, the revolution won’t even make it to twitter and youtube.

Aaron Greenspan of Think Computer Corporation has generated quite a stir in the Google Adsense world over the last few months. Everyone knows of or at least has heard of the various Adsense accounts that are sporadically banned on a seemingly hourly basis. Most of those are well founded and the people being banned know exactly why they’ve been banned. As such, to avoid wasting time and resources on fielding complaints from known offenders, Google has chosen to go with no service model for banned accounts. As soon as you’re banned, you’re banned. They don’t tell you why, not if you call, not if you e-mail. That’s fine and dandy for the gross offenders, but as always, many innocents are caught in the crossfire and are left with no recourse. Or so we thought.

That’s where Aaron enters the picture. Back in March, he wrote a piece for the Huffington post about how he sued Google and won. he went to small claims court to try and get the amount owed to him by Google when his account was closed. He was arguing that since Google would not tell him if he had even violated any ToS, they had unlawfully canceled the contract. The judge found in his favour.

Then it gets a little ugly. All seemed fine and dandy, and Google looked set to pay him until his original article hit the web in a big way. The bad PR fallout pushed Google to appeal the ruling and rather than cough up the cash, they sent in papers to notify him of the appeal. The judge ended up finding in Google’s favour, though it’s not clear as to why. The one bright side was that Aaron got to finally find out why they had banned his account in the first place. One problem was a sketchy detail that was right on the line of the ToS and the other was technically a breach of the ToS but was done so much that Google ended up offering the service as a separate offering two days after his account was canceled.

So what’s the moral of the story?

1. As Aaron points out, “don’t be evil” (Google’s standing directive) does not equate to “don’t be a jerkhole”.
2. If you want to find out why Google banned your Adsense account, take the to small claims court and then wait for them to appeal. This trick may not work for long so use it while you can.

This kind of situation is inevitable when your favourite garage startup turns into a multi-billion dollar publicly traded company. It’s the circle of life. Start out as a rebel, become “the man” so that someone new can rebel against you.

We went to a Joel Plaskett concert at the Rebecca Cohn auditorium this past weekend and it was awesome!

It was his last date on his tour supporting the new album, three. It’s way mellower than the songs of his that I normally like, but it’s still pretty cool. We actually bought the album at the concert and were surprised/disappointed as to how much better he sounded live than on the album. Surprised because it either takes a terrible recording (which this isn’t) or a very talented individual to put on a better sounding live show than the studio album. Disappointing because in contrast, the concert makes the album sound a little crappy. Rose Cousins and Ana Egge in particular were always in perfect harmony and had great presence at the show. On the album… eh…

He did a great acoustic version of True Patriot Love which is my wife’s favourite song.

Unfortunately my favourite wasn’t on the list:

But that’s ok because there were so many great songs, new and old.

Finally, to top this post off, I thought I’d post a new find for Canadian music fans. Gord Downie with Joel Plaskett and The Emergency singing one of Joel’s most popular songs: