Month: March 2009

Brown gold

Turns out coffee is sustainable after all. Last week’s debate after my flagrant flippant disregard for the environment could have been avoided if only I’d read this article about coffee biodiesel.

The bowser of the future

The bowser of the future

I had posted something from Gizmodo on this a while back (and they’ve got another story on this today) but this piece from the Economist goes into the research in some depth. So I can have my coffee, and drink it too. Where coffee=cake=sustainable living.

“In the case of coffee, the biodiesel is made from the leftover grounds, which would otherwise be thrown away or used as compost. Narasimharao Kondamudi, Susanta Mohapatra and Manoranjan Misra of the University of Nevada at Reno have found that coffee grounds can yield 10-15% of biodiesel by weight relatively easily. And when burned in an engine the fuel does not have an offensive smell—just a whiff of coffee. (Some biodiesels made from used cooking-oil produce exhaust that smells like a fast-food joint.) And after the diesel has been extracted, the coffee grounds can still be used for compost.”

March 9, 2009

Cooking with coffee

Here’s an awesomely cool (literally) coffee recipe (thanks to Lyle) here are the ingredients just to whet your appetite. Here’s all you need to know.

Ingredients:
• 4 scoops of good quality ground coffee
• 500 mls thickened cream
• 5 large eggs, at room temperature
• 250g (1 cup) caster sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 200g dark chocolate and or roasted hazelnuts, chopped

Espresso Syrup
• 2 scoops coffee
• 50mls coffee or orange liquor
• 60g (1/2 cup) caster sugar

March 9, 2009

Get write on it

Time magazine

The things I create using these online web tools that I keep posting are never that funny. Maybe I should spend more time thinking before I post – but WriteOnIt has so many cool features that you should check out that I just couldn’t wait.

March 9, 2009

I’m a generator

A while back I posted another online comic strip generator – perfect for re-envisaging airline safety cards. Here’s a different, better, platform that does the same thing. You can even “stripblog” which would be cool. If I had anything funny to say.

March 9, 2009

Shout Out Townsville

This one’s for Townsville locals – but those of you who don’t live here should check it out too.
We’ve launched a new campaign with the Townsville Airport – and you can win prizes by chucking your photos and videos of North Queensland on the website. Then using them to lure your friends and family up here.

It’s called “Shout Out Townsville” – and you’ll find a few of my pics up there as placeholders. But don’t worry. I can’t win.

It’s definitely the coolest campaign we’ve done since I’ve been here.

March 9, 2009

A bunch of links – March 9, 2009

March 9, 2009

Posts you might have missed

Too many posts to handle? Here’s a quick list of the posts you might have missed this week:
  • A bunch of links – March 2, 2009
    Posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 in web
    #39;Confessions of a Facebook Social Climber#39;Personal branding in the age of GoogleInternet Guru Seth Godin has something useful to say today.Mystery of the Belly Button Fluff Solved by ScienceFree Album – JaydioheadFacebook Photo Album DownloaderFloorplanner Presents Your Plans in 3D [Web Apps]This is another link pretty much only for the benefit of my wife – who rather than playing the Sims spends her time designing floorplans using online software.
  • A bunch of links – March 3, 2009
    Posted on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 in web
    Are You a Christian Hipster? | conversantlife.comWow. I am. According to this definition:brbr”Christian hipsters don’t like megachurches, altar calls, and door-to-door evangelism. They don’t really like John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart or youth pastors who talk too much about Braveheart. In general, they tend not to like Mel Gibson and have come to really dislike The Passion for being overly bloody and maybe a little sadistic.
  • A Manly win
    Posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 in Sport
    Manly won the World Club Challenge last night – the first NRL team to do so in the last five years. They’re also only the sixth team to do it in 17 years of WCC matches. Only two have been played in Australia.Bodes well for a good season for the mighty Sea Eagles. Who are also the deservedly the bookmaker’s favourites this year.
  • Election Scorecard: Craig Wallace’s Townsville ad
    Posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 in Politics
    Labor MP for Thuringowa (and Minister for just about everything) Craig Wallace has a 17% margin. He’s in one of the safest seats in the state. He barely even needs to advertise.So why jump the shark and be filmed holding a puppy?His ad is positive though. It talks about “delivering” for North Queensland and highlights projects “he has delivered”.
  • Election Scorecard: Labor’s attack ads
    Posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 in Politics
    The Labor Party is telling us we can’t trust Springborg because a couple of months ago he said the current economic climate was not like the Great Depression. That it was different. The ad runs a bunch of clips from world leaders (Obama, Rudd, and Brown) telling us what a crisis this is, and comparing the situation with the Great Depression.
  • Election Scorecard: LNP’s Debt Attack ads
    Posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 in Politics
    Debt should not be a campaign issue in a recession. The fact Queensland has a big debt is a problem – but the future Queensland Government needs to be building infrastructure to create jobs.So campaigning on the fact that you’re not going to do anything to address rising unemployment is ridiculous.This raises a question for me – what happens when a state can’t pay off its debt – it’s not like infrastructure assets can be repossessed.
  • Evolution of a Nerd
    Posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 in Church
    My first post on this blog highlights my ongoing descent into nerdhood. While I don’t have the bespectacled (yet), triple-chinned, past-eating figure as described here, I have taken some healthy steps in the direction of becoming a nerd. 1. Blogging. To the readers who have ‘tuned in’ (sorry I don’t know what the web equivalent is) hoping for some of Nathan’s regular rants, my apologies.
  • Finding a niche
    Posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 in Culture
    Every time I drive down Ross River Road I think to myself “how can this place possibly continue as a business?”Finding a niche is one thing – being irrelevant is another.Has anyone ever used this place? I can’t for the life of me figure out how they pay their lease.According to the Word of Mouth Forum they’re good at their job.
  • Fox Sports subbed by monkey
    Posted on Friday, March 6th, 2009 in Media
    Can you spot the problem with the following sentence from this story?”Rumoured to of signed a four-year $450,000-a-year deal with the Sea Eagles back in 2005, Orford would likely have to take a pay cut to remain on the northern beaches with the club battling to reward last year’s premiers and remain under the salary cap.”If yes, please apply for a job sub-editing Fox Sports Online.
  • Frustration
    Posted on Sunday, March 8th, 2009 in Life
    I enjoy a good argument. So much so that I’m able to completely distance myself from the ramifications of taking a particular side in an argument just to see it continue. I am sure other people find this frustrating. Actually, I know for a fact that some people do.In my mind it’s only when arguing through an issue that you’re truly able to shape your thinking on something – at least that’s how it works for me.
  • Gigapan and scare tactics
    Posted on Friday, March 6th, 2009 in Life
    Gigapan is an impressive inauguration interactive photo panorama doing the email rounds. It has been around for a while.This is the email doing the rounds.Subject: Big brother is watching you, check this out!This is a photo from the 2009 Inauguration, In which you can see IN FOCUS The face of each individual in the crowd !!!You can scan, double click and zoom to any section of the crowd.
  • Green =/= Sustainable
    Posted on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 in Politics
    In the comments on last night’s post – which is still generating discussion – I mentioned that I see a difference between “green” and “sustainable”.Sustainable living is driven by common sense. Green living is driven by ideology.Sustainable living will often cost less – economics are a factor. Green living will cost more it can require paying a premium to maintain ideological consistency.
  • Green is the new bleak
    Posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 in Church
    A recent comment on a recent post asked me the following questions:1. I am of the mind to think that when God gave us this planet to look after, it was sort of a house-sitting arrangement. He isn’t going to be too happy to come back and find we’ve trashed the joint, is He.2. Global pollution and/or global warming are going to have the strongest effect not on the ‘Western’ world but the poorest nations and peoples.
  • Philosophical Death Match: Science v Religion
    Posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 in Church
    “Nonsense. There are so many phenomena that would raise the specter of God or other supernatural forces: faith healers could restore lost vision, the cancers of only good people could go into remission, the dead could return to life, we could find meaningful DNA sequences that could have been placed in our genome only by an intelligent agent, angels could appear in the sky.
  • Things I use: Firefox extensions
    Posted on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 in Links
    Stuss asked why she should bother switching to Firefox from Explorer. Apart from speed, moving away from the proprietary Microsoft platform, and security there’s one thing Firefox really has going for it. Extensibility. You can pretty much turn Firefox into whatever you want it to be. Thanks to the power of extensions.But when it comes to extensions for your Firefox experience there’s a lot of bloatware out there.
  • This is why you’re fat
    Posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 in Links
    Again. This one takes the cake.
  • Two ways to consume
    Posted on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 in Church
    The debate goes on back here. It’s been a thoughtful – and helpful I think – discussion on the environment, hippies, and sustainability. Join in. If you like.One of my objections to paying a premium to be green is that it seems like such a waste of money. For example, I don’t like that chickens live in terrible conditions in battery farms.
  • Warming to the debate
    Posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 in Culture
    It’s probably time I addressed Amy’s second point.2. Global pollution and/or global warming are going to have the strongest effect not on the ‘Western’ world but the poorest nations and peoples. I think we have not only an ethical but a moral duty to ensure that this planet can support everyone on it.I completely agree with the second sentence.
  • Waterworks
    Posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 in Coffee
    I hate the Greens. And the environmental lobby group. Which is a good thing – because not only does my coffee machine produce the carbon emissions of say a motorised scooter – drinking coffee is the least sustainable environmental exercise around when judged by water consumption in production. That is pre-cup production too.From the Economist:”A cup of coffee, for example, needs a great deal more water than that poured into the pot.
  • Why blog
    Posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 in Life
    Simone often says the link is the ultimate blog love language. And I like her blog. I especially like commenting specifically when she’s tried to be vague about a situation I’m familiar with. This particular post questions why people blog. I put my answer there. It went something like this:”I blog for a few reasons – to track and log my thoughts, because I think the internet is full of crazy things that need documenting, and because I want space for my rants.
Why not subscribe to the RSS feed so that you don’t miss a beat. Or a post

March 9, 2009

Fish heads

The designer of this fish tank must have listened to too much They Might Be Giants.

March 8, 2009

Digital enhancement

If I ever lose a digit I am going to request the prosthesis take the form of this YouSB.

March 8, 2009

This little light of mine…

Lets face it. Lava lamps are a thing of the past. 43 years in fact. There’s a bit of a retro theme happening today – what with references to Pacman and Ghostbusters – Lava lamps were a brilliant idea. But these alien abduction lamps are cooler. When they hit the market I’m in.

March 8, 2009

Christian mission

Looking for a mission poster? From here. Captures the essence of suffering and the Christian life pretty nicely.

March 8, 2009

Shirt of the Day: great graph(ics)

Pacman turns thirty on May 22 next year. Apparently. Here’s an awesome shirt to celebrate this milestone:

 

If you just never could conquer the colourful ghost army in Pacman and you felt the need to call in the experts – this might be the shirt for you…

March 8, 2009

Frustration

I enjoy a good argument. So much so that I’m able to completely distance myself from the ramifications of taking a particular side in an argument just to see it continue. I am sure other people find this frustrating. Actually, I know for a fact that some people do.

In my mind it’s only when arguing through an issue that you’re truly able to shape your thinking on something – at least that’s how it works for me.

Arguing a point brings clarity to my position because it lets me consider the criticisms of my position and understand the applications of holding to a particular idea. Other people might not approach this the same way. 

Sometimes I find myself reading things that I know will frustrate me for the sheer purpose of entering into an argument – or I’ll bait an issue to create an argument out of it. I’m sure this is also annoying. 

Simone made an interesting point the other day:

“Today I’ve been bored, so bored that I was visiting blogs that annoy me on purpose so that I would get annoyed. Because its more fun to be annoyed than bored.”

I wonder how many people do this. I know I spend a lot of time reading things written by people I disagree with. Probably more time than I spend reading things by people I agree with. And I know too that my hits go up dramatically if I write something controversial that you, my readers, disagree with. 

So now I’m left wondering – should I write things I know will get a bite? It seems people want to bite, and it gives me the opportunity to argue. Or should I write things that there will be consensus on and not actually challenge anyone or anything. I like the first option. Your thoughts?

The danger is that if I go down this path there’s a real chance people will be offended – or caught up in an argument in an emotional sense – if I happen to attack one of their sacred cows. And that’s never really my intention in an argument. Unless I’m arguing about something that I think is a black and white issue, which, for example, climate change and charitable giving is not.

Also – Frustration is the name of a pretty cool card game. You should check it out.

March 8, 2009

A bunch of links – March 8, 2009

March 8, 2009

What would Jesus watch?

It’s an age old question – as old as moving pictures. But I’m not going to dwell on it now – except to say: Not this. I think it’s safe to assume Jesus has taste. 

Here’s a pretty scathing review from Christ and Pop Culture. This is real. And it is a complete ripoff of High School Musical.

Here’s the trailer from YouTube.

Sadly, it’s probably not the worst Christian kid’s programming on YouTube. No, that probably goes to this one:

Like everyone else – I laughed lots when John Safran pitched “Extreme Mormons” in John Safran vs God.

But it turns out the orthodox Christian church isn’t much better when it comes to sheltering Christians from pop culture. Because we all know that Disney’s High School Musical is dangerous. It contains dancing. Oh, so does Sunday School Musical.

March 8, 2009