Green Tech Girl

Just what we need – another reason to upgrade our televisions and create more electronic waste! Though, at least this TV will save some space in the landfill once it’s thrown out. It’s the new LG super flat flatscreen. It is less than 7 millimeters thick. There’s no official name for it. Just think of it as the skinny jeans of the TV world:

Since we women have to put up with all sorts of sexist comments about female politicians (Sarah Palin is a MILF, e.g.), then you’ll excuse me for being reverse sexist and saying that Van Jones, regardless of his radical politics, is a super hottie!! Rawr! And with a name like that, he needs to get out of Washington, DC and move to Hollywood. Van Jones, Super Green Action Hero!

Van Jones, in case you hadn’t heard, was Obama’s appointed Green Jobs Czar who just resigned over controversies regarding his radical politics.

Check out Van in Glenn Beck’s “expose” – now that is one good-looking radical:

Now, I know a lot of people reading this have probably decided, without watching a heck of a lot of Glenn Beck, that Beck is one of Satan’s minions. But I do think that Beck has a point here…someone who has been an avowed communist and would like to see America overthrown and turned into a Marxist state should probably not be a top-level advisor to our president. I’m just saying. Cuz, well, gee, such ideology is pretty much counter to our constitution and everything that America stands for. Maaaaybe it’s not such a good idea to line the White House with people who want to tear it down and create a communist collective instead.

I have a friend who is a very idealistic and determined communist, who I disagree with vehemently. But he’s a super nice well-meaning guy. For some reason though, he’s romanticized communism and doesn’t seem to make the connection between communism, dictatorship and mass slaughter. So I suspect that Van is simply a passionate man that truly wants to help people, but like my friend has been a bit idealistic in his youth.

While I don’t think we should return to the McCarthy era and get rabidly nutso over anyone who has expressed a communist bent, I do think it’s probably a good idea if our higher ups in Washington actually believe in our constitutional democracy and aren’t interested in overthrowing it, no matter what good intentions they might have.

Now, if Van has relinquished his desire to overthrow American capitalism, and is sincere about creating green jobs, I am all for that. I just think it is a damn shame that such a noble vision, to help create a more environmental economy, has been overshadowed by Van’s radical past. A more moderate appointment probably would have been better advised.

As for Van’s possible 9/11 Trutherism, I don’t have a problem with that whatsoever, except that if Mr. Jones really does believe in his heart 9/11 was an inside job, should probably be looking at Obama a bit more carefully, since many 9/11 Truthers don’t like Obama anymore than they like Bush, seeing as Obama is a Prime Suspect in the NWO Conspiracy.

At any rate, I hope that Van, now unfettered with needing to please mainstream America, can keep up his rabble-rousing in the name of the environment. Sometimes people who are that radical best serve their fellow human beings by agitating and challenging the system, without necessarily totally overthrowing it.

In other words, Van, you need to stay a bit more on the fringe to be of the highest service. And I think creating a green economy is absolutely vital – but, note to Van, I’d like to see it done under the guise of conscious capitalism, not communism.

So Van, I’m sorry to see you go. But if you ever want to host your own green TV show, or star in your own green action movie, I will be one of your first fans. And keep the glasses. Seriously…very hot!

Here’s an interesting way to recycle those Altoids mint tins: Turn them into MP3 players! Full instructions are available at this website.

So I downloaded and burned a copy of Fedora 11 Linux and found it won’t work at all on my Gateway laptop with the ATI built-in graphics card. The LiveCD wouldn’t work. Couldn’t even get to a desktop. I tried a bunch of different boot options (and yes, I tried “nomodeset”) and still it didn’t work.

Apparently, the latest bleeding edge Linux kernel doesn’t have ATI drivers that work with it. OK…why release a distro that won’t even work with a large number of graphics cards? That’s just strange to me.

I’ve downloaded Dreamlinux 3.5 instead. The LiveCD works perfectly and I’m installing it now, over a Linux Mint Elyssa installation, which was out of date. Review of Dreamlinux to come. (I still like Mint and I use it on my main computer.)

Thing is, I hate burning these CDs and then wasting them when they don’t work. A lot of useless techno-trash. I’ll give the Fedora CD to a friend who can hopefully use it.

Twitter is abuzz with this admission from Greenpeace that it was “emotionalizing” (i.e., exaggerating) the global warming issue:

The problem with this “emotionalizing” is that it discredits the environmental movement and gives power to people who say global warming is a hoax. I personally don’t find the global warming issue to be a compelling one. I have been around long enough to remember that environmental scares come in waves: for a while we were focused simply on “pollution.” Then “acid rain” came in vogue. The hole in the ozone layer was a focus for a while. Lately, it has been global warming.

There are so many other problems the environmental movement could focus on. For example, I would prefer to see more focus on overpopulation. Let’s face it: Our environmental problems are caused by too many people on a small planet. I would prefer to see the environmental movement support education and family planning in third world countries as a means of helping keep birth rates down. Global warming in and of itself is too open to debate and gets us off-track on more important issues, such as the toll our big cities are taking NOW on our watersheds.

Whether or not global warming is man-made, part of the cycles of the planet, or both, it doesn’t really matter to me. What matters to me is that we humans are burdening the planet in a manner that is not sustainable. Let’s focus on that and not so much on polar ice caps, which just ends up causing ridicule against environmentalists.

My old Pentium III laptop has served as my testbed for Linux distributions that can work on older computers. So far, I’ve had Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS 2007, Linux Mint, and Puppy Linux installed. Most worked fairly well, except Linux Mint had a problem recognizing the 1400×1050 pixel monitor, and Puppy Linux screwed up my USB mouse.

I did like how fast Puppy Linux was, but the USB mouse problem was something I was unable to fix and made it not worth keeping the distro. (I also found Puppy to be a bit too techie in its style.) PCLinuxOS 2007 was actually the best, most stable Linux distro I’d had on here, but I was concerned they were moving to KDE 4 and knew that would never work on an old computer. Concerned about upgrades, I dropped PCLinuxOS to test other distros.

Fortunately, the PCLOS community has come out with a new flavor based on the LXDE desktop, so I can stop worrying about a forced KDE 4 upgrade. (They’ve also decided to stick to KDE 3.5 for their main release as well.)

Of course, I opted for the LXDE install. I’d never tried it, much less heard of it, but the screenshots looked nice enough. The LXDE version of PCLinuxOS comes as Live CD that doubles as the install disk. Installation was fairly easy, but I missed the information about logging in as root when I signed in. Because I was logged in as “guest,” when I hit the install button, I was asked for a password. You’d think after years of playing around with Linux I might have figured out to type in “root,” but I had no clue what to do. (I had to search the Wiki to see what to enter.) This could truly throw off a newbie.

This minor gripe aside, the rest of the installation was a snap, and I had the system running in no time. No painful configuration to deal with – pretty much everything worked out of the box. Even video including, amazingly, Flash in the web browser! PCLXDE comes with Midori as the default web browser. I have no idea what Midori is based on, but it works great on this old laptop.

The stripped down LXDE version of PCLOS includes a small selection of programs, including the AbiWord word processor, a simple soltaire card game, and a few basic Internet tools. OpenOffice.org is easily installed with pretty much the click of a button. Synaptic Package Manager is available on the toolbar for easy installation of other programs. And the best part about PCLXDE is the Control Center, which makes it easy manage the system. This is really one of the most professional-looking aspects of PCLinuxOs, which is sure to impress non-Linux friends who might be otherwise skeptical of Linux.

As for LXDE, it is an amazing desktop. Fast, attractive, and very easy to use. I have Gnome running on my Linux Mint installations, and I am never quite happy with it. It just doesn’t feel “modern” to me. But LXDE has that nice polished feel that makes you feel like you are actually using a modern-day piece of desktop software. I don’t feel like I’m using “Linux” here…I’m just using a computer.

I had a few minor problems: I screwed up installing my wifi card but somehow managed to get it working after some poking around. For a moment there, though, I thought I had really screwed up my wifi drivers. This could be improved in terms of making it a bit more bulletproof.

The monitor also had to be manually set to the 1400×1050 size, though at least this setting held once I adjusted it (as for some reason Mint didn’t like those monitor specs and kept starting up X server with the wrong monitor resolution). And the installed Twitter application would not let you open your account unless you had put in your “default keyring” password, which you would not know because you haven’t set it yet. (You have to go into your home directory and delete the default keyring file hidden in there to get this to work…kind of annoying.)

Otherwise, I am excited to be web browsing and even watching YouTube on this old computer – though it’s a bit jerky due to the low RAM I have on here (only 256 MB). I have had so many problems with Flash on my other computers with Mint installs that I’m wondering if I shouldn’t just switch them to PCLOS. We’ll see.

Verdict: Big thumbs up. I would highly recommend PCLinuxOS 2009, the LXDE version, to anyone who has an old computer that needs new life breathed into it. This is probably the best Linux distro I’ve found for this computer, and I’m going to keep it.

Computer:

Sony Vaio
Pentium III
850 MHz
256 MB RAM
20 Gig harddrive
Netgear PCMCIA Wifi Card (WG511)

PCLXDE default installed software:

Midori – Web Browser with Flash and Multimedia playback
Abiword -Word Processor (Get Open Office available after hd install)
ePDFView – PDF Viewer
Leafpad -Tex Editor.
Transmission – Bittorrent Client
Emesene – Instant Messenger
XChat – IRC Client
Sylpheed – Email and News Reader
GRDC – Remote Desktop Client
GPicView – Graphic Viewer
MTPaint – Graphic Drawing Client
Alsaplayer – Music Player
Mplayer – Video Player
PCMan – File Manager
Simple Backup – Backup Software
Xfburn – CD/DVD Burning Software
Gnome  PPP – Dial up Client
File Roller – Archiving Software
PCLinuxOS Control Center – Adminstration Tool
LXDECC – LXDE Control Center (provided by Lord UnR34l)
AddLocale – Convert LXDE into your language
XPat2 – Card Playing Suite
Tiwtux – Twitter Client
Grsync – Graphical Rsync Client
Virtualbox Additions added

Here’s an interesting comment I just stumbled across on the Internet recently:

“Carbon offsets” have for some time now seemed to me to be the same as “Rape credits”.

The two concepts seem basically identical to me. With “carbon offsets” someone is paid to do something like plant trees somewhere that “breath in” carbon thus counteracting the damage (or supposed damage anyway, but that is another matter) done by increased carbon from all Al’s guzzling. “Rape credits” would be the very same idea. Al Gore could go around raping large numbers of women but pay money to some outfit, probably one that Al Gore got “dividends” from, and they would donate money to rape crisis hotlines and centers and councilors who would undue some of the damage. Maybe they could undue on average half the damage per rape victim, so rapist Al would have to make two donations for every woman he raped.

Hmm. Interesting analogy. What do you think? Do you think carbon credits are like “rape credits”? I certainly see the point of not using carbon offsets as a justification for trampling over the environment, but it’s better to have carbon credits than nothing at all.

Apple is making new enemies apparently by banning the new Google Voice app from the iPhone. Pity.

I was lucky and got an invite to Google Voice back when it was GrandCentral. It’s a free service that gives you a phone number that you can forward to your cellphone or home number. (I guess the plan to make money off of this by charging a low fee for outbound international calls. Otherwise, the service is free.) Your voice mails are emailed or available via a web interface. The best part was you could have the GrandCentral (now Google Voice) number forward to a few phones at a time, which made it a nice number to have instead of handing out separate home and cellphone numbers.

Google took it over and has made some improvements, but in the process has taken away some other features that I liked, such as the fun custom ring chimes that you could attach to your ringer. Bummer. The interface has also gone all “Google,” which is that very scrunched up minimalistic Google email look that I’m not totally keen on.

On the positive, they’ve added voice transcripts, which are pretty buggy but still somewhat useful. Generally speaking, you can get a gist of the message from the transcript, even though the names don’t come through well. On one of my messages, Google translated the name of my friend Craig to Chris Dodd. I was wondering what Senator Dodd might be doing calling me!

You can also send SMS messages through the web interface, which is handy to have if you have text-happy friends and a phone without a keypad. (Wish I had this before I got my Blackberry!) Inbound calls can also be recorded, but I haven’t tried this feature yet.

If there’s one thing blatantly missing it’s fax capability…I would love to have that…I got rid of my JFax number last year because with all the new technology, it was a waste to pay $15/month for a voice mail and fax number that had no forwarding or email capabilities.

I have been using my Google Voice number now for business calls, so I don’t have to worry about people getting my cellphone (if I don’t want them to have it) or changing landline numbers when I move. Once in a while, when Google Voice was still Grand Central, I had a few problems with dropped calls but it was few and far between.

I was excited to install the new Blackberry app for Google Voice, which allows me to view and hear messages directly from my cellphone. Now I might just give out my Google number instead of my cell number.

So why is Apple doing this bone-headed thing of blocking the Google Voice app? I don’t know if they’ve figured this out yet, but the Google Voice number does not replace a cellphone! You still need some sort of outside cellphone or landline to use it when away from the computer.

Apple…starting to act like Microsoft…stupid stupid stupid…meanwhile, Google is out taking over the world.

So what is worse for the environment? Amazon.com’s Kindle e-book reader, which ends up creating e-waste when all is said and done? Or paper books, which obviously use up a heck of a lot of paper?

I’m not entirely certain an electronic book reader is all that much better than paper books environmentally speaking. I’m sure the statistics on book-making are staggering when it comes to trees and whatnot, but what about the batteries, electronic ink, plastic, and other toxic goodies that go into a Kindle? At least when you are done with a book, you can give it to someone else to read. When your Kindle is done, i.e., the thing has fried and no longer works, it’s off to the landfill, no easy way to recycle.

Mike Adams over at Natural News has another gripe with Kindle – Amazon.com can control the content and delete your books for whatever the reason. And you know, that is enough of a reason to have a hardbound copy of books that are truly important to you.

Mike’s solution to the problem, however, is to buy up books, rip them apart, scan them in, and create your own e-books. But really…this is not a good environmental move…just look at what’s involved:

I have a much better solution for consumers: Just buy the books at a local bookstore, chop off the binders, scan them and OCR them into text files. Then you can read them on any device (such as a Sony Reader, or your laptop, or whatever).

Of course, it’s a big operation: A good book binding chopper costs $1500 – $2000. A good double-sided scanning machine that can handle large books costs another $3000 or so. Decent OCR software costs another $300, and then you have to go through the song and dance of actually OCRing the files on a Windows computer somewhere. Not many people are willing to go through this trouble to read some books. But I am. Of course, I have other uses for the same equipment, so it’s easier for me to justify. Today, I have more than 1,500 books that I’ve scanned into text files. They all fit on an SD card that plugs right into a Sony Reader. (This is what I carry with me when I travel.)

OK, Mike, that is total overkill! You know, I don’t travel that much, but generally, one book or two is sufficient. Certainly not 1,500. Your mileage may vary.

I have seen Kindles in action and they do look pretty tempting though. If they can come up with one that’s not perpetually tethered to the mother company, I might be interested for certain types of books and other applications. Otherwise, I am happy with my old-fashioned hard-bound books, seeing as I’m not sure that going either way is environmentally “better.”

The following message from Clint Richardson popped into my email box and I thought I’d share it…

I’ve driven the almost 400 mile stretch of Interstate 5 from L.A. to Sacramento dozens of times. Quite honestly, it’s as boring as it gets. with only the usual gas stations, mini-marts, fast-food, home-cookin’ restaurants, and strangely a newer batch of Starbuck’s Coffee shops sprouting up everywhere. In between… farms, orchards, cattle, and dirt.

On July 15th, as I began my trip to Utah, I came off the Grapevine decline and hit the flat 250 or so mile stretch of interstate which begins the farming belt in the valley. Almost immediately I noticed what I had only heard about on the radio and in the papers. Where once there were vast fields of green, now there where empty, barely recognizable rows of unplanted dirt and growing weeds. Only sporadically at first, but once I passed Bakersfield and for about a 200 mile stretch, I could not believe my eyes. Field after field laid fallow. And not really fallow, but unattended… as if it was not going to be planted in the near future either.

Signs were staked in the ground on almost every patch of barren farmland. The most common one, which was yellow and obviously a group effort to wake up the sleeping travelers of thier future plight, read:

“CONGRESS CREATED DUST BOWL”

Others, which looked more homemade were posted on non-operational farm equipment parked as close to the freeway as possible, stated things like:

“FOOD ONLY GROWS WHERE WATER FLOWS” -and-

“NO WATER = NO JOBS = NO FUTURE”

At one point, after 150 miles or so of seeing this horror, I broke down in tears and had to pull over to the side of the road. I saw the aqueduct, which followed Interstate 5 most of the way, and large fields of dead trees which were planted just a few feet from the flowing cement river. I imagined how those trees would feel, imprisoned in the dying dirt by their own roots, if they could indeed comprehend that their source of life was just a stones throw away. It was like some horrific story-book come to life; science fiction in real time. I was thinking of the farmers and their families and wondering what would become of them and their land. I was thinking about the consequences of hundreds of miles of food no longer being grown, and adding together the other states like Campo, Colorado which have the same situation… only planting 60% of their crops this year.

This deadness went on untill the brink of civilization once again began to show. When I approached the Stockton/Modesto highway interchange area the carnage seemed to stop, and the fields appearded to be healthy an bountiful. I can only guess that this is because more people drive on that stretch of the freeway, and so the powers that be are trying to keep up apearances. No other explaination came to mind.

To the readers of this, I can only say that living in the city has literally blinded me to the truth, even though I knew it was happening. I wonder how many other things I ignore? Many economists and trends predictors have called for food shortages and food riots in the fall, and with what I saw last week, I have new reason to believe them.

But then, that’s the real problem isn’t it? Belief…

If you believe that the food will continue to flow (magically appearing on store shelves in a grocery store near you) and just dismiss the very real claims of shortages worldwide, including a severe wheat shortage in this country due to a harmfull fungus, then I might boldy say that you deserve whatever fate befalls you.

I challenge you all to take a drive up the 5 and see this for yourself. Please! Don’t let this go unseen. If you are camera or video savy, I think it would be a really great photo exibit or website showing the true nature of our common problem. And you better believe, as you take your daily shower, flush your toilet, and water your fertilized-non-edible grassy yards, that this is indeed a Congress created crisis. So please tell as many people about it as possible.

Lastly, if you haven’t already… buy storable food! Go to the dollar store and buy rice and beans. Buy pasta, caned and jarred foods, or anything with a shelf-life of more than 6 months.

What’s the worse that can happen? You’ll have food in 6 months.

What’s the best that can happen? You’ll have food in 6 months.

Take care. Spread this information. Get mad. Fight tyranny. And…

Don’t be a sheep.

Clint Richardson
introspector48@yahoo.com
Monday, July 20, 2009