January 6, 2009
I gave away stuff on FreeCycle
and the weight came off my shoulders of this stuff cluttering around my house. It is very liberating to clean out the closets and garages and know the stuff is being REUSED by someone instead of heading to the dump. Great goal!!
Posted by Martin at 7:25 PM
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How to eat every fruit and vegetable that I buy - BEFORE it goes bad
"Rotten fruit is ugly. Fresh fruit is pretty. Do the math."
How I did it: Put the fruit by the coffee maker. Every morning check for mold. Eat weither hungry or not. Sip coffee, bite fruit. Sip coffee, Bite fruit. Repeat. Very zen experience. I would recommend it to everyone
Lessons & tips: Buy less fresh fruit
It took me 15 days.
It made me pono 
Posted by Martin at 7:07 PM
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0% of 42,993 people who have taken the quiz are like me
| I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm a Money Managing Traveling De-Clutterer |
Posted by Martin at 7:02 PM
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January 5, 2009
just set up a Gravatar
Posted by Martin at 5:46 PM
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January 2, 2009
New features for the New Year over at Kashless.org
the details here.
Posted by Martin at 9:54 PM
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December 22, 2008
Lipodiesel?
thanks John for the tip on the Beverly Hills doctor making biodiesel out of LipoSuction fat. I
think.
Posted by Martin at 7:33 PM
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December 21, 2008
more snow pics around the house today
Posted by Martin at 7:53 PM
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Craig Newmark on Service
Good column Craig. Yes I hope this is a time of enlightenment as far as engagement in the community and government goes. Use VolunteerMatch.org, use Kiva.org (i have a large account there), use pledgebank.com. And join the PTA. All good.
Posted by Martin at 7:16 PM
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snowboarding down Queen Anne Ave, Seattle
i didn’t do it last time it snowed enough.
So I did it three times this morning.
Posted by Martin at 12:36 PM
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Reading about a guy I met
in Indonesia at a surf resort, I met Clay Marzo, said to be one of the best young surfers in the world. He was with a girl but painfully shy. Reading the ESPN story on him today I find out why. He has mild Asperger’s Syndrome. That explains alot. The guy can shred the waves like no one I have seen.
Posted by Martin at 7:21 AM
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December 18, 2008
Review of The Faithful Spy
The Faithful Spy: A Novel by Alex Berenson
My review
rating: 5 of 5 stars
OK. I picked this up at the airport. Was looking for a light airplane read, spy thriller. I got a great thriller and a very engaging read, but not exactly light. You could read it that way if you don't read the newspapers. This one is literally "ripped from the headlines". About a CIA agent under cover with jihadi Islamic extremists trying to prevent the next big attack. We all know it is coming. We all know there are sleepers in the US. This book, although fiction, is a credible and very plausible potential path. The Islamist are not irrational crazies. They are people, deeply hurt, intelligent, just misguided. These people are out there. They won't go away if you sit down and have tea with them. Obama should read this.
View all my reviews.
Posted by Martin at 7:23 PM
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Review of Robert B. Parker, Now & Then
Now and Then by
Robert B. Parker My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
Read this on a couple plane rides over the last month. Very good Spencer Novel if you know that detective from Robert Parker. Good vacation read.
View all my reviews.
trying good Reads instead of AllConsuming. I don’t like it as much. It doesn’t robopost. You have to cut an paste. Lame. But more books and way more traffic.
Posted by Martin at 7:19 PM
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Stitches are cool
Stitches are cool
Originally uploaded by ministeroforder
right after my stitching up from a surfboard in the face. Don't try this at home: Surf in 40mph winds.
Posted by Martin at 4:46 PM
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white Christmas
Seattle is finally getting one
Our purple Christmas tree
snow at the office
snow at the office
Posted by Martin at 4:31 PM
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Regifting is in, new ebay study
thanks Earth911.
As the holidays draw near and the economic outlook remains bleak, people are warming to the idea of re-gifting this year, according to a recent study by eBay.
Of the people surveyed, 54 percent of adults who have resold gifts online in the past are planning on doing so this year, up 9 percent from 2007.
Of U.S. adults who receive gifts during the holidays:
- 83 percent receive unwanted items
- 46 percent of those adults resell or re-gift
- 64 percent of adults feel that re-gifting or reselling gifts is more socially acceptable now than it was several years ago
“We’re seeing the trend in re-gifting and reselling unwanted presents becoming more commonplace in this economic climate,” said Marsha Collier, author of “Santa Shops on eBay” and “eBay for Dummies.”
According to eBay’s survey, the most popular items adults would re-gift include:
- Wine, champagne or spirits (21 percent)
- Trinkets or collectibles (21 percent)
- Beauty or bath products (21 percent)
- DVDs, CDs or books (16 percent)
- Electronics/appliances (14 percent)
- Fruitcake (14 percent)
Gaining in Popularity
Re-gift tag available at Regiftable.com
Not only is re-gifting perceived as an economical choice, but many also see it as a “green” alternative to wasting unwanted presents. According to the survey, 73 percent of adults “view re-gifting or reselling as a form of recycling, up from 69 percent.” And while some may perceive re-gifting as a negative, one-third of those surveyed said they would rather receive a gift that they could re-gift or resell than not receive a gift at all.
Of those adults who have re-gifted, their top reasons for doing so included:
- The item was a better match for someone else (68 percent)
- They didn’t think they would use the item (66 percent)
- It wasn’t their taste (61 percent)
If you are really looking to get in the “Re-gifting” holiday spirit, Regiftable.com is hosting National Regifting Day on December 18. They even have a customizable re-gifting tag you can print up for all your “green” re-gifts.
Posted by Martin at 10:08 AM
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The Trail of Toxic waste
Most of you have probably seen it, but if not, you must click over to CBS RIGHT NOW and watch the 60 minutes story on toxic e-Waste. Hundreds of thousands of computers and hundreds of millions of cell phones are “outdated” each year. Where do they go? Consumers are getting more concerned about this question and land-fills are actively trying to keep that stuff out of their dumps, but are these systems working? It seems that there are still plenty of “recyclers” who just want to make a buck.
With Kashless, hopefully these last year models can go to someone who actually uses them for a bit longer. One of the best ways to keep things out of the landfill is to keep using them.
Posted by Martin at 10:06 AM
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Blodget called Markopolos Madoff three years ago
No matter what you think of Blodget, he does have good sources and has made some very good calls. Check out his memo from 2005 calling Madoff a fraud. It is unbelievable the SEC let it go this long. Someone was getting paid.
Posted by Martin at 9:02 AM
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December 16, 2008
Recycle your drugs
What do you do with old drugs? Expired prescriptions? Washington state has been running a return program with manufacturers and retailers for the last two years. As with ewaste this is an area I believe where more manufacturers are going to be put on notice to take lifecycle responsibility for their products. Interesting area.
Posted by Martin at 4:23 PM
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December 11, 2008
Another Google Chrome problem
I have been using DropBox and love it. unfortunately it doesn’t support chrome. So the updates were not happening. The Dropbox forum says that your default browser has to be IE or FireFox to have sync working. I switch back to FireFox and sync works. Sorry Chrome.
Posted by Martin at 6:01 PM
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December 8, 2008
Some background on Freecycle
In researching recommerce, I came across a well written article from Grist on Freecycle and the conflict they had with Waste Management as a sponsor. When WM first sponsored, Freecycle was 1.2M users, now it is > 6M. The "fracas" doesn't seem to have hurt them.
Posted by Martin at 9:06 PM
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More reasons to call your senator and oppose the auto bail out
Dear Martin,
Theyve reached a deal with the automakers the same automakers who are investing millions of dollars in lawsuits to prevent states from selling cleaner cars.Congress will take a vote on this in a few days.Let them know TODAY that they should only vote YES on the bailout if it stamps out the auto companies lawsuits against state Clean Car laws.Climate Solutions helped pass Washington and Oregon's Clean Cars bills that will ensure cleaner, more fuel efficient cars are sold in both states starting next year.But, the auto industry has been suing to prevent us from putting this into action. Please call the Congressional Hotline and tell them you want to leave a message for your senators, congressman and for Congressman Barney Frank.
Hotline:(202) 224-3121Here is the message: Vote YES on the bailout ONLY if it stamps out the auto companies lawsuits against state Clean Car laws.
See the related article "Call it "Green Mobility" by Climate Solutions' Policy Director, KC Golden.
Posted by Martin at 2:47 PM
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Call your Senator and oppose the UAW full employment act
Congress, in bailing out the car companies, is not demanding that the United Auto Workers renegotiate labor contracts that are bankrupting the car companies.In fact, Congress is going to hand over your money without anyone really doing much of anything to fix problems.
This is unacceptable.Call your Senator at 202-224-3121 and tell him to oppose the auto industry bailout.
There is a good piece on this over at RedState. But this should not be a partisan issue. Although the Democrats are playing it as such. The proposal is 100% United Auto Worker pork and payback for them donating tens of milions to the Democrats in the recent election cycle. The auto companies need to go into bankruptcy so they can actually reorganize their businesses and make the hard renegotiations that need to happen. Including the labor contracts. Without bankruptcy, the companies are on the hook for the excessive labor contracts. Did you know that over at Ford when they laid off workers last year, the UAW contract required them to keep paying workers for 2 years! Wouldn't that be nice. That liability is a major factor in the companies not being economically viable.
The other is that they simply make too many cars. Lets do some simple math.
Americans: About 300M
New Cars/year: About 30M
Average life of a car: About 20 years.
See anything there? We are making cars at a 10 year replacement rate when they live 20 years. We are making 2X too many cars, using 2X too many employees, resources, etc. We only need about 15M cars/year to replace the old ones. Anything else is excessive consumption. We need an auto industry half the size. Do not let congress support the industry in the current form.
Posted by Martin at 12:14 PM
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December 7, 2008
so what is with oil?
Can we all go back to driving big SUV's? Was all the "peak oil" stuff just a bunch of crap? Don't believe it. The latest fundamental supply/demand numbers show that oil has peaked. The prices reflect the deleveraging of the financial system. When the people have to generate cash quickly, they sell what liquid assets they have. commodities sell. So prices are down. But demand/supply have not changed. We are still tight. We have overcorrected in price. I predict > $100/barrel by next summer.
Posted by Martin at 10:59 PM
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Buzz is thinking about recommerce too
The problem of used books. Where to go with them?
Kashless.org will have a solution soon.
Posted by Martin at 10:11 PM
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