Bought seedlings!

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I have bought some seedlings – cost me $5 for all these plants (they had been attacked by the chickens at CERES)

From Garden 26/07/09 10:17 AM

I have now planted them
some in the front garden (where I dug up the soil and added straw to improve drainage because the siol is quite compacted)

From Garden 26/07/09 10:17 AM

about 6 weeks ago I chucked some broad ben seeds in the frot garden in the vague hope that they might grow. I have done no soil preparation in the front garden and am not going to water it at all. So if the beans didn’t grow I thought fair enough, I thought though becasue its been quite wet recently I might be able to get some things started. (the beans are below)

From Garden 26/07/09 10:17 AM

I have put the seedlings in everywhere and I have put them in little crators these I fill with a bucket twce a week as per the “square foot gardening” book. In some paces I have also muclched them with newspaper (to try to reduce the amount of  weeding I need to do)

From Garden 26/07/09 10:17 AM

From Garden 26/07/09 10:17 AM

From Garden 26/07/09 10:17 AM

From Garden 26/07/09 10:17 AM

My interview on the Productivity Show

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I have been an avid listener to the “productivity show and was delighted to be asked by Tony Goodson to talk about what I am doing to make myself more productive.

CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW TO GO TO THE SHOW NOTES

We talked about a range of things about how I have implemented David Allens getting things done process. This was my first podcast so I think maybe I could have sounded a little incoherent at times but Tony helped to keep things on topic and I think we covered some interesting stuff.

For anyone who is interested below is a mind map of my GTD Implementation – My small GTD blog can be found at PaulsGTDBlog

Energy Efficient light globes are harmful

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I have long suspected that the claims made for energy efficient light globes is nonsense so armed with google I did a bit of research

The claim for energy efficient globes (Compact fluorescent lamp)

  • More environmentally Friendly

  • Use less electricity

  • As good as existing light globes
  • Last Longer

Let me take these items one at a time

More environmentally Friendly
These bulbs are much more energy and resource intensive to manufacture and they also contain mercury making them difficult to dispose of properly.
Use less electricity
They do use less electricity however they are basically using the same technology as old fashioned fluorescent strip lights and they share the efficiency profile of these. If you turn these lights and never turn them off they use about a quarter of the energy of a conventional bulb. However if you turn your lights on and off frequently (like we do) then the efficiency goes right down because these bulbs (just like fluorescent strip lights are a lot less efficient when being turned on and off).

As good as existing light globes
I hate the light from these (the wave spectra is different). They also take a while to get to full brightness. They have also been shown to cause epilepsy and they can buzz. The EPA take the safety and disposal of these pretty seriously if you break one you need to evacuate the room for 15 minutes and dispose of the bulb in a glass jar
Last Longer
I suspect if you have a modern house with electrics then they would last longer but I frequently have these (expensive) babies blow on me. Also as they get older they get less bright. The life is also dramatically shortened by turning them on and off.
 
SOURCES – WIKIPEADIA
 
NEWS ARTICLES
 

Australian Tsunami

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NSW, Victoria Lord Howe Island and NZ were on Tsunami alert yesterday! I watched the unfolding events using tweetdeck – it was fascinating!

“The weather bureau says east coast beaches may experience abnormal wave conditions today after a tsunami warning was cancelled overnight.

A 7.8-magnitude earthquake off the coast of New Zealand last night prompted the Bureau of Meteorology to issue a tsunami warning for parts of the east coast.” FULL ARTICLE HERE