September is National Sewing Month! A perfect excuse to start a new project or to finish up some UFSs. What will be your sewing plans? I plan to work on my Battenburg Lace techniques. What a lovely lace to insert into tops, corners, or even along hems. What about around the neckline and down the front of a button down jacket? Just got a nice book full of more patterns to try, and still hunting for more resources to buy the Battenburg tape. Many alternatives though and will share as I go along.
Just back from yet another home-fragrance launch. Nice people, perfectly nice products, but does the world really need more reed diffusers and scented candles? (For that matter, does the world really need any reed diffusers and scented candles? But that’s another question.)
Go into a big department store today and it sometimes feels like there are whole floors given over to home fragrance: rack after rack of virtually identical products and virtually identical scents. How does anybody choose? And who is buying all this stuff?
What I can’t get my head round is why anyone feels it’s worth launching yet another brand in such a super-saturated marketplace. Starting a company and creating new fragrances takes a big investment, and making your money back must be increasingly tough. But there again maybe it’s an easy way to make big profits, and I’m simply not in the know.
The people I met today obviously felt that their products were sufficiently different to stand out from the crowd, but a weary feeling of familiarity washed over me as they described the ‘story’ behind each scent, complete with misspelled press-releases. I’ve seen it all so many times before. Just please don’t buy me a scented candle for my birthday.
Solar Village is a bottom up approach to community transformation that aims to achieve 100% renewable energy and 100% renewable resource recycling. Climate crisis requires that we make the switch to at least 80% renewable energy by 2020. Limited reserves of life sustaining resources like air, water, soil, forests, minerals, aggregates, and others require that we develop reuse and recycling capabilities in order to sustain life indefinitely. Our objective is the development of open source oriented approaches that empower individuals and local communities to achieve equitable, equal, and autonomous access to energy and resources required to sustain a high quality of life now and for future generations.
Add your voice, ideas and thoughts to the development of the Solar Village Design Book - email: john.wilson@thesolarvillage.com with your updates and under which section, item number or paragraph they apply.
Solar represents the simple notion that our earth is, by nature, a solar powered environment. In nature this reality has determined the evolution of life on this planet, and is in reality the underlying basis of the real "economy" both in nature and in our human created world of ideas. Thus, we must mimic nature, and transform our use of energy, so that it is forever sustainable as it is in nature. The benefits are extraordinary as in this model economics in the world we've created also works to serve the needs of real life. Solar economics changes everything as it moves the source of the energy resource to your local environment (your house, your office, your park, your local farm), without the need for long supply lines from around the world (as is the case for fossil and nuclear resources). Solar also has the powerful attribute of providing energy for decades at a fixed cost which creates a stable economy far less susceptable to speculators. Once solar generating systems (like solar hot water, solar photovoltaic electricity, solar thermal, wind, hydro and geothermal) in combination with long lasting energy storage systems that are 100% recyclable become the norm, our entire economy will stabilize and become sustainable.
Village represents the simple notion that we all share this earth equally, through the local communities we live in. Gandhi envisioned a peaceful world of independent villages, automous, and at the same time dependent upon each other as we shared the worlds resources of air, water, soil and other materials. Beyond energy and economy it is our social relations that determine to some extent our well being. As a community we share a responsibility to find ways to express our true human nature in a free and open society that we continue to evolve and improve to server the interests of our community and that of the communities we share the world with, and perhaps most important with future generations.
Once the costs to the consumer for solar energy reach the levels of the current residential and commercial rates, then it is game over for fossil and nuclear resource based energy as they will continue to increase in cost. Of course the other benefit of distributed renewable energy from solar is that it is distributed equitably. Distributed means, like the internet, it is not controlled centrally, making it far more resilient and flexibile in the future. Autonomy for each home owner, farmer, factory and office building also breeds levels of freedom never before realized on such a wide scale.
One transformative thing about solar energy is that once it is installed it has basically a fixed rate for the next twenty to forty years. Take a look at the cost of energy as supplied by fossil and nuclear resources and you'll see a never ending increase in the rates as the resource costs increase (through depletion of limited reserves and/or increasingly more difficult and costly to extract), not to mention the terrible risks for interruption of supply along their very long supply routes. Once we count the externalities currently missing from the price of fossil and nuclear, remove subsidies to the polluting forms of energy, then we can cearly see that solar based energy, as nature shows us every day, is the only answer. Also, people, energy and resources are the real sources of value in our economy. We may be deceived into thinking it is money and derivatives of money in the form of legal contracts and agreements, but reality is that people, energy and resources are the real economy.
Storage - preserve foods and food waste as fuel, recycling resources in use 100%, store renewables for use when they aren't available or abundant
Natural - fresh local food, pure resources as they exist in nature, use energy directly in natural form including direct solar heat
Integration - permaculture for food production and community design, recycle resources 100%, use 100% renewable energy derived from solar (electric photovoltaic, wind, hydro, geothermal and biomass)
Use feed-in tariff policy to create the economic incentives for people with homes and businesses to invest in solar rooftop systems, with 20 year contracts at roughly 80 cents/kWh, providing guaranteed access to the grid for these proponents. Use feed-in tariff and time-of-use pricing, as well as demand response programs to enable people to invest in energy storage systems for their homes and businesses. Combined, local renewable energy and energy storage (based on batteries that are 100% recyclable), together make 100% renewable energy achievable while also providing a high degree of autonomy. Capital is provided by the equity home owners and business already have, while the rate guaranteed by energy rate payers (not tax payers) for 20 years, ensures the home/business owner that their contract will be honored. The economic incentive then exists in both cases through programs in the form of feed-in tariff type contracts, to bring in the capital to build these systems from the home/business owners, while providing enough income to offset the monthly costs of operating these systems so that equity lines of credit may be used at low risk to fund the development of these systems (see Getting off the grid with solar on this web site for a concrete example of how this works). This creates a win-win-win economic environment that makes possible a future we want and need, while also creating the local jobs and industry needed to deliver this future.
As state after state, country after country, and province after province rolls out smart meters in an effort to create a smart grid, some of the tools required to create the financial incentives are emerging. Right off the bat, those of us on time-of-use pricing (where peak demand times cost quite a bit more than low demand) are being encouraged to conserve energy during peak demand. Much like the challenge for renewables of providing energy when we need it all the time, it is sometimes a real challenge for people to reduce demand at all times, during peak demand for instance. With time-of-use (TOU) pricing, however, there is now a financial incentive to do just that. Conservation is the first step of course, and the one being suggested by the utilities. However, given this financial incentive, which can provide a price differential of around six cents per kilowatt hour between peak and low demand rates, there is now also the option of storing energy from low demand, so that it may be injected into the grid during peak periods, in order to, in effect, get paid for this price differential. You can do this using batteries and smart inverter/chargers that are now commonly available.
"The way the system works right now, you have these centralized power plants, and the grid flows one way, and thereâ€™s no flow of information. I think what weâ€™re moving towards is a smart grid where real-time information is feeding back and forth, as well as decentralized production. What happens today is you have to build capacity for peak demand. So on a hundred-degree day, power plants have to turn on these things like jet engines, which are really expensive and really dirty. When you look at the cost of peak power, itâ€™s much more expensive today than solar. You have to look at the entire system and what it truly costs. The northeast blackout in 2003 cost the economy 3 billion dollars. All we needed were 80,000 homes with solar for that to be avoided." Lynn Jurich, Co-founder SunRun solar company, from Fast Company interview - Solar Entrepreneur Lynn Jurich: Sunny Days Ahead .
Smart-grid is just a stepping stone to the autonomous off-the-grid renewable energy powered buildings and homes of the future. Over the coming decade, in our efforts to prevent the global emergency that is global warming, a smarter grid will help us create the financial incentives needed to get people to make the switch to renewable energy. As IBM has projected for the smart-grid deployment in Korea, there are many benefits. Right off the bat you've got large greenhouse gas reductions. Then you get into job creation which is ultimately renewable, as renewable energy system must continuously be upgraded, maintained, and replaced over time with new systems created from the recycled materials of the older systems. On large grids the ability to deal with peak demand with stored renewable energy creates massive reductions in the need for new power plants and lessening the need for imports of energy while encouraging the creation of domestic sources of renewable energy. Also, as Germany is proving, the ability to export on demand becomes a powerful facility that drives down the cost of energy for rate payers on the smart-grid.
First of all, ideally, you should be implementing solar on your rooftop for electricity generation on-site, which can earn you a tidy profit from day one assuming your region has implemented a feed-in tariff like the ones in Ontario Canada and Germany. Next, you can add a battery storage system to your buildings internal electrical system. The critical component for this is a new 2 to 3 thousand dollar smart inverter/charger (available from folks like Xantrex and SunnyBoy). These devices, and they can be coupled together in chains to create larger storage systems, provide several key features for storing your renewable energy. First of all they can be seamlessly added to your electrical system for the building without too much fuss because they can deal with things like power failures (they need to prevent electricity from being injected into the grid at these times so that line worker safety is not compromised). Second, they manage charging your bank of batteries to optimize their storage capabilities and lifespan, as well as doing this optimally from a timing perspective to take advantage of the lowest time-of-use electricity rates and/or your rooftop solar system production periods. Finally, these systems can be remotely controlled and programmed so that they inject stored power either during peak demand (peak TOU rates), and/or on demand, both of which add financial returns on these systems. By avoiding peak rates at all times, there are savings that can be guaranteed and factored into the financial benefits. Next, combined with special demand response contracts, especially when aggregated (so that thousands of similar systems can be dispatched on request by the managers of the grid), additional financial incentives can be realized. Last but not least, these systems also provide a uninterrupted power supply (UPS), for your entire building. For around $8,000 a system like this could power your house for a day or so. Larger systems could provide power for commercial and industrial buildings for similar time periods. Ultimately this combination of renewables with battery storage makes for the most economically sensible electricity system currently imaginable while make the to move to 100% renewable energy for both buildings and vehicles achievable in the next ten years.
Foreign Ministry holds first meeting on human rights in St. Kitts and Nevis - The St Kitts Nevis Observer
On Jan. 16, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Aviation held the orientation meeting of the National Mechanism for Reporting and Follow-Up (NMRF).
This mechanism is a Cabinet-approved, inter-ministerial committee created to assess and report on the government’s efforts to promote and protect human rights in the federation. The committee is expected to respond to recommendations from United Nations Treaty Bodies and the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process. The UPR is a United Nations mechanism created in March 2006 and requires all 193 UN member states to report on its human rights situation to the working group of the Human Rights Council at every four-and-a-half-year cycle.
St. Kitts and Nevis presented its UPR for the previous two cycles, in 2011 and 2015, and is scheduled to present its next national report in 2020 during the third cycle.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Aviation Kaye Bass beckoned for closer inter-ministerial dialogue and partnership to report on the plethora of policies, initiatives and programmes to promote and protect human rights, implemented by various government agencies. Bass outlined the objectives for the NMRF, which include coordinating and consulting regularly with relevant stakeholders in order to collate information and data that could be compiled into the national reports to be submitted to international organisations.
Asha DeSuza, second secretary in the Permanent Mission of St. Kitts and Nevis with the responsibility for Human Rights, echoing similar sentiments, explained that the NMRF is critical to the mission’s work at the UN and will serve as a meaningful instrument that will allow St. Kitts and Nevis to present on its progress in the area of human rights both in Geneva, seat of the Human Rights Council, and New York, home of the United Nations.
Sheldon Henry, foreign service officer with partial responsibility for Human Rights, presented on the facts, functions and structure of the UPR.
Representatives from the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force, National Drug Council, Department of Gender Affairs, departments of Community Affairs, Labour and Social Services (Nevis), and the Office of the Prime Minister participated in the meeting. This orientation session is a precursor to a follow-up training in early February 2018 to be conducted by the regional office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) based in Barbados.
Through this medium, the ministry once again calls on all ministries to nominate a representative and an alternate to become a part of the NMRF. For more information, contact the Foreign Ministry at 1-869-467-1161.
Disclaimer: I am not an economist. These are my personal opinions, as a citizen of the country, a logical one at that (or so I think).
The recent demonetization announcement of Rs.500 and Rs.1000 notes in India has thrown the public and the media into a tizzy. I have spent this time absorbing what has happened, talking to people in the food industry as well as common people standing in queues, driving cars and others. I have read strong opinions supporting both sides of the coin and I have heard heated discussions, both on social media and over dinner tables.
Somewhere, opinions regarding the move are divided solely into two - Modi supporters and Modi haters. And that is where opinions become biased and illogical. So, I have attempted to keep the prime minister outside the picture and look at the policy solely as a standalone issue.
The word on the street, atleast in the sample set that I spoke to, is positive. Yes, people have to stand in line to withdraw puny sums of their own money. Yes, it is extremely inconvenient. Yes, industries and trade are being affected, for example the street food vendors or sabzi mandis. But when I spoke to people from these groups, each believed that this was for a greater good. People are ready to go through a little inconvenience for the larger picture.
So what is the larger picture? I urge you not to use corruption and black money interchangeably. This is a move to target black money and make the economy more compliant. How will that happen, you ask? My mother always told me that if I was doing something that I couldn't tell anyone about, there was a good chance it was something I shouldn't be doing. Large amounts of cash lying with people at home or in lockers got there through unscrupulous ways. I am not talking about amounts upto say 1 lakh, which a normal household may keep for a rainy day. I am talking about the people with sofas full of cash, people who take bribes full of suitcases, people who do transactions half in cash and half in cheque, so as to save tax repercussions. Suddenly all that cash lying with them has become paper.
How will that stop people from taking bribes in the future or doing cash transactions when the money situation eases up, you ask. No, just this won't. But a move like this will put the fear of god in them. Modi said, and I do believe, that more such measures will be put into place in the near future, which will make it difficult to use or invest unaccounted-for money. All the loopholes that we have been using in the system are slowly being plugged in the backend (I have seen a lot of tightening in the Income Tax processes, for example) and all these will play a role in increasing penalization.
What about all the black money in Swiss banks and others, you ask? Yes, this is only a trickle and a large amount of black money lies invested in gold, offshore accounts and others. But the noose seems to be tightening for them as well, with Swiss banks being slowly forced to release names of account holders (in the news only yesterday) and other such measures.
1) Forced digitization: Dhaabas have Paytm barcodes, home delivery services are now coming home with card machines and even sabzi walas are going cashless. Each of these is a step towards a progressive nation. I just got back from Australia where I managed with spending exactly $80 in cash over two weeks and the rest everything on card. That is the benefit of digitization and this situation seems to be forcing small vendors and businesses to do so.
2) Increase in bank account openings: Many, many people don't have bank accounts. Household help, manual labour, and even housewives. Some stay away to evade tax and some don't because they can get away without one. This parallel cash economy costs the government in terms of taxation. With more bank accounts opening and money flowing into the system, the Indian economy can see a widening of the tax base.
3) Increase in compliance: For my article on demonetization and it's effect on the food industry in India (read it here), I spoke to many restaurateurs. AD Singh, one of India's most respected restaurateur with names like Olive, SodaBottleOpenerWala and Fatty Bao from his stable, spoke about how he welcomes this move to bring a level playing field into the industry. Many businesses run on cash, evade tax and thus are able to offer unreasonable discounts which compliant businesses can't. This makes it difficult to run an honest business and also results in tax loss for the country. A move from currency to digital payments forces businesses to get more compliant. Yes, this may be true only in the current situation and things may flow back into the earlier ways, with the new currency notes. But perhaps future measures to discourage cash payments will help this cause.
4) Real estate woes: There is buzz that Rs.2000 notes will be limited in number and the currency will move towards lower denominations. This will make high value cash transactions difficult. In today's India, buying a second-sale property involves atleast 30-40% black money. With cash drying up or becoming more difficult to access, people will be forced to sell and buy with white money, hopefully stabilizing an inflated real estate market, making it a level playing field for professionals and businessmen.
The point is not that Modi has a magic wand, he doesn't. This move is not going to solve all of our black money issues or eradicate corruption. Many other measures are required for that to happen. But this is a step in that direction. Yes, it is extremely inconvenient and I myself have stood in lines to withdraw (my own) money. But everyone in that line seems to understand and empathize with this inconvenience. The line moves smoothly, almost as if we're all in this together.
I hated the odd-even campaign. It was inconvenient. Yet, I supported it for the greater picture of it decreasing air pollution. No, it did not do that, but we tried. It did give me fabulous traffic-free roads though. I am happy to look at the vision behind this move, and pray for even 10% good to come out of it, instead of looking at all the woes and holding my breath for it to fail. There are plenty of issues with the implementation strategy, but it is so easy to point fingers, so difficult to actually do something.
As I said, this is not about Modi. This is about India. And they are two separate things. I am happy to be a part of the change. And if this doesn't work, I will be happy to support the next initiative. We curse India for being dirty yet pee on walls, think the air is terrible but still burst crackers, lament corruption but try to bribe cops instead of paying chalaans. If you want India to change my friend, I suggest you suck it up and applaud anyone who does even a little thing to help it do so. This is our country...where we take it is really up to each one of us.
I just got back from Australia after a much-needed break. A wonderful trip in many ways...but this post is not about that. It is about that inexplicable feeling of belonging that I felt, when I reached home.
Growing up, it was always an occasion when relatives from abroad came visiting, with suitcases full of gifts. 'America' and all western countries were 'the blessed land' and we looked towards them with starry eyes, atleast I did.
And then I grew up. In India. Started earning and establishing myself in my career. Got married. And we started travelling outside the country. The first time I used my passport was when I went to Bali for my honeymoon and that was just the starting point. 10 years and 13 countries later, my perspective has slightly changed.
Over these years, many of my closest people, family and friends, chose to move abroad and settle there. Each did so for their own reasons, each seems happy with their decision. As I am with mine.
I chose to stay in India. I still choose to do the same. I love travelling, within my country and outside it. I love exploring, experiencing new things, seeing new cultures and tasting different food. But I also love my life here. I'm not sure at what point it became unfashionable to do so. I find myself defending my decision to live in India more and more often. Which is ironic, considering it really is my default setting. I might choose otherwise somewhere in the future, or I may not.
I am not going to launch into a list of reasons why I love India, that would defeat the purpose of this post. The point is, I do. I think it is a chaotic, crazy, mad but wondrous country. It is dirty, corrupt, polluted, but it is mine. Yes, there are many things I'd like to change in it. But I'm part of the change. And I like that.
I think it is possible to appreciate a place without comparing it constantly to another. For one to look good, the other doesn't necessarily have to be proven bad. Every country that I travel to has its nuances, some are expensive, some inconvenient and some racist; some are polluted, some have language issues; work culture is terrible in some and others are a stagnant economy. Each is wonderful in its own way. It would be such a shame to constantly compare them with India or pit them against each other. Like people, it takes all kinds to make this world. We should celebrate our differences rather than highlight each others flaws. With the world being almost border-less now, it would be so much nicer to do so, don't you think?
Memphis Music Club: John Paul Keith Talks About His Retro Sound, Songwriting and Memphis - The Vinyl District
If I had let the interview with John Paul Keith go on another fifteen minutes, I would have been asking him questions to solve my personal problems: he is just that wise, kind, and zen-like. I sat down with Keith for a cup of coffee after listening to his new album over the course of a week, a week which included a road trip across the state of Tennessee to the Knoxville-area, which ironically, is where both Keith and I grew up (though I never met or followed him before now) and it made the five and a half hour drive a short and fun one. The Man That Time Forgot (Big Legal Mess, 2011), recorded with his band, the One Four Fives, is very retro-inspired with sounds of rockabilly, 60’s pop and soul, and a dash of classic country. It reminded me of better days, made I-40 feel like Route 66, and left me craving a milkshake with two straws served by a soda jerk. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it was soft, it was tight and it rocked hard, but in an uplifting way. I felt (and understood) every word he was saying. I dare someone not to like this album, or John Paul Keith for that matter.
My favorite song on the album is “Someone Should Write a Song About You.” It stands out amongst the other songs because of the different sound and I wasn’t sure how to describe it. It turns out to have an interesting story. Keith said that it was inspired by 60’s adult pop and soul, but was unsure of exactly of how to tag it in a genre. It was also a song that was added to the album at the last minute.
“The song took two weeks to write…that was one of the songs that if it went the wrong way in either direction by a degree, a fraction of an inch, it would suck. I had been listening to a lot of Tyrone Davis when I wrote it and had never done anything quite like that. I told the band, ‘This one will send the Goner dudes running and screaming,’” Keith said laughingly.
Taking a gamble on music and trying new situations are not new to Keith. His career is peppered with many hits and near misses which were all navigated by his truth, perseverance, and unwillingness to compromise his art form as mandated by the industry. Before his tenure in Memphis, Keith had found success with The Viceroys, which began in Knoxville and ended in Nashville.
“I spent five years in Nashville which is a complete opposite culture, it is the complete opposite of Memphis in every single way. I found that my direction and my songwriting really suffered when I was in Nashville. It just was not a good fit for me. Nashville did teach me things about being a professional which is something that Memphis can use a little more of from time to time [laughing]. Be on time. Be in tune,” Keith said.
After his disillusionment with Nashville, he moved to Birmingham, Alabama where he lived until the band that he was with at the time broke up and at his sister’s urging, moved to Memphis where she lived. It was not his intention to play music again; however the music muse of Memphis had other plans for John Paul Keith. It began with his becoming a self-described “nerd” about the guitar and “falling in love” with the instrument again.
“I got into guitar: practicing it, tinkering with them, taking them apart and putting them back together, swapping them for different ones. I got back into that in a way I hadn’t since I was eleven or twelve years old and from that I started hanging out with these guys and playing on Beale Street for some extra cash and that woke me up to why I like music and got me thinking about songs and things. I also started hanging out with Mark [Stuart ] and John [Argroves]. They owned Taylor’s guitars and I met them there.”
Keith formed John Paul Keith and The One Four Fives along with Stuart, Argroves, and Al Gamble . Keith also began listening to the music that made him embrace music as a teenager such as Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash.
“When I got to Memphis, all I would do was listen to that old stuff, I didn’t make any pretense of being interested in anything current. That’s what I like, that old stuff and that’s why my stuff sounds like that.”
After that he began to write songs again. Make no bones about it, above all else, Keith is a songwriter. While discussing songwriting, his method or just the art form of songwriting generally, his face lights up and his speech quickens.
“It’s hard work writing songs. Some people write songs because they feel a certain way, it’s like therapy for them. It’s never been that way for me. I mean, I have feelings too, but songwriting has always been a craft for me. Just because I feel it, doesn’t mean it’s going to be a good song. Playing with Jack Oblivian has been a real cool thing for me. Seeing how he writes songs and his process. People think of him as a garage punk guy but he’s a damn songwriter and there’s a lot of work that goes into his stuff, a lot of work goes into making it sound like no work went into it,” Keith says with a grin.
To weed out prospective songs he uses his audience, and they are growing. Keith says he has not seen such a turn out since being with the Viceroys. He is loving the recognition and the success of having a following.
“Having that audience, the audience is what influenced the songs on the first record more than anything else. We had been playing long shows of covers at the Buccaneer and started writing songs that sounded like the covers that had gone over well with the audience. That’s been a huge source of how we’ve developed: be reactive to how people react to us. Having a sizable audience is a really cool thing and I don’t take it for granted.”
The new album, The Man That Time Forgot, is available online for purchase as well as on vinyl at record stores such as Shangri-la Records and Goner Records. John Paul Keith will has a number of upcoming shows in various cities throughout the South this summer.
Which of this weeks Xbox Live Deals With Gold bargains should you pick up? – 17th March 2015 | TheXboxHub
It must be said, this week’s Xbox Live Deals With Gold sale isn’t the greatest Xbox One and Xbox 360 owners have ever seen. In fact, it’s pretty tough to pick out a couple of standout bargains. But we have…just!
Being honest, if you are an Xbox One owners who hasn’t yet jumped aboard good ship GTA, then the offer on the table at the moment for GTA V and the free Bull card is probably about as good as it’s going to get for a while.
It may not be the most recent addition to the Grand Theft Auto world, but GTA IV is worthy of a purchase, not least because the currently reduced price means you can pick up the full game plus its two biggest content additions for less than a tenner.
Take in the story of Niko Bellic as he gets pestered every five minutes by his cousin Roman in an attempt to make their fortune in Liberty City. You’ll have many hours of exploration and adventure throughout the original full game but throw in the inclusion of The Ballad of Gay Tony and The Lost & Damned and you’ll get to experience Grand Theft Auto IV fully.
You can find the full list of Xbox Live Deals With Gold bargains right here. Let us know what you pick up.