On holiday

Sorry if i don't post anything else for a while I'm on holiday :).

Although i may upload some photos to my photo blog http://wonxsphotos.blogspot.com/

Update: An update on the land clearing.

The other day i wrote about why, i am angered by land clearing and so on. I was also unsure of its legality. Ive done some investigations and Emailed a load of people since then.

According to NSW law its illegal if the regrowth was/is older than 1990. I'm really at a lose as to if any was or not as i was a bit young in 1990. Ive got in touch with the NSW department of Environment that will investigate it in more detail. No idea if ill ever hear anything of it again, although you never know i may get lucky. Time will tell :)

Anyone seeking more information, there is a long list of publications here: http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/vegetation/publications.htm.

How much rice you donated today?

Have you done your bit and donated Rice? All you have to do is answer lots of questions. You can pick from a range of subjects and of course get the questions right. For every Answer you get right you donate 20 grains of rice.

The website is http://www.freerice.com/

If any of you are thinking this maybe a joke, or none of this really goes to helping people take a look at the Wikipedia or the World Food Program.

Get Donating, 20,000 Grains to feed one Person. :) Its not hard, i donated 4100 yesterday before going mad.

In light of all thats happening why?

Why are we still clearing land? Don't we have enough, haven't we done enough damage already? Why is it we have to keep cutting down our forests and releasing all that carbon into the air? Killing all those trees making all the animals that depend on them homeless? To what end? So someone can make a few more dollars? In the end unless we change no amount of money will save us.

For all those people afraid of making a few little changes. Think of the huge changes the future generations will have to make? They wont have a choice and this planet cant support 6 billion people. No we are not all going to build spaceships and escape to the red planet. Even if we do manage to set up bases on the moon. It will only be able to support what, 1% of the planets population.

I'm not normally big on doom and gloom. General compared to my family, I'm an optimist, especially here. I see a lot of people making changes more each year. People and governments been more proactive about addressing climate change.

But today's when i witnessed land clearing on a neighboring farm it kinda made me think. Is it really changing, there are so many people who don't want to see the light. Or are just to lazy/selfish to change. That can us few who want change really win? Really make a difference. This clearing wasn't that large (although large enough in my opinion), but its just a reflection of whats happening around the Australia and the World. I know in my area theirs been quiet a bit of clearing due to pine plantations. The pines have a large amount of power in the shire. As the wood mill in the shires largest town, is its major employer. The environmental damage the pines are causing to the rest of us isn't good. The shire don't careless as long as people got jobs. They strike us as useless.

Lets just hope things start to change soon or we are in for an interesting future...

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The legality of this clearing is currently unknown to me. Although Ive written emails to various people and body's asking.

Here's some photos of the destruction: Picasa, My Photo Blog.

A few random computer related things.

This post is just a collection of computer related subjects. They are not big enough to warrant there own post, but worth talking about all the same.

1. We all wish our computers would perform better. We are all sick of them been slow. For anyone running Windows XP, This guide offers a good list of tweaks, that can be used to improve the performance of Windows. http://datacreek.net/webgear/system/xptweaks.html. This all involves editing the registry that isn't RECOMMENDED for novice users, although if you think you know what your doing go nuts :). At the bottom of the guide or here. There is also a guide on what programs you can disable in the services.msc. This frees up some ram and controls what runs on your PC. (written for service pack 3)

2. Also on the Topic of improving windows performance, this program is worth trying. http://www.pcwintech.com/node/145. Unlike most memory managers it doesn't force the program to release the memory it simply clears up any unused memory. Ive been using it for a week or to and Ive found it to be good. It doesn't require you do do anything simple download it install it and forget about it :). It runs using the scheduled tasks so it isn't running all the time using ram.

3. On an unrelated topic. Ever wondered if that site you just clicked on is safe? Well this Firefox/IE addon can help you. Created by Against Intuition, Inc. the addon gives website a rating and says if it is safe or not.
FireFox users: http://www.mywot.com/en/download/ff
IE users: http://www.mywot.com/en/download/ie

You can also contribute by registering an account (yer its free) and rating websites your self. Spread your knowledge and make sure people don't stumble onto bad sites.

4. For all those Gmail users out there. This may come in handy as your own personal online storage space. http://richard.jones.name/google-hacks/gmail-filesystem/gmail-filesystem.html. The program creates a Virtual drive using your Gmail's space. You can upload files to it though your "my computer" and access them in your account in the form of an attachment. This is limited by your Gmail space and the speed of your Internet. Although most people will find it quite good for transporting documents and other small files around :).

If the link doesn't work it can be downloaded here. All you people out there with out a Gmail account they can be create for free. Click here

Hope these help you and your PC.

Time for a new Screen saver.

For all of you out there who use a screen saver, maybe its time for a new one. :)

http://wwf.org.au/act/takeaction/screensaver

Dont worry we will be fine! our kids though thats another story.

As we all know now the planet is in trouble and that we all need to do something to try and stop global warming. Ive been thinking lately though, its not our problem the effects in most of our life times will be limited. Its the next generation that's really going to suffer, Our kids. If we don't act to solve the problems of climate change and global warming then they will keep getting worse and worse. We will feel limited effects of it in our life times, but the next generation and the generation after that are really going to suffer because of our failures. They will look back and blame us for stuffing it all up. As the video Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip points out. See: http://wakeupfreakout.org/film/tipping.html if you don't know it, its very good and makes you really think.

Ive been lucky in general not to personally know many climate change deniers but then ill be honest i don't really know that many people. Although i do know people who just don't care of feel that theirs no point in trying to change. Why though, why shouldn't we at least try? Wouldn't it be better to have tried and failed than just not even tried? I don't mind if peoples efforts are limited or they only do small things, but what bugs me is people that wont even try. Its not the hard to make little changes. Turn off the TV, PC the lights in empty rooms. Buy low packaged food, don't waste fuel. If everyone makes little changes it will make a big differences. I think ideally we should all make as many changes as we can and as big as possible. Although failing that we can at least make little changes every little bit counts.

Think of the future generations and society as you know it. How do we want to be remembered?

Anyone not sure what to do here are some links to help you :)
http://green.wikia.com/wiki/Wikia_Green
http://www.treehugger.com/
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/
http://futuremakers.com.au/
If anyone wants to recommend one Ive missed please comment or email me.

Carbon trading to help struggling farmers.

As you may all have heard theirs a lot of talk about carbon trading and offset these days :). The general idea is that polluting company's buy forests/trees or rent them to offset there carbon emissions. Its apparently big and working well in the EU now been worth a lot of euros a year. The world bank says the carbon market was worth 64 billion in 2007. Its not really caught on in Australia and i must say chairman Rudd's green credentials are some times questionable although hes much better than Howard :P.

My idea is that well if every tree someone owns is worth money. Then it would be a great insensitive to farmers to plant more and also a way of helping them though these hard times. Ive seen it first time hand as my parents are farmers and its not easy. Its also gotta be bad for the economy, even if the government likes to think that agriculture makes up very small amount of our country's exports

If every large company here had to pay a tax for all its carbon produced and we could go as far as every household payed a tax on its power (its pretty cheap here, still to cheap in ways, if it cost more people would waste it less). Then all the farmers who own a tree left on there land (most around here do) can sell those trees as carbon banks. This would give farmers a new source of income put an end to logging and land clearing. As the trees would be worth more than sheep or cattle. That are both pretty worthless despite the huge prices in the shops.

My parents farm has plenty of trees on it we haven't ever cleared any of it (most of the land has been cleared in the more distant past) we have one paddock that is all wooded. Not 2 mention we have planted lots of trees all over the farm mostly with Landcare grants.

If every tree on every farm was worth money there would be a lot more money in these areas. Not to mention national parks would be nice and rich and the logging company's would be a bit redundant. That's never a bad thing they are doing a great job of destroying our future.

I'm not sure how you would value a farm or a tree although it must not be to hard as they do it with forests at the moment. I don't see that only native trees should be worth money to as our gardens full of foreign trees and the wildlife seem to happily come visiting. Especially the parrots who knock all our apples off trying to eat them.