Matthew Henry John Bartlett

Money is toxic. It’s obvious. Jesus, Gandhi and the GFC. Your new job is to try and get by with less and less of it. Grow more, swap more, walk more, make more, borrow more, give more. Try and convince your kids to support you in your retirement (what other choice do you have?). Wes Jackson says that high energy destroys information. Money keeps you from loving your neighbours and from receiving their love. Your salary is your exposure. Give it up!

As mentioned recently, I bought and planted a few rocket seedlings. I planted them in the same planter box that last year’s crop were in, and the seem to be doing well. Imagine my mingled surprise, delight and mild chagrin to find that last year’s crop has self-seeded (as my mum actually mentioned it might), and circa 100 tiny rocket plants have germinated among the handful of larger seedlings. So now I have rocket plants to spare if anyone would like any.

You will be thrilled to learn that this blog now supports OpenID. All going well, soon it will support RPX too, so that you’d be able to use your Google, Facebook, etc. account to log in here.

I received a new old Compaq 6715b laptop via TradeMe today. It has a problem which I haven’t yet solved: the mouse cursor freezes. Sometimes when the computer first starts both the trackpad and USB-connected optical mouse work fine, then after a short time either or both will respond jerkily, and then stop moving altogether. Even after the cursor has stopped moving, the trackpad buttons still work. I’ve updated the video driver (ATI Radeon Mobility x1250) and uninstalled mouse drivers from Device Manager, but to no avail. Suggestions welcome.

Rhubarb, pak choi, rocket, leeks and spinach. I have lots of baby leeks to spare if anyone would like any. Thanks Wierengas, this is fun.

Global Recession; An opportunity to create a more sustainable and desirable future

13 March 2009
Robert Costanza

Jeanette Fitzsimons:
[lots of claps]
300 respondees on a Friday night – pretty good.
[Very warm feeling]

Bob Costanza:
My and Jeanette’s ideas are very close. The idea of using the current crisis to move green is getting some mainstream currency. Don’t want to get back on the same track we were on. Opportunity to rethink entire agenda. Anthropocene now, not Holocene. Human activities changing major global cycles. Full world. When our economic ideas were being formed, natural capital was abundant, built capital was scarce. ‘The folly of growth’ NewScientist. Oil peak. Net energy production even worse curve than gross. Oil reserves concentrated in unstable parts of the world. Climate disruption – rather than ‘climate change’, or ‘global warming’. (more…)

I am looking to buy a small drum kit. I’m willing to pay up to about $1500. A little jazz kit would be ideal.

Fun question from Sue Bradford to the Minister of Housing: “Does he see any opportunity to simultaneously deal with the job losses in the housing construction sector and assist the nearly 10,000 people on the Housing New Zealand waiting list?”

Paul Graham: “The economic situation is apparently so grim that some experts fear we may be in for a stretch as bad as the mid-seventies. … When Microsoft and Apple were founded.”