Super Jellyfish

I’ve been doing research on CleanTech lately and read Earth: The Sequel. If you are a newbie to this area like me, I think it is actually quite a good read.

I have been contemplating going into green tech, and given all the media buzz and hype around the topic, wanted to see what the hell was going on and determine whether or not it is just hype and BS, or if there is actually something interesting going on.

Well, I do think there is something interesting happening, but I don’t know if I believe that a lot of the exciting new venture-backed cleantech companies are going to make any money. A lot of these companies need significant amounts of capital just to prove out their technology and unfortunately they will NOT be signing up customers until they have a product to sell. And even though a lot of these technologies are cool and interesting, they are just not cost competitive as compared to “dirty” sources such as coal and oil.

Actually, it makes me recall something Vinod Khosla said at a talk I attended. Basically, with energy you have three tradeoffs - cost, reliability, clean. His view is you can have 2 out of the 3, but not all 3. I think that observation is just spot on.

I feel as though a lot of the things discussed in the book will only work once there is a carbon cap trading system in place. And yes, that is likely, I guess, but I don’t know if you can assume that. I think I have those sorts of feelings with a lot of non-fiction books. Especially if they are written more by laypeople versus PhDs or researchers. One of the authors, Fred Krupp, is the president of the Environmental Defense Fund. So yes, he does have some biases and asumptions. I think he spent a lot of time talking to Kleiner Perkins about what’s going on, since a lot of the companies he describes are Kleiner portfolio companies.

Some of the areas he discusses in the book are:

• Solar power including solar voltaics and solar thermal
• Power from the ocean and center of the earth
• Biodiesel players including algae and ethanol energy sources
• Energy efficiency

For more information, check out Amazon’s page on Earth:The Sequel

I went to Spitalfields market last weekend over by Liverpool station and I picked up this adorable cream colored leather bag. It’s “Jovonna London” which is made by an independent fashion designer. She also sells her stuff on a retail website.

The really cool thing about Spitalfields is that it’s sort of like a live Etsy. You can walk around see really high-quality stuff usually sold by the designers themselves. If you come to London, I would definitely recommend it!

• Ask a Ninja
• Ze Frank
• The Burg
• Wallstrip

So I’ve been in Brazil now for a week. Its been a really awesome trip so far - a lot of fun, but more expensive than I thought it would be.

Today I went to Iguasu Falls. The falls are at the intersection of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. They are TRULY spectacular… but, if you do go, be sure to bring a rain poncho or something! We started out this morning and the sun was shining and things looked bright… we were going to explore the Argentinian side of the falls first, because you can get “up close and personal” with the falls. We started by taking the train on the green trail which lead to this long path to the Devil’s Mouth - the largest of the falls. While I did get sprayed with water there, it wasn’t TOO bad. The sun was still bright… unfortunately, the rain started pouring down while we were in the middle of our walk in the park at the “superior” trail. Since I didn’t want to pay 13 pesos for a plastic poncho, I thought I would tough it out - I mean, how bad could it be?? Well… the rain just kept going and and going and going.. We signed up for this boat ride where you go right up to the falls and under them - and I just got COMPLETELY drenched. I was sooo cold.

I would recommend the boat ride though. It was a ton of fun. We zoomed around in the river under the falls and they made a video of us screaming. It was sort of like being on a roller coaster ride. After the boat ride, they took us on a little tour of the rainforrest on this converted truck. We sat on the top of this truck-thing which was painted green and the tour guide talked to us about wild species in the park.

I felt like the Argentinian park was really professional too. Apparently they are ISO 9000 certified, which is quite impressive. All the bathrooms were clean and there was plenty of toilet paper.

After the Argentinian side, we went over to the Brazilian side of the park where we get to see a “panorama” of the falls. Basically, the 70% of the falls are on the Argentinian side, so you can get a good view of everything from further away in Brazil. It was pretty awesome, except for the wild coaties! Apparently people feed them too much food, so they go right up to people and are really aggressive. At first, I thought they were so cute and cuddly looking — kind of like a cross between a raccoon and a possum.. Well, then one of them came right up to me, jumped up like a dog on my leg and when I shied away, accidently pointing my plastic bag at him, he BIT INTO MY BAG!!!

He wouldn’t stop when I tried to jerk the bag away and I was afraid he would eat my passport, so I took my water bottle and smacked him with it! Then he let go of my bag and me and this other Portuguese family I was touring with ran up the hill as he chased us! I was afraid he was going to bite me and give me rabies!!

Can you believe he just ate my bag like that? He also slobber this weird orange all over my camera case! My plastic bag just had this big hole in it. Sigh, I tossed the bag before I remembered to take a photo of it. It was DEFINITELy traumatic though!

If you come to Iguasu in Brazil, watch out for these coatie things!!!

Hehe, I also had deet in my bag, so I was sort of thinking, if another little creature comes up and tries to eat my bag, maybe he will get some deet instead! (Which of course, would be really toxic for the poor creature, so maybe that’s not a nice though…)

Does anyone else HATE CBS’ implementation of watching video online?
I’m trying to catch up on the last episode of Survivor, and honestly, it is such a disaster!

I don’t mind the commercials, but, unfortunately, the “inner tube” program doesn’t continue the show after the commercials! So it looks like the show is split up into 5 segments and after each segment, you have to watch a commercial. Well, instead of playing the show after the commercial, I just get another commercial and another one, until finally, instead of getting segment 3 - which is the one I wanted - I got segment 5! And there’s no way to go back unless you start at the very beginning!

So after sitting through this torture like 3x and STILL not being able to get to the right segment, I just gave up. I’m so frustrated! Why couldn’t they implement it the way ABC did? I think that online video player is SO much better. I think I might just go to itunes and buy the show instead. Why do these media companies have to make everything so complicated?? Just create a functioning video player! And let me go to the part of the show I want to see!

Sigh.

What’s vacation to you?

To be most satisfying, Prof. Godbey explains, leisure should resemble the best aspects of work: challenges, skills and important relationships. Leisure has its hierarchy. At the lowest level, it’s a search for diversion, higher up it’s a search for pleasure and, at the top, it’s a search for meaning. “It’s not that diversion is bad,” says the professor, “but in terms of human growth, it’s inferior to activities that are more pleasurable — and they’re inferior to activities that are more meaningful.”

Is this why I am in Latin America instead of touring around Europe or Asia?

I just finished this book, The Confessions of Max Tivoli. The premise is that the main character, Max, was born looking like a 70-year old man, but in all other internal respects, he is actually a child. So as he ages, he looks younger and younger, but he is really growing older and older.

I was sort of disappointed in the book. Basically, the story is a love story — Max falls in love with this person named Alice, and he kind of obssessively follows her throughout his life. It’s annoying though, because, it’s not clear why exactly he is so in love with her. What about her is so special? I guess since we never are really able to “get inside her head” unfortunately, her character stays sort of flat and non-developed.

Max also has a best friend named, Hughie, who is able to accept Max even with his age-problem. Hughie himself is also “different.”

So the main them of the book is “We are each the love of someone’s life.” It’s sort of sad, I think.. Max just seems like such a shallow and selfish character! Maybe it’s important to like the characters in a story, so you can root for them and hope for their success?

Anyway, if you have other books to read, I would probably not recommend this one!

Wow, YouTube is so cool!

I just tried and failed to buy Radiohead tickets for Kane.

So then, to see how I could improve my “Ticketmaster skills” I did a blogsearch on Google for “Ticketmaster.” Instead of getting tips on how to successfully buy high-demand tickets, I just found a lot of hatred and anger towards Ticketmaster.

Despite fans’ rabid hatred, though, it seems like people use Ticketmaster anyway. They have no alternative! It looks like Ticketmaster will mark up fees 60%+ for concerts. How can they do that? Why do they have the power to do so?

It seems to me whenever there are multiple parties between and different motivations of decision makers, egregious pricing can result.

Ticketmaster has contracts with concert facilities, who negotiate the convenience fee the fans pay. Since the facility isn’t paying the fee, they are less incented to reduce the fees. In fact, it seems they have incentives for the fees to be higher (they are getting a cut I think.) (more…)

So I’ve been doing some research on what I should do this summer, and one idea is to go to cooking school in Thailand.

I guess a bunch of schools do this in Thailand, and I’m not sure which one is the best one. It looks like it costs about $20 for a day of classes, they usually take you out to the market to buy and learn about ingredients and you usually get to eat everything that you cook.

Richard Barrow posted a great overview of various Thai cooking schools.

So I don’t know, is this a good way to spend free time? I want to do something abroad this summer, but I’d rather be doing something sort of productive.. Hmmm.

So here are some links I’ve found sorted by school:

Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School
Apparently this school has been around the longest. It also costs the most and is located 20 minutes outside of Chiang Mai central:

• Becca and Brian’s four days at Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School 12/31/05- I thought this was one of the best accounts of the experience at the school. They also spent FOUR days at the school! So maybe my idea of doing 5 days isn’t so nuts.
• Richard Read’s day as a masterchef 6/20/05- He got a cookbook and took the course that covers the basics of Thai cooking. It sounds like you watch the Sompon, the owner of the school, cook first and then you try yourself
• PlanetHalder’s Review, 8/23/05- this person spent a day at the school and he did the course at The Wok restaurant, which is located in the city. He also did the course with 12 other people, who I guess complained a lot and were annoying

(more…)