Julien Lamarche

подаръциикона за подаръкOne huge barrier I have in investing in solar power is that I’m not a home owner.

According to p.8 of $mart Power (Kemp, WIlliam), the ROI for energy efficiency is about 12%-20% and for PV system is 5-10% (that’s without subsidies).

If there was a way I could invest 10$ into a community project to get 11$ or 12$, I would for sure invest.

I know the buisness language is a turnoff for many, but if we can win the solar advocacy game because there’s a way for everyone (not just home owners) to profit from it, so the better. About 1/3 of Ottawa residents are tenants.

Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 20:56:15 -0400
Subject: Commission royale sur les appels frauduleux de l’élection de 2011
From: Julien Lamarche
To: info@gg.ca

Son Excellence le très honorable David Johnston,

Il me semble que la Chambre des communes se retrouve dans une impasse qui empêche la population canadienne de découvrir qui a effectué les appels frauduleux dirigeant les électeurs canadiens vers des bureaux de scrutin non existant ou non assigné à l’électeur en question.

Je vous prie de faire appel aux instituons appropriées afin d’initier une Commission royale qui aurait le mandat de découvrir qui a payé pour ces appels effectués dans 18 circonscriptions lors de l’élection fédérale de 2011.

Julien Lamarche

If the Ottawa Sun (or the Canadian Tax Payers Federation) wishes to be taken seriously in the matter of advocating for lower taxes, they should advocate for better urban planning.

One only needs to look at the Canadian Automobile’s Association own figures of cost ownership to realize that building car dependant cities is going to cost residents 6000-9000$ / year just in ownership and 8000-15000$ if one includes operating costs.

Or take a look at Newman and Kenworthy’s 1989 study showing increase gasoline usage as city density decreases.

Until the Sun or the CTPF look at urban planning, their tax whining is just a joke. In the case of the Ottawa Sun, its simultaneous advocacy against taxes and against spending on cycling proves the OS staff can’t think. The logic just doesn’t add up. Until, of course, one considers that the OS’s cares more about selling headlines than the pockets of Ottawa taxpayers.

ХудожникLee Brain, a son of an oil executive, made a very powerfull testimony. Here are some of the more pognant quotes:

“What I witnessed time and time again, was the technical experts knowing the damage, risk and adverse effects of the project, versus what corporate would portray to the general public after reading their materials.”

“We are psychologically stuck. We are good at what we know, but are too scared to try anything else. If we could directly transfer the mobilization power of oil into a new energy economy, into a new economic measurement, into a new level of coordination and cooperation -where the true cost of development is clearly laid out -we may have a chance.

Because you simply cannot infinitely grow, within a finite system of resources — period.

So I do not sit here today, in anger, or in blame, or in judgement. And on behalf of my generation, I forgive these men and women for their lack of awareness, heart and understanding.”

His conclusion is a little too fluffy, but the testimony is pognant nonetheless.

Read the rest on the Vancouver Observer.

СВЕТИ ГЕОРГИI find the font selection in Ubuntu to be a bit limiting. Fortunately it is very easy to add fonts from the Open Font library. Here are some instructions oriented to end users:

(with thanks to Detector Pro)

1. Go to Open font library
2. Click on a font you want
3. Download and unzip the font
4. Go to your home folder in Nautilus
5. Enable “Show Hidden Files” option from Nautilus View menu
6. Then create new folder with name “.fonts” (with dot in front)
7. Move the *.ttf files from the package you downloaded to the .font folder
8. Restart your favorite application

БогородицаBasically, there just isn’t enough flexibility yet for cyclist in the condo world. I own 4 bikes: a hybrid, a folding bike, a winter bicycle and a secondary bike. Eventually I’ll probably just own three: the hybrid, the winter bike, and a recumbant / trike.

Even with bike parking, the recumbant / trike is still a hard thing to park. So I was considering perhaps a special container I could lock in it. I was talking with a real estate agent recently. He said the rules for car parking don’t allow to put anything else on the spot other than car parking.

WTF? A bicycle is still a vehicule. Car parking rule should accomodate to any type of vehicules. Not just cars.

Oh North America, where cyclists are second class citizens…….

Wondering where I could live if I wanted to be cycling 30 mins from downtown Ottawa, I made a public google map. Enjoy!

Amnesty International is reporting that there are more empty homes than homeless people in the states:

“Since 2007, banks have foreclosed around eight million homes. It is estimated that another eight to ten million homes will be foreclosed before the financial crisis is over. This approach to resolving one part of the financial crisis means many, many families are living without adequate and secure housing. In addition, approximately 3.5 million people in the U.S. are homeless, many of them veterans. It is worth noting that, at the same time, there are 18.5 million vacant homes in the country.”

I remember going into a corner store (large enough to be a small grocery) of my home town, which is surrounded by farms. All the products sold were processed foods and shipped from far away. But the figures above just beats everything else in terms of non-sense.

Sometimes north american economics just doesn’t stick to common sense.

An article in the New York Times underlines that while the US has seen more whether extremes in a short time span, some republicans continue to refute the existence of climate change.

Many of the individual events in 2011 do have precedents in the historical record. And the nation’s climate has featured other concentrated periods of extreme weather, including severe cold snaps in the early 20th century and devastating droughts and heat waves in the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s.

But it is unusual, if not unprecedented, for so many extremes to occur in such a short span. [...]

This year, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tried to push through a reorganization that would have provided better climate forecasts to businesses, citizens and local governments, Republicans in the House of Representatives blocked it. The idea had originated in the Bush administration, was strongly endorsed by an outside review panel and would have cost no extra money. But the House Republicans, many of whom reject the overwhelming scientific consensus about the causes of global warming, labeled the plan an attempt by the Obama administration to start a “propaganda” arm on climate.

– New York Times, Harsh Political Reality Slows Climate Studies Despite Extreme Year, Justin Gilis

Canada has not been left untouched by the willful ignorance of science, deliberately targeting climate change scientists in its budget cuts.

I was cycling in the freezing rain yesterday. A short commute from my house on Preston to l’Université du Québec en Outaouais where the offices of CREDIL are located, and back.

Nothing happened.

Like fellow cyclist Robert Schmidt has noted, I felt safer on the road with studded tires than walking on the sidewalk:

“It was much safer biking with studs than walking without. Many pedestrians couldn’t stand up on the sidewalks.

I did take a route that avoided riding on the road as much as possible. I know the car drivers are stressed and probably assume I had worse traction than I did. The route I took on the Ottawa River Path on the Hull side was mostly unsalted but was no problem.”

Personally, though risk I acknowledge, I find there is an interesting symbiotic relationship between cars and winter cyclists: the roads frequented by the most cars are the driest. In fact, the only point where I almost slipped was at home in the backyard once I got off my bike. Studded front and rear tires made for a safe journey.