Blue Vinyl

Last night, I watched Blue Vinyl, an investigative documentary in the style of Michael Moore about PVC (aka polyvinyl chloride, aka vinyl). Is vinyl harmful? Is the fabrication and disposal of vinyl harmful? Many new homes today are full of vinyl products from PVC piping to the siding of may homes. The documentary found it roots when the filmmakers' father decides to replace the rotten wooden siding of the house with vinyl.

My father’s answer to rotten wood…
Everyone assured me vinyl siding was safe, and would only let off toxic gas in the rare event of a house fire. But after my experience with cancer caused by DES [a synthetic estrogen and anti-miscarriage drug prescribed to my mother and millions of other women], I figured any material so loaded with synthetic chemicals had to pose some kind of risk. Later I asked my dad, "If you had known that over the course of its lifecycle, from the factory to the incinerator, vinyl produces a wide array of deadly pollutants that threaten our future with a global toxic crisis, would you still have put it on the house?" "I hope not, honey," he said. "But they didn't write that on the box." So, with a piece of vinyl siding firmly in hand (a remnant from my parent’s house) I took off – on a journey to re-write the outside of the box.
(Transcript from http://www.bluevinyl.org)

As the documentary unravels, the filmmakers from New York go in search of alternatives to vinyl. ... and they end up in Marin County, California. Of course. Where else in the USA would you find the dedication to nature as in Marin County and the Bay Area. Many people in the Bay Area (and especially San Francisco and Marin county) have strong believes and walk the talk. Whether it is about politics, banning of guns, free sex, not eating meat, tasting marijuana, the Bay Area is your place to be. It is quite remarkable how many people here are truely dedicated to an environmental friendly livestyle. And not because the government taxes make you sign up to be a member of greenpeace. The Toyota Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid rule. The Altamont wind farm is one of the biggest in the world and produces over 650 M kWh. And you see solar panels on many roofs. So, it wasn't too much of surprise that the filmmaker came to San Francisco for help.

In San Francisco I cut a deal with a “green” straw-bale house builder to come home with me to Long Island to help talk my parents into stucco.

If you are looking for expert advise on building a green house, take a look what our friends are building in the middle of San Francisco: the Bernal Sustainable Homes Project.

The Bernal Sustainable Homes Project is a joint effort of two families to build their dream homes in San Francisco, California. For us, dream homes are not about building the biggest house possible or the house with the most expensive features. For us, its about building stylish, modern homes, using the greenest building techniques, services and products possible.

Links:

• Get the movie and more background at http://www.bluevinyl.org
• http://www.myhouseisyourhouse.org/

Technorati: Blue Vinyl Environment

Inbev in the heart of Argentina

I was in the middle of Argentina, in San Luis, in need for a beer. A serious beer. They don't kid around here. 30cl bottles are a luxury. Beer comes the big bottle 3/4l bottle. And there it was, right in front of me: Stella Artois, the pils beer from Leuven and key brand of InBev.

Inbev, headquartered in Belgium, was created out of Interbrew and Companhia de Bebidas das Américas (AmBev) and is now the world's largest brewer, by volume, selling 202 million hectoliters (hl) of beer and 31.5 million hl of soft drinks in 2004. In the picture of above (which include 85% of the brand in the store. Heineken and Mar del Plata were not in the picture), Iguana, Brahma and Quilmes are also owned by Inbev Argentina. Stella Artois seems to be picking up in Argentina. Many bars carry the beer on tap. You see many billboards, bar umbrellas and advertisements for Stella Artois.

Other key ingredients of daily live in Argentina include:

of course carne argentina (meat)

dulce de leche (caramel spread)

yerba for mate

PS: Dear Inbev, Dear tourist office of Argentina, I'll be awaiting my check for promoting your products.

Just put the gas can on top

It struck me, while driving around in Argentina, that many car had a gas can on top of the car. Since labour is cheap in Argentina, I figured, this might be a 'we fill your gas can service while you sit at home'. I wouldn't be surprised: you can order ice cream to be delivered, right in time for desert; or you can even your prescription medication to be delivered. This comes in handy when you are on your sick bed.

Two scoops of chocolate con dulce de leche and a pack of morphine, please. Yes, to be delivered. Can you also add napkins and a siringe? Thanks!

I learned however that a gas can or, in the poorer neighbourhoods, a plastic soda bottle, ment 'for sale'.

How about putting a sign with details of the car, and the price? It won't fall of when you drive around.

(Oh, and if you were curious about a Peugeot 504 taxi. That's the one. Thousands of them roam the streets of Buenos Aires. As if it were the 80s.)

Guess the object

You will find this object in every street in Argentina. It is a little metal basket about 1.5m above the ground.


No, it ain't a cheap version of a basketball ring (in honor of Argentina's hero, Manu Ginobili). Here's a hint: Guess the city - item 5.

Guess the city

1. The fire marshall is on a leave of abscence: when leaving an appartment building, you need a key to open the front door from the inside.
2. A 'California stop' (a rolling stop) has a whole new definition.
   
3. Elevators have two sliding doors
4. A favorite picnic and bbq place is along the freeway from the international airport to downtown.
5. Tony Soprano is making a killing: trash is picked up daily at night
6. Webvan should have taken a lesson and focus on one core business: Ice cream is delivered to your dinner table
7. Carseats are for losers (baby though talk)
8. My Peugeot 504 just reached 3 million kilometers and shows no sign of slowing down. Headlights have a '1/2 on' setting.
9. A mullet (aka Bundesliga) haircut is in.
10. The amount of cellular phones is up. Cellulitis is down.
    
11. Showing skin has never been out.
    

Just go to 7-Eleven

Around the corner from where we live is one of the little china town centers [see also Chinese 101 - not thank you]. It is a place where all the commercial places are Asian. Signs are Asian. The grocery store is Asian. The restaurants are Asian. The beauty salons are Asian. You can find a lot of good food there, and get a cheap haircut at any day of the year. Even on Christmas or New Year. On Saturday, my wife went by the hair and beauty salon, one of the many there, to ask if they do eyebrow waxing. The lady replied: "Oh-no, no waxing. Go to 7-eleven for waxing!" Remind me not to enter that little backroom at 7-eleven.


[Translation for tourists: 7-eleven is the little convenience store, open almost 24 hours, which you find throughout the US at many corners. They will sell you among other things: toilet paper, stale 12 hours old coffee, donuts, the newspaper, lottery tickets, icecream, beer (and aspirin). It is similar to a more general purpose 'gazettenwinkel' in Belgium, or the store you find in every village with the old lady selling from candy to screwdrivers.]

Where in the world is SGI?

The Computer History Museum in Mountain View is an old Silicon Graphics building. I drive almost daily past the GooglePlex, also ex-SGI. And the surrounding buildings now house a number of smaller companies, such as Pathscale. It made me wonder: where in the world did the shrinking Silicon Graphics retreat to? Sure, I could have looked it up on their website, but it is more fun to drive around in search of SGI.

The Mountain View Area between Shoreline and San Antonio has quite a history. Many years ago, not only was it home to the big campus of SGI, also rival Sun Microsystems had its campus there. Only last year did Sun move out of its last Mountain View building and brought the Sun Labs team to the Sun Menlo Park campus. Today, the old Sun Campus houses Intuit. Google moved into SGI buildings, as well as some buildings formerly leased by Sun.

GooglePlex in Mountain View at the old SGI buildings

Driving around the neighbourhood, just before getting to Shoreline Park, I made a right onto Crittenden Lane. From far away, it looks like the road will end up near the big NASA Ames windtunnel. A great picture opportunity, I thought. Out of nowhere popped up the current SGI campus. "Legacy campus," it is called. Here are a few pictures I snapped on a dark cloudy Friday evening, when the rest of the Bay Area braces for the incomming storm tonight.

Technorati: Silicon Graphics Inc, GooglePlex

When old meets young

One of the perks of living in Silicon Valley is that a lot of the excitement happens just down the street. There are plenty of "geek user groups" happening every night: the SVOSUG (aka Silicon Valley Open Solaris User Group), the SVLUG (Linux User Group), BayLisa, the SForce user group, the Ruby geeks, the Pythons, etc. A real treasure are a bunch of old timers meeting in Mountain View: the Computer History Museum (at the old SGI building on 101 and Shoreline) I've been visiting the museum a number of times, attended some presentations and lectures, even organized a company event there. If you are in the Bay Area, and you middle name is geek, check it out and look up the events for that time. Yesterday, when browsing Google Video, I came across a wonderful recording of a Computer History Museum event: Bob Sproull and the brothers Sutherland. And there is more of the same.

Technorati: Computer History Museum

And then, there is Nascar

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Pete invited the boys to an exciting game of college basketball (NCAA - Santa Clara University Broncos). That means Nascar is the last of the big N-words in sport I have yet to attend. Upon moving to the US, it is impossible not to get immersed in all the sports happening.

The Celtics - L.A. Lakers NBA rivalery was pretty popular in Belgium when I grew up. When the Oakland Arena was being remodelled, I attended a game of the Golden State Warriors in their temporary home at the San Jose Arena (aka HP Pavilion aka the Sharks tank). The NBA is quiet boring. Sure there is a lot of scoring going on and running up and down the court. But it really boils down to the last couple of minutes of the game. Either the score difference has grown over the course of the game too big to make it exciting. Or the last two minutes are a battle of time outs to stop the clock and deliberate fouls to get possesion of the ball.

In sunny, hot and dry San Jose, ice hockey is very popular. Yep, that's right, San Jose is home to the NHL's San Jose Sharks. Watching a live game of ice hockey at the Shark's tank is very exciting. Also the game is fun to watch. Scoring is typically in the single digits and you should not tune out a moment. For many the real excitements only starts when the gloves come off. Every so often two or more players get in a fist fight. The apperent rules are no helmets, no gloves. So the players will battle a little on the ice, while the referees stand by. After a couple of minutes of letting the aggression out, the fight is broken up and the players typically end up in the penatly box for a while. A turn-off for attending the game is the artificial pumping up the crowd. A big screens around the arena, the eye in the sky will put up signs 'Make some noise' or 'Clap' or 'Shark attack'. And the crowd executes perfect upon command. All and all it takes the natural excitement out of the game for me. But nothing better than taking a picture with some of the teethless players of the game.

Driving up to Candlestick park (now rebranded Monster Park for the highest paying sponsor) in San Francisco to watch the San Francisco 49ers, is more of a culinary event than a sport event. Tailgating, or the hosting of a barbecue and beer at the tailgate of your pick-up truck, is the NFL event to be part of. You show up many hours in advance at the stadium and host a party out of the back of your big american pick up. Some sports fans have gone one step further: big tables with tablecloth and candles. Or even a live band with electric guitars, power generators and a full out drumset, playing 'Sweet Home Alabama'. It is pretty amazing and a lot of fun to get a taste of this side of American culture. As for the game, american football is fun and exciting to watch. More so on television than live. I found the atmosphere in the stadium rather dull. Hey, what do you want, if you just spend the last couple of hours eating and drinking in the parking lot. All you want to do after that is relax, kick back in your chair and dose of from time to time. Supporters of both teams sit mixed among each other. No chanting. Clapping and cheering to get the team going were minimal.

MLS, major league soccer, never seems to be able to take off in the US. The San Jose Clash .. uh ... now called the San Jose Earthquakes, seemed to be popular among the kids. There is still some excitement in San Jose for soccer dating back from the parties of the 1994 World Cup in the US, when the Brasilean team was based in Los Gatos and brought with them every day Samba street parties. And Crazy George tries to keep the crowd engaged at the Earthquakes games with a big drum while running around the soccer pitch. The latest news is that the Earthquakes will be leaving San Jose for Houston ... yep for the money. Can you imagine F.C. Brugge moving to Genk, or Manchester United to London? No wonder the English soccer fans are concerned when Grazier bought their beloved ManU.

Over time, I started to love the game of baseball. The Bay Area is lucky having two fun MLB baseball teams: the Oakland A's (Athletics) and the San Francisco Giants. Baseball, America's favorite passtime, is an acquired taste. It appears boring at first. Especially when games can last a couple of hours. But once you understand the game, the rules, the strategies, it is very interesting. Anything can happen at any time. Similar to real football in Europe. But you have to watch it on television. The commentary is what makes it interesting to watch. I've been to the Oakland A's: Food is terribly expensive. But how will you eat it? You just lost your other arm and an a leg while bying a pint of beer (~$7-9). And you miss the TV commentary and explanation of some of the throws (curve ball, fast ball). You'll see many in the stadium listening to the radio, while watching the game live. During the regular season, I don't follow baseball much. There are just way too many games. Almost every day there is a game. I tune in when it's time for the play offs.

College sports (NCAA) are always more exciting as teams take more risks. Games get more opportunities as the players are still young and make mistakes. For example, NCAA basketball is much more fun than NBA basketball. The Bronco's game was really fun to watch. Especially as the home team made a double digit come back to win the game in the last minutes. Also the students in the stands are much more rowdy, chant, curse, jeer. Much more spontanous than some of the other sporting events I've been to.

But I can't wait for Germany 2006. Even though Belgium didn't qualify. Viva Argentina!

Technorati:NCAA NBA NFL NHL MLB

Playboy helps delivering open source and other packages for (Open)Solaris

You got to love this: open source and other packages compiled for Solaris are delivered by ... Playboy.com. Just check out the sponsors, hardware and bandwidth providers behind blastwave.org: http://www.blastwave.org/articles/BLS-0042/index.html

OpenSolaris marketing, start your engines: we probably can get a lot of TheRegister or SlashDot hits around that.

"No, I was not surfing for porn. I was trying to download PostgressDB from playboy.com."