Bits and pieces

Bits and pieces:

• Maybe my dream of a hybrid RV isn't so crazy after all:

"they have announced a partnership with coach makers Jones and Sons Chassis. Their plan is to make a hybrid motorhome with a 150 mile all-electric range and a total hybrid range of 500 miles. Cross the country in just six stops? Sounds good to me."

• Also, new of electric trucks

Company officials at the UK-based Smith Electric Vehicles announced on Friday that they will begin manufacturing “The world’s largest battery-electric-powered truck” at a new plant in Kansas City, Missouri.

The battery-powered Newton will be the first vehicle to be produced at the new plant, but starting next year, the plant will manufacture an electric version of the new Transit Connect light-duty vehicle in collaboration with made by Ford Motor Co. ... The company hopes to begin rolling Newtowns out of the new Kansas City plant by the third quarter of 2009.

• I thought this was a neat piece on vertical gardens.

"A vertical garden is essentially a framework of plants placed onto the side of a building or a wall. They can be placed indoors or outdoors, in full sun or shade, depending on what types of plants you want. You can plant all types of flowers and plants on them, including epiphytes, tropical plants, succulents, ferns and even herbs. Check out ELT Living Wall Systems for a great list of plants to try if you want to do it yourself."

• And a nice write up of dealing with a share of a split hog.

"Ms. Tamar Adler, our fearless leader here has requested I post some photos of my recent Porcine Project, which I've done, along with a bit of the back story." It comes complete with lots of pictures.

On the Permaculture in Brittany blog I saw a cool description for sizing of a swale which I read translated by google from the original French. 

New commute

Now that I have moved to Redwood City, my commute is a little more complicated.
I used to be able to walk three blocks to work. Now I have about a mile walk to CalTrain, and then take the train to Mountain View, where I pick up a company shuttle to work. The walk takes me about 25 minutes, or I can cut that in half with my skate board.

This leaves me with a couple questions:

• What is my marginal carbon footprint for this trip? (All the trains and shuttles are going to run if I am on them or not).
  
• How would this compare to an all electric car used for the trip?
  

Turtle graphics are cool

I found an online turtle graphics page called Web Turtle. It let me make a picture of more levels in the underlying fractal that inspired the quilt. Here is what the outline of the yellow would look like if it were taken several more levels.