Toluu

Sustainable Democracy

Because we can, because we care

The Hillary ChallengeApril 24 2008

I have been ignoring most of the political world lately. Most of the news in somewhere between useless and objectionable, so rather than waste time with it I have simply done other (better?) things.

However, this little video about how Hillary can win the election caught my eye.

Wordpress 2.5April 3 2008

Yeah, everyone has been talking about it. I held out until now to upgrade.

Previous updates generally caused some plug-in and theme problems for me. So I was a bit reluctant. So reluctant that I tested it out on a new blog I am re-purposing from an old idea. After poking around in the new interface and updates for about 15 minutes it was easy to come to the decision to update all of my sites to the 2.5 goodness.

One of the key features that sold me instantly is the built in ability to update plug-ins from the admin panel. No more tracking down the site, messing with ftp, or really any additional steps at all. It was never a problem to do this maintenance in 2.3, but now it doesn’t even feel like that.

As a general statement I would say the new update actually brings the admin panel into the web 2.0 world. It gets a little cartoon looking in some places, but overall it works faster, more smoothly, and just feel more intuitive than it ever did before… except for sidebar editing, that feel like a minor step backward, but I still need to play more in that area to make a full judgment.

How has your experience with WP 2.5 been?

No Fool, But it IS AprilApril 1 2008

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for something light hearted.

I think we’ve all heard the 9/11 conspiracy theories (or hypotheses might be a better term). Luckily The Onion is reminding us where to look.

9/11 Conspiracy Theories ‘Ridiculous,’ Al Qaeda Says

Take a watch, and enjoy the show!

Sustainable Community in Costa RicaMarch 18 2008

[Found via Gizmodo]

A community called Finca Bellavista is being built in the rain forest of Costa Rica. It is based on having the lowest possible impact and looks very close to an attempt at primitivism.

However, this is not a primitive place! The community will have full WiFi access and will be powered by a combination of solar and possibly hydro power. Right now the village is mostly a concept and includes only one full structure, but plans seem to be moving along very quickly.

Right now my details on this are very sketchy, but they seem to have no lack of funding and some rather high level industry contacts for things such as the WiFi deal they are coordinating.

This sort of community will only ever have a niche following, but idea is worth the weight of their first tree house in gold. Getting back to more natural systems should be a goal for many of us. At the same time they make no pretense about abandoning technology. My own ideas rely heavily on technology and this is proof of concept that nature and technology are not incompatible.