Now that Honolulu has extended curbside recycling to the Leeward side, every household on the isle should be equipped with three city and county-issued trash bins, in blue, green and gray.
It will take more effort to rinse and sort your opala, but you'll get the hang of it -- and you'll be glad you're doing your part to keep these items out of landfills, which none of us wants in our own back yard.
Although filling the bins would seem to be a matter of using common sense, there are limitations to what can and cannot be put into the respective bins. For instance, some things that are accepted for recycling in other counties are not accepted here. Here's a primer:
» The green bin: Grass clippings, tree and hedge trimmings, leaves, palm fronds and Christmas trees go here. The plant matter is mulched and turned back into potting soil, which goes back to your garden.
Everything in the green bin goes to a composting facility, so none of your mixed recyclables belong here.
Plastic bags also do not belong in here, but county recycling director Suzanne Jones said the city is allowing residents to use it occasionally to keep grass from clumping at the bottom. However, "We ask people to avoid using bags as much as possible."
» The blue bin: This is for mixed recyclables such as aluminum cans, glass bottles and jars, plastic bottles (Nos. 1 and 2), newspaper and corrugated cardboard.
Beverage containers do not have to be labeled HI5 to go in the blue bin. The HI5 label means you can get 5 cents back at a redemption center (you might want to do that instead).
Though the directions seem pretty straightforward, you might want to know that corrugated cardboard (the kind that's double-thick, with ridges in between) does not include cereal boxes, tissue boxes or egg cartons.
Some pizza delivery boxes might qualify, but Jones asks that you try to scrape off the cheese first.
White and colored office paper do not go into the blue bin, either. These can be recycled at community bins found at most public schools, where you can also drop off stapled papers but not envelopes, magazines or shredded paper.
» The gray bin: Everything that does not go into green or blue bins goes in the gray bin -- the trash bin. Waste is taken to the HPOWER waste-to-energy facility on Oahu.
This includes phone books, tin cans and egg cartons.
Whatever your views about HPOWER, Jones says the county has determined it's more efficient to burn egg cartons into energy rather than to ship them offshore for recycling.
» Sorting it out: To figure out which plastics go in the blue bin, look for the number inside a triangle typically placed on the bottom of the object. Nos. 1 and 2 are acceptable. These usually include plastic food containers that hold cold foods, like the strawberries from Costco. The same goes for shampoo and liquid soap bottles.
Bottle caps do not go into the blue bin. Nor do yogurt cups, which are usually plastic No. 5.
Where does it all go? Most of Honolulu's paper and plastic gets shipped to various markets in the Pacific -- mainly China -- to be re-purposed into other materials. Glass goes to the West Coast.
Glass is recycled into new bottles or "glasphalt" road pavement, while aluminum can easily be melted down. Plastic is re-purposed into lumber, carpet and textiles, while newspapers and cardboard get a new life as new newsprint, boxes and tissue paper.
If you accidentally put something in the blue bin that does not belong, don't fret: A team sorts through all the stuff as it travels along a conveyor belt. For a peek, go to www.opala.org.
For questions on curbside recycling, call 768-3200 or visit www.opala.org/solid_waste/curbside.htm.
Nina Wu writes a column about environmental issues on the first Monday of every month. E-mail her at nwu@starbulletin.com.
***
[6/7/10] If you're really determined to recycle magazines (and phone books and paperback books), you can drop them off at Hagadone.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Stephen Hawking suggests aliens may be hazardous to earth's health
THE aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact.
The suggestions come in a new documentary series in which Hawking, one of the world’s leading scientists, will set out his latest thinking on some of the universe’s greatest mysteries.
Alien life, he will suggest, is almost certain to exist in many other parts of the universe: not just in planets, but perhaps in the centre of stars or even floating in interplanetary space.
Hawking’s logic on aliens is, for him, unusually simple. The universe, he points out, has 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars. In such a big place, Earth is unlikely to be the only planet where life has evolved.
He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.”
He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is “a little too risky”. He said: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”
The suggestions come in a new documentary series in which Hawking, one of the world’s leading scientists, will set out his latest thinking on some of the universe’s greatest mysteries.
Alien life, he will suggest, is almost certain to exist in many other parts of the universe: not just in planets, but perhaps in the centre of stars or even floating in interplanetary space.
Hawking’s logic on aliens is, for him, unusually simple. The universe, he points out, has 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars. In such a big place, Earth is unlikely to be the only planet where life has evolved.
He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.”
He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is “a little too risky”. He said: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”
a cancer vaccine
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved the first treatment that uses a so-called cancer vaccine, a drug that trains the body’s own immune system to fight the disease.
The drug, Provenge, developed by the Dendreon Corporation, was approved to treat advanced prostate cancer. In clinical trials it extended the lives of patients about four months compared with a placebo.
Getting the immune system to attack cancer has tantalized scientists for decades, because it promises to have fewer side effects than the harsh chemotherapy now used. But until now the approach has yielded little but disappointment.
“The big story here is that this is the first proof of principle and proof that immunotherapy works in general in cancer, which I think is a huge observation,” said Dr. Philip Kantoff, chief of solid tumor oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and the lead investigator in Dendreon’s largest clinical trial for the drug. ”
Provenge is not a preventive vaccine like those for measles, hepatitis or even the new ones for cervical cancer, which prevent a viral infection that causes the cancer. Rather, it is a so-called therapeutic vaccine, used after prostate cancer has already been diagnosed.
Provenge has become a cause célèbre among some patients. When the F.D.A. declined to approve the drug three years ago, some prostate cancer patients and investors protested.
“I think it’s fair to say that people are waiting for it,” said Jan Manarite, who runs the telephone help line in Florida for the Prostate Cancer Research Institute, a patient advocacy group.
The drug, Provenge, developed by the Dendreon Corporation, was approved to treat advanced prostate cancer. In clinical trials it extended the lives of patients about four months compared with a placebo.
Getting the immune system to attack cancer has tantalized scientists for decades, because it promises to have fewer side effects than the harsh chemotherapy now used. But until now the approach has yielded little but disappointment.
“The big story here is that this is the first proof of principle and proof that immunotherapy works in general in cancer, which I think is a huge observation,” said Dr. Philip Kantoff, chief of solid tumor oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and the lead investigator in Dendreon’s largest clinical trial for the drug. ”
Provenge is not a preventive vaccine like those for measles, hepatitis or even the new ones for cervical cancer, which prevent a viral infection that causes the cancer. Rather, it is a so-called therapeutic vaccine, used after prostate cancer has already been diagnosed.
Provenge has become a cause célèbre among some patients. When the F.D.A. declined to approve the drug three years ago, some prostate cancer patients and investors protested.
“I think it’s fair to say that people are waiting for it,” said Jan Manarite, who runs the telephone help line in Florida for the Prostate Cancer Research Institute, a patient advocacy group.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Oceanic and TIVO
Got an invitation to Sujin's house and met Nalu (the black retriever). Of course, Sujin wasn't there, otherwise why would I get an invitation? (Thanks Cathy.)
Beautiful (and clean) house. Wonderful dog.
And a snazzy hidef TV on the wall that was set up in a way that I had never seen before. It was getting Oceanic HD TV but there was no Oceanic cable box to be seen. It was running Tivo. From what I can figure out, it must have been running from the TV box with a cable card plugged in. Way more storage than Oceanic's DVR. Scanning through the recorded list, there must have been hundreds (and hundreds) of hours recorded on that thing.
The other thing that I couldn't figure out was how to get their Blu-Ray player working. It wouldn't show up on any video input on the TV. Maybe the cable to the player wasn't hooked up. Or maybe there's another switch somewhere.
Anyway here's techhui's post on Oceanic and TIVO (and why and how Laurence Lee booted Oceanic).
*** [9/14/13]
Played around with Shirlyn's TIVO today (they apparently lost the network connection). It got me tempted to consider the TIVO. Here's my notes.
I'm kind of tempted to dump my Oceanic box and going to TIVO
I wonder how much it costs?
I think you need a cable card in the TIVO to view HD channels.not on direct connect cable
plus a tuning adapter (for SD - switched digital channels)
here are some user experiences
maybe I just gotta try it
ok, here's the price of the cable card, only $2.50 per month (vs. $12.99 for a DVR)
Assuming you can live with the limitations (no on demand), you'll save about $10 a month (the guy in the user experiences link says $24 a month). Oh, I forgot the price of the cable box which is $6.20. OK, that brings it up to $16.
Wait, there's a monthly service fee for TIVO. It's $14.99, so there goes the savings. However you can pay a one-time fee of $500 for lifetime service (lifetime of the product?) So if it lasts three years, you'll come out ahead.
How much is a TIVO these days?
Well checking Best Buy,
The TIVO Roamio Pro DVR is $599.99.
Beautiful (and clean) house. Wonderful dog.
And a snazzy hidef TV on the wall that was set up in a way that I had never seen before. It was getting Oceanic HD TV but there was no Oceanic cable box to be seen. It was running Tivo. From what I can figure out, it must have been running from the TV box with a cable card plugged in. Way more storage than Oceanic's DVR. Scanning through the recorded list, there must have been hundreds (and hundreds) of hours recorded on that thing.
The other thing that I couldn't figure out was how to get their Blu-Ray player working. It wouldn't show up on any video input on the TV. Maybe the cable to the player wasn't hooked up. Or maybe there's another switch somewhere.
Anyway here's techhui's post on Oceanic and TIVO (and why and how Laurence Lee booted Oceanic).
*** [9/14/13]
Played around with Shirlyn's TIVO today (they apparently lost the network connection). It got me tempted to consider the TIVO. Here's my notes.
I'm kind of tempted to dump my Oceanic box and going to TIVO
I wonder how much it costs?
I think you need a cable card in the TIVO to view HD channels.not on direct connect cable
plus a tuning adapter (for SD - switched digital channels)
here are some user experiences
maybe I just gotta try it
ok, here's the price of the cable card, only $2.50 per month (vs. $12.99 for a DVR)
Assuming you can live with the limitations (no on demand), you'll save about $10 a month (the guy in the user experiences link says $24 a month). Oh, I forgot the price of the cable box which is $6.20. OK, that brings it up to $16.
Wait, there's a monthly service fee for TIVO. It's $14.99, so there goes the savings. However you can pay a one-time fee of $500 for lifetime service (lifetime of the product?) So if it lasts three years, you'll come out ahead.
How much is a TIVO these days?
Well checking Best Buy,
The TIVO Roamio Pro DVR is $599.99.
record up to 6 shows at once with 3TB storage
The TIVO Roamio Plus DVR is $399.99
The TIVO Roamio Plus DVR is $399.99
record up to 6 shows at once with 1 TB storage
The TIVO Roamio DVR is $199.99
The TIVO Roamio DVR is $199.99
record up to 4 shows at once with 500GB storage
TIVO Premiere High-Definition Digital Video Recorder is $149.99
TIVO Premiere High-Definition Digital Video Recorder is $149.99
records up to 75 hours of high-definition programming
Plus I'll want a wireless adapter
TIVO wireless-N adapter is $70.99
TIVO wireless-G USB adapter is $43.99
Evidently Roamio is the current line of TIVO (formerly it was the Premiere) and has built-in wireless.
TIVO makes it sound easy to set up.
Here's a review of the roamio plus
Another review
***
Alternatively, I could buy a device like a Hauppage PVR 2 which can record HD from the cable box. In addition, I would need a computer.
Plus I'll want a wireless adapter
TIVO wireless-N adapter is $70.99
TIVO wireless-G USB adapter is $43.99
Evidently Roamio is the current line of TIVO (formerly it was the Premiere) and has built-in wireless.
TIVO makes it sound easy to set up.
Here's a review of the roamio plus
Another review
***
Alternatively, I could buy a device like a Hauppage PVR 2 which can record HD from the cable box. In addition, I would need a computer.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
The Great Atlantic Garbage Patch
Researchers are warning of a new blight at sea: a swirl of confetti-like plastic debris stretching over a remote expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.
The floating garbage — hard to spot from the surface and spun together by a vortex of currents — was documented by two groups of scientists who trawled the sea between scenic Bermuda and Portugal's mid-Atlantic Azores Islands.
The studies describe a soup of microparticles similar to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a phenomenon discovered a decade ago between Hawaii and California which researchers say is likely to exist in other places around the globe.
"We found the great Atlantic garbage patch," said Anna Cummins, who collected plastic samples on a sailing voyage in February.
The debris is harmful for fish, sea mammals and, at the top of the food chain, potentially humans, even though much of the plastic has broken into such tiny pieces they are nearly invisible.
Since there is no realistic way of cleaning the oceans, advocates say the key is to keep more plastic out by raising awareness and, wherever possible, challenging a throwaway culture that uses nonbiodegradable materials for disposable products.
"Our job now is to let people know that plastic ocean pollution is a global problem—it unfortunately is not confined to a single patch," Cummins said.
The floating garbage — hard to spot from the surface and spun together by a vortex of currents — was documented by two groups of scientists who trawled the sea between scenic Bermuda and Portugal's mid-Atlantic Azores Islands.
The studies describe a soup of microparticles similar to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a phenomenon discovered a decade ago between Hawaii and California which researchers say is likely to exist in other places around the globe.
"We found the great Atlantic garbage patch," said Anna Cummins, who collected plastic samples on a sailing voyage in February.
The debris is harmful for fish, sea mammals and, at the top of the food chain, potentially humans, even though much of the plastic has broken into such tiny pieces they are nearly invisible.
Since there is no realistic way of cleaning the oceans, advocates say the key is to keep more plastic out by raising awareness and, wherever possible, challenging a throwaway culture that uses nonbiodegradable materials for disposable products.
"Our job now is to let people know that plastic ocean pollution is a global problem—it unfortunately is not confined to a single patch," Cummins said.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
free Microsoft Office on the web
[12/4/10] I notice that Microsoft has integrated the online version of Office with live.com. Just log into your live.com account and you can create a new document. If you want to use an existing file, add it to a folder in your account, then open it. Pretty cool. (Though I still find using Office 97 on my computer faster and easier to use.)
***
Microsoft has created a chimera in its new Office 2010 software, part desktop software and part Web app.
This latest version of Office, which includes applications like Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint, is Microsoft’s long-awaited effort to modernize one of its most lucrative products and to thwart rivals like Google that are nipping at its heels with free Web software.
For the first time, Microsoft will provide a free online version of Office that lets people store their documents on the Web rather than on their personal computers.
It is now available for businesses. Microsoft has said that Office will range in price from a limited, free Web version supported by ads to a full-blown version that costs $500, both to be available to consumers in June. Most analysts say they think Microsoft will hold on to its near monopoly on productivity software. Richard Williams, the senior software analyst at Cross Research, said that most companies would continue to choose Office because it was familiar and safe. “This is not the cycle that will take away from Windows or Office,” he said. “Most of the people calling the shots and paying the bills are in their 40s, and grew up with Microsoft.”
Nonetheless, a host of businesses are chipping away at Microsoft either by offering free versions or by recommending to clients that they buy fewer copies of Office. “I think Office has run away from its users,” said David Girouard, the president of Google’s business software group. “Every company ought to have a few copies of it, but it has nothing to do with what most people need.”
Users of the new version of Office will be able to share and work on the same documents and presentations over the Internet rather than e-mailing files back and forth to each other. Microsoft has created a way for people to flip from the PC to online versions of Office to give users the best of both worlds.
If many of those functions sound familiar, it is because Google, Adobe and smaller companies like Zoho have been giving away Web-based apps that do much the same thing. But the rival products have hardly made a dent in the sales of Office — a product used by 500 million people.
[retweeted by supergeeks]
***
Microsoft has created a chimera in its new Office 2010 software, part desktop software and part Web app.
This latest version of Office, which includes applications like Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint, is Microsoft’s long-awaited effort to modernize one of its most lucrative products and to thwart rivals like Google that are nipping at its heels with free Web software.
For the first time, Microsoft will provide a free online version of Office that lets people store their documents on the Web rather than on their personal computers.
It is now available for businesses. Microsoft has said that Office will range in price from a limited, free Web version supported by ads to a full-blown version that costs $500, both to be available to consumers in June. Most analysts say they think Microsoft will hold on to its near monopoly on productivity software. Richard Williams, the senior software analyst at Cross Research, said that most companies would continue to choose Office because it was familiar and safe. “This is not the cycle that will take away from Windows or Office,” he said. “Most of the people calling the shots and paying the bills are in their 40s, and grew up with Microsoft.”
Nonetheless, a host of businesses are chipping away at Microsoft either by offering free versions or by recommending to clients that they buy fewer copies of Office. “I think Office has run away from its users,” said David Girouard, the president of Google’s business software group. “Every company ought to have a few copies of it, but it has nothing to do with what most people need.”
Users of the new version of Office will be able to share and work on the same documents and presentations over the Internet rather than e-mailing files back and forth to each other. Microsoft has created a way for people to flip from the PC to online versions of Office to give users the best of both worlds.
If many of those functions sound familiar, it is because Google, Adobe and smaller companies like Zoho have been giving away Web-based apps that do much the same thing. But the rival products have hardly made a dent in the sales of Office — a product used by 500 million people.
[retweeted by supergeeks]
Friday, May 07, 2010
MAGIX PC Check & Tuning Free
I'm trying out MAGIX PC Check to see if I can get my PC running better (it periodically pauses with hard drive activity - I think it's swapping memory to hard drive cache) as it got a couple of positive responses on frwr_news.
It took a little while to install. Then it took a little while to run and get results.
Finally it came up with a list of things it found, but doesn't do any changes until you tell it to. And gives you the option to set a recovery point to do a system recovery in case something goes wrong.
Anyway, I first tried deleting unnecessary files. To my dismay, it deleted everything in my recycle bin. Well, I guess that's one way to get rid of it. I decided not to do a system recovery.
Then I tried to fix the registry of which it found hundreds of problems. Did that. Didn't seem to matter much. But no disaster so far.
Then it said my swapfile was off. I think I adjusted it manually in the past. So I tried that. Upon reboot, it seemed to load up slower. But task manager showed more memory is free. And the system doesn't seem to slow down as much with long pauses for hard drive activity.
That's enough. I'll leave the other options for later. But so far, so good. Or at least so not bad.
It took a little while to install. Then it took a little while to run and get results.
Finally it came up with a list of things it found, but doesn't do any changes until you tell it to. And gives you the option to set a recovery point to do a system recovery in case something goes wrong.
Anyway, I first tried deleting unnecessary files. To my dismay, it deleted everything in my recycle bin. Well, I guess that's one way to get rid of it. I decided not to do a system recovery.
Then I tried to fix the registry of which it found hundreds of problems. Did that. Didn't seem to matter much. But no disaster so far.
Then it said my swapfile was off. I think I adjusted it manually in the past. So I tried that. Upon reboot, it seemed to load up slower. But task manager showed more memory is free. And the system doesn't seem to slow down as much with long pauses for hard drive activity.
That's enough. I'll leave the other options for later. But so far, so good. Or at least so not bad.
Saturday, May 01, 2010
avoiding the Blue Screen of Death
Are you tried of seeing the Blue Screen of Death? Well change the colors! Now you can tell Windows what colors you want when it crashes!
[via frwr_news]
[via frwr_news]
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