Farmer Diaries

I participated in my first ever Kickstarter project.  By coincidence it is, by now, the single most successful Kickstarter project.  The idea behind Kickstart is driven by cloud sourcing; where ideas go to the "cloud" to fund their ideas. This one is for a watch that talks to your iPhone.  See here

Up here in the Great White North (Canada) spring is a May affaire (usually), there are even sayings that outline that until may you should stay bundled up.  I have seen major snow storms in mid April, so a month ago we got 26c and yesterday too.  Even mor unusual is the Laurentians when I have a cottage, and were last weekend the lake was completely free of ice... Usually we have to wait until mid May for the ice to go away. Spring was at least 3 weeks early

I've posted before about the fact that for more than a year now I have been living without a car, and loving it!  This morning I was reading an article in The Atlantic Cities citing JD Powers (the car evaluation company) about how young people were no buying the "American Dream"of buying a house in the "burb" with two cars and 2.5 kids.  Rather they were looking at living in areas were walking (or cycling) was a transit option. On a personal note the first generation of my friends' children are now of driving age (scary) but a surprisingly large number seem uninterested (many failing to even obtain driving licenses).  The JD Powers' analysis seem to show that young adults see cars as a tool rather than a status symbole. One article (especially in a specialized publication that seem to favor mixed development housing etc) does not a trend make, although JD Powers does add weight to the argument.  As a 50 year old who lived for many years...

Everyone is now focusing on Spain and/or Portugal now as the "next domino" to fall, but in fact the "solved problem" that is Greece keeps on rearing its ugly little head. Last week the European commission published a 195 page paper detailing most of these facts ( the second economic adjustment programme for Greece , march 2012).  Pay special attention to page 55 (where most of the juice lay). In mid March the Greek government was so broke that it raided the bank account of the 6 largest Greek University, a public utility and other government controlled entities; the result now the six universities have to close because they cheques (like salaries) have begun to bounce -- the accounts were emptied to the tune of Euro 1.7 billion, so that the Greek government could make whole a sovereign owned bond payment.    The reason is that although Greece was scheduled to receive Euro 74 billion on March 20th it only got Euro 7.5 billion.  N...

Go figure!  How can the same movie be rated G in Canada and rated R in the US.  Clearly something is wrong.  First off, the movie is a "pull no punch documentary about bullying"  the language is "frank" and the imagery is difficult.  The thematic is particularly troubling since it deals with something we have all at the very least all seen (or worse suffered). For some reason a frank analysis of a huge problem for children in North America -- maybe cathartic to children suffering from bullying and may even make those who "tax" think hard about their action is seen as something unacceptable for American children to see. Sad and amazing