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Oaya

by Oaya on January 11, 2009 · 1 comment

in COMMUNITY, WORK


PR stunt is also a real job An Australian island is offering  the ‘best job in the world’ as caretaker – with a salary of nearly £1,000 per HOUR.

The position on Hamilton Island requires ‘minimum effort’ and involves ‘relaxed’ duties such as feeding turtles, watching whales, and picking up the island’s post. Applicants require no academic qualifications, but must possess good swimming skills and a love of snorkelling, scuba diving and other water sports.

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Which battery?

October 11, 2007
Which battery?Better than a Solio There's nothing worse than your mobile phone running out of juice when you need to make an important call and when there's nowhere to power it up. Get the BOOST Emergency Phone Charger 5.95 in the UK Just click here to buy it. This simple little charger is powered by a regular AA battery you just plug it into your phone and it will give it a good charge. More pricey but good quality is the Freeloader solar-powered charger (pictured) which competes with the Solio, but is cheaper and better. Sealed Lead acid batteries are not recommended for off-grid use, according to a recent thread on the Yahoo group, offgridlivingandhomesteading . There's no way to make up the water lost during heavy charging. The valve regulated units are usually done after 2 years max.

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Flushed with pride

October 2, 2007
Flushed with prideBiolan composter Canada is taking to the composting toilet with a speed umatched in any other advanced industrial nation. Although Toronto Mayor David Miller told a conference of Great Lakes mayors they should ban conventional toilets and switch to low-flow models, others go much forther. Shane Jolley, provincial Green Party candidate in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, goes further. He says it's time for technology that might allow builders to take toilets in new subdivisions off the grid altogether - no-flow composting models instead of the low-flow ones Mayor Miller suggests. "People have an aversion to dealing with our own waste," Jolley says, "but this type of toilet uses far less water and makes far fewer demands on our resources. There's work to be done educating people about how compost toilets work and the benefits, but there should be financial incentives and effort made to implement this concept."

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Green Gizmos

December 10, 2006
Green Gizmos

Making solar popcornWhen the oil runs out, Bob Fiske will be ready. He talks us through some of the essential gizmos and gadgets for a life unplugged, items such as a self-powered fridge, a solar cooker, a cool tube, and Active solar lighting. There are certain major areas of preparation I would focus on for a time when our fossil fuels are effectively spent or are at least out of the common person's reach anymore. These aren't supposed to be the 'Global Solution', but are small, numerous and repeatable by everyday folk, such that word of them and designs would be easily shared, if people saw them as successful and attainable. First, though not necessarily more important, would be a range of ways to divest a household and a town from external energy imports, and I list some examples below.

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Power and Water – problem solved

December 5, 2006
Power and Water – problem solved

Dean Kamen's off-grid island, near New York A great interview on news.com with Dean Kamen, inventor of the ill-fated Segway personal transporter. We sincerely wish Dean better luck with his next two big ideas a gadget for serving clean water to some billion people who would die without it each year, and a box the size of a dishwasher that delivers an off-grid source of electricity. Dean plans to sell both these gadgets throughout the developing world using micro-financing to enable small businesses to distribute his products. Its a bit like a franchising operation, but with a heart.

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$mart power book review

October 21, 2006

Bill Kemp - knows everythingThe Editor of Home Power magazine says there are 180,000 off-grid homes in the US. But theres a bidding war going on. William Kemp, author of Renewable Energy Handbook, and its urban sisterpublication $mart Power says there are 250,000 off-grid locations in the US. (Click on the link in the left column to buy his book). Its the battle of the experts. Home Power has a formidable reputation, but the thoroughness and technical expertise in these two books, puts Bill Kemp up there with the industry leaders. If he says there are a quarter million of us out there, then there probably are. The difference between the ...

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$600 gets your house on solar power

October 10, 2005
$600 gets your house on solar power

Shagnasty's Rex Ewing - NOT the green guru

Reading an interesting and informative article by Rex Ewing titled Piecing together a spanking-new $600 solar-electric system, we were appalled that this pioneer of grid life could be the same Rex Ewing who played guitar in the naughtily brilliant SHAGNASTY band. Fortunately its a different Mr. Ewing -- a knowledgeable practitioner on the maturing frontier of solar applications.....and this is what he had to say: Got 600 bucks hiding in an old book somewhere? Maybe it's time to bring electricity into that little homestead you've got tucked away in the woods. But wait a minute, you say, with justifiable hesitancy. Solar-electric systems all cost thousands, don't they? No, just the expensive ones.

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Biofuel with the groceries

October 10, 2005
Biofuel with the groceriesLucy Neville-Rolfe Owning a biofuel car will be easier in future now that Britains top grocery market group Tesco Plc is set to expand its sales of biofuels over the next few months with UK duty incentives helping make them competitively priced, said company executive Lucy Neville-Rolfe. But maybe the best answer is to make your own biofuel, and cut Tesco out of the loop. How to Make Biodiesel - buy it from Amazon UK for 5.99 and 4% goes to Off-Grid How to Make Biodiesel - Amazon US

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Tour of Colorado solar homes

September 19, 2005
Tour of Colorado solar homes90% solar powered Its the National Solar homes tour October 1st and 2nd. You can get all the lowdown from http://www.ases.org/tour/index.htm. The Colorado Renewable Energy Societyis typical of what is going on across the land. The Boulder Area Tour, Saturday, October 1, starts at the Center for ReSource Conservation, 1702 Walnut St., Boulder. Call 303-441-3278 for information. Guidebooks are also available at the Nederland Community Center on Highway 72. Sixteen homes will be featured in Saturday's Boulder Tour.

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