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ORA TV

Batteries not improving, so gadget efficiency is goal

WSJ 5th Oct – There is no Moore’s law for batteries. That is, while the computing power of microchips doubles every 18 months, the capacity of the batteries on which ever more of our gadgets depend exhibits no such exponential growth. In a good year, the capacity of the best batteries in our mobile phones, tablets and notebook computers—and increasingly, in our cars and household gadgets—increases just a few percent.

It turns out that storing energy safely and reliably is hard in a way that miniaturizing circuits is not. A pound of gasoline contains more than 20 times as much energy as a pound of lithium-ion batteries. And then there’s the expense: The battery pack in a Tesla Model S costs approximately $30,000.

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Urban

Interview with America Unplugged character

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Sportsman Channel are running a great series about ordinary people who live off the grid or off-grid ready – meaning they COULD go off-grid if they wanted to or needed to.

One of those is Mark Patrick, a straightfoward, stand-up guy who gave us a skype interview about his reason for living this way

The show airs on Thursdays at 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Sportsman Channel.

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Barton St David, Plotgate farm aims to persuade locals
Community

New rural community to launch

As the nation’s housing crisis (also known as the nation’s house price bubble) intensifies, part of the solution is hiding in plain sight – cheap rural housing, on agricultural land, for people who are working that land. I wrote a story in The Guardian to bring them to public attention.

Tucked away down a farm track in Somerset is a project that could act as a catalyst for an era of low-cost, off-grid rural living across Britain.

A small group is aiming to join the population of Barton St David, a village of approximately 500 residents, 5 miles south-east of Glastonbury, with a pub, and a 12th Century church. Local residents are keen to make sure their new neighbours stick to the letter of the planning laws.

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Forage food, free food, cheap eats, vegan forager
Food

Top 10 wild foods to forage in spring

Roger Phillips, author of a new book on foraging, shares his top 10 springtime finds and throws in four recipes that combine them to best effect for your springtime dinner parties.

1. Sea beet (Beta vulgaris)

The parent of Swiss chard and beetroot, this is common on pebbly beaches just above the tide line. Perfect in soups or as a vegetable in place of spinach.

2. Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)

Sprinkle on salads and eat raw

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People

Jesse Ventura Daily Mouth-off

Jesse Ventura Off The Grid ORA TV talk showJesse Ventura is launching a daily talkshow on Internet-video.The libertarian rant, to debut next month, will focus, Ventura told Variety, on the hypocrisy of America’s political leaders.

The novelty-politician and former wrestler is a part-time off-grid dweller himself, and an accomplished rabble-rouser. We always enjoy featuring him on the web site and look forward to hearing him sounding off on a range of current events in a show to be titled “Off The Grid.”

Ventura has a difficult time getting his trenchant point of view across in the media (don’t we all). “What we have with Ora.TV is a means to express myself uninhibited. I can say what I feel without censorship.”

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