Mitra Ardron's Blog

• Statistics say more people on mobile
• Bad designers can’t design two UI so they dumb down for small screens of phones
  either an app, or the ghastly “long form” websites.
• User’s no longer experience a better experience on bigger screens so don’t use them,
  or switch to competitors with more productive interfaces.
• Repeat and spiral

I can’t think of any website that I use that was improved by moving to the “long form”, and plenty that have gone from good to awful, and I can only think of one site (Flipboard) whose experience is better on the mobile version than their own, or their closest competitor in a tradition website

Anyone intelligent believes in anthropogenic climate change

A strong statement, which you might think was overstating the issue?

I'm not going to try and give you the science - because if you are reading this website I'm presuming you are intelligent enough to understand that when >95% of the scientists in a field agree then its probably true, and at least it makes sense for the rest of us to act as if it was true and leave the dissension to the remaining 5% to try and convince their colleagues.

So what about the Republicans in the US Congress, aren't they educated.  Well I dare say there are a few who don't believe evolution or science, or I should rephrase that - a "belief" in evolution isn't required since there is science to back it up. The belief is in the creationist myth, and while I love myths - whether its biblical or greek or nordic, I'll leave it to the reader as to whether a belief in their literal truth qualifies you as intelligent.

My strong suspicion is that most of them are educated, and convinced by evolution and climate science, but when someone is offering you a large bribe to deny reality, and when your career depends on both taking the bribe, and aligning with whatever the polls say about your electorate then it just becomes another lie to spout for the media.

So what about the oil companies, the ones who pay the bribes. I've had a number of (off the record) conversations with fairly senior oil company executives over the years - not one of them denied the science of global warming, and their only question about Peak Oil was when, rather than if. They'd tell me of the amount of money they were spending to adapt to climate change & peak oil, which they not only know is happening but know will hit us hard BECAUSE of the bribes their bosses are paying to politicians.   Remember a company has a fiduciary duty to its shareholders, and staff bonuses are tied to profits, and its very easy to then consider that narrow interest, and bribe a politician to extend the amount of time you have to make money off of destroying the atmosphere.

So who is left … unfortunately with a public that gets its news more and more from TV like Fox News, who are also driven not by educating their viewers, but by the adverts bought by many of the same people above (the ones who believe in climate change, but don't want anyone else to).

And so the cycle goes on …. companies buy the media to convince the masses, and buy politicians who also listen to the masses. Don't we wish the most polluting country in the world was a democracy with a free press.

Who would believe its only two weeks since Cyclone Thane took out 70% of the trees, roads, power, water, phone, and Internet and trapped most of us wherever we spent the night for 36 hours.

They must have power on in the village now because I wake up at 5:30 to amplified chanting from the village temple a couple of km away. We still haven't got power back, but at least Steffen (German) borrowed a generator yesterday to pump water, so I can wash clothes as I take a shower.

With the pumping oddities, I don't trust the water yet so breakfast, with my neighbors (Indian / French couple) is porridge & hot tea. First stop of the day is the Town Hall, where Min (indian), a colleague on the wind turbine project works. He's got power and more important Internet, so I can setup logistics for tomorrows meetings in Chennai. The net drops out mid-morning so I head over to the workshop where Jorge (Ecuadorean) is teaching a 5 day seminar on renewable energy to a class including participants from Nepal, Belgiam, India, and Canada.

Solar industry celebrates grid parity ... via ABC

The [Australian] Photovoltaic Association says the drop in cost of producing power from solar panels has made solar power competitive with coal-generated grid power.

Solar power generated by photovoltaic cells on Australian rooftops has become so cheap and efficient that they now produce electricity for the same price that is charged by the electricity grid.

Its my second day in Auroville, jet-lag has kicked in, and I wake at 4am, tired but not able to sleep. I read for a while and around 4:30 the first birds start calling, followed by the frogs and crickets. Finally I give in to the inevitable, and grab a shower  - its cold, and just dribbles out the shower-head, but I'm not complaining.  A short walk across the farmyard, past the cows rattling their buckets to my rented electric scooter - which I've left charging in the barn, and then a drive through the forest to the bakery in the village.   The chocolate croissants look like they have been made for westerners, but at this time of the morning its only indians buying.