Postcard of the Interwebs - 27 Feb 2014

New Improvements in Solar Cells: From North Carolina State University, researchers have discovered that by adding gallium arsenide between solar cell layers, it can absorb multiple suns worth of energy without significant heat loss. This is important when focusing solar energy to permit small surface area stacked cells to harness multiple refracted energy from the sun, like a solar furnace or that building in the show Helix.

School Graffiti as Art: Funny, brilliant and snarky. Wish my High School teachers did this.

19 year old wants to clean plastic from the oceans, and make a profit: If there are more fellows like Boyan Slat in the world, we are in safe hands. He shows that environmentalism and business can join. The feasibility study is still ongoing.


Tatooine Sets revisited: Someone took pictures of the sets in the condition they are today.

The story behind the discovery of the Epic of Gilgamesh: I have read Gilgamesh but did not know the interesting tale of the person and circumstances of its discovery. Excellent article.

Dogs imitating a crawling baby: Funny.

50 Scariest Books: My taste in horror has matured since my younger years. This list does have the best that I have read and more that interests me in the future.

Vista 18 Restaurant

Myself and my wife have been coming to Vista 18 off and on since we've known each other and wanted to try it again. Yesterday we were here with a friend.

The views here of the city are amazing and provide a nice backdrop to the meal. I started with Leak and Potato soup with bacon, which was delicious. I then had from their simplicity menu the Wild Boar short loin with red wine reduction and a plate of wild mushrooms as an extra. Although the meal came with the chilli reduction, the meal was still tasty...especially the mushrooms.

The last time I came here I had the multi course appetizer where you can choose three, four or five appetizers as your meal. Its all very good and the scenery of the city makes it special.

Olympic View Golf Course

Yesterday, most of our workplace went to enjoy golf at Olympic View golf course here in Victoria.

It is a lovely 18 hole course with a large clubhouse with restaurant. Our $59 fee included breakfast wrap (which was delicious) and golf cart. I brought my wife's Grandmother's clubs (she used to be semi-pro) and although I got teased a little they are good hearty clubs.

 I did not do well but it was for fun and camaraderie, in fact it was over a year since I last played. I have had more time golfing on my Wii than anywhere else. Most of the others did not play often.

 There was a food cart that came around with beverages and snacks including beer. This was good because with our 10pm start due to frost we did not finish till 4pm.

 All in all a great experience.

There was even friendly wildlife around.

Postcard of the Interwebs - 19 Feb 2014

A Drug instead of Exercise: A drug called SR9009 can increase exercise endurance which can then permit obese people to exercise longer and more often. This drug from Scripps Research Institute has been used on animals and have enabled their muscles to act like those who have been training like an athlete. Super-Soldier serum anyone? 

The increase of the Service Industry and why we cannot achieve a Utopia: A very interesting article on the decline of production jobs and increase of service jobs that promote consumerism. It also discusses how workers deal with useless jobs and the lack of dignity they feel. 

Teleportation for particles: A very interesting and well laid out article on the science of teleporting particles across distances and the many uses it has. 

Fusion Power one step closer: The race to start and maintain a fusion reaction will be the start of building better and greener forms of power. Of course it will be expensive to build but most things reduce in price as more developments are made. 2025 for city powering fusion reactors is my prediction. 

Being Impoverished ties up more brainpower: A very sad study which revealed that those who are poor generally have less spare brain "bandwidth" to get ahead and are more likely to remain poor. 

I-Phone Banana case: If I owned a cellphone, I'd get this case. Until my wife hid it on me. 

Plastic that becomes stronger with force: This type of plastic is initially for cell phone cases but it could be used for body armor, safety crash suits, child car seats...just about anything you need that extra rigidity for.

San Remo Pizza

Because I have been away off and on with work, we never booked anywhere for Valentine's day last night to eat out at. So we ordered from a place we haven't ordered from in a while, San Remo's Restaurant. The have a very excellent Veggie Special pizza with mushrooms, spinach, artichokes, tomatoes, fresh garlic, mozzarella, feta with basil and oregano. As you might tell they are Greek themed. We ordered 2 for 1 so we also got a Zoe's Pizza which has a pesto instead of tomato base. We have eaten there in person before and its excellent Greek food. Their grocery store has a good mix of foods from Europe. Opa!

Big Leaf Maple Syrup Festival 2014

When I heard about the Big Leaf Maple festival last week, I had to come. Being from the Maritimes, Maple Syrup was a part of my life in the late Winter/early Spring. I remember going to sugar shacks after church and staring in wonder at the large vats of boiling Maple sap. Unfortunately, this festival did not rekindle those memories after I arrived.

Mind you they were large expectations. We did arrive late and the Winter was not cold enough, as you need swings of cold and warmth to get the sap running good. Because of this the pure maple syrup that was for sale was in short supply and went quickly. We did try and purchase some maple almond brittle and some apple&maple syrup, which will go great on oatmeal or pancakes. The syrup that is.

 The BC Forest Discovery center is an assemblage of old buildings, machines and vehicles that revolve around the forestry industry on Vancouver Island. They also have pictorial histories of the aspects of logging and living away from urban centers.

 The train looked like it would have been fun to ride too!

There was lots to explore but since we were late getting here we will have to come again sometime. For next years festival we'll do more research as to if it was a better year and if so, come early.

Wine Club - Alderlea Vineyards

My wife and I belong to a semi-monthly club for wine. The person whose turn it is to host chooses the region/variety/theme and obtains the food that goes with the wine. People bring wine they have bought, generally at the $20 to $30 level. We start at 2pm to give time for people to drink and sober up before heading home. Everyone gets a little pour of each and we then comment on each one and chitchat. Once all the wine has been sampled, it is a free for all and more substantial food is brought out by the host.

For this wine club meeting, Alderlea Vineyard's Clarinet was chosen and we had a bottle of each on hand from 1997 to 2011. Clarinet is their Marechal Foch grape that was common in the Loire and used for blending. It is well suited to Vancouver Island because of its heartiness and resistance to cold. Roger Dosman, one of the owners of the winery was present, a first for our club. His knowledge and graciousness in providing a few missing vintages was greatly appreciated. He knew what years had good or bad weather, which affected the wines in subtle ways. Alderlea has always been for me consistently good but different tasting from year to year, and this tasting proved it.