I listened to an excellent discussion of Vertical Farming on a podcast this morning. Vertical farming is the idea of growing produce in a building. 

Two reasons why this could be a great idea struck me immediately.

1. As the price of petrol increases, growing produce locally will become more economical. Vertical farms could allow cities to grow locally.

2. Climate change could mean increased droughts or floods in some areas, climate controlled farming can prevent damage to crops.

Here is a link to an mp3 of the podcast:

Futures in Biotech: Vertical Farms

You'll need to skip to about 33mins in for the vertical farming discussion to start

Please sign the Wellington Declaration:

http://www.gopetition.com/online/35443.html

The Wellington declaration is a call for transparency and public involvement in the secret ACTA treaty negotiations. [ed]

If you don't know what the Wellington Declaration is here is some background:

http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/04/the-wellington-declaration.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement

http://publicacta.org.nz/sign-the-wellington-declaration/

Try this:

Great video from http://questioncopyright.org/

Copying is not stealing!

Here are some of the sock creatures I've been making. I think one of my favourites is Alan (currently residing in Whanganui, on guard at my brother's work desk), named after the Alan in Modern Toss. He's the black and blue creature with orange and pink limbs.

The mosaic image of the sock creatures was created using the mosiac tool at Big Huge Labs. You can upload your photos (or fetch them from Flickr or Facebook) and make pretty pictures. There is also a photo cube tool - print it out, fold, and you have a cube of photos! Cool.

Great documentary on London Pirate Radio stations. Interviews Scratcha of Grimey Breakfast fame

So it has been a bit over a year since we started scratching around in the dirt in the Mapuia reserve. There is still a bunch of work to do, but we have 2 completed tracks and our Freeride/DH lite track is mostly rideable. 

• Conviction - 2 way - from the bottom of Darlington Road to the bottom of the Nevay Rd connector. 
• Boot Leg - 2 way - from the end of Conviction up an over to the Prison sign on Mapuia Road. 
• Jail Brake - down only - about 100m on from the Boot Leg exit and down onto Miramar Nth Road. 

The up hills are small chain ring, middle of the cluster type climbs. There are quite a few switch backs to keep things interesting on the way up. There is still a bit of work to do at the start of Bootleg/end of Conviction. That area goes through a stream so is a bit boggy. But we are just having too much fun digging big banked corners and other fun features on the DH

To celebrate our 1 year anniversary,  we are having a BBQ at the top of Jail Brake. 

BBQ - March 20 , 3pm

taken from Ben's email

""We are planning a BBQ on Saturday the 20th of March at area by the top of Jail Brake to celebrate the first year or so of the project.  Everyone is welcome.

WCC have kindly agreed to supply some sausages, a port-a-loo and hopefully some music.  They are also going to have a crack at cleaning up the area a bit more before the 20th.  We don't have the funding of the likes of the Makara Peak Supporters so any help is much appreciated :-). There will no doubt be some shuttle runs done too as well as plenty of folks riding loops of the park.

The BBQ is not just for those who have already been digging, but also for 'future helpers' and those that just enjoy the new facility.

As the Council will be there it would be handy for those of you who can find a little time to stop by to do so and say hi, as it will help show the profile and usage that the park is enjoying.  The area is very kid and kid-bike friendly for those of you who want to bring the family along""

For more information, check out the Miramar Track Project page on Facebook.

Update Sat 24 April 2010

KML and KMZ files are now created daily.

• KML file
  All NZ MTB Tracks KML
  
• KMZ file (zipped KML)
  All NZ MTB Tracks KMZ
  

If you want Google earth to always have the latest up to date tracks, Add a "network link" in google earth and give it the URL to the KMZ file

So I got off my arse and updated Don's script to put all tracks.org.nz content in one big KML file.

Looks great in Google earth as it contains all NZ now not just Wellington.

File is attached to this post. here: All_NZ_MTB_Tracks.kml