Advice Network Founders Blog

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Just wow

Listening to politicians rant about nuclear energy chaps my hide in a big way. Did you hear the debate last night? McCain had the gall to mock Obama for wanting nuclear energy to be safe! I could not believe my ears.

The problem with nuclear debates, is there is a secret code that politicians have to abide. “I’m against nuclear” really means “I’m a peace loving pot smoking long hair hippie who believes in free love and working against THE MAN cause that nuclear stuff, it’s just not right.”

So even if nuclear is a horrible idea (it is, see below) a politician can’t SAY that it is horrible for fear of being tarred with the brush used to mock politicians like Kucinich.

I have enough of a background in this stuff to know that their positions on nuclear are full of baloney, disguised rhetoric, and just plain wrong, but I don’t know enough to lay it all out there and convince you. Fortunately, I don’t have to.

I got an email today form the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI). It is copied in full below, with links intact. Anyone fearless enough to abandon left right mythos can read on their own and see why nuclear is a bad idea left right center up down and all around.

The issues of renewable energy and energy independence have taken center stage in both media and political conversations lately, but the means of achieving various energy goals have proven to be rather controversial. Proposed options dominating news headlines include clean coal, nuclear energy, and offshore drilling. Is there an energy path that we can all agree upon?

The answer is yes, and this morning Rocky Mountain Institute and Chief Scientist Amory Lovins were featured in a New York Times blog in response to last night’s Presidential Debate. Energy efficiency, a solution at the core of RMI’s work, was discussed as a viable and economically profitable resolution to both energy and economy issues. New York Times writer Kate Galbraith points out that RMI and Amory Lovins have consistently advocated the benefits of a soft-path approach to energy, with efficiency at it’s core. You can read the article here.

When it comes to nuclear power specifically, every dollar invested in new US nuclear electricity will save approximately 2-11 times less carbon, and will do so roughly 20-40 times slower, than investing in the same dollar in energy efficiency and “micropower” (cogeneration plus renewables minus big hydro dams). Buying new nuclear capacity instead of efficiency causes more carbon to be released than spending the same money on new coal plants!

These conclusions and the empirical evidence supporting them are summarized in “Forget Nuclear,” and fully documented in “The Nuclear Illusion,” available for download here, which is to be published in early 2009 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ journal Ambio.

Hopefully our vision will help put these widely publicized issues into perspective and move us all toward a better understanding that takes us beyond politically divisive issues to collective and viable solutions.

I’m just as behind on reading my blogs as I am in writing this one. At writing I have 5,099 unread articles in my feed reader. I’ve heard of the concept of declaring blog bankruptcy, marking everything as “read” and starting fresh. Tempting, but if I had done that I would have missed this PERFECT article from Dawud Miracle. He said it so well: “Be in front of your audience when they need you.”

“But no one cares that you’re an expert until they need an expert. In other words, no one cares that you can solve a set a problems until they are faced with those set of problems. Then, they go out and look for a solution.”

This is the Raison d’être of Advice Network. Think of it. Nobody cares you sell real estate, or can help their business, or you will help them have a perfect wedding, until they need these things. Imagine it from their perspective.

Laura, our imaginary friend, is living her life just fine without you until Brad ask “Will you marry me?” She says “Yes” cries a little, and I’ll bet you the rent within 24 hours she is online researching how to plan a wedding. And that is when she should find your article “Picking a Photographer for your Wedding”

Or she gets a new job and has to move, that is when she should find your article “8 Things You Should Know About Your Home Inspection”

So thank you Dawud. Thanks for putting it so well!

I was listening to an old podcast of the Commonwealth Club radio program yesterday. Gayle Pergamit, CEO and Founder, Agua Via was talking about water and Africa. She spent a good 40 minutes talking about why the problem is so incredibly intractable. I was ready to drive off a bridge.

Then, she spent 20 minutes talking about a new water filtration technology that her company has developed. This is a world changinng technology.

Most water filters are thick. It takes a lot of energy to force the water through them, and they get gunked up easily.

Agua Via has invented a process for creating a membrane that is 1 molecule thick, with an opening that is exactly the size of a water molecule. Water pours through it at the incredibly low pressure of 1 PSI (that is a 27 inch colum of water in earth gravity). This technology can remove poisons, toxins, anything living, and more importantly SALT. Yes, it desalinates! Imagine, low energy desalination. It is the holy grail of water. The promise of nanotechnology with the power to save millions of lives. A small unit can filter 100,000 gallons a day.

You can listen to the podcast here. (Skip to about minute 40 [or if you are short on time] if you have a good understanding of the problem, [you probably don't the problem is worse than you think])

All of the Amory Lovins lectures I talked about in my earlier post are now online.

http://www.advicenetwork.com/audio_files/

It’s hours of listening, and if you care about energy or the envionment, it will blow your mind.

Alex

I got a great email from my friend Dr. Clue (Dave Blum)

Hello All,

Dr. Clue is putting together a virtual/online treasure hunt and we are  wondering if you’d be interested in having your website featured as  one of the clue sites.  Basically, what this means is that one of the clues in the virtual treasure hunt would solve to your site’s address and teams would have to find a piece of information on your site.  You don’t need to do anything or change anything — it’ll be something that’s already part of your site.  All we’d ask is for you to let us know if you ever change that piece of information, so we can adjust the clue.  If sending Dr. Clue’s clients to your site sounds good to you, please let me know so we can count you in!  Free, motivated traffic to your site!

As soon as we have enough clue locations, we’ll write the game and let you know what piece of information we’re using from your site.  If you know anyone else with a business that might be interested in having their site featured as a Dr. Clue treasure hunt clue location, please feel free to forward this email along to them.

–
Dave Blum
President, Dr. Clue Treasure Hunts

www.drclue.com

| … — .-.. …- .. -. –. | - …. . | .–. ..- –.. –.. .-.. . … | — ..-. | - . .- — .– — .-. -.- |
(Solving the Puzzles of Teamwork)

Just a few comments.

1. He just reiterated that he wants other sites ASAP, so don’t be shy, jump right in and ask for a link

2. If you know what the morse code (I think it’s morse code) at the end of his email means, please post in comments!

-Alex

Hey everyone, I just wanted you to know, I’m leaving for a week. I’ll be back around the 21st.

Have a good week!

Alex

Those of you who read this blog often, or know me know I am not a web developer, not a programmer, and not especially technical. I’m an entrepreneur, and a photographer. I rely on paid developers to translate my vision into the code that is a functioning website.

Here is a dirty little secret. Finding competent developers is the hardest part! Oh the stories I could tell. I started mistrustful of outsourcing, and went with a developer near me. He ripped me off for $60,000. He didn’t pay his employees, didn’t produce anything, and declared chapter 11. I’d tell you his name, but he’s lawyered up, and I am sure he would like nothing better than to sue me for looking his way cross-eyed. If we ever meet at a party, I’ll tell you all about it.

So, 1/2 my money gone, I was forced to go the outsourced rout. I found these guys in India who spent two months just getting my shopping cart to interface with Authorize.net. They were shocked when I was unimpressed and did not trust the development of the rest of the site to them.

I found these coders in the Ukraine who seemed like they knew what they were doing, and even agreed to a fee schedule that included bonuses for getting the job done early, and penalties for getting it done late. One week before they were supposed to be done, they diapered. Poof, gone. At least by now I had learned to not pay upfront!

Then, I found some developers in India, these guys were the best yet, but they still built a site that had so many bugs that I could find 20 a day for months, with no end in site. They just quit because I would not submit a “final” bug list. How could I if I keep finding new bugs? Am I wrong to think that if they build a site with bugs in it, and I find a bug, they should fix it? Maybe I am. I was even ready to pay them for new features and improvements on the site, provided they kept fixing the bugs in the work they had already done.

So, now once again I strike out in search of a new developer.
I am comforted to know that every entrepreneur I meet has the same problems. I even met one who also got ripped off for $60,000 by someone else besides my criminal. Amazing!

Now that Advice Network is launched, marketing has taken a front seat in my attention. I spend almost all of my time wondering how to get the word out there about Advice Network without spending every penny I have AND without compromising my values.

I’m investigating telemarketing this week, but not without serious trepidation.

The numbers look good promising, from a pure return on investment. It costs about $1,000 to have 30 to 50 hours of calling. The way I look at those numbers, if I offer a 50% discount on the $50 setup fee. (Please don’t be jealous; To my loyal readers, I offer you a 99.98% discount on the setup fee, right here and right now. If you are reading this and want to register as a deluxe vendor on Advice Network, use the coupon blogreader to get $49.99 off your $50 setup fee. Please note, coupon expires  on my birthday, August 31 2008) Where was I? Oh yes, if I offer a 50% discount on the setup fee, and they get 22 people to sign up as deluxe vendors, then I break even on the campaign, and in month 2, I can start investing in PPC to get leads to those vendors.

Everyone wins! The vendors get a great placement on the directory, they get leads, they get business. Users of Advice Network get matched with vendors, their lives are easier, and Advice Network will (gasp) make money. Win win win.

The downside? I hate receiving telemarketing calls. Tom Mabe is one of my heroes.

Sigh.

I’d love to hear your feedback on this one. Please email me or comment and let me know what you think.

Thanks all fans and readers for your understanding during my hiatus. I also appreciate all of your support. no I am ok, I just could not get into the blog, and fixing the problem took a backseat to other issues.

For some reason never ascertained, I was locked out of the blog. My password did not work, and when I went to reset the password, I was sent an invalid link.

Just yesterday, I decided to tackle the issue in earnest. I posted the problem on wordpress.org, and was directed to a page explaining how to edit the database via PHP myadmin. For the technically unsophisticated, that was a nightmare.

But I was able to finally solve the problem with this simple hack:

Using the Emergency Password Reset Script

If the other solutions listed above won’t work, then try the Emergency Password Reset Script. It is not a Plugin. It is a PHP script.

Warnings

1. Requires you know the administrator username.
2. It updates the administrator password and sends an email to the administrator’s email address.
3. If you don’t receive the email, the password is still changed.
4. You do not need to be logged in to use it. If you could login, you wouldn’t need the script.
5. Place this in the root of your WordPress installation. Do not upload this to your WordPress Plugins directory.
6. Delete the script when you are done for security reasons.

Directions for use

1. Download the script from Village Idiot WordPress Emergency Password Script.
2. Unpack the downloaded zip file.
3. Upload the file emergency.php to the root of your WordPress installation (the same directory that contains wp-config.php).
4. In your browser, open http://example.com/emergency.php.
5. As instructed, enter the administrator username (usually admin) and the new password, then click Update Options. A message is displayed noting the changed password. An email is sent to the blog administrator with the changed password information.
6. Delete emergency.php from your server when you are done. Do not leave it on your server as someone else could use it to change your password.

Thanks again everyone!