John Beales

AOL Doesn’t Let Foreigners Change their Webmail Passwords

I’ve been working recently on a project that involves E-mail integration with various service providers, including Yahoo! and AOL. Since I’m no longer an AOL subscriber, (I was for years when I travelled a lot), I set up a free webmail account, and was quite impressed with the interface.

However, when I went to change the password on my account to something generic that I could share with another developer, this is what I was presented with:
$A screenshot of AOL telling me I\'m not allowed to change my password$

Awesome. Could someone tell them that it’s not only Americans that like to change their passwords once in a while for security? I tried by clicking the “Contact Us” link at the bottom of their Help section, but got a pop-up informing me that support is for paying customers only.

Now Running 2.5

I have finally upgraded my copy of WordPress, and I took it all the way to the new version 2.5!

I’m looking forward to playing around with the new features, and maybe even a re-design. What I’ve seen so far looks great though. More will be published soon.

Aluminum is Soylent Green?

I keep seeing this ad for Alcoa on TV. It’s well done, but every time I see it I think of Soylent Green.

Regulation Needed in the Carbon Credit Industry

When I wrote recently about the carbon credit industry I tried to make the distinction between good bad carbon credits. Today wired.com has a story about an Australian company that is planning on dumping urea into the ocean. This urea, (which is very high in nitrogen), is supposed to feed algae & plankton in the area, which in turn will use carbon dioxide from the air. When this algae & plankton dies, so the theory goes, it will sink to the bottom of the ocean, taking the carbon with it.

A plan like this screams for regulation. Does dumping nitrogen into the ocean really sound like a good idea? We’ve been told for years not to use soap or fertilizers with too much nitrogen in it because it unbalances the ecosystem of the bodies of water where the runoff ends up.

Not only does this plan pollute in ways that we’ve been trying to avoid for years, but it is also next to impossible to measure how much carbon will be sequestered, (if any), by this project.

That’s about all I have to say, read the article yourself and form your own opinions.

Pop!Tech Carbon Offset Initiative: Excellent Example

On Monday I wrote about Carbon Credits and was fairly negative about the way the industry is currently set up. Well, I just read an article on Wired.com that gives me hope.

Pop!Tech and Ebay have teamed up to create the Pop!Tech Carbon Initiative. They started selling carbon credits today and will continue to do so through the end of the year. The thing that sets the Pop!Tech Carbon Initiative apart from other carbon offset vendors is that you can actually choose the project that your offset will contribute to. There are three projects. You pick one and buy the offset and your money goes to that project.

Personally, I would like to see the projects certified as Gold Standard, or something similar, (they’re not at the moment), however since I can choose which project my credits support I can support the project that I believe is best, (for example one of the projects involves reforestation — I would likely choose another project).

Finally, this quote from the Pop!Tech Carbon Offset Initiative website that really drives home the concept of additionality in carbon offset projects:

It is essential that the activity you are supporting would not otherwise have happened. So if someone is installing a solar hot water system on their roof, for instance, which will reduce the amount of gas they burn to heat water, and you offer to pay for half of it, that is not a valid carbon offset.