‘Quality’ issues with fruit and vegetables
I spoke to a farmer at Allendale East today who is growing peas, lettuce and brassicas in trial plots, so far with good success.
As the only grower in the district he has to organise his own cool storage, distribution and marketing.
There have been many reports commissioned, proclaiming the potential of the South East as a horticultural district, but not much has actually been done to make it happen.
I might comment more on that later.
Meanwhile, this post is about the so-called “quality control” issues with fruit and vegetable production.
I read elsewhere that buyers reject many bananas because they are not yellow enough. A slight bruise or too green and they’re rejected, regardless of their edibility. (more…) EMF Financial Products
Capital punishment in Mount Gambier
I came across an extraordinary web page, which lists all the executions that occurred in Australia between 1900 and 1967, and many that occurred between 1880 and 1899.
Earlier, I had read an epic post by Dina about murderer and bigamist Frederick Deeming. I had a vague notion there was some connection between Deeming and Kalgoorlie, which prompted my macabre search and discovery.
I’m yet to establish Deeming’s link with Kalgoorlie, if any, but the list of condemned individuals threw up a surprise mention of Mount Gambier. (more…)
Easy voting card
I received a letter from the Electoral Commission of South Australia on Friday, reminding me that voting on March 20 is compulsory and letting me know where to vote.
According to the commission’s website, the letter is meant to be sent from Monday, March 15 to all electors.
A total of 1,092,762 South Australians are enrolled to vote.
At the standard postage rate of 55 cents a letter, that’s a mail-out cost of $601,019 plus printing, maybe a million dollars altogether, even if the postage was discounted.
It’s unnecessary expenditure, in my opinion. (more…)
Turmoil on the Mount
The Sunday Mail has a page 10 story today headlined “Turmoil on the Mount — Newspaper editor quits, reporter accused of poll bias”.
It’s mainly about allegations of bias against The Border Watch by the Liberal Party.
The story is based on the fact former editor Frank Morello has been assisting independent candidate for Mount Gambier, Don Pegler, with his media releases.
Frank’s wife Sandra is a senior journalist at The Border Watch and was effectively the chief political reporter.
When the Liberals discovered Frank’s connection to Pegler’s campaign they complained that Sandra had a conflict of interest. They had earlier claimed Sandra’s reporting was biased (before they knew of Frank’s connection).
ABC Radio interviewed Pegler about the allegations on Friday. (more…)
Rant: PDF files on websites
It annoys me when companies and organisations provide media releases on their websites as PDF files.
The files are often too large and slow to open; many have copying disabled; it opens a new browser window and sometimes crashes Firefox.
As someone experienced with both media releases and website content management, I can’t understand why anyone would do this. PDF content generally isn’t as effective with search engines and it’s simply not user friendly for basic online documents.
Media releases are meant for public consumption. It should be easy to copy them and cut extracts.
PDF files are okay for large documents, like annual reports or newsletters, but they shouldn’t be used for single pages. (more…)
Micropayments for bloggers
There has been a lot of discussion about newspapers charging for online content, but not much has been said about bloggers doing the same.
A company called Fraxion Payments has now made it possible for bloggers to charge as little as one cent per article.
“Creators of quality content can now charge for their work,” says Chris Wilkins, co-founder of Fraxion Payments.
“Those who create the content will get the lions’ share of the revenue. This is the way it should be.”
The company says bloggers will be paid up to 85 percent on a monthly basis for purchased articles, “which may well be a huge boost for citizen journalism”.
The payment is actually 60 percent for total royalties of less than US$100 per month. (more…)
Self-hosted microblog
The open source microblogging platform StatusNet has two interesting options for users.
Microblogging, for the uninitiated, is online publishing of status updates within a limited space, normally 140 characters. Think Twitter or the wall on Facebook.
StatusNet offers its software for download, which can be installed on any PHP/My SQL server. This gives the user control over branding, design and access.
I have installed the program at gorey.com.au/miniblog/.
For people who don’t have a domain or access to a server, StatusNet offers a hosted account. (more…)
