The Generator news service publishes articles on sustainable development, agriculture and energy as well as observations on current affairs. The news service is used on the weekly radio show, The Generator, as well as by a number of monthly and quarterly magazines. A podcast of the Generator news is also available.
As well as Giovanni’s articles it picks up the most pertinent articles from a range of other news services. You can publish the news feed on your website using RSS, free of charge.
The Westender received this cute media release from Urban Utilities, explaining how their tunnel being drilled in Mollison St (near the Supermarket) has been unavoidably delayed.
In true Ekka tradition, I’m afraid to inform you that our drilling machine in front of 26 Mollison Street has contracted a touch of the Ekka flu from a virus in the heavy rock that has seriously weakened its blades.
Unfortunately this means that while it recovers in its sick bed, we will have to wait until the larger drilling machine being used at the shaft in front of the shopping centre finishes tunnelling towards the centre ring at 26 Mollison Street before we can use it and resume our full show program.
No point [fairy] flossing over this unexpected issue on ‘Sideshow Alley’, this will delay works for several weeks.
However, we are working on bringing works forward in other areas so we can make up as much time as possible. So we keep the Mollison Street ferris wheel rolling, we have also been informed by our ‘carnies’ er contractors that there will be a few Saturdays where they will be working and we will need to run the generator in front of the shopping centre for about an hour on Sundays to run pumps to drain groundwater from the shaft.
Thank you for your patience as you join us on this rollercoaster ride. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
In the meantime, we hope your Sundae (sic) is a Strawberry one and we don’t have too many West(end)erly winds this year.
Yours sincerely
‘Dagwood’ Dylan Communications Consultant and our Senior Project Manager, ‘Showbag’ Stephen
As Chairman of www.CPREA.com.au we are certainly not interested in a “war” as such, with REA or anyone.
Our focus is on
Lifting the professionalism, education and public standing of people in our industry and
On providing a national “genuinely” industry owned real estate portal that provides competition and price moderation for our sellers who pay for marketing and for agents.
We acknowledge that there are other sites being established and we encourage them to push on and we are in no way threatened by competition, in fact we welcome it. We desperately need alternatives to the current duopoly (or in many area, monopoly) and, in the long run, the industry and the public will choose which sites to support.
Thanks Geoff and yes, we lizards of the press do tend to use excitable language to get people to turn the page or, more importantly, hang on long enough to read the words written on it.
On reviewing the original press release from the CPREA the heading does seem to make you guilty of the same crime. Priorities amiss in online cost war
Perhaps this is the hallmark of a new era when real estate agents will use temperate language to downplay the features of the property they want to sell. “Modest home on noisy street. Not much parking. Anyone?”
With over 40% of all traffic on the web now being generated by mobile phones and more than half of searches being local, it is critical that retail service providers pitch their online business to customers via mobile.
Recognising the power of this opportunity and the challenge for many small businesses to take advantage of this opportunity, local entrepreneur, Andreja Brkan, has built an service portal around the concept that mobile phone users want to find out what is available nearby and now.
In the always-on world she believes that customers want to be able to book their services on demand. Accordingly, she has called her business, and the app that will drive it ONDI.
ONDI allows users to select a service from a drop-down list or simply type a word into the search engine and it will find them nearby service providers. With one click, their request goes through to the service provider and the booking can be instantly confirmed.
Inner city Brisbane is the launch platform and she has been busy signing up local hair and beauty salons, massage and health clinics as well as personal trainers and gyms.
“There will be over fifty service providers available on day one and we expect rapid growth after that,” she told Business Voice.
More information is available at www.ondi.com or by phoning 07 3844 5248
Leigh Storr talks to The Generator at his office in Woolloongabba
Young Entrepreneur of the year, Leigh Storr, is pleased to be in the fastest growing sector of the fastest growing industry.
“The only constraint on our growth, right now, is a lack of investment capital,” he told The Generator.
“In America investors would be throwing money at a company like BioSolar, in Australia, the financial institutions see rapid growth and call it risk.”
According to Storr, the secret to his growth is high-quality panels, components and installations and a focus on affordability. He achieves that by providing customers with a payment plan to keep up-front costs down, and rigorous attention to cashflow in his business.
“Many solar companies are selling incentives and are vulnerable to the whims of government policy. As governments slash incentives, our business has soared.”
He explains that customers have simply done the numbers on their power bill.
“If power prices continue to rise at 12.5% p.a. over the next ten years, the average Australian will spend an entire year of their work life, just paying for electricity.”
BioSolar now employs over 400 people and has invested in a workplace culture that has earned it the nickname ‘Google of the Gabba’. It has a vegan cafe, cinema and gym on premises and an independent yoga studio on-site. The company has a major operational centre in Darra and offices in NSW and Victoria.
Storr believes the current focus on propping up the fossil fuel industry will cost the Australian economy dearly as other countries shift to cheap, distributed energy and unleash innovation.
Before the end of the year, BioSolar will be selling low cost battery technology and generators that will allow homes and businesses to be independent of the grid (see Guerilla Disconnection below).
He points to companies like Google in the USA who are independent of the grid, precisely because they need to guarantee their electricity supply and control their electricity costs.
CONSUMER PROTECTION BY GUERRILLA DISCONNECTION
Biosolar offers many incentives to staff
The challenge for the electricity industry, recently exposed by Four Corners and The Monthly, is that the cost of the infrastructure for fossil fuel generated electricity is increasing as fewer customers need it. As a result the service charges on your electricity bill have increased much faster than the charges for the electricity itself. Not content with printing false statements blaming these costs on environmental regulation in large red letters on their bills, electricity companies are now lobbying governments to further penalise owners of solar panels with higher connection charges. The price paid for solar generated electricity is already a ridiculously low 4 cents per kilowatt and the amount of electricity that can be supplied to the grid has been capped by export limiters.
The best protection for consumers, according to BioSolar owner and CEO, Leigh Storr, is to disconnect from the grid altogether.
He said that consumers can achieve this, by simply notifying their provider of an imminent disconnection date, online. On that date, the consumer throws the switch on the export limiter and the utility records no further use.
“What are they going to do? Drive around and issue fines for people who have the lights on without being registered to a fossil-fuel-powered generator?”
He thinks the crunch will come at the end of 2017 when the cost of being connected to the grid will exceed the cost becoming self-sufficient.
Minister for Tourism, Major Events, Small Business and the Commonwealth Games, Jann Stuckey MP will officially launch the 2014 Queensland Small Business Week at a business lunch on Tuesday, 2 September at City Hall.
“2014 Queensland Small Business Week is a chance to celebrate the contribution our 403,000 hard-working, small businesses make to the State economy, and remind Queenslanders of the importance of buying locally,” Ms Stuckey said.
“The Queensland Government is helping small business to have a big future.”
To kickstart the week, Minister Stuckey has invited all Queensland businesses to attend or join in, via a live web link, to a panel discussion about how to become a small business tiger.
Businesses can register to hear international business expert and the head of America’s Harvard Business School, Professor Josh Learner, discuss how local business is performing on the international stage.
Other Ministerial events include a business breakfast on the Sunshine Coast with one of the most respected CEOs in America, Tom Szasky from Terra Cycle.
Tom brings a wealth of business knowledge, with Terra Cycle referred to as the ‘coolest little start-up in America’ and the ‘Google of garbage’.
Last year, more than 4500 businesses participated in 91 events across the State. This year there will be an estimated 120 events.
Small businesses are defined as those employing less than 20 people. There are approximately 403,000 small businesses in Queensland, representing over 95 per cent of all businesses.
Bitcoin is promising to be the alternative payment method for retail shopping and online web sites. Used the World over, Bitcoin is gaining momentum, acceptance and the attention of government regulators.
Bitcoin suffers from technical complexity but the savings are enormous.
With Bitcoin your money is stored on a plastic debit card which you can access at Bitcoin ATM’s, EFTPOS machines in shops and online shopping web sites – Just like your debit/credit cards in your wallet.
The great news about Bitcoin and other alternative currencies is they use cryptology to secure your money instead of centralised controls. Bitcoin and alternative coins such as BankCoin are unregulated.
Bitcoins where initially mined using high speed computer graphics cards and sold on currency trading exchanges for a few dollars each. Today you can buy/sell 0.10000001 of a Bitcoin for about $66. Bitcoins have eight decimal places unlike cash which has only two.
Diamond Circlemoved from the Brisbane city to West End to be part of this revolution.
The company provides the hardware, software and service backup solutions to support peer to peer money transfer in and out of personal Bitcoin Wallets to their customers the World over.
Diamond Circle is forging a reputation in the emerging field of Bitcoins. It was recently awarded one of Gartner’s ten Cool Company awards.
The product that brought the company to Gartner’s attention is the NFC tags that function as Bitcoin “wallets – either hung from keychain or attached to a phone. The company has been given a vote of confidence, with Gartner recommending that “IT leaders” in finance who are investigating Bitcoins should look into trialing the product.
Since alternative coins are relatively new, Diamond Circle offers free introductory information sessions on accepting alternative currencies with confidence. FOr more information about these sessions, head on over to diamondcircle.net and register your interest.
The Westender received this cute media release from Urban Utilities, explaining how their tunnel being drilled in Mollison St (near the Supermarket) has been unavoidably delayed.
