tripsis

Seems I can't edit the first post on my phone.. Just to let people know, numbers 3 & 4, the TPM x SS02, the mini collection and the SS BK pach are sold pending payment.

I didn't take any photos.

SOLD

All done.

I do. Just need some time to take and upload some photos.

No closing date as such, but keep in mind I may be leaving the country in a few weeks...or may not..have decided yet.

Why Fukushima made me stop worrying and love nuclear power Japan's disaster would weigh more heavily if there were less harmful alternatives. Atomic power is part of the mix George Monbiot guardian.co.uk, Monday 21 March 2011 19.43 GMT Illustration: Daniel Pudles You will not be surprised to hear that the events in Japan have changed my view of nuclear power. You will be surprised to hear how they have changed it. As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology. A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation. Some greens have wildly exaggerated the dangers of radioactive pollution. For a clearer view, look at the graphic published by xkcd.com. It shows that the average total dose from the Three Mile Island disaster for someone living within 10 miles of the plant was one 625th of the maximum yearly amount permitted for US radiation workers. This, in turn, is half of the lowest one-year dose clearly linked to an increased cancer risk, which, in its turn, is one 80th of an invariably fatal exposure. I'm not proposing complacency here. I am proposing perspective. If other forms of energy production caused no damage, these impacts would weigh more heavily. But energy is like medicine: if there are no side-effects, the chances are that it doesn't work. Like most greens, I favour a major expansion of renewables. I can also sympathise with the complaints of their opponents. It's not just the onshore windfarms that bother people, but also the new grid connections (pylons and power lines). As the proportion of renewable electricity on the grid rises, more pumped storage will be needed to keep the lights on. That means reservoirs on mountains: they aren't popular, either. The impacts and costs of renewables rise with the proportion of power they supply, as the need for storage and redundancy increases. It may well be the case (I have yet to see a comparative study) that up to a certain grid penetration – 50% or 70%, perhaps? – renewables have smaller carbon impacts than nuclear, while beyond that point, nuclear has smaller impacts than renewables. Like others, I have called for renewable power to be used both to replace the electricity produced by fossil fuel and to expand the total supply, displacing the oil used for transport and the gas used for heating fuel. Are we also to demand that it replaces current nuclear capacity? The more work we expect renewables to do, the greater the impact on the landscape will be, and the tougher the task of public persuasion. But expanding the grid to connect people and industry to rich, distant sources of ambient energy is also rejected by most of the greens who complained about the blog post I wrote last week in which I argued that nuclear remains safer than coal. What they want, they tell me, is something quite different: we should power down and produce our energy locally. Some have even called for the abandonment of the grid. Their bucolic vision sounds lovely, until you read the small print. At high latitudes like ours, most small-scale ambient power production is a dead loss. Generating solar power in the UK involves a spectacular waste of scarce resources. It's hopelessly inefficient and poorly matched to the pattern of demand. Wind power in populated areas is largely worthless. This is partly because we have built our settlements in sheltered places; partly because turbulence caused by the buildings interferes with the airflow and chews up the mechanism. Micro-hydropower might work for a farmhouse in Wales, but it's not much use in Birmingham. And how do we drive our textile mills, brick kilns, blast furnaces and electric railways – not to mention advanced industrial processes? Rooftop solar panels? The moment you consider the demands of the whole economy is the moment at which you fall out of love with local energy production. A national (or, better still, international) grid is the essential prerequisite for a largely renewable energy supply. Some greens go even further: why waste renewable resources by turning them into electricity? Why not use them to provide energy directly? To answer this question, look at what happened in Britain before the industrial revolution. The damming and weiring of British rivers for watermills was small-scale, renewable, picturesque and devastating. By blocking the rivers and silting up the spawning beds, they helped bring to an end the gigantic runs of migratory fish that were once among our great natural spectacles and which fed much of Britain – wiping out sturgeon, lampreys and shad, as well as most sea trout and salmon. Traction was intimately linked with starvation. The more land that was set aside for feeding draft animals for industry and transport, the less was available for feeding humans. It was the 17th-century equivalent of today's biofuels crisis. The same applied to heating fuel. As EA Wrigley points out in his book Energy and the English Industrial Revolution, the 11m tonnes of coal mined in England in 1800 produced as much energy as 11m acres of woodland (one third of the land surface) would have generated. Before coal became widely available, wood was used not just for heating homes but also for industrial processes: if half the land surface of Britain had been covered with woodland, Wrigley shows, we could have made 1.25m tonnes of bar iron a year (a fraction of current consumption) and nothing else. Even with a much lower population than today's, manufactured goods in the land-based economy were the preserve of the elite. Deep green energy production – decentralised, based on the products of the land – is far more damaging to humanity than nuclear meltdown. But the energy source to which most economies will revert if they shut down their nuclear plants is not wood, water, wind or sun, but fossil fuel. On every measure (climate change, mining impact, local pollution, industrial injury and death, even radioactive discharges) coal is 100 times worse than nuclear power. Thanks to the expansion of shale gas production, the impacts of natural gas are catching up fast. Yes, I still loathe the liars who run the nuclear industry. Yes, I would prefer to see the entire sector shut down, if there were harmless alternatives. But there are no ideal solutions. Every energy technology carries a cost; so does the absence of energy technologies. Atomic energy has just been subjected to one of the harshest of possible tests, and the impact on people and the planet has been small. The crisis at Fukushima has converted me to the cause of nuclear power. Source.

Thai Pothong in Newtown has the best Thai I've had in Sydney. Malabar in Crows Nest serves up some incredible South Indian (get the Goan fish curry!). Kadmas in Drummoyne is the best Lebanese restaurant in Sydney (recommended by a Lebanese mega-foodie who works in high end restaurants).

Picked a bunch yesterday, cooked them up for dinner tonight. They're good! Cheers for the heads up Zen, you've changed mushroom season for me in a big way. So good to have another hugely abundant species to pick. Almost no saffron milk caps were around yesterday, but still tonnes of T. terreum.

More seed grown Trichocereus pachanoi (T. pachanoi monstrose x T. pachanoi 'Huancabamba'). Approximately 3 years old from seed, on their own roots, never grafted, hard grown all the way. For size reference, pots are 120mm. $150 per plant plus postage. As these are seed grown plants, it's worth noting that they're probably still exhibiting only immature characteristics and will change to mature characteristics with time or grafting. # 2 #3 SOLD Also have two seed grown four-ribbed Trichocereus huanucoensis seedlings for sale. The four ribbed growth seems to be a stable phenotype so far. Very similar to the one pictured below (or the same, I'll just grab them randomly to be fair), maybe 15cm high. $30 each. SOLD Post what you're interested in here so others know what's taken, then PM. Thanks.

As the first post states, there are two.

Number 3 sold, pending payment.

Well, that's a tad disappointing. I guess that explains why they're rarely hunted. Very common up here, but no one seems to pick them.

Did you try it? I too would like to know what they're like. Might have to collect some next time I'm out if they're still fruiting.

All cacti paid for posted today. First post edited to reflect what's left.

I sure can. PM me and we'll work it out.

Sorry Kitesurfer, not willing to send to WA. Tricho Serious, if you want that huanucoensis, PM me.

Numbers 1, 4 and 6 are sold pending payment, as well as 3 of the huanucoensis.

All sold.

All sold.

All the plants that have been paid for have been posted. I'm making #1 and #3 available again due to a non-payment and cessation of communication.

Bump.

What you just did was incredibly stupid. Eating an Amanita species you haven't even identified properly may well be your death sentence. Amatoxins are not a class of toxins to be taken lightly.

Please don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say that, nor imply it. As I see it, they're in the same category. As I did say, I don't think community gardens should be banned, just as I don't think ordinary home gardens should cease to exist. I think the argument put forth definitely has vested interests behind it, but it does raise valid points nevertheless. We would do well to consider them, rather than ignore them and simply be angry instead. I am 100% for more independence, more community and home gardens and fewer monocultures.

I agree with Mira, the concerns are not without merit. It's all very well to say the following: But few home growers are schooled in such concepts or employ adequate pest management strategies as to reduce the risk of diseases spreading to adjacent properties and/or the agricultural sector. We but need look at ourselves and see why they're concerned. Plant hobbyists are forever trading live plants and seeds which have not been properly inspected for pests and disease, which then end up all over the country. When the stakes are so low for home gardeners, people are likely not to employ adequate measures, yet the stakes are high for the agricultural sector, and losses are severe. I don't agree that community gardens should be banned, but I do understand the concern.