Except we don’t really, do we? Sure, people who get cremated turn back to ash, but that’s hardly environmentally friendly. The act of cremation is an energy inefficient CO2 spewing act - the last chance for members of our modern society to pollute this world.

You might think that a traditional burial might be better, but people who get buried do not return to that from which we came in at many levels. Your body is embalmed (preserved) and placed in a coffin that typically takes a very long time to decompose. It’s unlikely your body will be returned to the soil before your grave site is upturned to add another body, unless someone is nice enough to pay for another 100-year lease.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel to an environmentally friendly light at the end of the tunnel. Erm.

Natural burials are, as you’d imagine, natural. The way they were done way back when your great-great-grandmother wasn’t even a twinkle in her mother’s eye. You’re not embalmed. You’re not placed in a coffin. You’re not buried in a cemetery.

Instead, you’re placed in a shroud that biodegrades very easily. You’re buried in a plot in a forest - a bush cemetery if you will. Sometimes you’re buried near trees, sometimes a tree is planted on top of you. Your body will start returning to the earth very quickly.

I for one will be rewriting my Will to ask that my body be disposed of in the most environmentally conscious way possible. That might mean a bush burial, or perhaps some better alternatives will be available when I die.

Would you do this? If not, why not? I can’t see any negative with this approach, but would love to hear your thoughts.

This morning, a friend was at my desk when it rang, so I answered on speaker phone so he could hear it. Imagine my surprise when there’s a voice: “Hello!”. I quickly reply but they hang up again.

10 minutes ago it rings again. I answer quickly, and speak to a real person. He’s calling from Allphones, the high street shop I bought my mobile phone from 2 years ago, and wonders if I realise that I can upgrade my phone for free.

Aha, a sales call from an automated dialler! This’ll be fun.

I start to answer his question and, half way through, I ask why his number’s been calling me so often. “Oh, we get that a lot. We use an automated dialler,” he tells me. It calls up to three times a day and hangs up if not answered within three rings. I tell him that this has really pissed me off and ask him to mention my feelings to his manager or technical people, because if it’s pissing me off, it’s pissing other people off, and that right now I don’t have a very good impression of Allphones.

“Fair enough,” he replies. He said that all the time. “Fair enough!” He’s obviously got a cue sheet, and doesn’t give two rats what the answer is.

“How have you found the service?”
“I’ve been having trouble making calls at around 6pm on week days - it’s always congested.”
“Fair enough.”

“How have you found the phone?”
“The rubbery scratch resistant coating has peeled off.”
“Fair enough.”

“Do you go over your cap?”
“Occasionally.”
“Fair enough.”

So I let him ramble on about the new phone I could get. I won’t be locked in to a new plan, I can cancel at any time and just pay the unpaid part of the recommended retail price of the phone, which is cheaper than what you pay in the shops, it’s the wholesale price you see. The RRP is the whole sale price? I didn’t want to ask.

“Will you be carrying the iPhone?” I ask. “I’m going to wait for that before upgrading.”

“Fair enough,” he taunts, and tells me I could still upgrade now and buy the iPhone when it comes out, and only pay the remainder of the $198 the phone he’s trying to get me to buy is worth at some point in the sales pipeline. I decide not to start my whole “greedy corporate-led consumer society” rant.

“But the iPhone comes out in about 2 months, by then I’d have paid off about $14. I’m not sure it’s worth it!”. I’ve just worked out it’ll be $16.50, not bad maths-while-chatting-up-a-sales-guy.

“Fair enough.”

He thanks me for my time and we hang up. Meanwhile, the time they stole from me using their awful automated dialler over the past few weeks has been repaid many times over; this 10 minute call resulted in no sale, and I knew that from the beginning.

SOLD!

As my other half correctly mentioned in the comments, we’ve now sold this house. We did it without the use of an agent and saved ourselves an estimated AU$10,000 in commission alone.

If you’re looking to sell your house with the help of an agent though, look for one that follows Jenman’s principles in ethical selling. The Jake referred to in the comments is a lovely English chap working in Melbourne, Australia, for Lewis Realty, who are one such agency.

The original post follows:

Would you like to live in a piece of Edwardian history in Brunswick West? Tall ceilings, large rooms and windows, timber floors and corridor walls, double brick, fully renovated, and even though it’s a unit, you can’t see into your neighbour’s bathroom while you’re doing the washing up!

If you have a green streak in you, it’s already Moreland Council Energy Foundation star rated, has a basic grey water system in place, the brand new roof feeds into a 1,000 litre tank rigged up to water the veggie patch in the garden, has a solar hot water system that works about 80% of the year. Amongst the other herbs, fruits and vegetables, the garden has an apple and avocado tree growing, and you can see the very well established passionfruit tree enveloping the fence in the photo.

It’s also got an HD antenna, space for two cars, a shed and pushbike shelter in the read garden. You get about 180sqm of land of which about 100sqm is house. Cyclists and walkers can jump onto the Moonee Pond trail at the back; there’s a bus stop across the road, two tram lines (55 and 59) within 800m, Puckle St (Moonee Ponds) 2kms, and it’s close to the CityLink (though you can’t really hear it!).

We’ve got it listed on domain.com.au. If you’re interested, drop me a line or turn up for one of the scheduled open for inspection.

Having played around with it a bit, it’s great for telling if a given password is strong, but don’t worry too much if it tells you its weak.

Take, for example, the password Ad%U,1q3b. This string was chosen because it causes the report to give exceptional ratings for all positively scoring criteria and a pass for all deductions, resulting in a password of “Very Strong” complexity with a 100% score.

Now take the password Ad%U,1q3bbbb. It receives a “Very Weak” complexity with a 0% score.

I’m not a statistician, but I’m pretty sure the longer password has a lower probability of being found. Am I wrong? That said, it’s still a great tool, and perhaps I need to upgrade my rudimentary in-line password strength checker!

The best part is that now the ball’s rolling, quite a few people have put their hands up to help unorganise the next one, so I won’t be on my own this time

Not that I was completely alone - I had a few people point me in the right direction occasionally, keeping me going. But the next will be much easier, and I might actually get to listen to some of the talks!

So, almost two weeks later, I’ve gotten round to rejigging the BarCampMelbourne web site and adding a news section, complete with a press release summarising BarCampMelbourne2008. Check it out, and feel free to distribute or republish verbatim…

I won’t go in to the nitty-gritty here, but suffice it to say the the new features will solve a number of problems. Read the full article to find out more about namespaces, late static binding, a new MySQL native driver and the other features of PHP 5.3.

My most memorable interview, though, was for my position at Modem Media in London. I visited their “cosy” office on a rather warm summer’s day, the coolest area was near the system administrators who had a portable air conditioning unit pumping the hot air over Piccadilly Circus, and Glenn White occupied a glass walled room in the centre of the office.

As interviews went, this one started quite normally. What was the best lesson I took from studying at University? How did I go about managing my schedule? What did I do in my spare time?

Glenn had, and possibly still has, this tactic to thrown you off guard though. Or perhaps it’s to test your ability to rapidly adapt to a changing or hostile environment. Or maybe just because he’s got a rather twisted sense of humour and likes to play with people’s minds. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me saying that, and will probably point out that this was indeed the case.

Glenn: Describe how you would break down a project in to tasks after being given a technical requirements specification.

Ben: Well, I’d start off by…

Glenn: What’s your favourite colour?

Ben: Erm, well, black mostly, but I also like purp…

Glenn: A project manager approaches you and wants you to do some urgent work, but you’re scheduled by another PM. What would you do?

Ben: Well I’d tell the…

Glenn: What music do you listen to?

The “sensible” questions are made up - I don’t remember what he asked. The colour/music ones are real though. I remember those!

All in all, it’s my most memorable interview. The rest pale in comparison. I took that job over the others. I’m not sure if it was Glenn’s interview technique, or just because the job looked like more fun than working for over-dressed kiosk development people who wouldn’t even show me their offices. I like to think it’s because of Glenn, and the fact that I remember this almost 9 years later is probably testament to that.

What was your most memorable interview? Perhaps your’s was full of pain and anguish. Perhaps you had to go play paint ball with your boss-to-be. I’d love to hear about it…

[photo source, via]

While this is a free event, please remember that you must register to attend. Details on the web site.

To remind you, a BarCamp is “an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees”, anyone is welcome to come along for free. Everyone is asked to participate by giving a presentation or leading or participating in a discussion, essentially forcing the sharing of ideas and knowledge.

As ever, this guide is for educational purposes only. I offer no warranty of suitability or accuracuracy. Use at your own risk, and if it goes wrong head over to the forums for help…

Read my full article at the Melbourne PHP Users Group web site.