’m riding two different tires, because of several punctures at the rear, that I have got during the year. The tire at the front is the original tire, with the vintage looking beige colour. In combination with the pure black tire at the rear, the bike looks a little weird right now. I think I’m going to change the front tire as soon as it is damaged…
After all, the simplicity of this Bike is gigantic. There is almost nothing to maintain and the only mechanical issues I had, were the flat tires at the rear, but things like that just happen from time to time, right? This bike is always “ready – to – use” and together with its roadbike mentality, the speed and the easy handling, I know exactly why this bike was my first choice a lot of times this year….
-dennis
This is one cool bike! I use a singlespeed to get around Lisbon, but the steeper hills are tough. Are you happy with that rear hub? Are the gear changes smooth, or a bit clunky?
– Verne
Thank you! I’m very happy with this bike and the rear hub. The gear changes are a little clunky, but you get used to it the longer you are riding with this bike. And yes, steeper hills are very tough on a singlespeed bike, hahaha….
[…] the downside of it, the daily usage of the Vinyl starts to leave traces on the bicycle. There are two or three tiny cracks on each tire. Right […]
[…] The Vinyl was not designed for conditions like this. Maintaining the bicycle everyday after work in the dark was kind of cool for a few days, but eventually stopped being cool … a lot. […]Energy Networks Australia (ENA) is calling for a change to the ACT’s Large-scale Feed-in Tariff which will see customers facing huge increases in power bills from 1 July this year.
The forecast 133 per cent increase in jurisdictional charges has been published today by the Australian Energy Regulator in ACT distributor Evoenergy’s network pricing proposal for the coming financial year.
These charges are due to the fixed price contracts the ACT Government struck with large renewable generators, mostly outside of the ACT, to reach the 100 per cent renewable electricity target.
ENA General Manager Corporate Affairs Tamatha Smith said the looming bill hikes should serve as a cautionary tale for other states going it alone on energy policy.
“Renewables have a critical role to play as we decarbonise our electricity system, but governments have a responsibility to ensure their policies and the contracts they sign to support this do not harm customers,” she said.
“The cost increases looming in the ACT are without a doubt going to have a major impact on households and businesses.
Ms Smith warned that the ACT’s proposed moratorium on new gas connections could also cause major bill pain for local customers.
“The ACT is heavily reliant on gas for heating in winter. If all this winter gas demand is forced to shift to electricity, the grid will require major, expensive upgrades and these will also be paid for in customer bills,” she said.
In 2016, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Government legislated a target to source 100 percent of all Canberra’s electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
The ACT generates about four per cent of the electricity its residents use and the rest is drawn from the National Energy Market, the majority of which is still powered by non-renewable energy sources like coal and gas.
To reach the 100 percent renewable electricity target, renewable energy is purchased and offset through contracts under the large-scale feed-in tariff scheme from large-scale wind farms and solar farms mostly outside of the ACT.
The ACT Government has established contracts with these generators to supply renewable energy to the National Energy Market for a 10–20 year period. Evoenergy is legislated to administer the scheme and make payments to the generators on the ACT Government’s behalf for the renewable energy they produce.
Payments are made on a contract for difference arrangement—where the payment is calculated as the difference between the actual wholesale electricity price and the fixed feed-in tariff price agreed to in the contract.
When actual wholesale prices are very high, these contract for difference contracts protect ACT customers from them.
However, when wholesale prices are very low (currently hovering around $35 per MWh), Evoenergy is legislated to pay the contracted generators and ACT customers do not receive the benefit of the low wholesale prices.
For an average household, the cost of the various ACT 100 per cent renewables policies is currently $176 per year but is set to rise to $423 per year on 1 July 2021.
Read, discuss and contribute to the open book initiative on Data-driven Surveillance (From syndromic surveillance to data-driven surveillance in animal health).
ORION – One health surRveillance Initiative on harmOnization of data collection and interpretatioN. 2018-2020. The ORION project aims at establishing and strengthening inter-institutional collaboration and transdisciplinary knowledge transfer in the area of surveillance data integration and interpretation, along the One Health (OH) objective of improving health and well-being. This will be achieved through an interdisciplinary collaboration of 13 veterinary and/or public health institutes from 7 European countries. This project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.
NOVA – Novel approaches for design and evaluation of cost-effective surveillance across the food chain. 2018-2020. NOVA, strives to develop new surveillance tools and methods and to harmonise and optimise the use of existing surveillance system data. The project group consist of a network of 19 Med and Vet institutions from 10 European countries. This project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.
PigPeaks – Early detection of production and health problems to reduce losses in pig production. 2018-2020. Disease and production disturbances in a herd are often silent, and may cause major losses if they remain undetected. Continuous analysis and monitoring of data already recorded at the farm level can improve profitability. This project will develop methods for monitoring trends in production and animal health indicators, and detect early signs of disease or other disturbances. The aim is to produce information that can help individual farms to avoid losses, as well as support disease surveillance. The study will compare different methods to develop a continuous and fully automated system of analyses of production data already recorded on the farm (e.g. data on litter size/piglet mortality or feed consumption). The result is an on-farm, data-driven alarm system for disease outbreaks or other hazards that affect production. The system can also be used to monitor the farm’s productivity and health development. The results have the potential to be used by all producers who record similar data, and can also be adapted to other species in animal production. This project is funded by the Swedish farmers’ foundation for agricultural research.
Real-time data analyses and information system to support animal disease prevention and control. 2018-2020. A great variety of animal health data are available electronically. However, their systematic use for disease control faces a number of obstacles, from data ownership to technical barriers. This project aims to overcome some of these impediments and create a real-time information system to promote earlier disease detection and support control. The mains goals are to: (i) develop effective methods to combine evidence from multiple data sources, while respecting data privacy issues; (ii) implement these methods in an automated, real-time routine; and (iii) develop a user-friendly system interface to deliver outputs relevant to the activities of disease prevention and control. As an example, imagine a system that monitors reproductive performance indicators directly from farmers, as well as clinical and laboratory data of gastrointestinal and reproductive problems in cattle. Individually, each of these data streams was too unspecific to alert the introduction of a new disease in 2011, when Schmallenberg virus entered Sweden, and is believed to have spread silently for months. Combined, the weak signals of changes in the health of the animal population, coming from individual data sources, could have signalled the epidemic earlier.
Real-time monitoring of the health status of the animal population will speed disease detection and improve disease control. This will in turn promote animal welfare and reduce economic losses. This project is funded by the Swedish Research Council.
Sometimes we are “stuck” in everyday living. However, when we are out of thoughts, we may use one tip to adjust our brain to fight stupor.
A great many people start their morning with a cup of coffee or tea not just to energize our bodies, but to awaken the brain as well. The stimulant properties of these beverages are well known. But sometimes even coffee is unable to trigger some mental process, make us think about something important or solve some task. Well, you better believe that if you are dealing with creative activity, this situation is very common. When all your work is centered around creation of something new, you will eventually be lack of unconventional ideas and will face a kind of massive wall of grey. Without any thoughts, without any ideas, without any movement. And this wall has no beginning and no end. What shall one do in such cases?
There are many ways to awaken your creativity. However, you need a considerable amount of time to master some techniques. There are also some techniques that need assiduity, team of assistants, a set of materials on hand. However, there is also an effortless way to set your brain for creativity – just ask questions.
Alex Osborn, advertising guru and brainstorming developer, created a set of techniques and offered a few tens of questions that may thrash out some problem by yourself or while working in a group. This long and exhaustive list may be reduced to six questions that may wake the sleeping mind