Vince Samios

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My seeds are on order for my 2012 Garden - the common theme is unusual varieties of common vegetables with intense flavours.

Some of the star choices are the penis chili (aka Peter Pepper) which literally looks like a little johnson, chinese raddish (Daikon) for my chinese business partner since they are apparently hard to get in the UK, and then the variety of chili’s and peppers is also on the more interesting (and hot) side.

I was quite careful about most of the variants I chose, such as the jolant leeks, based on the number of days until harvest and climate tolerances. Things like the Chili’s may need some extra warmth and humidity.

Only the root vegetables, onion family (leeks and shallots included) and fennel will be wrong in garden beds, everything else will be grown in large pots on the patio. I’ve got slow release plant fertilizer on the go, and will supplement with seaweed extract. All in all I hope it will be a nice year for it.

Sweet Banana Pepper

White Habanero Chili

Peter Pepper Chili - Penis chili

Burpless Cucumber

Ambassador Courgette

Trafalgar Brussels Sprouts

Matador Shallots

Jolant Leeks

Cylindra Beetroot

Mixed Variety Carrots

Florence Bulb Fennel

Black Truffle Tomatoes

Purple Cherokee Tomatoes

Di Savona Onions

Scotch Bonnet Chilis

Mangetout Snow Peas

Polestar Runner Beans

Daikon Chinese Raddish

Black Beauty Aubergine (Egg Plant)

Chocolate Beauty Capsicum / Sweet Pepper

After the recent decommissioning of yahoo site explorer, alternatives need to be found so that we can track our own backlinks, and spy on competitors backlinks.

Below is a short list of SEO Tools which can, together, provide a somewhat viable alternative to yahoo site explorer.

Bing Webmaster Tools

Frankly I haven’t used Bing Webmaster Tools, but as the official alternative to yahoo site explorer one hopes it would have much, if not all of the same data as yahoo site explorer displayed. The biggest issue with Bing Webmaster Tools is that it is a tool for webmaster only, whereas yahoo site explorer allowed users to view the backlinks and backlink counts for any and all websites.

At this point in time I can’t comment on the usefulness of Bing Webmaster Tools as a yahoo site explorer alternative for webmasters, because I haven’t used it, however as an alternative for competitor analysis it is a completely useless tool.

Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools is only a yahoo site explorer alternative for webmasters, as google webmaster tools has only ever been available to the sites owner. In this respect I think Google Webmaster Tools is more comprehensive than yahoo site explorer ever was.

Majestic SEO

Without paying for an account, the only information you can get for free is the number of total backlinks, referring domains, and C Class IP addresses. I have doubts about the accuracy of Majestic SEO’s data, but in respect to the number of links a website has for competitor analysis (the link count) Majestic SEO is probably the most accurate and consistent alternative to yahoo site explorer.

Google Links Search

If you use the search links:domainname.com in a standard google search, you will get a short list of sites linking to that domain name. The problem is this list is minuscule and doesn’t even reflect 1% of the links Google actually knows about (which we can compare as a webmaster, with the links in webmaster tools). It can be vaguely interesting, and it is only important in this day and age where yahoo site explorer is down and decommissioned, as one of the seo tools we can use to fill in the blanks.

Alexa

Alexa gives you a rather vague "sites linking in" feature which actually gives you a better list of linking sites than you get from the Google Links: search mentioned above. In a world before we needed and alternative to yahoo site explorer the data alexa provided was entirely redundant, but now it is again, another seo tool to help us piece the SEO puzzle together.

Open Site Explorer

Open site explorer is probably the best like for like yahoo site explorer alternative. It allows us to gather details on other sites, as well as our own. I don’t like the data for backlink counts, and in general I find Open Site Explorer a little clumsy to work with, but in an imperfect world we are left with imperfect SEO tools.

This is how you hand pollinate a Phalaenopsis Orchid

At the front of the flower there is something called the Anther Cap which sits on the top of the column and which contains the pollinia. We can pop it off with a wooden skewer, and it sticks nicely so you won’t lose it.

Then we can gently separate the Anther Cap from the pollinia, which stays nicely stuck on the wooden skewer.

The pollinia needs to be inserted right up into the stigma, it’s a little bit sticky, but sometimes it can be difficult to get the pollinia to release from the skewer.

Once insert the Phalaenopsis Orchid is fertilised and the stem of the flower will begin to swell.

It’s best to pollinate one flower with an-others pollinia, and even better to do so between two different plants. This way you can also grow your own hybrids.

Buckminster Fuller described himself as a Comprehensive Anticapitory Design Scientist - In the 70’s Buckminster Fuller was working towards abundance rather than scarcity on the basis of more efficient use of resources.

In 1933 Buckminster Fuller designed a car called the “Dymaxion” car which had an astounding fuel efficient (for the time) of 30 miles per gallon, transporting 11 people, and reaching up to 120 miles per hour. On top of that it was very maneuverable could turn in its own length.

Buckminster Fuller is perhaps best known for designing the Geodesic Dome, an extremely strong dome structure constructed from triangles formed into pentagons and hexagons. Geodesic domes are self supporting as well as extremely resource and energy efficient. The Geodesic Dome structure was used to construct the massive greenhouses at The Eden Project in Cornwall, which I recently had the extreme pleasure of visiting.

He also developed the word “Synergy” into what it means today, concurrently coining the term Synergetics.

As you’ll hear in the first of 159 videos, spanning 40 hours and titled “Buckminster Fuller, Everything I know” one of his favourite and most famous quotes is “All humanity is born naked, absolutely helpless, and absolutely ignorant.”

The first of the “Buckminster Fuller, Everything I know” series is found below:

Buckminster Fuller, Everything I know, Part 1 of 159