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China broadcast greetings and two Taiwanese songs from its first moon probe on Sunday, to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival when families gather to enjoy the bright autumn moon.

The Chang’e-1 satellite, named after a lonely goddess who lives with a rabbit on the moon and pines for her husband, was launched in October 2007 and has orbited the moon thousands of times.

“Let’s (all Chinese compatriots) enjoy together the bright moon light and look forward to our reunion,” the broadcast said, according to a statement from the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence carried by the Chinese news agency.

The satellite also broadcast two songs with a reunion theme. One was “Ali Mountain Girl,” a folksong of native Taiwanese aboriginals, and the other, “Wish to be with you forever,” was penned by Taiwanese songwriter Liang Hong Zhi.

China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since their split in 1949 amid civil war and insists the self-ruled democratic island must one day return to the fold, by force if necessary. But ties between the two have warmed since the Nationalist party, or Kuomintang (KMT), was re-elected to the Taiwanese presidency this year.

Monday is a national holiday in mainland China for the first time, after the government added traditional festivals and shortened weeklong National Day and Labor Day holidays.

Families and friends traditionally gather to sing, enjoy the moonlight and enjoy mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Delhiites are known to be born foodies and their hunger isn’t restricted to daytime. Forget fixing up noodles at home, we recommend the best places to go to if your belly grumbles in the middle of the night.

Comesum Appropriately placed near both Old Delhi and Nizamuddin Railway Stations, the place is known to cater to travellers and Delhi inmates alike. The one in Nizamuddin, which brags of serving more than 400 dishes, biryani being the most popular, is packed even in the wee hours of the morning.

Facilities include AC, music and the opportunity to enjoy good ambience at nominal rates. However, if you are in the mood for some good old kebabs and chai, head to Nizamuddin West that serves the same till about 2 in the morning.

24/7, Intercontinental, The Grand Looking for something more upscale? Head to the first coffee shop in the city to get a 24-hour liquor permit. The place sees more youngsters in the middle of the night along with the occasional spill-over from social events.

The popular dishes in the night menu are pastas (average cost Rs 500-550) and sandwiches. Of course, there’s alcohol to lighten your spirits.

Dhabas Hungry and almost out of cash? Find your way to Vijay Nagar. The paranthe waala next to the police station offers gobi, aaloo and pyaaz ke paranthe at Rs10 a piece and is open throughout the night.

Students from North Campus get their quota of chai and cigarettes from here. 24×7 Convenience Store Apart from a host of things to shop from, the place offers a variety of eatables like the American hot dog, Shanghai lamb rice and on a desi note, the biriyani.

Usually it’s young professionals, college goers and couples who frequent the place. The four outlets are spread out across the city - GK2, M-Block, PVR Saket, Lajpat Nagar and Satyam Complex.

Yellow Brick Road, Ambassador Hotel How about a date at midnight? The restaurant offers multi cuisines all the time, and youngsters and BPO employees can be spotted here in the nighttime. The Thai curry and the Bangkok chicken curry are the most popular dishes on offer.

Just be ready to shell out about a grand for this midnight rendezvous.

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Why aren’t governments forcing companies to use a certain percent of these materials? Or at least help these new products get known to consumers? Think how much cleaner our cities would be and also the trees that would be saved by using cinder blox around the world instead. So is there a government plan anywhere??

ou’re preobably referring to Eco-cement, which was developed in Tasmania. This requires magnesium compounds instead of the normal lime-stone derived calcium compounds. The mix seems to work well, and the curing concrete reabsorbs as much CO2 as is created to make it, if not to deliver and place it.

The problem is to switch the whole of the industry over to using the magnesium compounds. Since a lot of the magnesium is extracted from seawater, this may lead to unexpected problems if done on a large scale.

“Cinder blocks” is simply another name for ordinary concrete blocks. The ‘cinder’ part may come from the use of some flyash in the mix, flyash being the solid leftovers from burning coal or some other things ( like rice hulls.)

Personally, one could use something ike Compressed Earth Blocks, aka CEBs, which is simply earth compressed into bricks and blocks under very high pressures.

CEBs Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_…

The earthen mixture ( earth, clay, and sand) may be stabilized by adding some Portland cement, or better yet, lime.

Lime is neat because as it cures, it re-absorbs all the CO2 made in it’s production.

CEBs are basically an updated, standardized type of adobe building block. CEBs can be made with hand operated machines, or with motorized hydraulic machines of various sizes.

Building by hand is hard work, but the blocks will be nearly free if the soil on your property is suitable for it, or if the haul distance isn’t very long.

Earth Building is an interesting subject, and I will tag on some links for your files.

Earthen building methods include adobe, CEBs, rammed earth, stabilized insulated rammed earth (”S.I.R.E.wall” ), cast earth, ‘cob’, ‘wattle and daub’,and “earthbags.”
Google for them, and enjoy the journey.

About 1/3d of the people on earth live in houses made from earth. More if you bake the earth mix and call them “clay bricks”…

Hmans are so-called because they were created “ex-humus”– from the soil. So why shouldn’t their houses be from the soil?
Cheers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_…
http://www.eartharchitecture.org
http://www.adobebuilder.com
http://www.sirewall.com
http://www.calearth.org.

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however, making cement is very energy intensive.
before you go expanding use of something that absorbs CO2, it would be good to consider how it’s made, and how much CO2 is created in that process.

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I am looking for companies (no individuals please) who would be willing to pick up used restaurant oil only for fuel in Georgia. If you have any contacts or links they would be appreciated.

You can find companies that will pick up used oil under “cooking oil recycling” or “rendering”. Here’s one:

http://www.darlingii.com/results.aspx?id…

Who still relies with the old fashion of carrying the plastic or the easily damaging paper bags? Certainly no one … biodegradable bags are the best and exclusive variety of bags that will help you to carry your loads of purchase during your massive shopping. Organic tote bags are completely safe, and they are not made out of chemicals, and other phosphates. You can visit any of the retail stores, or even surf with the net to find the best quality certified Organic tote bags.

The sports bottles are generally recycled and they are absolutely eco-friendly. These bottles are greatly used during the time of biking or hiking. They bottle come in different size and shape ranging from 9, 20, and other different cap size. The recycled sports bottles come along with their brand logos and some bottles have straps and clips for easy handling. Green promotional products are generally not distinctive with its real color, but they are usually described to be as “Green” in color. The green promotional products are made in such way, and it never harms the environment at any cost. They are undoubtedly environmental friendly and in the present business sphere, green have been the most publicized awareness and they push the real urge of active concern in mending the polluted and bruised earth.

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the way i see it is, it cost less to make those products from recycled resources as aposed to raw material. so the cost to bring that product should cost less, but i see the cost of those products keep going up!

The problem is people like the guy up above…quick to lay the blame on everyone else when he needs to look at the skeletons in his own closet.

Some materials get weaker as they are recycled. This ends up meaning that more of the material must be used to create the same or similar product. They also have to pay to transport the items from your home to the recycling center where it is re-used. In their calculations they ignore some of the costs, and just talk about “in-plant costs”. recycled products are often heavier than their virgin counterpart (paper must be thicker to avoid crumbling and such). This means it’s going to cost more to ship.

The slogan for a greener earth is reduce, re-use, recycle…in that order.

The first step to a greener life is reducing what you use. This means avoiding packaged foods, or excessively packaged foods. You cannot avoid packaged food entirely, but you can buy in bulk. When you get home with the stuff, re-package it into smaller packages, and follow the next rule…use re-usable packages for your smaller packages. Also furniture…you should by stronger furniture that’s going to last longer rather than buying the cheap stuff that breaks in a year or 2. Same for appliances and what-not.

The second step is re-using what you use. Re-usable containers mentioned above is one way to re-use stuff. Another would be to not throw away that DVD/VCR combo player that the VCR quit working on. Instead, put it in a kids room so they can watch DVDs on it. They will love it, even though the VCR doesn’t work. You could even give it to someone else who doesn’t have one. That box that your new microwave came in will be good for packing winter clothes in during the summer. Here’s one straight from jail!!! Those labels on deodorant and other products…they can be peeled off, and used as tape! In the Coles county jail in IL (US) they roll up their commissary bags into a pole, and use it to reach the buttons on the TV so they can change the channel at night after lock-down. They use deodorant bottle and shampoo bottle labels for the tape to hold it together. They also use empty plastic peanut butter jars for glasses to drink out of, and to prepare those dehydrated noodles in. You can learn a lot from people in jail. They have plenty of time to sit and think about a solution to their limited supply of materials to work with. They use cracker boxes to hold packets of salt. pepper, ketchup, mustard, and jelly that came on their meal trays. Then when someone comes in, and wants these things, they trade for commissary.

The third step is recycling what you use. No need in describing this one. It’s already on your mind, and based on the question you know plenty about it.

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The main reason recycled content products seem to cost more is they are generally produced by smaller and newer companies. They are still developing technologies and building up their manufacturing processes. When either the new company grows or a large company begins to make recycled products the cost will come down.

We need to continue to recycle and complete the cycle by buying recycled.

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My name is Stephen and I am President of Future Futurity, Inc. I am in the process of an ambitious project that is very difficult to accomplish without the help and input of others. I am writing a proposal to achieve energy independence by 2020 using solar and wind power as a main way to achieve it. I have found a creative way to pay for the project and am putting a great deal of effort into it. But it’s very hard working on it by myself. I’m looking for four other men and women to work with me on this project who will receive proper credit for working with me. Aside from that, I would like to meet others of like mind to create friendships with. Just view my profile for my IM and e-mail address as well as my MySpace page and brand new group.