Monthly Archive for November, 2007

“Number of Cellphones Now Equal To Half the Human Species!”

From Slashdot:

Netbuzz writes:

“A major milestone was reached today, according to communications industry analysts: there are now some 3.3 billion mobile phone accounts worldwide. Of course, it doesn’t really mean half the world’s population has a cell phone, since users in 59 countries average more than one per person. ‘”The mobile industry has constantly outperformed even the most optimistic forecasts for subscriber growth,” Mark Newman, head of research at Informa said in a statement. “For children growing up today the issue is not whether they will get a mobile phone, it’s a question of when,” Newman said. In recent years the industry has seen surging growth in outskirts of China and India, helped by constantly falling phone and call prices, with cellphone vendors already eyeing inroads into Africa’s countryside to keep up the growth.’”

3.3 BILLION mobile phone accounts!

That is a staggering sign of the potential for inter-human connectivity.

Just think: What if you had friends in an unstable country (think Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan.) What if those friends could call you and beg for help when they were in danger? Describe their attackers? Name their oppressors? Give you their locations? Wouldn’t that do a lot more to stem the tide of international genocide than an ad campaign?

With greater communication comes a greater sense of personal responsibility among the communicators. To communicate means to look out for one another, to help, to give solace.

I am filled with hope and optimism.

love,

J

Amazing Recycling Book For Kids! (And Growns!)

Hello All,

Today I was given an amazing book. It’s called “Recycled Crafts Box,” by Laura Martin. The R.C.B. is a instruction guide for making wonderful and whimsical toys out of recycled materials.

Ms. Martin has thoughtfully broken each chapter down by material, so if you have, say, a big stack of paper that you were otherwise going to put in a landfill, why not use it to make this!:


A little house! My favorite part is the cotton ball chimney smoke. Ingenious!

And look at this! A timeline of Trash!

A mere two hundred years ago, almost all of our trash was in some way recycled, either by reusing things, composting things, or using household scraps as animal feed. Now, we simply pile it up, cover it with dirt, and there it sits.

This book cleverly shows many ways of not only reducing our waste stream, but also having a good time learning and creating in the process, and by doing that, you’ll be taking steps to protect your fellow humans.

I will be using/referencing this book often in years to come.

Go on Amazon, buy this book, make things with your children.
amazon.com/Recycled-Crafts-Box

Huzzah to Ms. Martin, who is today’s recipient of the SuperforestNYC Rad Person Award!

Love to all,

Jackson

Smarter Solar Panels

Nanosolar in Palo Alto, CA has invented a method of printing thin, flexible, solar panels!

Instead of thick, bulky panels, these panels are as thin as a supermodel, and produce far more electricity!

Check out this short!
kqed.org

nanosolar.com
Nanosolar, Inc.
5521 Hellyer Avenue
San Jose, CA 95138
Fax: 408.365.5965
Email: info@nanosolar.com

Watch Solar Panels Being Made

Fascinating, no? Who knew that fabbing a solar panel was so time intensive?
But really, six a day?
This is inexcusable. No wonder the darn things are so unaffordable!
Automation, people! Let our tireless friends the machines handle all the soldering and assembly, and then see how many you can make in a day.

We have far to go.

But it’s great that we’re going!

You’re Stepping On My Ads!

Hello All!

I was just at the Metreon in San Francisco and saw something that made me smile.

A company called Reactrix has created an ingenious thing: an advertising carpet!
Well, not really a carpet, but a reflective mat on the ground, with images projected from above, so that when you walk across it, the images underfoot react to your presence. The best part? You can interact with everything!
There’s a space game where you control a little spaceship with your foot, firing lasers by tapping your toes!
There’s a ninja game where you flick throwing stars with your feet.
There’s a Skittles ad where you walk around and piles of Skittles accumulate at your feet.

I must have spent twenty minutes looking at this thing.

Reactrix has done something very special, they’ve found a fabulous and engaging new way to advertise.
This is very much the new way. Don’t just show me the product, let me engage with it. Let me kick it. Let me fling ninja stars at it with my feet. Let me walk through piles of it. Treat me like a thinking human being, and I won’t resent being advertised to.

There is no limit to the great things one could do with the Reactrix System. As a teaching tool, it could be immensely useful. As a method of getting people to play together, as an ice-breaker, this system’s use is unparalleled.


And the best part: Look at the way kids engage with it. Kids completely understand the tech, while most adults seemed content to stand at the edges and watch.

Don’t watch, play.

Love,

J

UK Smartness

All the outlets in Jolly Old have incorporated this very smart, energy saving feature: an On/Off switch!

Plug your chargers, computers, or anything else that steadily drains power, and when you’re done using them, simply turn the entire outlet off.

No hassle.

Huzzah!

Swedish Wind!

Get your minds out of the gutter.

I’m talking about wind power!

The New York Times has a cautious article on Sweden’s big push towards an all-renewable energy infrastructure.

Now, wind power does have its naysayers, (although, I’ve yet to meet one,) but wind power’s plusses here so far outweigh its minuses, I say when it comes to nice, clean turbines heating my bath water and providing me light to read, the more the merrier.

Here’s the article: nytimes.com

Which would you prefer in your backyard?
Coal Power.

Wind Power.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

-Jackson

The Incomparable Ramona Otto

There is an artist in Los Angeles whose work I adore.

Her name is Ramona Otto, and for many years she’s been making the most wondrous things, all out of found and recycled objects!

check her site out:

ramonaotto.com

Contest! Ends Jan 1!!!

Okay,

Here’s the deal.
You wanna win your very own prints of Eco-maths One and Two?
Each one will be beautifully printed on the finest of papers, and hand signed by me.

To win, you must simply come up with a title for this image:

In it, I envision a wonderful (and completely possible) present.
In the top-left corner, a Garbage truck is dumping garbage into a Sorting Machine.
The Sorter then separates the trash into three things:

Compost
wikipedia.org/wiki/compost

Biofuel
wikipedia.org/wiki/biofuel

And Recyclables
wikipedia.org/wiki/recyclables

The compost is used to grow delicious food.
The recyclables are compressed into bales and sent to be remade into new products.
(Ideally, they’d be remade very nearby.)
And the biofuels help the garbage truck, the crane, the tractor, and the big rig run on clean, domestic, and renewable fuel.

What shall we call this little beauty?

Simply put your idea in the comments section at the bottom.

A winner will be chosen by me* on the last day of the year.

Hooray!

Jackson

*And by “me,” I mean a cow, wandering around a field with a grid painted on it.

Bento Box-tastic!

Hello All!

A friend of mine recently told me that his children’s school had sent a letter home with all of the kids asking parents to help them in cutting down on lunch-time related waste. Which, if you think about it, makes beautiful sense. I mean, how many ziplock bags, or squares of foil, or juice boxes get tossed after a child has finished with his or her lunch? Tons.

Here is a clean, modern, and elegant solution:

Bento Boxes!

Here are some very nice ones.

The dignified laptop lunch set.
laptoplunches.com

The Pop-art brilliance of the round/square bento, from plasticashop.com:
plasticashop.com

And the ninjitsu like precision of this little beauty from jbox.com
jbox.com

Your little one will be the toast of the school-yard with their very own bento!
And you’ll be doing your part in living renewable today.

Enjoy yourselves.

Jackson

Syntroleum: Part I – Chicken Fat to Jet Fuel!

Sometimes I’m a bad environmentalist. I say this this because I utilize commercial airline travel. A lot. I figure that I fly roughly twice a month.

So it excites me greatly to learn that the nice folks over at Syntroleum have developed a process that allow them to turn just about any fat, including vegetable fats, into both biodiesel and jet fuel. All clean burning and renewable. They’ve also signed a deal with Tyson Chicken to convert chicken fat into fuel. Very tasty.

Here’s a blurb from their website:

“Building on over 20 years experience, Syntroleum has proven its ability to produce synthetic fuels from a wide variety of feedstock—from natural gas to fats, oils and greases. The Fischer-Tropsch process has already been utilized through the company’s comprehensive labs and production facilities to produce significant amounts of synthetic diesel and jet fuel. These fuels have been successfully proven to perform better than conventional fuels across most operating parameters, including emissions, thermal stability, and cetane. With the growing demand for renewable fuels worldwide, Syntroleum is also utilizing its Biofining™ technology to produce renewable synthetic fuels with the same superior qualities.”

Just think, the era of fossil fuels is really and truly drawing to a close. And we’ll all live to see it end! Huzzah to progress and technology! Huzzah to Science!

And especially, huzzah to my friend Oded who alerted Superforest to this wonderful breakthrough.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I must say that they are a subsidiary of Halliburton, but that’s great! Good on you, Halliburton. We need more major companies investing in clean-tech and this is certainly a giant leap in the right direction.)

I plan on getting in touch with Syntroleum when I return to NYC after Thanksgiving, so check back for some sweet sweet content.

Love,

Jackson

syntroleum.com
Investor PDF: syntroleum.com
Info on the Fischer-Tropsch Process: wikipedia.org

Earthrise Redux

The Japanese Kaguya spacecraft has recreated the famous “Earth-rise” photo taken by William Anders during the Apollo 8 mission to the Moon on December 24, 1968


Lovely images courtesy of the Japanese Kaguya Lunar spacecraft.


The original shot from the Apollo Mission.

From News.com:

“JAXA’s spacecraft is currently orbiting the moon and its equipment is being tested in preparation for its real mission to map the moon with high-definition images later this month. Two satellites carried by Kaguya, including one that will eventually land on the moon, have already been launched into lunar orbit to help the lunar mapping project.”

www.news.com

SF UK

Hello All,

I am currently on assignment in Jolly Old England!
Working very hard during the days, doing my best to stay present and aware.

Unfortunately, I’m not able to post much during the next week, but I will try my best to get the odd thing up.

The New Year is rapidly approaching.

Love to all,

Jackson