Monthly Archive for March, 2009

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When Green Comes A ‘Knockin!

jordan published on March 27, 2009 in zeitgeist. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

So there I am, soaking up some rays on my sun terrace, watering the basil and cilantro plants in my new herb garden (post to come!), when there’s a knock on my door.  I go to answer, and what should I find?

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A green bag of sustainable delight dangling from my doorknob.  Like magical elves, the amazing people of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, had vanished, leaving their amazing gift behind.  And what was inside?

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This. Is. AMAZING!  Free CFL lightbulbs!  A guide to conserving water and power!  A green lightbulb magnet!  I was floored.  What did I do deserve this?  Apparently, I simply pay my utilities, like everyone else.  Still I felt like a kid on Christmas.

Because it isn’t everyday someone leaves green gifts on your doorstep.  More like neverday.  Especially not from the people in power.  Which only deepens my growing love affair with LADWP even more.  In fact, I’ve had quite a hot and heavy week exploring the sexy side of their Green Power campaign, and their Free Tree Initiative.  Both of which I’ll be posting about next week…

Thanks LA!  I believe nothing motivates humans more than raising awareness, especially when that campaign is delivered right to your door.  With free gifts!  GENIUS!   Let’s help all cities everywhere follow the lead here.  Because Energy and Water Conservation is a cause we can all work on individually and daily, something small, simple, and unbeliavably important to do.

Now I’ve gotta go install some free energy saving lightbulbs!   It’s our world.  Take care of it.

-Much appreciation,

jordan

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised!

jordan published on March 26, 2009 in technology. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Not the ELECTRIC REVOLUTION at least.   Which is happening now.   And only the internet is talking about.  Why is that?

I call to your attention now Exhibit A: the revolutionary Turbo-Battery!

Announced last week in Nature Magazine, MIT Researchers have developed new lithium batteries that take less time to charge than it just took you to read this sentence.  Clocking in at 10 seconds or less, these new turbo-batteries also discharge energy quickly.  Imagine this:  You’re cell-phone dies, or your laptop.  Instead of waiting hours, you can be fully charged in seconds!

And that’s just the start.  The new material and design of these batteries gives them a re-use value exponentially higher than rechargeable batteries on the market today.  They last longer, are lighter, and do the job at 100X normal speed.  And they can be made near cost to common batteries.

It gets better.  Because the inventors imagine creating an electric car battery that could fully charge a car in the time it takes you to pump gas.  Imagine pulling up to electric recharge stations instead of petroleum pumps.  An invention like this could not only revolt-utionize the way we use and consume personal power, it could usher in a new area of electric vehicles!

It makes me wonder how long it took people to take notice of revolutionary inventions back in the day.  Ben Franklin a kite and a key.  Foolishness!  Alexander Graham Bell and his lightbulb. Pahleese!   And don’t get me started on that hack Tesla!

These are the kinds of stories I believe should be all over the global news.  Awareness leading to consumer demand which in turn fuels the gears of industry, thus expediting revolutionary advancements like these.

But if the revolution will not be televised, we’ll just have to keep raising our small voices to spread the word.  So pass it on.

The future is now!

-jordan

Tom Hank’s Myspace Page & Electric Car Adventures!

jackson published on March 26, 2009 in celebrity, technology, transportation and zeitgeist. 3 Comments Tags: , , , .

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(Tom Hanks image via flickr user Alan Light)

Good morning SuperForest!

Don’t ask how I got there, but I found myself on Tom Hanks’ myspace page this morning and to my pleasant surprise, found that he’d made and posted two delightful videos extolling the virtues of his electric car.

Check it!

Charming City, no?

I remember why I found Tom Hanks’ myspace page! I just watched the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are and saw that it was produced by Playtone, which rang a bell, so I googled that, and BAM, charming two-parter on electric cars.

Thanks, Tom Hanks!

The Yellow Bird Project!

carla published on March 25, 2009 in art, celebrity and zeitgeist. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

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Howdy SuperForest,

As I was skipping across several of my favorite websites this evening, I discovered an amazing Montreal based non-profit organization called “The Yellow Bird Project”. I’ll let them explain the wonderful work they do…

Yellow Bird Project is a Montreal-based, non-profit initiative. We collaborate with musicians in designing a T-shirt, we print and sell them on our website, and all of the money we make goes to charity. Which charity? Each of the artists gets to choose their own. We have three fundamental aims:

1) To make money for charities directly through T-shirt sales.

2) To raise awareness for charity organizations through artists’ endorsement.

3) To raise the profile of the artists we like.

We have specifically approached individuals that we think are creative and conscientious enough to make a difference.

This is a T-shirt designed by the independent folk band, Bon Iver…

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Never heard of them? Neither had I, and my curiosity quickly led me to youtube.

Have you ever had the experience where you listen to a song for the first time and the drop of the first couple notes just feel right to you? An instant connection to the music? That’s how I felt with Bon Iver. It was love at first listen.

And that’s when I realized what an amazing organization The Yellow Bird Project really is! They are not only raising money and awareness to worthy causes, but they are opening our eyes (and ears) to bands we probably would have never been introduced to otherwise. You donate money to charities, get a rockin’ unique shirt, and possibly find a new artist or two to follow. A win, win, win for everyone!

Check out the Yellow Bird Project site, maybe you too will find an incredible artist that tickles your own musical interest.

Love to all,
Carla

P.S. My heart leaped out of my chest and moonwalked across my desk when I saw The Shins are involved and are raising money for the Nature Conservancy. <3

(Found The Yellow Bird Project through It’s Nice That!)

Miracle Fruit!

aaron published on March 25, 2009 in food. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , .

250px-miracle2It’s a fruit!  No… it’s a berry!  No wait… it’s a miracle!  

The Synsepalum dulcificum, better know as “Miracle Fruit” or the” Miraculous Magic Flavor Berry” (I only wish I were making that up), is the best kept secret in all of plantdom.  This small fruit has the color of a cranberry, the shape of an almond and tastes like a flavorless gummy.  But the best part… it releases a natural protein called “miraculin” (again, not kidding), that causes sugar molecules to bind to the tongue.   The result —  for 15-30 minutes, everything sour tastes sweet.  Lemons taste like candy, hot sauce becomes honey barbeque.  There really is only one word to describe it… Miraculous! 

Discovered in West Africa in 1725 by French explorer Chevalier des Marchais, the berry grows on evergreen plants that reach up to 20 feet high.  The local tribes would (and still do) pick and chew these bad boys before meals.  

Since then, attempts have been made to commercialize the miracle for dietary and health benefits.  For people who suffer from obesity, diabetes, or even cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, this fruit may very well be the answer to their taste prayers.  An artificial sweetener that’s actually natural?  Amazing!

But my favorite part has got to be the “taste tripping parties”.  That’s right, you heard correctly.  People gather together, drop $30  and go to town on radishes, pickles, chili peppers… you name it.   Willy Wonka would be jealous.  

Don’t believe me?  Sounds too good to be true?  Check it out here and here.

More Juicy Updates Regarding “Let’s Globalize the Humanifesto!”

carla published on March 25, 2009 in zeitgeist. 4 Comments Tags: , .

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Great news SuperForest! It looks like the wheels of our project “Let’s Globalize the Humanifesto” are pumping at full speed! We have received two more incredible translations! One in Bahasa Indonesia by SuperForester Anindya and another in Hungarian by SuperForester Larissa! Incredible! It fills me with such optimism and excitement to see these translations coming in one by one. They are like gifts, little bundles of love energy, shining brightly for all to see.

So to recap, here are the 5 versions we have to date (including the original):

-The SuperForest Humanifesto by SuperForester Jackson

-Manifesto dell’Umanita’ translated in Italian by SuperForester Silvia

-El Humanifesto de SuperForest translated in Spanish by SuperForester Imelda

-Humanifesto translated in Bahasa Indonesia by SuperForester Anindya

-SuperForest Humanifesto-ja translated in Hungarian by SuperForester Larissa

A massive thank you to the fantastic SuperForesters who have contributed! My gratitude for your hard work, time, and effort is beyond words.

If you speak a foreign language and would like to join us in spreading the message of the SuperForest Humanifesto by translating it, feel free to contact us with questions or simply send us your translated version.

What other adventures lie ahead in our quest to spread the words of the Humanifesto? How many more translations can we share with the world?

Personally, I can’t wait to find out.

One Love,
C

Bloggers Unite to Wish You a Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

jackson published on March 24, 2009 in celebrity, technology and zeitgeist. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , .

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Good Morning SuperForest!

Today is a very special day!

from findingAda.com:

“Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology.

Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines. Entrepreneurs, innovators, sysadmins, programmers, designers, games developers, hardware experts, tech journalists, tech consultants. The list of tech-related careers is endless.”

Rad, we’re so in. And so are quite a few other folks. As of this posting, 1,875 blogs from around the globe have pledged to post about Ada Lovelace. And you can join us in the fun!

“To take part all you need to do is sign the pledge, pick your tech heroine and then publish your blog post any time on Tuesday 24th March 2009. It doesn’t matter how new or old your blog is, what gender you are, what language you blog in, or what you normally blog about – everyone is invited.”

Okay, here’s our post:

Good Morning SuperForest!

March 24th is the day we remember the extraordinary woman, Ada Lovelace.
Born in 1815, Ada was a bit of a mathematical genius. Highly ahead of her time. So ahead of her time that she wrote the first computer program 98 years before the first functional computer was made, in 1941. Ada was able to read the writings of a man named Charles Babbage, (who theorized that a machine could be created that could compute sums, store data, and receive and output data) and from his notes devise a method for using the machine to calculate a sequence of Bernoulli numbers. In no uncertain terms Ada Lovelace is the mother of modern computing, and today the blogosphere has united to hail her triumph.

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(click the map to see where bloggers are posting from.)

Amazing. Today, keep in your thoughts the incredible contributions that women have made in science and technology.

And much love to All!

p.s. Is this inappropriate? It was the first thing that popped into my head when I sat down to write this post.

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Mmmmmm. George Lucas, you sly devil.

Thanks to SuperForester Christine and spookoo for the heads up!

Thai Spiderman to the Rescue!

jordan published on March 24, 2009 in celebrity. 3 Comments Tags: , , , .

O SuperForest, I just loves me an uplifting news blurp… especially ones of the hilarious and random variety.  Like this one:

That adorable little 8-year old with the boba tea in hand and the rad shirt on, is autistic.  The story goes… on his first day at special needs school, little man tate there climbed onto the ledge of his 3rd story classroom and couldn’t be coaxed back in.

Cue SpiderMan!

And this has to be my favorite part: “A remark by his mother about his passion for comic superheroes prompted fireman Somchai Yoosabai to rush back to the station, where he kept a Spider-Man costume in his locker.”

Allow me to repeat that last bit… he kept a spider-man costume in his locker!  How awesome is that?  I mean imagine if every cop had a superman cape on backup, every lifegaurd a submariner suit in his tower.  In any event it worked: “The sight of Mr Yoosabai dressed as Spider-Man and holding a glass of juice for him, brought a big smile to the boy’s face, and he promptly threw himself into the arms of his “superhero”.

Gotta love that.  Thanks friendly neighborhood spider-man!  And thanks bbc news for the report!

Enjoyable Music: Pomplamoose

chris published on March 23, 2009 in art and celebrity. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Hey there SuperForest,

Let me tell you about some cool new music. Pomplamoose is a collaboration between two musicians (boyfriend and girlfriend nonetheless, and a super cute couple on top of that) Nataly Dawn and Jack Conte. They play all the instruments, their music is catchy and nice to listen to, and they ooze positivity. This post is already getting too wordy (I’m a fan of letting things speak for themselves), so check it:

Whoa, pretty good right? All of this is done in a house, and for a guitarist like myself just getting into this recording scene (trust me, it’s insane!) this is such a cool inspiration. It’s obvious they’re having massive fun, and someday I’d like to do that with my friends too. The creative spirit just oozes from their aptly named VideoSongs (anything you hear will at sometime be featured visually). It’s cool to see every little thing that went into the big picture.

By the way, pomplamoose is one of those words everyone laughed at considerably back in French 1 in Freshman year. It means grapefruit, and the French influence is apparent (especially in the tone of some of the accordion lines).

Anywho, they just released a CD on iTunes which can be found here, their Twitter here, and their mySpace here. Hope you enjoy. Hope you have a great day.

Love,

Chris

QUICK UPDATE: Pomplamoose is a play on the word pamplemousse. Shows how much I retained in my French classes. Woops!

Size matters!

april published on March 23, 2009 in zeitgeist. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Yesterday, Australia’s Big Pineapple was officially heritage-listed. Built in the ’70s, it is the reason millions of tourists head to the country’s sunny Queensland each year. It got me thinking about other “big things” and my googling lead me here: Big Things. While us Down Under folk boast the Big Pineapple; Big Apple; Big Avocado; Big Banana; Big Marino; and Big Penguin (see images above), what of all the other countries? While a quick internet search might answer my question, I’d prefer to hear about international “big things” from you! Talk to me, people …

April

SuperForest Comics: “Choices”

jackson published on March 23, 2009 in art and celebrity. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

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We only have to go it alone if we choose to…

Need a hand with anything at all?

Just Ask SuperForest!

Love!

Carbon Calculator

aaron published on March 23, 2009 in zeitgeist. 4 Comments Tags: , , .
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Good Morning Superforesters.  It’s time to do your homework… algebra more specifically.  Thinking about my eco-impact on the planet, I realized that I have no quantifiable clue as to how much my sustainable efforts have helped (or more often than not… fallen short).   Thank god for the Carbon Calculator!   This nifty little gadget allows you to quickly calculate your carbon footprint in comparison to the National Average.  Not only that, but it also provides great suggestions to further reduce your output.  And it only takes 1 minute!
Now there are many sites across the web that showcase this tool.  From Al Gore’s climatecrisis.net to the carbonfund.org
Both terrific sites with loads of useful information to guide you on the path toward eco-consciousness.  But I personally find the National Forest Foundations calculator the easiest and most user friendly is the National Forest Foundation’s which can be found here: http://www.nationalforests.org/carbon
What I love about the National Forest Foundation is that they are proactively revitalizing and reforesting one of our most precious and most overlooked resources.  And from their Youth Conservation Campaigns, to their Community Tree Planting Initiatives, to their Give a $1, Plant a Tree Campaign… they make it real easy to get involved.

So stop what you’re doing, and take one minute to calculate your carbon footprint.  There are no excuses.  Do the Math.

SuperForest Projects: Let’s Globalize the Humanifesto! (An Update!)

carla published on March 23, 2009 in zeitgeist. 2 Comments Tags: , .

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Good Afternoon SuperForest!

Exciting news regarding “Let’s Globalize the Humanifesto!”, we’ve already received two incredible translations! Yay! Apart from being wonderful translations in the beautiful languages of Spanish and Italian, I was flabbergasted at how quickly they came in! A big hug to SuperForester Silvia for submitting Manifesto dell’Umanita’ and SuperForester Imelda for sending El Humanifesto de SuperForest. It’s amazing to think how many more people are now able to read the words of the Humanifesto. With each and every translation, we are opening the floodgates of awareness to thousands and thousands of people.

So let’s keep fanning this fire, two translations are awesome but we really want to get as many languages involved here as possible. One thing that makes SuperForest so special is the diversity of its readers. This is the perfect opportunity for you beautiful, unique, and eclectic readers to flaunt your stuff. Get your country’s flag added to the big “Operation: Let’s Globalize SuperForest” Earth. There’s room for everyone! If you speak any language (and I mean ANY language) other than English, Spanish, and Italian, SuperForest’s arms are wide open to receiving your translation. If you speak Spanish or Italian and notice an improvement (not that they need any, of course) that can be made to our translated versions, feel free to offer any suggestions.

What an awesome way to start the week! Because let’s face it, unity is incredible, but diversity is worth celebration too. And operation “Let’s Globalize the Humanifesto!” is all about combining those two incredible forces…essentially we are creating unity through celebrating our diversity. So keep up the good work SuperForesters and keep the translations coming.

Again, a massive thank you goes out to SuperForesters Silvia and Imelda! Your time and effort is much appreciated.

Happy Day,
Carla