Tag: Wind kissing

Inhabitat is fired

I don’t know how many of you read inhabitat.com. I’d been reading for a while now, and have just removed them from my RSS reader. You’re probably familiar with the One Laptop Per Child initiative, which aims to provide laptops for children in developing countries. You can argue about whether or not this will do any good, or about the motivations of the founders, or whatever. But you can’t call it the “$100 laptop”, which is what they were originally calling it. It doesn’t cost $100. It’s at least twice that, and a website calling it the $100 laptop is irresponsible and misleading.

So, when Inhabitat did that for the umpteenth time, I left a comment expressing my displeasure. It was strongly worded, but no profanity. It was, I thought, an entirely reasonable criticism. Well, whoever moderates the comments there apparently believes in censorship rather than actually defending a position.

I have never deleted a comment here based on the content.  All I’ve ever deleted was spam.  Not to say I wouldn’t delete a comment if it were sufficiently offensive, but if I were going to delete comments of everyone who disagreed with me, I might as well just stop allowing comments.  Or stop blogging altogether.

So, does anyone know any good wind-kissing hippie blogs?  I stopped reading Treehugger because they just aren’t very good.  So I’m left with almost nothing.  I can only deal with a pretty small amount of Al Gore worship in my hippie blogs, so keep that in mind.

This thing is going to look funny

Inhabitat » TRANSPORTATION TUESDAY: The Smart Car

The Smart car is a tiny subcompact vehicle, only about 9 feet long and 5 feet wide. The three cylinder engine has fantastic fuel consumption, getting 42 miles per gallon, and has a top speed of 90mph.

So, those of you not in the United States, or who have traveled to some of those other countries who realize that not everyone needs a gigantic car may have seen the Smart car, about the size of two defensive linemen.  Seeing them parked on the street looks a little ridiculous even when the cars around them are smaller than your typical American behemoth, so imagine this car parked between a Yukon Denali and chromed-out H2.

I ‘m a little disappointed that it will both cost $11,000+ and get only 42 miles to the gallon, but the bigger picture is that Daimler thinks this thing will sell here.  That means that we’re starting to see people thinking differently about transportation and conservation and things like that.  Hopefully seeing these tiny things driving around will make more people reconsider buying an 8-passenger SUV to drive to work alone.

My Country Tis of Corn

So, the large, scary government agency that indirectly pays my salary is celebrating America Recycles Day today. That’s a good thing. Raising recycling awareness is nearly always a positive thing. It’s probably always positive, but I’m just being cautious here.

Anyway, to celebrate this, they “will be handing out biobased corn products and informational brochures”.

I won’t discuss the grammar of the sentence beyond being glad that I don’t work for the public school system. Wait, I will. Do you think the informational brochures are biobased? I think they are. But do you think they are also corn products? The sentence construction leaves it open to interpretation. I love interpretation! It lets me berate you for disagreeing with me even if we’re both right.

What I will discuss, however, is the use of corn. We eat corn. We eat corn in almost everything. Next time you’re at the grocery store. Check the ingredients on everything you’ve purchased. You will likely be shocked at how many of the items contain corn in some form or another. A disturbingly high percentage will contain high fructose corn syrup. Most loaves of bread do (Not the good bread at Whole Foods and, to a lesser extent, Harris Teeter. And probably other stores, too, but those are the ones I usually go to. Anyway.).

We should just replace the stars on the flag with corn kernels. We could replace the stripes with ears. The ‘Ol Corn and Corn, we could say. The Yellow, Yellow, and Yellow. It would be great.

In fact, let’s replace everything with corn. Stop raising cattle and chickens! They just eat all our corn! We can grind corn into a pulp, add artificial flavors and colors, and voila! We have steak! Stop buying imported products! We can make everything we need out of corn! It’s BIOBASED! That must be good because it has “bio” in the name!

This is beautiful

Inhabitat » SOLAR DECATHLON 2007: Technische Universität Darmstadt

Combining the manufacturing expertise of Volkswagen with a stunningly modern design sensibility, the Technische Universität Darmstadt’s wowed the crowds this week at the 2007 Solar Decathlon with their gorgeously innovative Solar Decathlon home.

I’m not exactly sure why I haven’t gone down the the Solar Decathlon.  They’re announcing the winner today.  Maybe we can stop by on the way to flag football tomorrow.

Anyway, the house I linked above is beautiful.  It looks like a little beach house.  And it’s totally solar powered.  Imagine dozens of these set just off a nice clean beach, accessible by foot or bike, and maybe a hybrid bus, but no driveways or street parking.  Maybe there’s a few Sunfish pulled up on the sand, and a lost flip flop next to a path paved in crushed shells.

If that doesn’t make you nostalgic for your childhood, then I have to ask what the heck you did growing up.

Prius good, bottled water bad

I walked over to the grocery store to get a sandwich for lunch a little while ago, and because the person who designed the parking lots around here forgot that some people actually walk places, I had to maneuver my way through parked cars to get to the store.

I passed a Toyota Prius and thought, “Hey, look, an environmentally responsible mode of transportation!”  Seriously.  I thought that.

Then I noticed the cup holder.  Bottled water!  Bottled water is bad.  I forget the exact numbers, but I think it takes 300,000 gallons of water to make one 20-ounce bottled water.  It might be 400,000, or maybe a billion.

Anyway, the point is that bottled water should be your last resort, when you’re away from home and really thirsty and pass by a 7-11.  Otherwise, go buy a water filter and a thermos and carry it with you.

Really, you should try it.  You get to look at people drinking bottled water and be all smug.  It’s fun.  I mean, what’s the point of saving the world if you can’t be smug about it to the enviro-heathens?  But don’t be a jerk about it.  Smugness is best kept to yourself.

Paper-free reading

I was reading Charles Stross’ review of the latest in Sony’s line of e-book readers.  He gives a brief disclaimer about Sony’s status as Evil, and then goes on to talk about the device.  As much as I want one, I absolutely refuse to buy a Sony product.  But then he mentions the upcoming Bookeen Cybook 3, which should be coming out this month.  It sounds cool, as long as the price isn’t astronomical (The other competitor he mentions is $700, which is absurd.  People wouldn’t even buy an e-book reader from Apple at that price).

I’d really like to have a nice e-book reader.  It would be great on the Metro.  I would even pay for a few e-books if the reading experience was good.  Unfortunately, no one I’m willing to do business with has brought anything reasonable to market.

This is especially appropriate today.  Paper should soon be obsolete.  There will be those who still cling to their real newspapers and real books (And at least with books, I’ll be among them).  But once we have an affordable electronic alternative to paper, we need to just stop printing words on paper completely.  Forget recycling paper, we need to just stop making it.  We will all be better off if paper stays in living tree form.

It will ease the transition if e-book readers can include a nice search, both within the text, and a Google search for context and word definitions.  Every time I read the paper on the Metro, I find myself annoyed that I can’t click a link for further detail, or look up a word for the meaning or the context.  And I can’t get through a book without wishing I could do a quick search for the last time a character was mentioned to refresh my memory on something or other.

Anyway, if this thing comes out this month at less than $300, I will buy it.  Barring some unforeseen deal-breaker like no Ubuntu compatibility or something like that, I’ll buy it.

Today is Blog Action Day

Blog Action Day

On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind – the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future.

So. The environment. It sure is important, huh?

You know, I don’t quite remember what it was that actually got me thinking about the environment. It’s the kind of thing that tends to start slow. At first maybe you just make a better effort to recycle, and maybe buy a few compact flourescent bulbs. But eventually, you start to actually change the way you think about things, and it stops being about incremental improvements in your lifestyle, and you actually fundamentally change the way you live your life.

You start to wonder if the food you’re eating is organic, or humanely raised and slaughtered. Maybe you don’t eat meat. You wonder if the cotton for your t-shirt was grown sustainably. You start using public transportation whenever possible, or maybe carpooling to work if you can’t take the train.

More importantly, you start spreading these changes to your friends, little by little. For example, the wife and I are at that age when everyone we know is having a baby. So we’ve been sending out a lot of sustainably grown bamboo baby clothes.

Anyway, what I’d like you to do, reader, is take a moment today and think about your impact on the environment, and what you can do to minimize it. You don’t have to sell your car immediately and start growing your own hemp for clothing, but once you get started, you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to make some small changes. And try searching Technorati for “Blog Action Day” and see what other blogs are saying today.

You were not meant to live that way

As I do once every month or two, I drove out to our corporate office today. This involves 20 miles on 66 West through Fairfax. I go against traffic, which is nice.

For those of you going East, though, I can’t imagine it’s worth it. It was backed up from the Beltway all the way out past Fair Oaks, and I doubt that’s unusual. Keep in mind this was before 8AM, so we haven’t even quite hit peak rush hour.

How do people justify this sort of commute? I did it for about a year, but it was my first job out of college, and I didn’t really know any better.

This will be the downfall of our society. Someday we will all commute from the Moon, and it will take us a week, but we’ll justify it by saying that real estate on Earth is just too expensive. Why, out here on the Moon, you can get a fifteen square foot survival pod for only $36,000,000 (That’s $450,000 in today’s dollars, or about 13 British pounds.)!

It’s just bad for people to spend time in the car like that. It’s stressful. It’s bad for the environment. It takes you away from people and sticks you in your own climate-controlled little box where you can choose to be entertained by repetitive garbage pop songs, inane morning show drivel, or depressing public radio.

As an aside, the radio is just awful.  I turned on 94.7, as recommended by a friend.  I don’t want to give up on the station because of just one song, but Jack Johnson sure blows.  I don’t know what the song was, but it sounded like the Chili Peppers will sound when they’re in their 80’s.  Maybe I’ll try it again on the way home.

Every time I drive to work, I want to go home and set fire to the car.  And then set fire to everyone else’s car.  Oh, wait, that’s not really environmentally responsible.  Okay, I want to recycle all the cars into affordable modular housing so we can all live in car-free cities and walk everywhere and lose weight and clean up the air (Yes, I know that cars aren’t the bulk of the air pollution, but they sure don’t help).  It will be awesome.

Anyway, stop commuting.  Telework, or get a new job closer to home.  You really didn’t need that fourth bedroom that you keep made up nicely for the guests who don’t come visit because you live an hour from civilization.  You probably didn’t even need that third bedroom where you keep all the crap your mom made you take with you when you moved out.

Wanna use your blog for good?

Blog Action Day

On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind – the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future.

I know, many people use their blog to further good causes every day while I complain about the awful horrors of living and parking in Washington, DC. But I think many people who do fight for these causes forget that most people not only aren’t fighting, they’re not even aware.

The wife has complained about Metro riders who don’t recycle the Express newspaper. This morning, there were two down escalators at Columbia Heights. I went down the one that the girl with the large suitcase didn’t choose. At the bottom of her escalator, I saw a copy of Express that someone had dropped. As I was heading to the bottom, planning to pick it up, a woman on that escalator picked it up. “Wow,” I thought. “I never see people pick up trash in the Metro station”.

And then she turned left to throw the paper in the trash, rather than right to recycle it. It got me thinking. I know that my first thought if I have paper trash is to recycle it. In fact, I’ve been reading Express this week because I haven’t been to the library. They’re doing elevator work at Pentagon City, and the recycle bins are blocked. So I’ve been putting the Express in my bag and recycling it at home, or at Columbia Heights in the evening.

But lots of people don’t even think to recycle. I’m sure this woman didn’t consciously choose not to recycle – the thought probably never crossed her mind.

That’s why it’s important to tell people about the little things you can do to help the environment. It’s no harder to recycle Express than it is to throw it away, so you can’t say it’s hard to recycle (At least in this instance). Compact fluorescent bulbs are cheaper in the long run. Cutting down on energy use at home will save you money. There are plenty of things that you can do that are easy, that don’t require huge lifestyle changes or lots of money, and that really do make a difference. But people have to know about these things.

Once you get people started thinking about how their actions can help the environment, the effect can snowball. If that woman thought about recycling Express, she might wonder why she doesn’t recycle more at home.

Anyway, join me and tons of others on October 15th for Blog Action Day.