Wednesday. Rehearsal. And snow. (((More about the rehearsal and new music tomorrow)))
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addLib is an iPhone app that uses algorhythms to turn photos intp graphic design. It’s fun, but one drawback is that it adds words and numbers seemingly at random and that function cannot be turned off. On Tuesday it wanted to add “2th” (sic) February to several pics…
The app added a nine to my photo on the first try – how cool is that!
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From Bruce Sterling’s blog at Wired. (((pretty much the only thing I raed at Wired anymore)))
Drive a car, pay with life expectancy | Beyond The Beyond
*Statistics are a wonderful thing, aren’t they?*I hadn’t heard that about the cigarettes. Five minutes off lifespan per cig. That ought to be written on the pack, shouldn’t it?
*The worst thing about this “twenty minutes” business is that you already lost the hour off your lifespan while you were stuck in traffic.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/hour+driving+could+reduce+life+minutes+Study/2514598/story.html
TORONTO — Researchers at a Toronto hospital say that every hour spent driving could lead to a 20-minute loss in life expectancy.
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Sustainable design, as debated in Davos this week and reported by the NY Times. By the way, I love the New York Times Skimmer and look forward to what the Times will cook up for the iPad.
Debating Sustainability – NYTimes.com
Mr. McDonough started with a recent success — the Brazilian city of Curitiba. Thanks to its visionary mayor, Jaime Lerner, Curitiba has been transformed by a series of sustainable initiatives from waste recycling programs to the construction of new parks (where sheep “mow” the grass) as well as a cheap, efficient public transport network and neighborhood libraries that offer every child free access to the books they need for school and the Internet.Then came a historic example — the centuries-old Bedouin tent woven from goat’s hair. “It does so many things with one simple non-toxic fabric,” Mr. McDonough said. “It provides deep shade in a place with no shade. The black outer surface causes air to move by convective currents creating a cooling breeze. Its coarse open weave allows a beautiful light to permeate the shadow when the sun shines, but swells up tight as a drum when it rains. And you can roll it up and take it with you.”
Mr. Brown focused on successful corporate approaches to sustainable design. One was the supply chain developed by Preserve, an American manufacturer of recyclable plastic household products from recycled materials. Preserve collaborates with empathetic businesses to recycle as much as possible throughout the product’s life. As well as sourcing recycled plastic from the organic yogurt pots returned to Stonyfield Farms, it has established collection points in Whole Foods stores, making it easy for its customers to send back their Preserve products for recycling.
His second example was the Japanese government’s Cool Biz campaign, which he praised for “speaking to one of the biggest challenges of sustainability — behavior change.” It was intended to encourage office workers to wear lighter, less formal clothing during the summer thereby enabling their employers to save energy by turning down the air conditioning. A new line of clothing was produced, and the prime minister was photographed wearing it. To allay employees’ concerns about breaching Japan’s strict dress codes, their employers gave them “Cool Biz” badges to wear as reminders that they were allowed to dress casually.
Give me sheep mowing the grass over noisy, blue plume of smoke caughing ride-on mowers any day!! And I love the simplicity of wear less at the office in the Summer, so we can use less air-conditioning! I also think this raises an important point:
Mr. McDonough singled out the questionable recycling claims made for PVC-backed carpet. “PVC has been connected to some of the worst chemical consequences on human and ecological health,” he said. “Recycling is an important sustainability strategy but recycling the wrong things makes the products perfectly wrong.”
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In a February 2010 Apparel educational publication there is focus on recycling naming it “Fabric Frontier” and it talks about “high tech garments”, how one cup of coffee grounds is just enough to recycle into a fabric for manufacturering two shirts; and how discarded audio cassette tapes are recycled into a fabric that is also audible. Maybe there is hope for me to become a techie after all. :) Thanks for all the links on sustainability. Cool.