It's yellow, it keeps you warm in cold nights but it also looks terribly goofy. This last reason clearly wasn't an argument for British outdoor firm Lippi, they have a Selk'Bag product line. The different types of bags are for sale online.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
"Extreme Makeover: Home Edition This Sunday
Tune into your ABC affiliate this Sunday night, January 18, at 8pm EST and you should see one of the first-ever green dimensions of a home built by Ty Pennington and his crew on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. On extremely short notice back in November, Extreme Makeover selected Standard Solar to design and install a pole-mounted, 2.76 kilowatt array of solar panels for the rebuilt Drumm family home in Quincy Township, Pennsylvania. As with other Extreme Makeovers, the story Ty tells and the home they build will hit home and warm the heart."
"I finally taught myself how to make Sparkleballs and now have made dozens. I've had Sparkleball-Making Parties. I made Sparkleballs for a bar in San Diego. Friends say I should start a business or charge for the instructions.
But every Christmas when I hang up my original Sparkleball and plug it in, I'm reminded of that dark Texas night and how it's those little detours we take in life that give us the most joy. And I reaffirm the fact that if I, an egghead serious negativizer, can get this much pleasure from something so simple, maybe I need to give it away. This website lets me do that.
Just call me the Missionary of Sparkleballs."
"US Airways Flight 1549, an Airbus A320 headed from New York's LaGuardia Airport to Charlotte, North Carolina, was down in the river after a failed takeoff, according to the Federal Aviation Administration."
"(Dear SuperForest,)
Where can I obtain carbon fibre bottles as on Jem Stansfield's bike? Please
see attached photo.
-Frank"
Here's Dr. Larry's full article on vole amour.
“It would be completely unethical to give the drug to someone else,” he said, “but if you’re in a marriage and want to maintain that relationship, you might take a little booster shot yourself every now and then. Even now it’s not such a far-out possibility that you could use drugs in conjunction with marital therapy.”
On the last day, in the last 5 minutes of the convention I found what I think takes the prize for greenest gadget. The PEG, that little green pogo stick is really a Personal Energy Generator that harnesses the kinetic energy of human motion. Strap it to your hip, throw it in your backpack, go out for a walk or run, and the PEG converts your human power into electric energy that will charge your ipod, your cell phone, etc! What this means is never needing to plug your gear into an outlet again! It means endlessly sustainable power! Even motivation for a healthier lifestyle! We want it, we need it now.
For the people who have spent their entire lives on Macintosh computers: 'CTRL + ALT + DELETE' is Windows-slang for 'stop this ill-considered process'. What Minelli is obviously trying to say here is: "tear this thing down, and be quick, eh".
"Dear (fellow blogger),
We would like to invite you to join us in a little adventure.
As you may well know, we've started an awareness and fund-raising campaign for the Millennium Seed Bank. In our opinion, the MSB is performing an invaluable service by preserving plant species, all for the incredibly low price of approx. $3000.00 per species. Compared to trying to save a piece of land, or an animal species, 3000 smackers is an absolute bargain.
We think their work will benefit all of humanity and is as far as we can tell, controversy free.
We happily invite you to join us in forming the Save-A-Seed Coalition.
The SASC will be an informal organization of volunteer bloggers with two goals: Tell people about the Millennium Seed Bank. And, tell more people about the Millennium Seed Bank.
We figure that the best way to raise awareness, (and hopefully funds,) for the MSB is by telling as many folks as possible, generating as much interest as we can...
Here is our plan for how we accomplish that:
We here at SuperForest will write a post about the idea of creating the Save-A-Seed Coalition and our plan to reach out to you.
If you decide to join in the fun, you write a post about being asked to join the SASC and whether or not you'll join.
If you join, we write a post about who has joined and we link to you. You write a post about joining up, and you link to us!
(See where this is going?)
Between the 37 folks who follow SF and us, we have over 50 blogs.
With 50 blogs writing about and linking to the Millennium Seed Bank, the Save-A-Seed project and one anothers blogs, we've all of a sudden created a very powerful informational and communication entity.
A sympathetic coalition of bloggers, flexing the blogosphere's infant muscles to help a needy organization sounds like just the sort of elevating content that people are hungry for, and we can all share in the fun!
Our immediate goal is to save one seed, (i.e. raise $3,000 for the MSB.) We are one third of the way there. Our plan is to raise this amount, send them a check, and immediately set to work on saving a second seed.
Micro-donations, collected across the vastness of the internet, could provide the lifeblood for the Millennium Seed Bank, and we hope that this little action will help that come to pass.
And as an added bonus, we all get to "meet" one another and get to know each other and each others work as we work for a worthy cause.
What say you? Will you join us?
With love and respect,
Jackson, Niki, Andrew, Alex, Taylor,
Jaell, Julius, April, Jordan, Iman, Carla, & Spoon
a.k.a Team SuperForest"
Clinically Dead
The music itself is splendid but I totally flipped when I learned VanGaalen is responsible for creating those lovely animations and their surrealist vibes too.
To learn more of the groovy VanGaalen, check out his website here!
Love to all,
C
Photo: Dean SewellAs a lover of all instruments, I was pretty chuffed to learn about 20 pianos being placed all over Sydney, as part of the Sydney Festival. Each piano is decorated with coloured stencils that read: Play me, I’m yours, inviting passers-by to sit down and have an impromptu jam session.
Luke Jerram, the British artistic consultant behind Play Me, I'm Yours, sees the project as a way to bring people together.
“I've got a bit of a problem with art galleries because they only reach a certain segment of the community,” he said. “This provides an opportunity for people to be creative and to connect with a stranger.”
The outdoor pianos are chained to trees and signposts, and are covered with tarpaulins, but Jerram isn’t concerned about vandals or the weather. He bought the pianos cheaply on eBay and will donate them to the communities that play them during the festival.
"Circuit bending is the creative, short-circuiting of electronic devices such as low voltage, battery-powered guitar effects, children's toys and small digital synthesizers to create new musical or visual instruments and sound generators. Emphasizing spontaneity and randomness, the techniques of circuit bending have been commonly associated with noise music, though many more conventional contemporary musicians and musical groups have been known to experiment with "bent" instruments. Circuit bending usually involves dismantling the machine and adding components such as switches and potentiometers that alter the circuit."
Her name is Cassiopeia A, and a turquoise dot in the middle of the orb is the only remnant of this now dead star. The outer shell represents the rest of the scattered remains. 3-D imaging technology has now provided astronomers and dreamers a fantastic trip through the supernova remnant. Take a look!
"Scientist-astronaut Harrison H. Schmitt stands by the American flag during a moonwalk on the Apollo 17 mission. Home, that small dot in the blackness of space above the flag, is a quarter-million miles away.
Schmitt, Gene Cernan and Ron Evans made the Apollo program's final journey to the moon in December 1972, 36 years ago this week."
Me, on holiday, pretending a slice of watermelon is my smile.
And one of my personal favorites…
This past October, a children’s book by the incredible Bob Dylan was released featuring the illustrations of Mr. Rogers. It is a book based off of Dylan’s 1974 classic “Forever Young” and the combination of the heart felt lyrics and the amazing illustrations make for a jaw dropping book.
In his blog, Paul Rogers describes the challenge in illustrating a book that takes on one of Dylan’s most loved songs. He explains that he attempted to bring elements from Dylan’s personal life background and his other songs in order to create a book that children, adults, and Bob Dylan fans in general, would enjoy.
I’d say he was very successful in doing just that.
Thanks Paul for such wonderful images and a big thank you to Mr. Dylan for such wonderful words. Words that will never cease to uplift and inspire me.
May you stay forever young,
Carla
Very useful in case you were wondering what our plastic friends look like on the inside.
"Heirloom Seeds With Local Roots
After four years of germinating the Seed Library concept, we are ready to blossom--from selling seeds that are grown in distant soils to cultivating a regional seed production network in New York State. In 2009, we will be offering over twenty varieties of locally grown seed, and most of our varieties will be rooted in the history and soils of New York.
Every year we plan on growing additional varieties on the Seed Library farm and contracting with organic and certified naturally grown farmers in the Hudson Valley. Within five years, we hope to be 100% New York grown.
Thank you for supporting our efforts to revive the local seed trade. With your help, we can save heirloom seeds and their stories."
And this is some of his artwork:
That’s right SuperForest; we’ve got another street artist for you! This one is coming to us straight from Montreal and his thought provoking artwork over in Canada has caused quite a stir. He began his work with one simple goal in mind, create more bike lanes. This goal would later evolve into somewhat of a movement. Gibson explains,
“As my personal artistic process evolved, political concerns were eclipsed by artistic ones and I often felt more inspired by the process than I did by the message I was trying to convey. Marshall Mcluhans famous quote "the medium is the message" is significant in this regard. The ubiquitousness of the asphalt road and the utilitarian sterility of the "language" of road markings provided fertile ground for a form of subversion that I found irresistible. I was provoked by a desire to jolt the driver from his impassive and linear gaze and give the more slow-moving pedestrian pause for reflection. The humourlessness of the language of the road not to mention what I consider an absurd reverence for the road and "car culture" in general made for an easy form of satire. In the spirit of Marcel Duchamps, all I had to do was paint a mustache on the Mona Lisa so to speak, to introduce a glitch in the matrix. A matrix made up in part by a worldwide network of roads and an ever-growing fleet of humans encased in steel carapaces, hurrying about like molecules in the body of an insatiable machine.”
Exciting! Some smart cats decided that his artwork was so astonishing, it had to be shared with a wider audience and as a result, they made a documentary about him. This documentary has been floating around several film festivals. Here’s a little demo.
(The print is from artist Mark Malazarte.)
"The flight from Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport completed a circuit over the Gulf of Mexico, and pilots carried out a series of tests at 38,000ft (11.6km), including a mid-flight engine shutdown.
'The airplane performed perfectly,' test pilot Rich Jankowski told the Houston Chronicle newspaper.
'There were no problems. It was textbook.'"
Textbook baby!
The best part about the test is that the biofuel used is a "drop-in fuel", meaning that there is no modification required for the aircraft to use it. The use of algae is fast becoming the future for biofuel: it grows extremely fast, does not compete with food crops, and is better for the enviroment.
All that is left is to make algae commercially competitive.
Check out the full BBC article here.
To get your algae fix, click here.
At first sight this seems just a regular carousel. It is, in fact, but the Cyclofuge Swing (as it's official name goes) is not powered by electricity or steam. No, it's powered by none other then us humans. If you look carefully there are four people at the center pedaling like a bunch of crazymen just to keep the four other people in the swing seats going.
What a wonderful project, click around the site, it holds many treasures worth discovering. Many thanks to Carlos Santana and friends for taking the initiative to spread such awe inspiring messages.
Keep it Fresh,
Carla
Neil Young knows a thing or two about cars. In today's Huffpo, he's got this to say about electricity, X-prizes, and coming opportunities for growth in the automotive industry...
"A perfect storm for innovation is gathering in Washington. With the government's recent financial assistance to GM and Chrysler, the Big 3 now have until the end of March to make the case that shows how they will survive. Survival is not enough though.
America now has a chance to lead the world in power and fuel efficiency. The Big three will still be looking for help at the end of March. As the major shareholder, the US government would have an opportunity to DEMAND the type of cars that will lead the world toward saving the planet for future generations.
If the Big three cannot agree to make only cars that are fuel efficient enough to get at least 50 MPG by 2011, 75 MPG by 2013 and 100 MPG by 2015, then they should go into bankruptcy and fend for themselves like all the other businesses that are having trouble. The truth is this can be done and innovators know the way to do it.
Better Place is a new model for power distribution to replace the old model of gas stations that supported the evolution of the automobile to this point. Better Place is taking hold in countries around the world and in some areas of the US. Better Place's revolutionary concept for distribution of power to vehicles actually lowers the price of the vehicle by making the battery free to the consumer and automaker, while a subscription allows the user to only pay for miles traveled. There is a great opportunity for innovative solutions with Better Place.
The Automotive X Prize is a race of 100MPG vehicles across America in 2010 sponsored by the Progressive Insurance Company. There are many entries. These cars must be safe and have a business plan that allows for at least 10,000 units per year. Automotive X prize contenders need to share their knowledge with the Car Czar. How will they get their cars to the magic 100mpg? There are some good ways to do it. Now is the time to share.
Innovators should swarm like locusts on Washington in January, February and March to show the Car Czar how to make fuel-efficient cars.A Car Czar who knows how it can be done, and a government in control of the automakers while they stabilize will be key to demanding all autos made in the USA have a minimum mileage rating of 50MPG. This includes cars, SUVs and pick-up trucks. Now it is time for America to take back the reins of innovation and show the true wave of the future. It is a window for a sea change and a new opportunity for America to lead the world.
Lincvolt, an X Prize contestant, is a 2.5 ton, 19.5 foot American classic now attaining 65 MPG utilizing electricity and domestic fuel. The converted 1959 Lincoln Continental MK IV demonstrates that today's big sedans SUVs and pick-up trucks can get at least 50 MPG if they are fuel-efficient and use electric power, making it obvious that smaller cars could do even better than that. Ultimately, the Lincvolt team aims to demonstrate a Lincvolt hydro bio-electric series hybrid that will attain 100MPG with domestic fuels and very low emissions.
In February, Lincvolt will begin an historic drive to Washington to showcase "the people's fuel," and show the President, the Car Czar, Congress and the Senate how innovation happening right now in America can be a beacon of change to the world.
The Lincvolt team invites the other contestants in the Automotive X Prize Race, Better Place, and innovators from around the world to join us in Washington during the first 100 days of the new administration."
This piece of work is around 30 meters (100 feet) tall and is located on the side of one of their residential buildings. But that's not all! The questions corresponding to this crossword are located all over the city (fountains, park benches, etc.). And then, when one has finished adventuring around the city and writing down their answers...
they can check those answers and watch them light up in the evening! Fun!
(Found it here through designboom)
"A gentleman is someone who makes others feel comfortable. Good manners is simply a matter of common sense and courtesy."Sounds a bit like our Humanifesto, don't it?
and,
"Being a gentleman means being there when you are needed and knowing when you are not needed. It means knowing what to say and knowing when to say nothing at all. Being a gentleman is about making the world a nicer place for other people."
"Wired.com: What is food?Cantu: It's what enables us to live — and more than that, it's dense energy storage. If you look at it from that point of view, you start shooting two birds with one shot."
"There's two ways to look at it. Let's say you have a food printer and eight cartridges, and grow eight crops on the roof, and that's all you need to replicate any food product you can imagine, from mom's apple pie to a cheeseburger with French fries. That would decentralize the food structure, and you'd know exactly where your food comes from."
"Homaro Cantu: We've been trying to incorporate food from the green world, and started growing microalgae. You can get 10,000 to 30,000 gallons of algae per acre. It can be grown in salt or fresh water, in a whole variety of temperatures. It increases the food supply rather than depleting it, and it's a net energy gain.Here's an algae-makin' bioreactor in action:
For $300 we built a photobioreactor that produced 15 gallons of food per month. The idea was to take algae, process it into sushi and fuel, and deliver it it in a truck running on algae biofuel. And we're just a bunch of chefs. If we can figure this out, I don't know why others can't."
Wowza! A group of cool cats over at Famous created this awesome New Year greeting for the Electrabel Company.
Thanks Matthew, I don't have a cat but next time I encounter one I'll be sure to look out for these signs. You can never be too careful. The complete guide can be found here!
Have a Lovely Day!
-C
We're making progress on our Millennium Seed Bank project! Save-A-Seed with SuperForest.
And a big huge "Thank You" to all the people that have donated.
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