"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

Ringo looks angry.

Have a great weekend!

Love,

Jackson

Eco-Math II

U.S. Flight Patterns Visualized

users.design.ucla.edu

Two clever little chickens at UCLA have created these beautiful animations which visualize the air traffic over the U. S. over a 24 hour period. It looks like a ferocious game of "Missile Command!"

users.design.ucla.edu

Super Blimp

Super Blimp

Add to My Profile | More Videos

This is Lockheed Martin's new top-secret Super Cargo Blimp. I'm really excited about this.

Firstly: Blimps are quiet, majestic and safe.
Secondly: You can run them on anything. All-electric, solar, biodiesel, veggie oil, ethanol, whatevs.

Imagine these replacing trucks. As anyone who has ever driven on a freeway can agree, trucks and commercial vehicles shouldn't really be sharing a roadway. Countless accidents a year happen because of the size disparity between trucks and cars.

Cargo blimps like these could free up roadspace, while running cleaner and quiter than anything we've got that rolls.

Rolling goods around on wheels is SO '06.

Yay blimps!

-J

Content, content everywhere...

Sometimes you gotta roll up your sleeves and clean a toilet.

Love,

Jackson

He's a Lover, Not a Biter!

If this don't get you, I don't know what will.

Happy Thursday!

Love,
Jack

Sea Organ

Croatian artist Nikola Basic (pronounced "Bah-seech") has created a beautiful musical instrument that is powered entirely by the flow of the tides and the lapping of the waves. Soothing.

It sounds wonderful.
Check out the video.

news.nationalgeographic.com

Apple Me (From Birth)

A friend and I just had a mini-conversation. We were talking about his 5 month old son. Specifically, how transfixed he was with both the videos on a computer monitor, and our iPhones. My friend was saying how he loved to show his son pictures with the touchscreen, and the boy loved the fact that he could teeth on the rubber grip around the edge.

Considering all it can do, the iPhone is but a tiny thing.

I'd like to go on record with the following prediction.

The baby is 5 months old. Considering that he'll likely reproduce at an average age for a white, American, male, (which is 30.7), and considering that his children will probably do much the same thing, (If he has boys. The average age in girls is 21.9), in approximately 60.9 years his children's children will PROBABLY have iPhones, (the equivalent communication/memory/camera device,) built into their bodies from birth.

It won't be weird, it will be perfectly normal. We'll all have them.

The technology in 2067.9 will be so small, so magnificently integrated, that we will all be walking computers. Able to communicate telepathically, record and share our memories, and work as one to overcome our every obstacle.

This will get us ready for the next step, which is indestructable bodies and immortal conciousness.

Which will PROBABLY begin to happen around the time of our children's children's children, 30.7 years later.

So, if you can somehow make it until 2098.6, you can probably live forever.

At least as long as you wanted to.




Enjoy your Wednesday night!

Love,

Jackson

Supermen. Superwomen.

Humanity seems to be waiting for a Superman.

A shining God/King to alight on Earth from the heavens and solve our collective problems. Save the Rainforests, save the Polar Bears, save the Imperiled, the Downtrodden, the Hopeless.

Who can defeat Genocide? Who can stop Terror?

Superman could.

But Superman ain't real.

The good news: SuperMEN is real. SuperWOMEN is real. (I will just use the masculine form from here on so as not to be tedious.)
There is no one single entity that will be able to address the myriad of issues we face. No flawless Immortal to put fear and suffering back in its box.

No, there is not one. There are hundreds of thousands.

I speak of the private citizen, working together with other private citizens to bring about equity and balance.

I'm talking about the spirit of ALTRUISM.

Altruism: Noun. "The belief in or practice of disinterested or selfless concern for the well-being of others."

Everywhere you look, there is a Bono, or a Bill and Melinda Gates, or a Bill Clinton, or a Desmond Tutu, or any of the many others who believe in altruism and are hard at work to make sure that others enjoy the same freedoms that they enjoy. Breath clean air like they breath. Be free to criticize their countries leaders, like they are free to do.

What to call this emerging conciousness? The New Way? Neo-Optimism? Pragmatism Plus?

Whatever you call it, it is hard at work, and it is winning adherents.

The new way is not to fight. The new way is to relentlessly support.

We are the Superman. We together are the great shining God.

Together we can move mountains and conquer death. Alone we can only continue to struggle.

Love to all,

Jackson