The Game of Life

It's been said that in this great big game of life, no one gets out alive. That may be true, but it doesn't mean we can't go out as winners. Perhaps nothing is a better testimony to that than the story of Don Doane.

At the age of 62, after 45 years as a member of the Nutt Farm Bowling Team in Ravenna, Michigan, Don Doane realized his lifelong dream of bowling a perfect 300 game.

Then he died.

Maybe the mounting tension of his game caused the heart attack, maybe it was the rush of pure victorious joy... either way, this man went out at the crowning instant of his life, and I must say, I think that is a beautiful thing. To quote his life-long friend and bowling teammate Todd Place: "It was like a book, a final chapter. He threw his 300 game with his friends, gave each other high-fives and it's like the story ended. He died with a smile on his face."

I wish that for all of us, that we find our ultimate in the midst of doing what we love. Thanks to aol news for the story, and gallerym for the image.

-always merry and bright,
jordan

Randy Pausch on Oprah

Have y'all seen this yet?



Everyone's talking about it, and rightly so.

A very inspiring ten minutes, well worth your time.

Honda: Problem Playground

I just saw this incredible ad on swissmiss.



Right on, Honda!

This ad exemplifies the SuperForest spirit in every way. Let's join forces, identify "problems," and work together to turn those problems into opportunities.

Brilliant.

And special thanks to Tina Eisenberg for consistently bringing new and exciting media our way. If you've never been to swissmiss; run, don't walk.

Mummy's Laptop Case

Hello All,

My mother read the I Make: Laptop Case post and she asked me to make her one.

I think it turned out well. I employed a slightly different design for hers.
For the first case, I added extra padding to the outside, and for hers, I put it inside the cardboard exterior. I like both designs.

These cases are fun to make and quite quick and easy. You really should give it a go.

Love,

-J

Grizzly Bear: Knife

The incredible mix of creativity and collaboration in this song/video make it the SuperForest Snippet of the Day.

Grizzly Bear makes me proud to be human.

Grizzly Bear - The Knife
Uploaded by grizzlybear

Dean Kamen's New Arm

Dean Kamen...

Wow.

For those of you saying: "Who?"
Dean Kamen Wikipedia

The modern-day Da Vinci has once more outdone himself. Beyond inventing the first portable dialysis machine, or heart stents, or insulin pumps, or gyroscopic wheelchairs, he's now set his sights on prosthetics.

Because so many of our troops in Iraq are coming back missing one or both arms, the Department of Defence came to him and asked him for help. He researched the idea and his team came up with the most amazing thing I've seen today: A working prototype of a prosthetic arm.

Check out this video:



I love and worship this man's ingenuity.

Few people have done so much in so short an amount of time to help their fellow humans. Dean Kamen is an inspiration to us all.

p.s. check out ALL the TED talks! They are so inspiring.
TED talks

The Way

I was just sitting on a plane, reading the Tao Te Ching.

If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.

Here is but one of the many pearls of beautiful thought contained within:

"Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you."

Yay!!!

Why not take a walk in the fresh air, pop into a neighborhood bookstore and pick yourself up a copy?

Or, if you are currently nursing a broken leg, say, why not order it used off Amazon?

Used Tao Te Ching right here! $6.00!

Barney's Green Holiday Window

Check out this years Holiday window at Barney's!!!

All recycled, all spectacular.

Love this! I command you!

Ha ha ha!

love,

J

Flying Humans

Two Great Videos

Two great videos.
Two great artists.

These make me happy.
It is very cold outside.

Fiest - "1, 2, 3, 4"


Bat For Lashes - "What's a Girl to Do?"


Now that is some tight 'ography!
Stay warm and cozy.

-Jack

Squirrel Box

New Yorkers love their squirrels.

I think the sign says: "Do not move, baby squirrel returning to nest."

Good looking out.

(Thanks to Hannah for sending this in!)

Things I Love: Non-Secular Year End Holiday Cone!

This is in the circle in from of the Brooklyn Library, near Prospect Park.
When viewed from afar, it looks like a Christmas tree, but up close you realize that it's actually the Non-Secular Year End Holiday Cone!

Joy and good tidings to all!

Love,

Jackson

X-Prizes

X-Prizes are amazing things.

Competition and collaboration bring out the best in our species.
And by setting up a framework of competitive collaboration, the Ansari Foundation has done our species an incalculable good.

It is staggering to think that because of a competition, the first private space tourism company now exists, and will soon begin shuttling people into orbit.

Now, with the Lunar, Genome, and Automotive X-Prizes in full swing, we humans have a lot to look forward to.

A brief rundown:

Lunar: First team to launch, land, and operate a rover on the lunar surface. US$20 million to the first team to land a rover on the moon that successfully roves more than 500 meters and transmits back high definition images and video.

Genome (Archon): First Team that can build a device and use it to sequence 100 human genomes within 10 days or less, with an accuracy of no more than one error in every 100,000 bases sequenced, with sequences accurately covering at least 98% of the genome, and at a recurring cost of no more than $10,000 (US) per genome. Winning team wins US$10 million.

Automotive: Well, the exact guidelines are being decided, but the idea is a safe passenger car that gets 100mpg or more and can be mass-produced for less than 30k. I'm hazy on this one, but we'll know more soon.

Here are all three sites:

Google's Lunar X-Prize.

Genome X-Prize.

Automotive X-Prize.

Like a snowball rolling downhill, we steadily accumulate the technologies that will ensure our survival.

We need many X-Prizes. What about an AIDS vaccine X-Prize? Clean Water for All Humans X-Prize? So many choices.

Odyssey Moon

By now you're all well aware of the Ansari X-Prize, but do you know about the GOOGLE LUNAR X-PRIZE?

"COMPETITION GUIDELINES: To win the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a team must successfully land a privately funded craft on the lunar surface and survive long enough to complete the mission goals of roaming about the lunar surface for at least 500 meters and sending a defined data package, called a “Mooncast”, back to Earth."

Well Odyssey Moon is the first team to complete registration!

I'll be paying rapt attention to this little contest as it unfolds!
Stay tuned, er... connected!

Neato!

love,

J

Fabric From Corn: Ingeo

A company has figured out how process corn into FABRIC.

From Wikipedia:

"Ingeo™ is a trademark for the first commercially viable man-made fiber made from 100% annually renewable resources. The process to create Ingeo makes use of the carbon naturally stored in plants by photosynthesis. Plant starches are broken down into sugars. The carbon and other elements in these natural sugars are then used to make a biopolymer through a process of simple fermentation and separation. The resulting resin, called NatureWorks® PLA, can then be spun or extruded into Ingeo for use in textiles.

Like other synthetic fibers, Ingeo has a number of advantages over natural fibers. Examples are high strength, high dimensional stability, and high resilience. In addition, PLA is more resistant to ultraviolet light than most other synthetics. It has relatively low flammability and smoke generation. Because it is more hydrophilic than common polyester fibers, when blended with cotton and wool, Ingeo results in lighter garments that wick moisture away from the skin."

That's pretty sweet. After you've worn your clothes until their end, (and they were far too gone to go to Salvation Army, too gone even to use to sew a quilt,) you could COMPOST them.

Most synthetic fabrics are made with oil. Oil from who knows where.
Now we can make synthetics fabrics from renewable, domestic corn.

I like their mission statement: Change the world by not changing it at all...




Here's their site: Ingeo

And the site of a nice textile company that makes products with Ingeo.

Senate Blocks Far-Reaching Energy Bill

From the New York Times

Dudes,

Let get together on this one. We know there's big money to be made in prolonging the end of fossil fuels, we know that.

It's just that, every time I walk down the street and all I can smell is car exhaust, and I happen to think about how our cars mpg's have actually gone DOWN in the last hundred years, and then come home and read about The House or the Senate shooting down some bill to make cleaner cars, and ensure cleaner air, that's when I think: Thank heavens I live in New York and can enjoy this city's incredible public transportation!

You can fight against progress, or you can work for it.

Higher mpg's and cleaner air is progress.

Shooting down bills that would ensure those things is not progress.

It's Congress! (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

So when you see things like this, down let it get you down, just go online and check out the specs on the Aptera, or read about Japan's Mag-Lev trains, or about Amsterdam's awesome public bicycle system.

Then think to yourself: "We should have all of those things here! We deserve the best and brightest. We deserve the cleanest, and fastest, and smartest!
We deserve these things because: We're America! Land of the free! Home of the brave! Defender of Liberty! Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses!
There's opportunity for all here in this great land of ours!"

Little by little, we scrape off the dead skin and emerge fresh, bright, and renewed.


Look out for one another. Keep each other safe.

Love to all,

Jackson

Scientists Cure Mice Of Sickle Cell Using Stem Cell Technique

From the Washington Post:

"Using a recently developed technique for turning skin cells into stem cells, scientists have cured mice of sickle cell anemia -- the first direct proof that the easily obtained cells can reverse an inherited, potentially fatal disease."
Washington Post article

Um,...



Whoah.

Color me impressed.
This article is like the antidote to the NY Times one.

Yay Science! (If you happen to see a Scientist walking down the street, why not blow them a polite kiss?)

Eco-Cities

Okay, I have two very important names for you to remember:

Ready?

Dongtan and Masdar.

What are Dongtan and Masdar?
Our planets first two eco-cities. That's right, carbon neutral, energy EXporting, green cities. Right here on planet Earth.

Dongtan is in China, while Masdar is near Abu Dhabi in the UAE.

This is such an exciting time to be alive! The end of the fossil fuel era! The dawn of the Solar-Electric era!
Living today is like living at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, but with better hair and less cholera.
No, I'm serious. With the rapidly evolving Global conciousness, and the incredibly exciting work being done with DNA and stem cells, plus the commercial exploration of space, the Earth is like San Fran at the start of the Gold Rush.

Alright, I'm mixing my metaphors here, but in ten years time you could move to and reside in a city that consumed no external power, had no waste, a city powered solely by the sun.

Life is sweet.


Masdar.
The Masdar Energy Co's site


Dongtan.
The Dongtan Dev. site

Wiki: Dongtan
Wiki:Masdar
treehugger article on Dongtan.
treehugger article on Masdar.

Great Sign

I saw this at the corner of 1st Ave and Houston.

SuperForest Assignment 1

Okay peoples,

I gots an assignment for you.

You have to make a video.

If you do, and send it in, you will win a prize!

Here's what it is: An ad for a company that sells and installs solar panels.

Okay, this is very simple. The following four ideas must be communicated. (Failure to address each one is grounds for thorough haranguing)

THE FOUR POINTS

1.) A HOMEOWNER is upset over bills.

2.) HOMEOWNER calls SOLAR COMPANY X

3.) Friendly, clean, DELIVERY MEN (OR WOMEN) show up and install solar panels on the roof (backyard, garage, field, etc.)

4.) HOMEOWNER watches in amazement as the electric meter spins BACKWARDS!

That's it. You can fulfill this assignment in the media (medium) of your choice (stop-motion, music video, slide-show, etc.) but it must be committed to video. Aside from getting the four points across, you have total and ultimate freedom.

Post the video to Youtube, or the website of your choice and send me a link at: superforestnyc@gmail.com

I will put all of the videos up on the site and we will have a good, old fashioned video watch!

And everyone who participates gets a prize! A shiny and exciting prize!

Remember the FOUR POINTS:





And the bestest video gets an exceptionally shiny, wonderful prize!

This assignment ends on my birthday, February 28 2008. (Though you're welcome to continue making things and sending them in.)

I will be reposting this bi-monthly so as to remind.



Happy Creating!

-Jackson