Peace is Power

Peaceful is an incredibly powerful way to be.

As always, if you like this image and wish to use it, please do.
If you'd like a higher-res file, just email: superforestnyc@gmail.com

Everything Is OK.com

Type everythingisok.com into your address bar.

You'll be glad you did.

35 Years of Tokyo Skyline in 10 Seconds

Amazing!

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

Vik Muniz @ TED

Incredible artist (and Brooklynite!) Vik Muniz talks about what inspires him, his process, and his art.

Enjoy, mes amis.

Vik Muniz @ wikipedia

Thank You: George W. Bush

Hello All,

So, I'm sitting here at my desk, grazing the verdant info-pastures of the world wide web, and something hit me.

The world is rapidly changing for the better.

Don't get me wrong, there are still many areas that we need to improve on, but as a whole, things are getting better.

In the past eight years, we've seen an incredible re-growth of the youth voting block, the mainstreamization of "green-ideals," and the incredible upsurge of green companies and services. Eight years ago, there was no Method Soaps, no Seventh Generation, no Ecover, (at least, not in their present amazing form.)

We've seen the rise of the celebritactivist (Al Gore, Brad Pitt, Bono, Bill and Melinda Gates, Larry Page, to name but a few.). We've come to understand the power of collaborative thinking, and collaborative problem solving (linux, wikipedia, x-prize.)

And as I type this, the next President will most likely be a black man, or a woman.

And I think for this, we owe a great big "Thank you!" to George W. Bush.

This is not a negative post. I am sincere in my thanks.

The incredible developments of the the last eight years may have gone on with Al Gore in the White House, and probably would have, but Bush was our President and under Bush we Pinks have thrived.

Thank you, George W. Bush. Thank you for Barack Obama. Thank you for Hillary Clinton. Thank you for treehugger, inhabitat, and every other great green blog we've got.

Why, even this very blog would probably not have come to be had George Bush not been our President.

Thank you George, for wind power and solar power and stem cell research. You didn't support those things, so we were forced to, and we've grown stronger and more capable as a result.

Oooooh! If Gore had been President, he might not have ever made An Inconvenient Truth!
So, Thank you, George, for An Inconvenient Truth.

Come to think of it, a lot of great art probably wouldn't exist without you, George.

I want to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for making America the way it is now: Wiser, greener, smarter. More politically aware. More open to the ideals of peace and cooperation.

Thank you, Mr. President. Good luck in the private sector.

Yours truly,


Jackson

Scott Brown - "How Facebook Exposed Us All As Freaks."

The newest issue of Wired (Sarah Silverman cover) has an extraordinary article in it.
Scott Brown, I don't know who you are, but your lingo is tantalizing.

I'm a big fan of slang, leetspeak, in-jokes, tech-jargon, and this little gem of a piece is chock full of it.

Highlights:

Selectibitionist - someone who creates an online persona that only represents a facet of their real persona, i.e. for Myspace I rock the obligatory abs-flexed shirtless pic, vs. my Facebook page with it's more conservative (read: $$$) button-down rugby shirt, Abercrombie look.

Identity Hive - App that enables the selectibitionists to show off their goods. (facebook, friendster, myspace, j-date, match.com, etc.)

"The suicide of privacy" - No one's going to take our privacy away. We're just going to hand it over without a fight. Blogging, twitter, flickr all let us give our private photos, ideas, locations, activities, away to whoever wants to know, free of charge, no need for waterboarding.

Fascinating and amazing times we live in.

Here's the article: Wired.com

Love to all,

Jackson

Svalbard Seed Vault Update

(image via treehugger)

For those of you who read the Dec. 6/07 post about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, here's an update. It seems as though the first shipment of seeds are now making their way to the Vault. Once there, they will help to ensure the survival of indeginous plant species for future Earthlings. Nothing wrong with that.

from treehugger:
"Twenty-one boxes filled with 7,000 unique seed samples from more than 36 African nations were shipped to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a facility being built on a remote island in the Arctic Circle as a repository of last resort for humanity’s agricultural heritage.

The shipment, which was sent by the Ibadan, Nigeria-based International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), consists of thousands of duplicates of unique varieties of domesticated and wild cowpea, maize, soybean, and Bambara groundnut. The seeds from the IITA genebank in Ibadan, Nigeria, were packed in 21 boxes weighing a total of 330 kg. The processing by IITA staff took several months, and the boxes were packaged over a three-day period, with 10 staff checking the accession list, reporting errors, and adjusting the inventory, as needed."

Karl Fisch- "Shift Happens"

Here's an incredible piece off youtube.

Some amazing, (and extremely thought provoking) facts.

Start learning Mandarin, y'all!

Fantastic Planet on Youtube!

Hello All,

How's your Sunday? Swell, I hope.

I just found one of my favorite movies in its entirety on Youtube.

If you've never seen Fantastic Planet, line up your clips, dim the lights, pop some corn and get ready for a super-Sunday treat.

Fantastic Planet in eight parts:

















I personally like it better in French with Eng. subtitles, but they don't gots that. If you would like to see it that way, get it off Amazon.

Fantastic Planet on Wikipedia.
Rene Laloux on Wikipedia.

Blend Apparel

Yo,

All these cats swag is 100 percent bamboo!
And the site is wind-powered!
Tasty!

You need gear, get it here.

Blend Apparel


fun!

I Make: Laptop Case

Hello All,

I've been doing a lot of looking at D.I.Y. laptop cases on the ol' truth box, and it got me to thinking. So, last night, I grabbed an armload of studio trash, a roll of duct tape, a pen, an exacto, some scissors, and an Emergen-C, and set down to make my own laptop case.

Here's what I did:

First, I got some cardboard, which we've got a lot of. Then some thin type bubble wrap, not the kind with big bubbles, but nice and squashy just the same. A plastic bag for waterproofing and I was all set.

Here are my materials:


I lay the laptop out onto a doubled over length of bubble wrap and traced the outline, leaving room for the edges to fold up. Then I taped along the top and up one side. Then I used small tabs of tape to adjust the fit around the laptop, because if the sleeve was too tight, it would be frustrating to get in and out. Looked like this:


Then I just worked for a while and forgot to take pictures, but all I did was repeat the process with the cardboard. I taped an extra piece onto the top to serve as a flap, and that's what you see here:






Here I've taken the inner sleeve of bubble wrap out of the cardboard case and cut a plastic bag to size around it to serve as waterproofing. You can see it sticking out the top. I left it long so that I could fold it over for further protection.


I put a bit more tape on to protect against wear and tear and 'cause it looks nice, but I didn't cover up all the cardboard. That's because I wanted people to see that it was cardboard and duct tape. There is magic in simple things, and more magic still in what your hands can do with them. I also found a nice bit of velcro in the studio closet, and because it kept peeling off the case (strong stuff, velcro) I taped it down around the edges. Works great!


Here's the inner sleeve, all nice and waterproofed, next to the outer sleeve, and my Emergen-C.


Here it is all done. It took me three hours, start to finish, mostly because I didn't follow any directions. I just kept fiddling until it was done. Like Nero.


The best part about this laptop case, besides being cool, sleek, and hand-made, is that it kept a bunch of stuff out of a trash pile, AND I got a custom laptop case. All it cost me was time and a third of a roll of tape.
No logos, no worries.

You'll notice that these "instructions" are a little vague and maybe not all that useful. That's because I want you to see this and think: "I can do even better!"

And I want you to do better. Then I want you to take a picture of the better thing you've done and send it in to: Superforestnyc@gmail.com. Then I can put it up on the site so we can all admire you, you smart little duckling.

Then I want you to eat a nice piece of fruit or something, because maybe your blood sugar is a little low after all that makin'!

Have a wonderful and fruitful weekend.


Love to all,

Jackson



p.s. Be excellent to each other. Make each other laptop cases.

Jason Mraz: Life is Wonderful

He's so right. Life truly is exquisite.

Be excellent to each other.

love,

J