SuperForester Jaell Presents: The AutoCanoe!

Hello All!

We put out a call for writers and contributors last week and SuperForester Jaell has answered the call.

I'll let Jaell take it from here.

Hey everybody. I'd like to take a moment and introduce myself. My name is Jaell and it is pronounced "Jay-elle". It looks like I'll be sharing some of the superforesty things I find while I'm looking around my little world with you. I just graduated from the University of Minnesota and am living in the moderately sunny but mostly cloudy tundra of the Twin Cities. I don't remember how I came across superforest a few months ago, but its been a bookmark of choice for me everyday. I hope you find the things I share interesting, educational, whimsical, awe-inspiring, flirtatious... well, I'm kidding about that last one. Happy reading!!

Its always been a dream of mine to live on land and water equally... to have a harmonious transition between landmasses. To be self sufficient in these transitions. To move like frogs or alligators. Well now, that dream can come true for everyone. Thanks to the Autocanoe Company.

(check it out!)








What is even better is you can't order the canoe, but you can order the plan. Way to get people out there building things for themselves, Autocanoe! Keep it up.

I can't wait for the electric powered canoe coming out soon.

-Jaell

(Jackson here again. Awesome work, Jaell! Welcome to Team SuperForest!
Look out for further posts from Jaell coming soon.)

Ane Brun: Rubber & Soul (Featuring Teitur)

A sweet video from Ane Brun, Norwegian chanteuse extraordinaire. With a verse by Teitur.

Enjoy.



Here's Ane's site.

Radiohead: House of Cards Video (Made Without Cameras!)

No lights, no cameras, plenty of action, courtesy of some seriously high-powered lasers and cutting edge scanning technology.

Click on the images above to go to the video, (as they've disabled embedding! Rrrrrgghhh.) Or click here, whichever you prefer.

Be sure to watch the behind the scenes to see how they pulled it off.



Go Radiohead! Push that envelope!

Innespace Seabreacher: Dive Like a Dolphin, Swim Like, uhh.. Also Like a Dolphin!

Amazing. We want twelve.

You say you want one as well? Contact Innespace via their site.

Time Magazine: The Truth About Plastic

Good Morning!

There is a new article in Time Magazine that breaks down (pun intended) where we are at, as a society, with our plastic use. I was really surprised to read some of these numbers:

"The U.S. produced 28 million tons of plastic waste in 2005--27 million tons of which ended up in landfills."

"Plastic makes up nearly 12% of our trash, up from 1% in 1960"

"...Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 92% of Americans age 6 or older test positive for BPA..."

"The rising cost of petroleum may get plastic manufacturers to come up with incentives for recycling; current rates stand at less than 6% in the U.S. But the best way to reduce your plastic impact on the earth is simply to use less."

So how to use less? This great blogger, Jeanne Haegele, is 10 months into her experiment of trying to live plastic free. She shows the simple steps she has taken, and realizing that it is impossible to go completely plastic free, she is doing the best she can, while being as realistic as possible.
Check out her blog. http://lifelessplastic.blogspot.com/

And here is a link to her post about the practical 24 steps she has taken to rid plastic from her daily life and the 8 that she hasn't been able to give up, because as we all know, plastic does make some things a lot easier and definitely has a purpose in our daily lives.

It's a great find.

Happy Monday!
Niki

A Big Victory (Garden) for San Francisco!

Hello All!

Jackson here.

Just got back from a very fruitful trip to the West Coast.
SuperForester Andrew and myself got a sneak preview of the incredible Victory Garden that's been planted in front of San Fran's City Hall.

"In collaboration with Victory Gardens 2008+, Slow Food Nation will herald the era of self-sufficiency through the creation of an ornamental edible garden in the heart of San Francisco’s Civic Center. Planted on the same site as the post-World War II gardens 60 years ago, the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden demonstrates the potential of a truly local agriculture practice that unites and promotes Bay Area urban gardening organizations, while producing high quality food for those in need."

Take a look!


Here's a photomontage reverse of the top image, with City Hall behind us.


Here you can see the rice-straw swales the gardeners pegged into place to hold the topsoil and compost that the plants are growing in. Very easy to set up, and extremely low impact as after the swales are done being used, they can be composted along with the plant scraps!


Here's me talking with SuperForester Leslie, a delightful and insightful woman who had been busy all day planting and watering and generally setting up. She gave us a tour of the garden and explained to us how to tell the difference between a cucumber vine and a pumpkin one. (The leaves are different shapes. Thanks Leslie!)


Here are SuperForesters Marcus and Chris Ray, sitting atop the stage they built out of reclaimed lumber. Comfy and sunny, no?


And the reverse, (sans Chris Ray.)


Beautiful people in the garden they helped to create.



The most inspiring sight! A government center and a sustainable agriculture project sharing a view. That's some seriously smart thinking. Good on you, Mayor Newsom.

And here's a fun cartoon about Victory Gardens and the perils of trying to eradicate gophers with hoses:




Garden for health and Country!

A huge special thanks to all who organized and worked on this incredible project. We hope to see more like it all over the U.S.

Love to all,

-Jackson

The First Video on Youtube

This is the first video ever uploaded to youtube.

Amazing.

Flexible Love

Great chair.

We wanna build our own!



Here's the Flexible Love site.

Terracycle: Turning Garbage into Gold!

Good Morning!

I was just watching the new video over at DH Love Life.

It is on a company called Terracycle. They are based in Trenton, NJ and they make different products completely out of waste (including all their packaging which is made from old bottles). The DH video is all about their fertilizer that they make from Worm Poop! Apparently, it works great! How clever. They also make all naturally derived household cleaners, trash bins made from crushed computers, and bags from old wrappers. 

 

What is super neat is as they think of new products to make, they see what waste can be used to create them and then they show on their site what they need and coordinate how to get it. It is direct recycling, where you know it is going to be reused. They send you the postage and once you have collected a substantial amount of containers, you ship them to Terrcycle, who reuses them. It eliminates the middle man and they make a donation to a school or charity of your choice for each item you send. What a great business idea. 

If you have the means to collect a large amount of the packaging they need, think about signing up!

Have a great day!

n

Semiconductor Films: Magnetic Fields Made Visible!

Magnetic Movie from Semiconductor on Vimeo.

This is pretty extraordinary.

"Magnetic fields are all around us, but they're usually invisible. Not when British filmmakers Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt get a hold of them. Their film group, called Semiconductor, created "Magnetic Movie," where they've turned audio recordings of magnetic fields into arty animations. This innovative work won them honors as Best Film at Cutting Edge at the British Animation Awards 2008."

-Charlie White @ dvice.

Saw this over at dvice.com, whose content is excellent. You really should visit.

And here's Ruth and Joe's site: semiconductor films


Awesome.

Dress For Dinner Napkins!

via swissmiss!

So funny.

Ecogeek: Cost of Solar Panels Expected to Plummet

Just stumbled upon this very interesting article about a report from the Prometheus Institute which posits that a number of factors will converge in the coming years, and the end result is cheap solar power for all who want it.

"Based on their research, Travis Bradford, president of the Institute, says that prices for traditional silicon-based panels should fall from $3.66 per watt (2007 figures) to $2.14 per watt in 2010, and more impressively, thin-film PV should go to $1.81 per watt from $2.96. When coal, currently the least expensive source of power, is around $2.10 per watt to generate, the expected drop in price for solar will make it far more competitive."

Sweet.

Here's the ecogeek article.
And here's the Prometheus Institute's site.

Cleanvertising

Good Morning All,

Just walked past this interesting stencil.

A click on Gostencil.com leads you to the site of GoGorillaMedia, a non-traditional advertising company right here in NYC.

Pretty cool, though it seems reverse graffiti may have reached "shark-jump" status. (And so quickly!)

Here's an idea: Do the inverse. Mask off the areas of type and then clean the entire block, leaving only the dirt-logo.

Hmmmm... Dirt-logo.

Sticky. Can we go on record as having used the term "dirt-logo" first? Let's check google.... Yep, good to go.

Yeah, clean the whole block, then we're talking.

Love,

Team SF