Just one small thing

The Stuff of Life

2008-04-23T14:24:05+01:00

Unsubscribe Me is Amnesty's campaign against state sponsored torture as part of the War On Terror (tm). As part of this, they are producing a series of short films. The second looks at waterboarding, and shows how the Stuff of Life can be an instrument of torture...

Maybe not quite as shocking as the first film, but still powerful stuff. Particularly it's use of advertising's style conventions to give the whole thing a harrowing gloss.

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The story of stuff

2008-03-20T08:51:22+00:00

Great presentation from Annie Leonard on stuff: where it comes from and where it goes to...and why we're running out.

Best sound bite: 99% of what we buy, in raw materials terms, is trashed within 6 months!

Thanks to John for the tip.

Greener gadgets

2008-02-13T08:51:29+00:00

Core 77 has just hosted a greener gadget design competition. As the film below says, "designers have this incredible ability to visualise ideas and possibilities". Although there's also some nice self-deprecation toward the more 'imaginative' designs. So have a look and get some inspiration.

Where mobiles go to die

2008-02-11T16:56:31+00:00

This blog suffered the same fate as most of my online activity at the end of last year, when various factors conspired to shut down all blogging activity. Whilst Livingbrands is firmly up and running, I've been waiting for something to rekindle (my) interest over here.

So this follow up to my last post (all those years ago) seems as good a place to start as any: a short film on the mountain of mobile phones we are building, why we need to do something about this, and how some people are.

Thanks to PSFK for the heads up.

Mobile recycling

2007-11-13T08:43:42+00:00

When it comes to mobile phones I'm a bit of a techno-Luddite - Blackberry aside, I am proud to say I have only ever owned two...both of which still work! For others tho, there is clearly the need to get the latest gizmo before you've barely learnt how to use the last one.

But apart from the sustainability issues involved in keeping up with (and fuelling) this demand for the new, there's also the question of disposal. Because. apparently, two thirds of us Brits don't know how to recycle their old phones, and 1 in 5 just dump them straight in the bin…even if they're still working.

To help do their bit to address this, Tesco Mobile wants to encourage us to recycle more. How? By bribery basically (but if it works...!). They are offering free airtime (up to £70), clubcard points or a charitable donation if you dispose of your phone thru their new scheme. And you don't have to even be a customer.

As they say, every little helps.

(Via Gizmodo)

Cheap wind

2007-11-06T10:14:25+00:00

How to take renewable wind power to the third world? That was the challenge Shawn Frayne set himself. Big turbines are, well, very big…and very expensive. Even small turbines are pretty pricey, given the engineering involved.

The answer first came to him at school when watching a film on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (this Wikipedia link includes a great film). So unstable was said bridge, that it used to oscillate in the wind, turning it into a bit of a tourist attraction as people came to ride the wave (until, sadly, it collapsed in 1940, taking all its passengers with it).

Anyway, the idea of wind based oscillation stuck with Shawn, and he has now turned it into a potentially very cheap and very efficient means of energy generation. Watch the film here, which explains everything very well. Or read the website.

Just goes to show you're never too young to have great ideas, and that harder problems make for better inventions.

Measure your electricity

2007-10-24T14:35:59+01:00

The Wattson is a great gizmo that lets you measure energy use in your home. Just plug it in and see how much money you're burning by having everything on stand-by, and the house lit up like a Christmas tree.

Makes the need to do something very tangible. And the fact it looks quite cool is an added bonus.

Thanks to Russell, who has got one and is giving it a try (why not ask him how it's going).

Spread the nice

2007-10-18T17:04:55+01:00

(Joellybaby)

A nice idea about being nice...

"Being nice costs nothing, so why is that Londoners so rarely take the time to see and acknowledge the people who share their city? On public transport, in the supermarket, walking down the street, we often hang our heads and avoid eye contact...we can be slow to acknowledge our fellow Londoners as people...just like us...But we can change, we can make London into the open and friendly city it should be, and that is what Niceties-Tokens is all about. Niceties-Tokens is a campaign to make London a nicer place to live. The concept is very simple. It isn't about rewarding niceness; it's about engaging and acknowledging others. The tokens themselves are just that, tokens that are passed from person to person, carrying their message with them. Recipients are directed to this website where they are invited to record their part in the token's journey in a logbook. We now have almost 1,000 niceties tokens in existence. Each token has potential to be passed round hundreds of people, spreading the niceness message."

It's been around for about a year, and I haven't yet received a token, so I don't know if it's taken off (or maybe I'm just not looking like I deserve one!). Anyone out there been on the receiving end?

But I do think being nice is a nice thing.

(Originally found: PSFK)

A year of living generously

2007-10-16T08:49:22+01:00

(Justin Shattuck)

As it says on the website...

"A year of living generously is an online experiment based on a shared hunch that looking after this planet and its people is what we are all here for and that if many of us can make small changes in our everyday choices then over time we can make a big difference for everyone. The hunch is this. That the gap between rich and poor in our world should not be the way it is, that we only have one planet to share and that there is more to life than how much stuff we can pile up. It all started when a few of us began wondering what a community of people could achieve if they acted together to live more generously in the world? Maybe the Internet could connect us as we started to make those small everyday changes… and maybe keeping in touch with others might show us that the cumulative effect of our small lifestyle choices is more influential than we could imagine."

A bit like the Nag, Generous has been running far longer. Since September 04 in fact. And currently some 1568 individuals and 858 households are engaged in just under 9000 different actions from around 100 different possibilities. These range from taking your own bags shopping to become an organ donor; shopping local to turning off the water when brushing your teeth.

It's free to sign up (obviously). And every month you'll be sent a couple of suggested actions you can commit to do.

It's that easy to save the world.

Bloggers united for the environment

2007-10-15T16:19:17+01:00

Hot on the heels of bloggers for Burma, comes bloggers for the environment. And rather ironically, given it's what this site is meant to be about, I nearly missed it!

The basic idea is that, for one day only, we blog about the environment and what we can do to make a difference.

Rather than write something new, I'm afraid I will have to be a bit lazy (work commitments, and all that), and instead suggest you have a little wander around this blog, as there are already a few ideas hanging around.

Go on, you know you want to ;-)