"The Miracle of the Cerrado"

Brazil is trying mass farming without leveling the rain foresting, and in the process created some innovative techniques to increase yields. Organic farmers take note.

Article

Pecha Kucha

In the fight against ineffective emails, mismanaged meetings, and presentations with zero engagement and way too many attendees, the Japanese have found a little trick on one of our worst enemies. From Kaizen Training in the UK:

Pecha Kucha (Japanese for 'chit-chat') is a new way of using PowerPoint where you are given 20 slides and the timer set so each slide is only on screen for 20 seconds. That's 6 minutes 40 seconds and you're finished. You could find it revolutionises the way you present! What if you made that the norm for your company from now on?

Human-Powered Spaces

Gyms, football stadiums, dance clubs, … Check out this article on the HK gym:

http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/03/08/human-powered-gyms-in-hong-kong/

 

 

 

 

Styrofoam Construction

Since when did Styrofoam become eco friendly. Since the Japanese created the Dome House, I guess.

http://www.i-domehouse.com/characters.html

Consumerism postively correlated to death

Facing one's death, Americans like to live by splurging:

http://knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1645

Bicycle Subculture

More people who wouldn't normally ride bikes are investing in a 2 wheeler for a number of reasons: gas prices, environment, obesity, etc. I have been immersing myself in the urban bike culture right for the past year.

A new breed of cyclist is being born. Here I will highlight some of what's going on:

Los Angeles Urban Posse
Reno Bike Workshop
Montreal Chop Shop
Paris Fixie Hub
Australia Dumpster Divers

Mexico hates Emo

Blender and star reporting are like milk and bourbon. But Senior Editor Josh Eells did a great piece called The Eyeliner Wars. While trying to find the story online, I found a related one on NPR. 

Basically, Mexico is rapidly becoming more liberal. Goths and Emo kids are not as hip here because of how quickly it hit mainstream, but over there it is aspirational and somewhat underground still, and the Mayor and others in politics are not so happy. Looking for a political drum to beat, they label these non-conformist as anti-church, anti-family trouble makers and has put an all out ban on Emo. One kid's trash is another kids treasure. It makes you wonder how other US trends fair overseas. 

Coltan

One of the best articles I've read on Coltan. Basically, Coltan is the new blood diamond. It is a metal mined in places like Canada, Australia, and the Congo for tantalum. Tantalum is used in hi-rel capacitors because of it's great thermal properties. It is used in cell phones and laptops. Demand has forced the US gov to keep reserves. Price has gone way up and so has the fight for profits. Congo has been victim to internal and external profiteers, resulting in bloodshed, humanitarian and environmental crises, and little attention from the international community. Many companies including vodaphone and nokia have spoken to their supply chain to stop using the metal in their capacitors, and US-based Kemet is swearing that all coltan is from the non-Congo region. 

artist of the month

joe girandola does cool things with duct tape. He considers himself a sculptor. check him out at www.joegirandola.com

big companies thinking sustainability

Here's an article about the work of Patagonia's Mike
Brown and others:
http://www.fastcompany.com/node/60982/print

and here's Brown's company:
http://www.bw-environmental.com/

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What's an ODAM NAP?

http://odamnap.blogspot.com

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Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page.

http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

Artist of the month

This month's privilege goes to cellist Wendy Sutter. Sutter teaches at Colombia and has a number of albums under her belt, but she is best known for ravaging her strings to works Philip Glass wrote for her. They date and have been touring the country for the past year. Her performance at LACMA earlier this month gave me chills; she did things to that cello I have never seen done with any string, and she even had little skulls and angels on her beast (original Amati). 

new favorite blog

this is genius: 

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

The Boneyard

Ever wonder where our old military planes go? They get sent to the yard to be preserved. The boneyard is known as AMARC (Aerospace Maintenance And Regeneration Center). Every once in a while, a big company like BAE would regenerate some planes to sell overseas. Check out their site:

http://www.amarcexperience.com/AMARCDescription.asp

 

Imagine the land and maintenance staff wasted to maintain 4200 planes that we don’t use while the military ponies up for JSF planes? It’s a bit of a waste. But is it cheaper than trying to find spare parts on a carrier? Should we replace our computers after 3 years, our 747s after 30? Or should we continue to maintain. I sometimes wonder how much an airplane or ship would cost if we focused on reducing costs instead of improving technology that we don’t really need.

 

members only library

For LA writers, when they aren’t striking, there’s a place to go to pretend you are writing and be watched writing.

http://www.theofficeonline.com/

 

 

give away your stuff

Paul Budnitz, founder of Kid Robot, makes a good point about the weight of
nostalgia:

http://www.core77.com/blog/broadcasts/core77_broadcasts_paul_budnitz_at_core
77_offsite_nyc_8579.asp

NoPoPo

The guys behind the liquid-refillable (aka pee-powered: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/09/04/nopopo/) battery may be one step behind the curve. With ipods and digi cams and cell phones, does anyone really use AA and AAA batteries? Is it that much of a concern to refill? Will new AA and AAA shift consumers products back towards standard batteries?

 

 

Brazil Grafitti

Dude from Strawberry Frog snapped these pictures:

http://scottgoodson.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/01/street-grafitti.html

 

 

 

American culture today as related to the 60s

Here's a special little post to those born out of 100% flower power. We wear our tie-die and corduroy blazers looking because perhaps it will be trendy. We protest the Kyoto agreement by turning off the TV when we leave the room. And we forget about the 60s entirely.

This is a great review on known libertarian Brink Lindsey’s new book The Age of Abundance. The book discuses how the hippies and evangelicals both rose out of the 60s aimlessness to give people a cause and how both movements are still impacting the US today. Knowing these two poles, Lindsey really hopes to draw a theory on why separation of church and state, abortion, and stem cells are news topics, why celebs excess are both abhorred and idolized by the media, and why we so eagerly spend beyond our means.

How America's 'Age of Abundance' Has Paved the Road to the 'Pursuit of Happiness'

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1853

artist of the month

Step aside Punjabi MC, we know your type. Exploiting a few rhythms for big money deals, you should be ashamed of yourself. And hey, you over there, Daler Mehndi, I love your music but your videos have become viral crack for internet surfers.

DJ Rekha has been blowing up the NYC bhangra scene for some time with her regular shows at SOBs. Just in the past year, she's crossed into mainstream with mentions on Aurgasm, NPR, and Fader. She heavily promotes her co-deejays and is becoming the new face of Bhangra in the US.

A lot of this buzz is just around her album, but give it a bit of time and she will make it past the audiophile dorks and onto dancefloors worldwide.

great longboarding video from loaded

cross-stepping, grinding gloves, weight-shifting carves, wheelies, ... things have changed, my friend.

http://www.loadedboards.com/shops/Download/Whirling_Dervish-download.mp4