Square Eyes
Nearly 1 in 10 adults has five or more televisions in their house. Why?
Technorati tag: Television
Monthly archives: February 2006
You must be fucking joking
This is fucked up. A teenager in fucking Dover, of all fucking places, was slapped with an £80 fine for using the word fuck in a conversation in a park. Poor fucker! What the fuck’s the point of that? I guess I’ll have to watch my fucking language when I leave the fucking house.
At least he didn’t say cunt.
Technorati tag: Fuck
The Earthship Estate
A company called Biotecture has submitted plans for a 16 house estate in Brighton that will consist of Earthships- buildings constructed of old tyres and waste. The houses will be so efficient, and the plan incorporates rainwater capture and solar panelling, that the houses are likely to have no utility bills whatsoever. At £250,000 to £350,000 each they’re a bit expensive to be the solution to the nation’s housing shortage, but they show the way new builds should be going. And they deal with waste without having to incinerate it, so two birds with one stone.
Tiger Kidnapping
The £40 million robbery in Tonbridge involved what is known in the underworld as a “tiger kidnapping“, where members of the depot manager’s family were kidnapped and threatened if he didn’t help.
Technorati tag: Crime, Tiger Kidnapping
Comet Skateboards- eco friendly decks
Crossing over with How to Save the World for Free we have Comet skateboards, a company that makes its boards from renewable materials and is working with other companies to develop bio based epoxies to laminate the layers that go into a deck.
Low VOC Coatings
We at COMET can name lots of ways to get a head rush, sniffing our freshly opened boards is not one of them. We use all water based low VOC coatings. Most paints and laquers contain up to 65% solvents by volume which results in several million tons of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) being released into the atmosphere every year. VOCs accelerate the effects of global warming and are extremely dangerous to workers. Several companies world-wide are working to stop the use of these unnecessary compounds. COMET is one of them. Check for a different smell when you open your COMET board. (Those of you who like the smell of solvents, don’t worry, we are still down with a can of spray paint).
via Sustainablog
Mr. Luna's Bright Idea
Kenny Luna is a science teacher who is lobbying Oprah Winfrey to back a campaign that will supply a compact fluorescent bulb to every child in the US. He reckons it will save the country at least $2.3 billion in electricity expenditure.
via sustainablog
Technorati tag: Low energy bulb
Baby wind turbines
via sustainablog
A commenter on the Gizmodo thread came up with the cool idea of clipping it to your bike to power accessories such as GPS whilst riding along.
Technorati tag: Wind Power
Dog Poo Power
San Francisco could get a dog poop power plant. Norcal Waste, who handle the city’s rubbish, will begin a pilot program under which it will use biodegradable bags and dog-waste carts to pick up droppings at a popular dog park. This will then be broken down in a methane digester to create gas for combustion for heating or electricity generation.
via sustainablog
Technorati tag: Methane, Poop Power
ETA- a climate neutral motoring organisation
I don’t have a car, so this is a suggestion for all my friends who do. ETA is a motoring association akin to the AA but with green fringe benefits. Not only do they offer all the recovery services they will also offset carbon dioxide equivalent to about ten thousand miles of driving. The description on Eco Street Blog compares the service side by side with the AA and it seems to compare well. The only question I would have is whether ETA membership is for a specific car rather than the AA’s one driver- any car version.
Technorati tag: EcoHouse, Green motoring
Ethical Man
Newsight have decided they should have an “Ethical Man” on their team. Justin Rowlatt will try to live as ethical a lifestyle as possible over the course of a year. A neat idea, though the Guardian had Leo Hickman- who will be serving as Rowlatt’s ethical guru, doing something similar last year.
Technorati tag: EcoHouse, Ethical lifestyle
The Bomb
Italian toy/model company Brumm caused something of a stir at the Nuremberg Toy Fair by announcing they would be releasing 1:43rd scale reproductions of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Part of the expo-goers surprise may have been at finding a full size replica Little Boy in their midst. If I can find them I may be buying these kits.
via SS
Technorati tag: Scale Models, Atomic Bomb
DIY hoverboard
It probably wouldn’t work on anything but flat even surfaces, but it’s still tempting to build your own hover board. Build a fleet and you could start your own hover basketball league or something. The Gadget Show reckons they put theirs together for about £150 utilising the following-
Basic tool set:
* A relatively heavy-duty stapler
* Hacksaw
* Jigsaw
* Drill and a bunch of drill-bits. (A special wood drill-bit that’s the same diameter as your plumbing pipe).
* An electric screwdriver. (Believe me, you’ll need one if you want to save your fingers and palms from bruising).
* A craft knife or scalpel
* An insurance policy with good fringe benefits.Materials:
* A 30cc Petrol driven leaf blower engine.
* A bunch of rainwater piping and connectors – whatever size best fits the nozzle of your leaf blower.
* Some form of handy clips that will eventually secure your leaf blower to your board as you might need to put it on and off during building.
* More duct tape than is healthy.
* Serious amounts of screws – small enough to fix through your plastic grommet (see below) or the fastening for your engine without penetrating the underside of your board.
* Plywood – cut to150cm x 60cm
* A very large piece of plastic sheeting – like the stuff they use to line ponds (thick enough to repel sharp stones, thin enough to fold and bend to your will easily)
* A Plastic ‘Grommet’ 100cm x 10cm – made out of three joined-up strips of plastic from the bottom of a storage box and duct taped together (so, three plastic strips 33cm x 10cm that make up one big one.)
via BoingBoing
"The louder he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."
I’ve been ignoring US politics, because it’s so depressing. The reasons are summed up in Counting Bush’s Mistakes at the Smirking Chimp.
The Environment: Here’s a little pop quiz: What happens if all the coral in the world’s oceans dies? Answer: Coral is the first rung on the food-chain ladder; so when it goes, everything else in the ocean dies. And if the oceans die, we die.
The coral in the world’s oceans are dying (called “bleaching”) at an alarming and accelerating rate. Global warming is the culprit. Nevertheless, this administration continues as the world’s leading global warming denier. Why? Because they seem to feel it’s more cost effective to be dead than to force reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. How stupid is that? And time is running out.
via BlogLeft
foxy
foxy,
originally uploaded by spinneyhead.
This is cute. Found in the northern quarter.
Technorati tag: moblog
two wheels flyered
two wheels flyered,
originally uploaded by spinneyhead.
I’ve been wandering around the city centre leaving there bar wrap flyers on bikes. I’ve also been displaying bike snobbery by choosing only those rides that looked like they belonged to more dedicated cyclists.
This is my second bit of guerilla marketing- i’ve been leaving scale flyers in modelling magazines in smiths for a while.
Technorati tag: moblog
Top Gear stalled
This could fit here, on How to Save the World for Free or Two Wheels Good. I’ll put it here.
Everyone’s favourite(?) reactionary buffoon could be without a place to do that sideways thing in borrowed penis extensions. Top Gear had been planning to move to a new home, closer to Clarkson’s house in Chipping Norton, but complaints about the noise lead to the proposal being turned down. And they may not be able to film at their old location because they didn’t bother to put in a request to continue using it.
To further annoy Clarkson the old airfield where the show has been filmed up to this year is to become the home of “Britain’s most sustainable village” with more than 2,500 homes.
Technorati tag: Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson
Carbon Map
A map of carbon emission density in the UK shows the effects of energy use and local energy policies. Manchester produces 2,129,344 tonnes of carbon per square kilometre each year (0.95 tonnes per person), one of the highest amounts in the country.
Technorati tag: Carbon emissions
one for sorrow
one for sorrow,
originally uploaded by spinneyhead.
I’m sure there’s a second magpie out there for joy, but i can’t remember where.
Technorati tag: moblog
Vampire Bob
Clare’s very proud of the drawing she’s done of Robert Smith as a vampire. It was done on A3 so we couldn’t scan it in. Instead I stood over it and took several photos until we got one that worked after a bit of cropping and adjusting.
Technorati tag: Robert Smith, The Cure, Vampire
Mareorama
Tinselman briefly explains the history of the Mareorama, a simulated sea journey from Nice to Constantinople via Venice. The elaborate steam ship set rocked as if on the sea and a painted background unrolled to show familiar scenes from the Mediterannean.
via BoingBoing