The Story of Stuff

From DailyGood today I was shown this great page about how our consumerist economy works, and the consequences of our consumption. The main page has a roughly 20 min video that is a great overview of how what we buy impacts the world. Check it out http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html

Keeping Time

Last night I went to a concert featuring tabla master Zakir Hussain. It was an amazing musical performance, his skill with the tabla is simply mind blowing. I don't think I've ever heard a drum that could have so many different tones and sounds. Nor have I heard a player who could play so fast, with rhythm, and complexity. Equally impressive is the improvisiational nature of the music, having to completely focus on the other instrument and play in a complimentary fashion. At that level, it really doesn't seem like the artist is 'thinking', but simply 'flowing' with the music. I wonder how people get into that 'flow' state, and what exactly it is. Is it a different brain process, or perhaps a very well tuned neural network? Would it be possible for a computer to get into a 'flow', maybe a parictular algorithim or hardware design?

Is the Internet Conscious?

I've been reading on some Aritificial Intelligence stuff lately, and was thinking about how the brain is a series of neurons, each firing in response to stimuli. Each individual neuron doesn't really have an idea of what the other neurons are, or what they are doing. Then I began to wonder if the Internet works in the same way. All the users are the millions of neurons, and work independently. But when taken together as whole, is the Internet like a big brain? And if so, is it conscious?

Give me a home where the kids can go roam

This article by the UK Daily Mail gives an example of how kids today are given fewer opportunities to roam in nature than past generations. I know as a kid, I loved playing outside and didn't have to be driven 20 miles to do so. I could just go outside and play in my neighborhood, and was free to roam about until my mom called me home for dinner. Now, living in the middle of a major city, I rarely see kids outside playing, and I can't really blame them. There is nowhere for them to go, everything is paved, people don't seem to know their neighbors (I know we don't), yards are smaller than living rooms, and busy parents have to drive the kids to the nearest park for the kids to play.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=462091

Reusing receipts

My wife came up with a pretty good idea for making shopping lists. Just take your old receipt (grocery or otherwise), flip it over, and write your shopping list on the back. It saves paper, and can make for easy comparison shopping. It works well for us with grocery receipts since they are generally pretty long, and is a weekly occurrence.

Vitamins

I've often thought that I should eat some vitamin suppliments, since I'm not the healthiest eater in the world. However, I always end up forgetting to take them. Well with all the latest reports maybe I'm better off just going without them. Here's one take from the Boston Globe about some of the recent vitamin reports:
The fading allure of vitamins

ShiftHappens

Check out this really interesting slideshow describing globalization and the role of the U.S. in the 21st century.
http://www.slideshare.net/jbrenman/shift-happens-33834

Donation Meters in Denver

From Daily Good, an article about parking meters in Denver being used to collect change for the city's homeless. Sounds like an interesting idea, although I wonder why not just give the change straight to the homeless person? An interesting tidbit I got from the article is that the city is trying to eliminate homelessness in Denver within the next 10 years! A great thing for the mile high city to aspire to!

Kindness Meters

It's a Bird, a plane no a helirickshaw!

It's a Bird, a plane no a helirickshaw!
Originally uploaded by calamur.

Check out this rickshaw!

No Impact Man

I just came across this great blog by a guy in NYC who is trying to reduce his family's impact on the environment for a year. This means avoiding plastic, eating locally, no TV or movies, giving up cars, subways, new items in packaging, and even toilet paper! Its a bold experiment, and I'm sure they're learning so much from it. It reminds me of the book "Better Off" that I read last year, but they're in NYC! Definitely worth a visit!

No Impact Man

Pennywise Eat Local Challenge

There is an annual challenge put forth here in the bay area to try and eat foods that come from a 100 mile radius. This not only means eating locally produced foods, but even the ingredients should be local as well. I've heard many reports that eating locally has a stronger impact than eating organically. With the additionally "Pennywise" aspect, the challenge volunteers also agree to spend no more than $10/person per day. Sounds pretty tough to me! I didn't know that there is no locally grown flour, so that means no bread or pizza. Ouch! Here is an article from the Chronicle:
Eating locally for less

Earth hour

The aussies are at it again! First flourecent bulbs, now they banned together to turn off their lights for an hour in sydney. Great stuff! Maybe I need to move to Australia :) Sydney is one of my fav cities.

Best Green Cities in America

Country Home magazine ranked the major cities of the US on how 'green' they are.. makes an interesting list of places to live.
Here's the stie: Greenest Cities
Or if you just want the top 25: Top 25

NC State takes out Duke!!!

Ahh yeah! The Wolfpack took out Duke from the ACC Tournament yesterday! I can't remember the last time Duke has been eliminated from the tourney this early! Woohoo Go Pack!

Voluntary Homelessness

A young student in LA takes an interesting approach to getting out of his credit card debit. He gets a camper shell for his truck and decides to live in his truck for a year! Here's an article from the LA times: Story

10 lessons from the Dalai Lama

A list of 10 lessons from HH Dalai Lama and some brief interpretations of them.

Food not lawns

An interesting idea about our front lawns. We spend so much time, money, and water on front lawns that are kinda useless, what if we grew food instead? Here is a review of a book discussing that idea.. Food not lawns.

Greenbridge development

Check out this new community coming up in Carrboro, NC (near Chapel Hill). Its a housing community built with Green building practices and looks to be very nice.
Greenbridge

NC State upsets UNC!!!

This past Saturday the NC State Wolfpack had an awesome upset of the #3 ranked Tar Heels! Ah how sweet it is! Here are some great motivational posters a NC State student put together.. posters

Social networking for change

Check out Change.org a social networking site asking what you would like to change in the world. There is an interesting tag cloud showing what people want to change most.

Surviving on $12000 a year

Check out this post on MSN about a lady who has decided to go back to school at 48 and live on $12k a year. Although I'm not sure if I could ever get that frugal, I have to admire her spirit.

Terra Bite Cafe in Seattle

Check out this cafe in Seattle, practically another Seva Cafe!!!

Terra Bite

Cancel or Allow?

I saw this ad last night on TV, and thought it was pretty funny, especially being a Mac guy :)
Cancel or Allow?

Grape Juice gives the health benefits of red wine

Great news for us lightweight drinkers out there, we can have the heart benefits of red wine without the alcohol :)
Article

Bridges

I saw this organization on a TED video, and it sounds pretty amazing. They work with kids around the world to help them create documentaries about the places they live in. Its a great way to promote understanding of other cultures, and hopefully bring people together. Check it out:
Bridges

Mapping books with Google

I came across this neat site that maps out locations described in different books using Google Maps. Take a look: Books: Mapped

Great Educational podcasts

This site has a great listing of some free educational podcasts out there. I typically like to download a podcast or audiobook to my ipod for the walk to work, and these are some great ones!

Pay it Forward magazine!

Great post from Nipun about the conversion of a traditional print magazine to a "Pay It Forward" approach. I picked up a copy of the magazine the other day from Nipun's house, and its a great read. I can't wait to see how these PIF approaches to "commercial" enterprises turn out! First Seva Cafe, now this!

Save energy with black backgrounds

Here's a website encouraging people to 1) Move to LCD screens, and 2) Use dark backgrounds for their websites. Apparently having a dark background on your website can save power used by CRTs displaying its content. Rising Phoenix Design

Seva cafe on YouTube

Check out this video on YouTube about the Seva cafe in India. The idea behind the cafe is a "pay it forward" approach to dining. When you sit down to eat, your meal has already been paid by someone before you. Then at the end of your meal you can choose to pay as much as you'd like for the people after you. I've been lucky enough to dine at one which opened in LA, and will hopefully be dining at the one in Berkeley in the near future.

Cafe Gratitude

The other night we went up to Berkeley to attend a sutra lecture by Rev. Heng Sure. It was a great lecture, and afterwards we looked for somewhere to eat. I had originally planned to visit Cha-Ya Japanese veggie restaurant, but by the time we got out it was closing down. So we drove down the road a bit and ran into Cafe Gratitude. It was a great dining 'experience'. Its a vegan restaurant, and all the menu items have names like "I am Happy", and "I am Thankful". Not only is it fun to place your order, "I am mahalo and I am refreshed.", but then when they bring out your food they say, "You are mahalo, you are refreshed". That in itself was worth the price of admission, but the food was good too! I was pretty hungry, and filled up on my delicious "live pizza" dish. If you're near one of their 3 locations, its worth checking out :)

Back to work!

"Money is the wealth of the materialist, and works miracles in the realm of the physical. Time is the wealth of the pilgrim, and works miracles in all realms."
--Ed Buryn

We've been back at work for about a week now. Its amazing how quickly the 3 months went by! In alot of ways it feels like I never left work, and have just gotten right back into things, but I can't help but wish I was still on leave. Its definitely nice to be home, with all of its comforts, but part of me misses the uncertainty (and discomforts) of travel. I'm very grateful for the wonderful opportunity I had to travel the world and meet such interesting people. Hopefully it won't be the last time I can take an extended break from work.

Trip to Ecuador part 3

Our next project was painting some walls at one of Vista Para Todos's clinics. We arrived in our finest painting clothing, and proceeded to sand down the walls and paint them blue. We did a much better job this time around, and a few of us even climbed up on some scaffolding to paint the upper walls. The kind folks there served us a delicious vegetarian lunch, even though they were initially at a total loss as to what they could prepare for us.

Afterwards we went across the street to an orphanage and witnessed Una Grand Dia! in action once again. By this point a few of our team members were getting a bit tired of the Barney routine, but the kids still loved it. :) The orphanage was really nice, and had four houses to hold groups of kids. Once again I thought that the orphanages had a much more family feel.

Trip to Ecuador part 2

We spent Christmas day doing some sightseeting. Our first stop was the teleferico, a tall mountain in the middle of the city with a gondola ride. From the top you could see all over Quito, and take a few hikes. From there we heaeded to the Mitad Del Mundo site, which is a monument to the equator (for which Ecuador is named after). We didn't have much time, but managed to scramble around and take pictures at each compass point. There is a large museum, and a red line marking the equator so you could put half your body in the northern, and the other half in the southern hemisphere.

A few of us really wanted to do some more service, so we stopped by a small store to buy snack packs to hand out to some of the people on the street. The store was not quite ready for our order of 80 bags of candy, so we ended up all pitching in and creating an assembly line to crank out the snack bags. It was fun helping out the store owners, and stuffing the bags full of candy. Then we headed to a random street corner and people just started lining up for the snacks. I was amazed at how nicely they lined up, single file, to receive the candy. Unfortunately there were more people than candy, but we did the best we could.

Trip to Ecuador part 1

"I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.
- E. B. White

We flew into Quito, Ecuador and were taken our totally posh accomodations at the Hotel Sebastian. One of the owners of the hotel is a member of the local rotary and was kind enough to house our group at a significant discount. It was so nice to have a clean, fresh smelling room with reliable hot water. Our activities in Quito were mostly arranged through Vista Para Todos, a group which does a wide variety of charity work, primarily in the field of health care. One of the founders, Diego, was kind enough to arrange various volunteer opportunities (and sightseeing) for our group, and frequently came along with us. After getting a chance to drop off luggage, they took a few of us around on a city tour.

The next morning our first service activity was helping distribute gifts to kids on Christmas Eve. We teamed up with El Grand Dia to be with a large group (around 300) of poor kids for a few hours. During that time we did various activities including a modeling contest for the girls, and a lion bashing contest for the boys. It was great seeibg the smiles on all those kids faces!

That evening a few of us attended midnight mass at the San Francisco Church, the oldest in Ecuador. There were tons of folks outside shooting fireworks, and a few kids even lit sparklers inside the old wooden church! It was a packed house, and we stayed until communion, then headed back to the hotel for some rest.