Everyone's been talking the past year or so about global warming, going green, etc. In terms of housing, green construction standards (such as the US Green Building Council's LEED) have been a hot topic in the U.S. and in other parts of the world (India's wealthiest resident is building a 60-story "green" home in Mumbai). It's all well and good that wealthy people like Al Gore are going green with their mansions, but what about the estimated 1/3 of the population that will be living in slums by 2030?
Architect Cameron Sinclair might tell you with a straight face that those people will make decent homes out of wealthier people's "green" refuse. Sinclair, winner of 2006's TED prize, started the Open Architecture Network to spread affordable housing throughout the world — a rather impressive goal. The projects in the network are rather interesting, to say the least. According to Sinclair, "Someone's working on a $700 house. The Now House is a World War II retrofitted home that's carbon-neutral... There's a spinach-powered house, there's a grow-your-own clinic, a clinic you eat. All of these projects have to be sustainable." So even though the gap between rich and poor isn't shrinking, it's good to know that people like Cameron Sinclair are planning a future that's better for everyone.
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In the first episode of List-en up!, the Angie's List podcast, Marion County, Indiana lead inspector Buddy Compton mentioned that store-bought lead-testing kits can be effective for testing surface paint, but they might not detect dangerous lead in deeper layers. The Consumer Reports on Safety blog tested several of these kits and posted their results here. You might find these results helpful before purchasing a kit yourself or deciding to have potentially poisonous paint professionally tested (hurray for alliteration!)
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Just a thought. Heath Ledger apparently complained of sleepless nights while playing the role of the Joker in the next Batman movie, Dark Knight. Could playing such an insane psychopath actually drive someone over the edge and cause problems in their personal life? Many actors talk about "getting into the character" they're playing so intensely that they feel as if they're actually the person they're acting as. To people like me who aren't actors or involved in the film industry, it's easy to watch a film and discount the emotional toll certain rolls take on actors. But given the amount of stress most people's jobs cause them, I can see how playing a super-freak (I listened to Rick James the other day :P ) could cause an actor to actually become one. But I guess I'll never know, as I have no desire to act, nor acting talent, for that matter.
I wonder if Malcolm McDowell or Robert De Niro felt like they were minds were being negatively affected at any point while working on A Clockwork Orange or Taxi Driver, respectively...