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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Having trouble figuring out which U.S. presidential candidate to root for? The USA Today "candidate match game" is an interesting way to resolve your candidate conundrum. Through a series of 11 questions, the game shows you the top three candidates for the next presidential election that best match your ideas and values. As you answer each question, colored bars change size to show which candidates match your position on key issues ranging from health care to the environment to the war in Iraq. At the end of the 11-question series, you're given the opportunity to weigh each category on how important it is to you compared to the others. This might be the most interesting part: adding substantial weight to certain categories significantly changed some of my top contenders.
Unfortunately, none of the top three the game referred me to are even remotely considered true contenders in this tight race. Does this mean I'm vastly different from the average American voter/"caucus-goer"? Or does it mean that taking online polls isn't a great way to find answers to extremely important dilemmas?I've written a few times about this season's whale hunt by the Japanese, but have realized that the BBC's Jonah Fisher is a much better source for it. He's aboard Greenpeace ship Esperanza and is also keeping a journal of the events, so I'll just link to his diary. Rather than me regurgitating what I've read elsewhere, you can go straight to the source.
That's my problem with blogs: most of them are used simply for regurgitation of info that can almost always be found more easily and with better information elsewhere. This whole "news aggregator" phenomenon of Digg, Newsvine, Reddit, etc., etc., etc. often leads viewers/readers to blogs with summaries of other stories, so what's the point? I guess blogs are good for diary-like entries; they're good for friends and family to check out and stay updated; they're good for illegally posting copyrighted content. But what else are they good for? My guess is absolutely nothing (UNHH - say it again!) Oh wait, they are good for one more thing: wasting time.
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