This is a super cool post I got via Treehugger. Basically, all of us at one point or another have decided that we couldn't bike somewhere because we didn't want our hair looking ridiculous when we got there (my hair does this funky thing where it gets flat in all the areas EXCEPT where the air vents don't press it to my head, resulting in my looking like a much less cool Rufio). No longer. Thanks to Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin, there now exists an alternative: the Hövding, a sort of air bag for your head.
The Hövding is worn around your neck like a collar (reference the woman in the picture above) and it deploys, just like a car air bag, when internal accelerometers detect abnormal movements. Observe:
Then again, maybe you're better off getting helmet head then riding around with a giant explosive collar around your neck...
If we go by what we see in the movies, it is usually the Japanese, not the Chinese, who breed giant green atomic monsters hell bent on taking over an entire country. But this isn't a movie, and the behemoth we're looking at today isn't a radioactive mutant dinosaur. It also isn't nuclear (I just thought that sounded cool), but China has undoubtedly created a monster -- a giant, car-swallowing people-carrying "green" monster.
Check out this video of the new Chinese straddling bus, set to be unveiled in Bejing's Mentougou district next August:
OK, the video is pretty lame, and the voice over could definitely have used a little spice from those guys over at Most Extreme Action Challenge. And lets face it, I would crap my pants the first time I was biking or driving down the street and that freaking thing passed over my head. Still, it is a pretty cool idea, and if anyone can make it work, it's the Chinese.
The Story of Stuff is an extremely well made, concise video from Annie Leonard and the good people over at Free Range Studios (also of Meatrix Fame), exposing the pitfalls of our uber-consumer society. This video has been around for some time, but I felt it deserved it's own blog post today since the NYT felt it deserved a full article in their lovely publication. The article is about how schools are using The Story of Stuff to encourage conversations in classrooms around the nation about rampant consumerism and its relation to environmental and social ills. Amazingly, most texbooks still make no mention of this fact, and at least one modern civics textbook mentioned in the articlehas only 3 paragraphs on global warming. In other words, this video is sorely needed, and I am glad it is getting the viewership it deserves. If you haven't seen it yet, please check it out for yourself:
I have said it before and I'll say it again: I have no inherent problem with "stuff." I don't necessarily share some environmentalists view that all stuff is bad. I happen to own several things (ie. "stuff") including but not limited to my bike, my computer, my comfortable bed and my snowboard, that I very much enjoy. In fact, while I am slightly more embarrassed about this, I even have a large TV that I have no immediate plans of giving up and that makes me very happy (especially when the Lakers are winning in HD).
That being said, buying stuff for the sake of having stuff, letting old stuff go by the wayside and throwing it in the trash so you can have new stuff, or just in general buying more stuff than you can possibly ever use is NOT GOOD. It is not good for society, it is not good for the planet, and it is not good for our wallets. "Stuff," like everything else, needs to be consumed in moderation.
We all know that the electric car (EV1) was created by GM and then discontinued a few years later. There has been much discussion as to why this is, and some "conspiracy theorists" think that GM orchestrated a malevolent ad campaign against their own car to make it look bad so people wouldn't buy it. I thought it would be a good idea to look into this a little further and see if we could tease out the truth. Here is a commercial GM made for the EV1 but which never aired:
Pretty good right? Here is the commercial GM actually aired:
Now, as someone in the advertising industry, I can break down for you in very technical ways which one of these is a good commercial and which one isn't. That being said, I don't think anyone reading this really needs my help there.
One looks futuristic and very similar to other car commercials we have seen. The other has dark music, lightning storms and living appliances scrambling around a creepy house.
One of these is hands down a better commercial then the other -- in fact -- the other is a downright bad commercial. Yet that is the one GM chose to run during the superbowl when those ads where costing literally millions of dollars for a thirty second spot. Conspiracy or stupidity? You be the judge.
This is a super cool post I got via Treehugger. Basically, all of us at one point or another have decided that we couldn't bike somewhere because we didn't want our hair looking ridiculous when we got there (my hair does this funky thing where it gets flat in all the areas EXCEPT where the air vents don't press it to my head, resulting in my looking like a much less cool Rufio). No longer. Thanks to Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin, there now exists an alternative: the Hövding, a sort of air bag for your head.