Cheap LED Light Bulbs for Under $5 Unveiled:
Yes, the price is $4.95, but nonetheless, a long-lasting, efficient LED bulb for $4.95 is a win! The announcement was just made a few minutes ago, as Lemnis unveiled three new lines of its Pharox LED replacement bulb. The 200-lumen Pharox BLU is the bulb selling for $4.95, and the 350-lumen PHarox Blu is selling for $6.95. They are, apparently, only sold through the Pharox website.
[That’s a small step. More please.]
Why should your dock last longer than you use your current phone model? A lot of those remaining products are not being passed on when devices are sold, so people happen to collect them or even throw them away.
Not the greatest use of material, if you ask us.So why not make some of your supporting hardware match this cycle, so it won’t last that long? This would only make sense if it can be made a lot more eco-friendly and way cheaper.
So here we go: Welcome to the Papercraft series. Made from recycled cardboard and laser-cut with carbon free energy.
[Nice idea. Now if we could locally source these things for everyone we’d be making a dent. It relates to that whole 3D printing thing. Sell the design (the cad file or what have you, either by charging a “wholesale” amount for the design the lisc. to reuse, or some such) and have it locally produced by a shop. This will further lower the environmental impact, designer gets paid, local shop gets paid, and we don’t ship finished goods around the world. Win.]
Shut Up Legs as Life Principle:
If you want it, make it happen. If you love it, make the sacrifice. Hurt a little. Hurt a lot. Do the work. Shut Up, Legs!!
[Well put.]
Source: Grit & Glimmer
collin’s gist: But what about the cheaters?:
I would design a system that lets players play. And then I would design an identity system that reduces complete anonymity and records all the action of the game. Nobody wants to play with a cheater and a cheater will be on record.
[I like this idea a lot. It plays into my sense of simplicity and the natural world. I’ve repeatedly used this pattern in my life, writing music for the players rather than the other way around. In the end, rules must be embraced as a willful limitation and ultimately cannot be enforced.]
If you want make any abode feel like a home you should bake bread. I don’t know why it makes this seem truer than preparing other food stuffs. But it does. Never done it before? Think you lack the equipment? Here’s what to do. Go to your local pizza place. Ask for one of the uncooked rounds of dough they make into a pizza. Take it home, shape to suit, pop into the oven until it looks done to you. Wonder at how you’ve just elevated the sense of home in your house, apartment, hovel, what have you…
Now, start looking at recipes…
Don’t Reinvent The Wheel, Steal It: An Urban Planning Award for Cities That Copy:
Cities around the world may all be struggling with the same problems, from building affordable housing to boosting internet access, but a lack of dialogue means that local governments rarely copy each other’s successful ideas. The world’s “567,000 mayors are reinventing the wheel, every single one of them with everything” they do, says Sascha Havemeyer, general director of Living Labs Global, a Copenhagen-based non-profit that encourages collaboration among the world’s cities.
Part of the problem is political pressure to contract with local businesses only, which makes it hard for city governments to look to outsiders for advice and solutions. “The logic behind that is it helps local companies grow,” says Havemeyer, but it can cost up to fifty times as much to recreate a product or service instead of importing it from elsewhere.
[I’m sure there are patterns books for cities considering software development borrowed the concept from architecture. The rest should be locally adjusted and built. atmo]
This is of course nothing new. We’ve been playing this bongo drum for years. But every time I see people crumble and quit from the crunch-mode pressure cooker, I think what a shame, it didn’t have to be like that. It’s the same when I read yet another story about someone who won the startup lottery, and the stereotypical startup role model is glorified and cemented again.
It’s almost like we need another word. Startup is a great one, but I feel like it’s been forever hijacked for this narrow style, and “starting a business” just doesn’t have the sex appeal. Any suggestions?
[I don’t have a suggestion, but I agree that it isn’t all or nothing.]
How America became a nation of freelancers:
According to the Labor Department, employers often misclassify independent contractors as employees, locking misclassified freelancers out of benefits like tax write-offs for health insurance that they’re already paying for, all by themselves. For freelancers, it’s much, much harder to qualify for a loan, refinance their mortgage or, if they’re underwater on their homes, to find relief from loan modification programs.
I know a woman who was told, off the record, that the company that was considering hiring her would only do so on a contract basis – they didn’t want to take on the expense of hiring her because of her considerable medical bills. (She didn’t get the job.) Another associate thought he’d hit pay dirt with a high-paying, full-time salaried position at a big-name software company. But then, suddenly – right as he was ready to sign the paperwork – they rescinded their offer. Instead, they told him that they could only offer him a contract position on a project-by-project basis.
If this is how our economy is now organized, then we need safety nets for independent workers. And we need to start by acknowledging, as a nation, that while it’s all very good to talk about job creation, for many of us, a regular 9-to-5 gig is no longer a reality. Work has changed; the American worker is changing. Old-school labor paradigms no longer fit.
[ Where’s the thinking about this, rather than trying to recreate old style manufacturing jobs? And while we’re on the topic, small is the new big. Individuals manufacturing custom stuff is alive and kicking, and should become much more commonplace. As it once was. Things were lost in the rush to the assembly line.]
turnings :: daniel berlinger 