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.]
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.]
Translucent, pliable material lights up your home and adds privacy, too:
In the 1970s a new building material gained traction in the marketplace. This material had all of the advantages of a skylight while being superior to skylights in energy efficiency and structure. It’s no wonder that many architects started specifying Kalwall where the only option had been a glass or plastic product.
Kalwall, which was actually developed in the ’50s, is a fiberglass-reinforced translucent sandwich panel. Though initially used for commercial and institutional buildings, Kalwall has become increasing popular for homes. This is especially true for an entire, luminous ceiling or where light is desired but privacy must be maintained.
[I’ve loved this stuff for years. Little known outside of architectural circles, builders are shy to use it. Shame really. I could so do this to my kitchen… Modern kitchen design by San Francisco architect Quezada Architecture]
Honeywell sues Nest for patent infringement:
Honeywell makes crappy, ugly thermostats. They’re the market leader, but they’ve been sitting on their asses, not doing much. So thermostat innovation and design has been pretty stagnant for years.
Nest’s is by far the most innovative thermostat we’ve seen for a long time, but it looks like they’re going to have a lot of problems with these Honeywell patents, which will probably impair (or, at worst, prevent) them from pushing this stagnant industry forward.
Remind me again how the patent system promotes innovation.
[Yeah, what he said. And shame on Honeywell…]
Source: Marco.org
Building reuse almost always yields fewer environmental impacts than new construction when comparing buildings of similar size and functionality
[The same holds true for almost everything it feels like. So when you can reuse, and when you can’t share.]
What Happened to all the Snow? – NASA Science:
First of all,” he explains, “we are experiencing a La Niña pattern of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. This pushes the jet stream and the cold arctic air northward.”
“On top of that, this year’s Arctic Oscillation has been stronger.”The Arctic Oscillation is a see-sawing pressure difference between the Arctic and lower latitudes. When the pressure difference is high, a whirlpool of air forms around the North Pole. Last year, the whirlpool motion was weaker, allowing cold air to escape from the polar regions and head southward to the US.
“This year the whirlpool has been more forceful, corralling the cold air and keeping it nearer the pole. That has reinforced the La Niña impact.”
[“It ain’t over till the Siberian Huskies sing.”]
Source: Lennard Zinn
Wind Power Without the Blades:
Noise from wind turbine blades, inadvertent bat and bird kills and even the way wind turbines look have made installing them anything but a breeze. New York design firm Atelier DNA has an alternative concept that ditches blades in favor of stalks. Resembling thin cattails, the Windstalks generate electricity when the wind sets them waving. The designers came up with the idea for the planned city Masdar, a 2.3-square-mile, automobile-free area being built outside of Abu Dhabi.
[Nice. And maybe these can avoid some of the NIMBY issues that the turbine based farms have suffered with… aesthetics matter more than many believe. You could even make this into a skate, pump track park.]
Nobody in the Android ecosystem — not Google, not manufacturers of Android devices, and certainly not the gadget blogs that review and promote them — seems to care about long-term user satisfaction, even when “long-term” is as short as a two-year smartphone contract.
Rich people and gadget bloggers can upgrade their smartphones every 6 months, but what about everyone else? Will most of Android’s userbase feel much loyalty to the platform at their next contract renewal?
[How wasteful is this environmentally? Are these devices being built with recycling or up cycling in mind? They clearly aren’t being built to be useful in the long term (even for computers). I like to think about things that I build in centuries. Preferably 3 centuries. If it lasts 300 years, it’s probably worth investing resources. (For example, if it takes 100 years to produce the tree whose wood I’m using, isn’t 3 times that long feel like it balances out the time it’ll take to regrow that tree?) ]
Source: Marco.org
turnings :: daniel berlinger 