sundance

Green tech finds (10/15/09)

Today is Blog Action Day, and this year’s topic is climate change. As such, today’s finds will all relate to technology aimed at addressing this threat… enjoy!

• A no-brainer: Engineers have found one simple approach to addressing the release of methane into the atmosphere: seal natural gas well leaks.
  
  
• Sketching up energy management: Buildings are one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. The open-source tool Open Studio can now be plugged into Google’s SketchUp (a 3D modeling tool) to account for energy usage in the building design process. (via CNET Green Tech)
  
  

Google Suggests some awful things

The Google Suggests feature is usually spot on, but sometimes it spits something at you that just doesn’t make much sense. The technology takes other people’s searches, caches them, and then predicts what you’re typing in the search box. The Huffington Post has asked readers to grab an image of the most inappropriate things Google [...]

Global Aviation Industry Vows to Halve CO2 Emissions By 2050

To help limit climate change, the international air transport industry has made a commitment to cut its carbon emissions in half by 2050, compared to 2005 levels.

Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank Saves 10% of World’s Wild Plants

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew celebrated a milestone in plant conservation today, the collection and banking of 10 percent of the world’s wild plant species. The 10 percent target was set in 2000 when Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank partnership was formed.

Monty Python turns 40

This Sunday night IFC kicks off Python Week with the first of six hour-long episodes of the new documentary MONTY PYTHON: ALMOST THE TRUTH (THE LAWYER’S CUT). They’ll be airing all the classics too, HOLY GRAIL, LIFE OF BRIAN, LIVE AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL along with some of the more memorable “Flying Circus” episodes. I expect [...]

This will make your brain explode

Watch this video where there’s more than meets the eye to what appears to be a simple magic trick. I don’t want to spoil it for the viewer other than to say 1) Watch it, 2) Watch it until the very end, and lastly 3) Ask a friend to collect the parts of your brain [...]

Sqweel: LoveHoney’s new oral sex simulator delivers

We’re often asked “If you could invent your own sex toy, what would it do?” And usually we can only think of a wise-ass answer like, “Cuddle, make dinner, and call me when it says it will.” But fortunately for everyone with a clitoris in their life, some people out there are a little more [...]

Giant Invasive Snakes, Giant Problem for U.S. Ecosystems

Five giant exotic snake species already in the United States would pose high risks to the health of U.S. ecosystems if they become established here, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey report.

Cinema gurus: Ken Jacobs and more

While reading an excellent article by Manohla Dargis in the New York Times about experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs and his upcoming show in Los Angeles, I was struck by the fact that we take cinema for granted. Cinematic language has been developing at breakneck speed since Edison arrived on the scene, yet rarely do we acknowledge that we “speak” cinema, an ever evolving, ever changing complex language of shots and cuts. And it’s even more unusual these days to look at the material of cinema itself, the light and shadows, the grain of the celluloid (or pixels of the video image). That’s why filmmakers like Ken Jacobs, who have spent their life devoted to just that, slowing down the experience of cinema and embarking on penetrating explorations of the basic primary experience of it, are like film gurus. They remind us of the magic, the invention, the wonder of what has become at times over commercialized and mundane. One look at images coming from Ken Jacob’s Nervous Magic Lantern and as Dargis explained, we have no idea what we are watching…

Green jobs: What if you don’t want to weatherize houses?

Most of the discussions you’ve heard about green jobs likely focus on blue-collar positions: just think about how many times the phrase “green collar jobs” is followed by “installing solar panels” and “weatherizing houses.” These are important discussions, no doubt, and organizations like the Apollo Alliance and Green for All deserve credit for bringing these opportunities into the debate over economic recovery.

But what if you’re an engineer, a marketing manager, or an administrative assistant?

Broadway Legend Chita Rivera Launches New Album

Chita Rivera onstage at New York City’s Birdland Jazz Club – October 13, 2009.

Saxophone giant Charlie “Bird” Parker called it the “crossroads of the world.” New York City’s famed jazz club, Birdland, was just that on Tuesday for the launch of beloved Broadway star Chita Rivera’s new album, And Now I Swing.

Lorelei Lee: From DP to NYU (and back again)

Though doing porn to “pay for college” is an oft cited cliche, there are, in fact, many girls in the adult industry who are working their way through school–and taking their classes seriously, too. Lorelei Lee is one of those girls: the ten year veteran of the adult biz recently moved to New York City [...]

100 notes on 100 colors in 100 days

Designer Rachel Berger was inspired by Michael Bierut’s 100 Day Workshop at the Yale School of Art. I cannot seem to find any info online about this workshop, but I am assuming it is a challenge to an artist to work 100 days straight with one theme. Berger’s exploration of color and writing and the [...]

Hot dog rocking chair

Created by by Nienke Klunder and Jaime Hayón, this fiberglass rocking chair is what I (disturbingly) imagine a love child between Jeff Koons and the Oscar Mayer weiner mobile might look like. If you enjoyed this, you’ll also appreciate this motorcycle-based rocking chair that I shared earlier this summer. [Via]

The Playboy of the Western World

In every complete book of Shakespeare’s work, “The Merchant of Venice” is listed as a comedy, but anyone who has seen or read the play will probably agree that it’s not very funny. In fact, the very notion that Elizabethan audiences, or perhaps the characters themselves would consider plot points like maligning a man for his religion (or his job, depending on what school of thought you belong to) or extracting a pound of human flesh from a living man humorous makes for an uneasy theater-going experience.

The same is true for J.M. Synge’s “The Playboy of the Western World.” It begins when Christy, a farmer’s son, stumbles into a tavern claiming to have murdered his father not seven days ago. To his relief (and the bewilderment of the audience, I expect) the townspeople don’t run him out, but applaud him for his courage. Only a very brave man would have the guts to kill his own dad. Then, after all the women in the surrounding area fall head over heels for him and he’s all set to marry the tavern keeper’s daughter, Pegeen, Christy’s father shows up with nothing more than a wound on his head.

College Sustainability Report Card: Who made the grade?

Got a child looking at colleges? Or, are you looking for yourself? More and more, sustainability efforts may be one of the criteria you and others use to choose a “good” school. For several years, the Sustainable Endowments Institute has made the search for that information a little easier with the publication of its College Sustainability Report Card. The 2009 edition was released last week, and colleges and universities around the country are bragging (or not) about their “grades.”

Green graffiti

As someone who loves and appreciates street art I have to say it is rare these days when graffiti moves me. Maybe it is just living in a city like New York. We’re inundated daily with it on building sides and subway platforms. It’s become part of the city’s landscape. With that said I could [...]

Spike Jonze: The First 80 Years

Spike Jonze planned his upcoming release of WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE very well. He seems to be all around us. For starters, the latest issue of Wholphin includes three short Maurice Sendak-based pieces he directed. They’re very DIY (as in not very good) but they’re cute and kooky and serve a purpose, namely, to get us all amped up for the real, long-awaited, much-anticipated thing itself, in theaters Friday.

I just made love

I’m someone who definitely kisses and tells. I have been all my life and usually it turns my partners red with embarrassment and sometimes red with anger. Additionally, I’ve never been popular with guys who seek “discretion” when hooking up. FYI: “discretion” is code word for “I have a boyfriend.” I am really dangerous to [...]

Three weeks of Elia Kazan

James Dean in EAST OF EDEN Before starting a new film, Elia Kazan would buy a small school notebook and then fill it over the course of the production. Those notebooks have since been collected and compiled for the recently published “Kazan on Directing.” In support of the book release Film Forum is hosting three [...]

Random brainstorming tool

Hit a creative wall? The Brainstormer is there to the rescue! Andrew Bosley created an online flash spin wheel that will spit out random suggestions from three categories. You can spin each category individually or click on the “random” button to let the programmed chance of fate automatically provide suggestions. This is a great easy [...]

Naked News (10-13-09)

Three days left till Marge Simpson’s Playboy centerfold hits newsstands. Now we’re justing waiting for Stewie’s cover story in “The Advocate.” Support for civil unions up to 57%; support for same-sex marriage still only at 39%. But would a rose really smell as sweet if we gave it another name? It’s sad enough that there’s [...]

Nervous Acid’s top 50 albums of the 2000s

Norman Brannon is an author who wrote the book The Anti-Matter Anthology: A 1990s Post-Punk & Hardcore Reader. He’s also a musician and blogger. His personal site, Nervous Acid, showcases his thoughts on culture, design, and often times, you guessed it, music. I am a sucker for a list. Don’t get me started. And while Norman [...]

Are we pissing away our water?

Yep… so much so that US Environmental Protection Agencies WaterSense program (an ENERGY STAR for water) has addressed the issue by making the flushing urinal the first commercial product for which it’s developed standards. According to the EPA, “Approximately 65 percent of the estimated 12 million urinals in the United States are old and inefficient. While the current federal standard for commercial urinals is 1.0 gallon per flush (gpf ), some older urinals use as much as five times that amount!”

The Twilight Zone 50th anniversary

I think, to a lot of people, old episodes of the The Twilight Zone are tucked away with other 50s and 60s kitsch like Leave it to Beaver and Gidget. Maybe it’s the Disneyland ride or its downright awful recent reincarnation “The Zone” that keep people from taking it seriously or seeing it as the veritable [...]