Prepare for Change

http://www.aljazeera.com/video/europe/2012/12/20121225114258372967.html "Estonians in the capital city of Talinn are soon to benefit from the arrival of free public transport. It is the first EU capital to make the shift and is part of a green platform adopted by Talinn's mayor, Edgar Savisaar. However, not everyone thinks the move will get cars off the road. The opposition fume that the idea is less about a clean environment and more about political opportunism." Generally public transportation is pretty cheap anyway.  Here in Rapid City it's $30 a month for an unlimited-ride pass.  I doubt that many more people would ride it because it's any cheaper than that.  But it could save a little on administrating the passes I guess.  File me as unconvinced so far. I see also that Montreal gives you a year of free public transportation if you turn in an old car.

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/12/21/mealworms-the-next-high-protein-food-source "Researchers in the Netherlands used three factors -- land usage, energy needs and greenhouse gas emissions -- to compare the environmental impact of mealworm farms to chicken, pork, beef or milk farms. Compared to the other types of farming, mealworm farming produced more edible protein using the same amount of land and less energy, according to the study in the journal PLoS One . The same team of researchers previously found that mealworms produce less greenhouse gases than other meat-producing animals." Sounds good to me. You can grind them up and make them seem like turkey burger or something. If the taste is ok, I'm fine with this.

http://bigthink.com/politeia/why-do-we-still-have-to-work " Eighty-two years later, with the economy again faltering, it doesn’t feel like the economic problem is close to being solved. But—in spite of another world war and a growing world population—Keynes’ prediction is still roughly on target. The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that the U.S. economy is about 15 times larger in real terms today than it was in 1930. Per capita income is about about 6 times larger, and is on pace to be nearly 8 times larger in 2030. Nevertheless, as Mike Beggs has remarked , we still don’t have robot butlers to do our work for us and are still not close to the 15-hour work week Keynes envisioned. If we’re really so much richer, why don’t we feel that way? Part of the answer has to do with how our wealth is divided up. As Lawrence Mishel points out , until the early 1970s hourly real compensation in the U.S. roughly kept pace with gains in productivity. That hasn't been ...

http://vimeo.com/53588182 "The designers developed the project in their spare time over four years, while working at London-based design firm Therefore. They're expecting the light to cost less than $5 to manufacture at scale. Once a family purchases the light, they'll be able to keep it running at no additional expense." Man this is cool. and so simple!  Bye bye kerosene!

http://fdlbooksalon.com/2012/12/09/fdl-book-salon-welcomes-steven-johnson/ "One of my great frustrations about the digital age is how poor our language is to explain and understand what is happening in our midst. At the outset of Future Perfect , Johnson offers us a new word to describe an emerging political consciousness: peer progressive . It is an apt term, well-coined. Peer progressives believe in the progress of humanity – that we are on a path of continual improvement, and that the exciting technological innovations of the digital age offer new and compelling ways forward. While embracing a progressive worldview, peer progressives believe in the power of peer-to-peer networks, not institutions. They are 'wary of centralized control, but they [are] not free-market libertarians…they [are] equally suspicious of big government and big corporations.' (page xxxvi) In many ways, Future Perfect follows directly from Johnson’s earlier books on the impact of te...

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/142755-the-first-flexible-fiber-optic-solar-cell-that-can-be-woven-into-clothes "Moving forward, the potential for flexible, woven solar cells is enormous. On the most basic, immediate level, you can imagine a baseball cap or t-shirt that can recharge your smartphone. As we move towards bionic implants and other biomedical devices, though, there is a very pressing need to develop a wearable power source — and fiber-optic solar cells could certainly be it. These fibers also have two other intriguing properties that still need to be investigated. Due to their three-dimensional cross-section, they can absorb sunlight from any direction — unlike their conventional, 2D siblings that lose much of their efficiency when the sun sinks below a certain angle. Further, according to Pier Sazio, another member of the research team, they used the same silicon injection method to embed photodetectors inside the fiber. Sazio doesn’t extrapolat...

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/urine-powered-generator-unveiled-international-exhibition-234718329.html "The generator was unveiled at last week's Maker Faire in Lagos, Nigeria, by the four teens Duro-Aina Adebola, Akindele Abiola, and Faleke Oluwatoyin, all age 14, and Bello Eniola, 15. So how exactly does the urine-powered generator work? Urine is put into an electrolytic cell, which separates out the hydrogen. The hydrogen goes into a water filter for purification, which then gets pushed into the gas cylinder. The gas cylinder pushes hydrogen into a cylinder of liquid borax, which is used to remove the moisture from the hydrogen gas. This purified hydrogen gas is pushed into the generator. And as for delivering the fuel itself? Well, we'll leave that up to the consumer. The Maker Faire is a popular event across the African continent, drawing thousands of participants who travel to Lagos to show their inventions ...