Loosely Assembled » alternatives

Paleo-fantasies

fekaylius — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 23:50:48 +0000

Zuk draws on Leslie Aiello’s concept of ‘paleofantasies,’ stories about our past spun from thin evidence, to label the nostalgia some people seem to express for prehistoric conditions that they see as somehow healthier. In my research on sports and masculinity, I frequently see paleofantasies come up around fight sports, the idea that, before civilization hemmed us in and blunted our instincts, we would just punch each other if we got angry, and somehow this was healthier, freer and more natural (the problems with this view being so many that I refuse to even begin to enumerate them). It’s an odd inversion on the usual Myth of Progress, the idea that things always get better and better; instead, paleofantasies are a kind of long range projection of Grumpy Old Man Syndrome (’Things were so much better in MY day…’), spinning fantasies of ‘life before’ everything we have built up around us.

Interesting setup for an article that goes beyond the traditional rhetoric we find ourselves wrapped up in.

Duh! Powering Restaurants with Waste Oil

fekaylius — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:50:51 +0000

Duh! Powering Restaurants with Waste Oil: “

Sometimes I’m shocked that these things aren’t already being done. I mean, almost every restaurant in the world has a dumpster filled with fuel in the back…why not just put a generator there instead! Vegawatt, a Massachusetts-based company, is doing just that. They’ve created a fry-oil generator that deals with the waste while producing energy.

They’ve just turned on their first system at a Boston-area restaurant, and it seems to be working like a charm. The system is smaller than a conventional grease dumpster, and consumes 100% of the waste oil produced by Finz Seafood and Grill. Of course, the maximum 6 kW that it produces reduces the restaurant’s monthly bill by about $800 (or about 15%.)

The system could be scaled up, but then there wouldn’t be any grease to power it, and it wouldn’t save anyone money. Vegawatt is looking into reducing electricity bills further by creating hot water with the device as well.

Finz is leasing the device for about $400, so it saves them a total of $400 a month. As you might expect, Vegawatt is expecting to expand.

They’re about to close their first round of funding and, with that, they will be starting up larger operations serving restaurants throughout America.

Via CNet GreenTech

Originally posted by Hank Green from EcoGeek.org, ReBlogged by andreapolli on Jan 10, 2009 at 11:08 AM

“

(Via Eyebeam reBlog.)

Secret Museum of Mankind

fekaylius — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:55:14 +0000

Published in 1935, the Secret Museum is a mystery book. It has no author or credits, no copyright, no date, no page numbers, no index. Published by “Manhattan House” and sold by “Metro Publications”, both of New York, its “Five Volumes in One” was pure hype: it had never been released in any other form.

Stuffy Jacket

fekaylius — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:55:18 +0000

Fill this jacket with any kind of on hand insulation

Pirate Island to Pirate Town / by bike

fekaylius — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:56:15 +0000

After noticing NYC’s new Ride the City site, I rediscovered bycycle.org for bike route mapping in Portland. To celebrate, I’ve created a little route from Pirate Island to Pirate Town, enjoy the summer by bike!

Fractal Universe or Optical Illusion?

fekaylius — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:46:26 +0000

A new study points out the possibility that the universe might spiral out and out and out to much farther reaches than conventional models. The fractal nature of this model could also be thought of as some kind of optical illusion, or quantum mirroring effect, where a small handful of galaxies are replicated infinitely across space, relying on the existence of an observer.

Pedal Car Draws Heat

fekaylius — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:09:08 +0000

The driver of the art work Shared Propulsion Car was arrested by Toronto Police on October 25 on Queen Street West in Toronto. The revolutionary vehicle is an art work create by the just-announced winner of the 2007 Sobey Art Award Michel de Broin. It was made of a Buick Regal 1986 body stripped of its engine, suspension, transmission and electrical system and propels by the will to power of its passenger. The vehicle retains the illusion of the mass-produced luxury automobile, but is now reduced to a shell with a top speed of 15km per hour. This unique car needs no petrol, produce no toxic emission and is not responsible for the innocents people killed for petrol in the Middle East. Furthermore, in this individualist society, this convivial car was proposed as a good solution to bring people together and take over the street. Dean Baldwin an experience driver, took the steering wheel and with his fellows Elaine, Dave and Dan drove the car carefully on the street. The reaction of the public was enthusiasm, solidarity and sympathy. They drove 9 blocks (from Lisgar to Strachan) before being pulled over by the police.

The driver and passengers were left to wait for 30 minutes in the car while we suspect the cops tried to determine which exact law was broken. They settled on “operating an unsafe vehicle” and a tow-truck was called.

We believe there is noting in the law against this car, the problem is only in the perceptions: police can’t accept a car to be modified and to be moving without petrol. They gave the driver an order to appear before a judge on the 21 of November. The problem for the court will be to argue that the Shared Propulsion Car can be dangerous while we all know that the danger remains in the use of petrol car. It is rather the other car that are obviously dangerous. We believe the court is taking a big risk of bringing our car to spotlight. It is always striking when art become politic and win its right publicly. Our Plan is to tow the car to the courthouse, win our cause and then be able to drive the car freely on the street of Toronto.

watch the video

Bubbles and Seeds

fekaylius — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:15:06 +0000

coming off the back of a bike

Lilly Pad Future

fekaylius — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:06:48 +0000

read the details about the floating ecopolis for ecological refugees

BLU’s “MUTO” a graffiti animation

fekaylius — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:51:27 +0000

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

UFO Festival

fekaylius — Sat, 10 May 2008 18:27:03 +0000

This weekend.

Putting evolutionary theory into practice

fekaylius — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:40:55 +0000

Comment: Putting evolutionary theory into practice – opinion – 06 May 2008 – New Scientist: “A new journal called Evolutionary Applications has just been launched. The first issue is dedicated to making the point that applying evolution is crucial, and it makes a convincing case.”

Biometric Daemons

fekaylius — Mon, 05 May 2008 17:59:27 +0000

New Scientist has a dreamy article about a new potential kind of identity authentication.

Instead of a person’s biometric signature being stored on a distant database, they would reside only in the daemon – a small gadget carried around by its owner.

Like a real pet, that daemon would learn to imprint itself on its owner. After that it would thrive on their unique biometric signals, such as their voiceprint, fingerprints or walking style.

The human-daemon bond would be further cemented by games and interaction between the two. “Think how people bond with babies,” says Briggs. “You would do the same things with your daemon – cuddle it, stroke it, play verbal games.”

In the presence of its owner, those nourishing signals make the daemon “happy” and able to verify the owner’s identity, just like a PIN or password.

Totally Terrace

fekaylius — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 21:35:19 +0000

I say, “Put a bunch of these things *facing* each other and create a huge artificial valley.”

Church of Elvis is back

fekaylius — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:28:59 +0000

Apparently in a new Old Town location (4th and couch), i’ll check it out later today and post a pic.

Here are some of the images we use to indicate our commitment to “green”

fekaylius — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 04:48:47 +0000

The Yes Men.

Tallbike for Stilts

fekaylius — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 05:37:57 +0000

Abolish the United States – oh wait – not like that

fekaylius — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:56:16 +0000

see the table of contents, inner liner pages and back cover at the banned book club

Then check out the this blurb about the publishers of the book, the ~ Constitutional Education League, whom the Washington Post described as 1 of “28 Organized Groups Linked to Fascist Plot”. The leader of that group, a Joseph P. Kamp, kept getting in trouble for keeping the group’s funding sources secret.

The Constitutional Education League was founded shortly after World War I to combat “Communism in the United States and world wide.”

The U.S. Congress attempted to discover through an investigation, the financial backers of the League. The Vice-President of the League, Joseph P. Kamp refused to reveal this information to Congress and in 1950 was convicted and served four months in prison. Again in 1952 the House Lobby Investigation Committee tried to get Kamp to produce financial records of the League, but he again refused.

Mention of JPK in an undercover expose about the Nazi Party

15 more publications by Mr. Kamp

Seems our Abolitionist also felt compelled to defend Joseph McCarthy

Moral: think revolutionarily, but don’t follow just any old revolutionary!

Baby Blue Eyes

fekaylius — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 23:50:42 +0000

Changed Minds

fekaylius — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:19:39 +0000

Get 165 influential people to talk about the first-person experience of a mind changing moment, and you get a fascinating example of flux, wrapped with stimulating personalities and cultural milestones.

The authors include:

Daniel Kahneman, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, W. Daniel Hillis, David Goodhart, Mark Henderson, David Gelernter, Bart Kosko, Randolph M. Nesse, Linda S. Gottfredson, Kai Krause, Clay Shirky, Denis Dutton, Jamshed Bharucha, Lera Boroditsky, Gregory Benford, Richard Dawkins, Roger Bingham, Jesse Bering, Barry Smith, Steve Connor, Geoffrey Miller, George Johnson, Stephon Alexander, Beatrice Golomb, Chris DiBona, Jordan Pollack, Alison Gopnik, Paul Saffo, Neil Gershenfeld, J. Craig Venter, David Sloan Wilson, Simon Baron-Cohen, Austin Dacey, Daniel Engber, Roger Highfield, Francesco De Pretis, Dimitar Sasselov, Jaron Lanier, Janna Levin, Martin Rees, Esther Dyson, Anton Zeilinger, Gerd Gigerenzer, PZ Myers, Susan Blackmore, Adam Bly, Nicholas Humphrey, Paul Ewald, Seirian Sumner, Brian Eno, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Robert Shapiro, Sam Harris, Yossi Vardi, David Buss, Andrian Kreye, Daniel Goleman, James Geary, Tim O’Reilly, Philip Campbell, Frank Wilczek, Chris Anderson, Rupert Sheldrake Nicholas A. Christakis, Daniel C. Dennett, Helena Cronin, Aubrey de Grey, Nicholas Carr, Lisa Randall, Brian Goodwin, Carolyn Porco, William H. Calvin, Mary Catherine Bateson, Stanislas Dehaene, Linda Stone, Sean Carroll, Richard Wrangham, Marco Iacoboni, Scott Atran, Leo Chalupa, John Allen Paulos, Eduardo Punset, Rebecca Goldstein, Juan Enriquez, George Dyson, Paul Davies, Steven Pinker, Alan Alda, Patrick Bateson, Jon Haidt, George Church, Terrence Sejnowski, Judith Rich Harris, Oliver Morton, Stewart Brand, Daniel Gilbert, Sherry Turkle, John Horgan, Roger Schank, Carlo Rovelli, Xeni Jardin, Stephen Schneider, Diane Halpern, Alan Kay, Marti Hearst, Kevin Kelly, Marcel Kinsbourne, Peter Schwartz, Scott Sampson, Ernst Pöppel, John McCarthy, Seth Lloyd, Gary Klein, Stephen Kosslyn,Lawrence Krauss,Jeffrey Epstein, Ken Ford, John Baez, A. Garrett Lisi, Lee Smolin, Gary Marcus, Lee Silver, Laurence Smith, Robert Trivers, Rodney Brooks, Paul Steinhardt, Helen Fisher, Steve Nadis, Tor Nørretranders, Robert Sapolsky, Max Tegmark, David Dalrymple, Daniel Everett, David Myers, Keith Devlin, Todd Feinberg, Robert Provine, Marc D. Hauser, Thomas Metzinger, Dan Sperber, Leon Lederman, Timothy Taylor, Haim Harari, David Bodanis, Charles Seife, Mark Pagel, Arnold Trehub, Gino Segre, Nick Bostrom, Rudy Rucker, David Brin, Ed Regis, Freeman Dyson, Marcelo Gleiser, Irene Pepperberg, Colin Tudge, James O’Donnell, Michael Shermer, Donald Hoffman, Howard Gardner, Piet Hut, Douglas Rushkoff, Karl Sabbagh, Joseph LeDoux, Martin Seligman

New Ideas for a New Era!