Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Fab@Home

Description: 

Fab@Home is a website dedicated to making and using fabbers - machines that can make almost anything, right on your desktop. This website provides an open source kit that lets you make your own simple fabber, and use it to print three dimensional objects. You can download and print various items, try out new materials, or upload and share your own projects. Advanced users can modify and improve the fabber itself.

Fabbers (a.k.a 3D Printers or rapid prototyping machines) are a relatively new form of manufacturing that builds 3D objects by carefuly depositing materials drop by drop, layer by layer. Slowly but surely, with the right set of materials and a geometric blueprint, you can fabricate complex objects that would normally take special resources, tools and skills if produced using conventional manufacturing techniques. A fabber can allow you explore new designs, email physical objects to other fabber owners, and most importantly - set your ideas free.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Green Options

Description: 

Green Options, is an online hub for all things Green. They focus on publishing knowledge and resources needed in greening up life. Their Blog features some of the best writers on the 'net covering a broad spectrum of green topics, the Discussion Forums allow a lively exchange of ideas and a sense of community, the Green Life Guide is an encyclopedia of everything eco, and the Green Report will keep you up to date on the day's most interesting news.

Monday, April 9, 2007

Green Tech special coverage

A long list of articles published by CNET News about green technology.

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Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Investors look for greener pastures in Silicon Valley

There is a lot of new investment and research and product development in clean energy technology in Silicon Valley.

Cleantech Venture Network, an industry trade group, estimates that clean energy investment in Silicon Valley topped $500 million last year, including not just venture capital but also corporate and some debt financing.

...Forty-year-old Applied Materials, the biggest supplier of tools for making microchips, added solar cell manufacturing to its repertoire last year, and is equipping its Sunnyvale research center in Silicon Valley with one of the largest sun-powered energy systems in the United States.

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Saturday, March 24, 2007

Why Having More No Longer Makes Us Happy

The average wage in the United States is less now, in real dollars, than it was 30 years ago. Even for those with college degrees, and though productivity was growing faster than it had for decades, between 2000 and 2004 earnings fell 5.2 percent when adjusted for inflation, according to the most recent data from White House economists.

...The median predictions of the world's climatologists -- by no means the worst-case scenario -- show that unless we take truly enormous steps to rein in our use of fossil fuels, we can expect average temperatures to rise another four or five degrees before the century is out, making the globe warmer than it's been since long before primates appeared.

...During the same decades when our lives grew busier and more isolated, we've gone from having three confidants on average to only two, and the number of people saying they have no one to discuss important matters with has nearly tripled.

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Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Cultivating green tech

A compendium listing of articles published on CNET NEWS about green technology

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Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Gourmet Nation: The New American Cuisine

Gourmet Nation: The New American Cuisine is a podcast from http://www.aworldofpossibilities.com/ about food and a return to modern wholesomeness in enjoying food and eating.

The culture around us is basically Fast Food run amok. One of the speakers in the program talks about how the chain restaurants have somehow reworked food so you don't even have to chew, you just inhale and you've consumed your daily nutrition. They didn't refer to this but the image which came to mind was the Star Trek (original generation) episode where the alien species had these pills they ate which gave them all the nutrition they needed and there was no more need for regular food. The method they used to subdue these aliens was to expose them to food, the enjoyments of food and I especially recall the enjoyments of liquor.

Community is one of our core needs .. that is, real honest and lasting connections with other people.

Community happens when people get together for a common purpose.

Therefore it occurred to me that one of the forms of community is the dinner table and the kitchen. That in the kitchen or at the dinner table you have people coming together, daily, to have their common purpose and needs met, namely sustenance. But as a side effect it brings people together for more than just sharing nutrition, it brings them together for enjoyment, for sharing their heart with each other, etc.