Petica's posterous http://peticawatson.posterous.com a place to plonk stuff posterous.com Tue, 18 May 2010 17:11:37 -0700 Transforming Rio's Slums to ...stripey rainbows?! http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/05/18/1077 http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/05/18/1077
Media_httpwwwspringwi_eaimz
A splash of colour and design can go a long way toward beautifying a grey, ugly space, as Carspaze and Style-your-garage have already shown. Now aiming to do something similar for the slums of Rio de Janeiro through large, community-driven murals, the Favela Painting project also goes several steps further by incorporating training and employment for local residents. The brainchild of Dutch artist duo Haas&Hahn, Favela Painting has already completed two community painting projects in Vila Cruzeiro—Rio's most notorious slum—along with the first portion of O Morro, its current effort to paint an entire hillside slum. Some 34 houses and 7,000 square meters of Praça Cantão in Santa Marta have already been transformed through paint, and the project hopes to return later this year to paint even more of the hillside. In each of its projects, Favela has focused on recruiting local residents to do much of the painting, including training and paying them. In this latest one, local inhabitants were trained through a partnership with Brazilian paint company TintasCoral on everything from different types of paint to safety measures while working on scaffolding. Dre Urhahn, one of the Favela Painting artists, explains: “This work of art can make a colorful difference in the lives of local individuals, the community and the city of Rio. It has the potential of working as a catalyst in the processes of social renewal and change.” Favela Painting is supported by Firmeza Foundation, and recently the decorative paint division of Dutch AkzoNobel—which is also conducting a community campaign of its own—signed on as a partner as well. There are all too many grim, unadorned spaces throughout the urban world. Paint brands around the globe: time to sponsor some community action near you! Website: www.favelapainting.com Contact: info@favelapainting.com

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Fri, 02 Apr 2010 11:25:01 -0700 Films that will change your life... hopefully http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/04/02/films-that-will-change-your-life-hopefully http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/04/02/films-that-will-change-your-life-hopefully I've been compiling a list of films that are life-changing in some way. In style, they may not be cutting edge or even deserve to be thought of as a real 'film', however it's the content I'm interested in for the purposes of this list. How many have you seen? You may have seen many of them already. And I'm aware the list is not comprehensive ! Feel free to add any you feel should be on the list. In time these will have synopsises. Documentaries and links will also be included eventually FOOD ISSUES:
  • Fast Food Nation
  • Supersize me
  • Food Inc
  • The Future of Food
  • McLibel
  • Supersize Me
  • Supermarket Secrets
  • A Farm for the Future
BODY AND EATING:
  • The PH Miracle
to continued SPIRITUAL GROWTH:
  • What the Bleep do we know?
  • Celestine Prophesy
  • The Secret
  • Peaceful Warrior
  • Bruce Lipton: The Biology of Belief
  • Doing Time Doing Vipassana
  • tbc
ENVIRONMENT /THE PLANET/SOCIETY
  • Who Killed the Electric Car
  • The End of Suburbia
  • An Inconvenient Truth
  • The 11th Hour
  • Outfoxed
  • The Corporation
  • The Age of Stupid
  • Adam Curtis' films
  • Flow
  • A World Without Water
  • The End of the Line
  • Crude Awakening
  • Baraka
to be continued...

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Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:47:34 -0700 Where can you educate and stimulate yourself easily and for free? http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/03/23/where-can-you-educate-and-stimulate-yourself-easily-and-for-free http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/03/23/where-can-you-educate-and-stimulate-yourself-easily-and-for-free

Open University videos on iTunes U

I've been working for the Open University for a long time now, re-organising their audio-visual archives so that they can be accessed free online through ITunes software, on ITunesU. It's a fantastic resource that hardly anyone seems to know about. Universities all over the world are uploading their visual content in the hope that potential students will be impressed and want to study a given course at that institution. Open University's material is the best of course. There are skillfully put together documentaries on all sorts of subjects (called albums), divided into short chunks or "tracks" . Open iTunesU on your computer and go to the Store. Click on the tab iTunesU and surf from there. Here's an example.

http://itunes.open.ac.uk/r/1vTBeR

The universities have the content, the videos and web provide the platform, and hey presto, a very useful service.

And here we have a San Francisco based company doing something similar - except, these are only filmed lectures, rather than professionally edited documentaries. Also, they're streamed, so you have to sit through their annoying initial student blurbs about when they've got to hand in their essays etc. Here's their blurb:

Academic Earth is an organization founded with the goal of giving everyone on earth access to a world-class education.

As more and more high quality educational content becomes available online for free, we ask ourselves, what are the real barriers to achieving a world class education?  At Academic Earth, we are working to identify these barriers and find innovative ways to use technology to increase the ease of learning. We are building a user-friendly educational ecosystem that will give internet users around the world the ability to easily find, interact with, and learn from full video courses and lectures from the world’s leading scholars.  Our goal is to bring the best content together in one place and create an environment in which that content is remarkably easy to use and where user contributions make existing content increasingly valuable. We invite those who share our passion to explore our website, participate in our online community, and help us continue to find new ways to make learning easier for everyone. http://www.academicearth.org/about and here's an example of a lecture: http://www.academicearth.org/lectures/sustainable-systems-in-sustainable-living (Gosh American uni students are pretty rowdy and excitable don't you think!)

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Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:19:40 -0700 a font of entrepreneurial ideas: Springwise http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/03/23/a-font-of-entrepreneurial-ideas-springwise http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/03/23/a-font-of-entrepreneurial-ideas-springwise

This website is quite interesting, if you like ideas.

http://springwise.com/

People post ideas they've seen happening - you can't post if you haven't seen the idea implemented. You can also browse by industry, so here is Food and Beverage: http://springwise.com/food_beverage/index.php?page=10 and here is Eco stuff: http://springwise.com/eco_sustainability/ Three of my faves:
Media_httpwwwspringwi_aculi
Eco-minded bathroom fixtures are no longer hard to find, but they still tend to focus more on function than on form. One notable exception is W+W, a combined toilet and sink from Spanish brand Roca that combines compact style with green-minded thinking. Launched last fall, W+W is a single, L-shaped unit in which the sink and toilet are not only attached but also integrated internally. Specifically, wastewater from the sink is used to fill the toilet's cistern, thus saving as much as 25 percent of the water that would normally be used. An automatic cleaning system prevents bad odors and bacteria, while a specialized tap controls the water's temperature and flow for maximum energy savings, Plumbing Park reported. Developed by the Roca Innovation Lab and designed by Gabriele and Oscar Buratti, the prize-winning W+W is priced at EUR 2,731. An eco-iconic innovation to bring to the green but style-conscious masses near you...? Website: www.roca.com.es/w+w/w+w/en/index.html Contact: www.es.roca.com/en/contact
Media_httpaddoublecli_balab
Media_httpaddoublecli_dcncg
Media_httpwwwspringwi_licuf
If the energy people expend dancing and working out can power cellphones, lights and other electrical appliances, why not apply the same concept to all the energy spent by millions of people every day simply walking along city sidewalks? That's exactly the premise behind Pavegen slabs, which can be inserted among regular sidewalk sections to capture the kinetic energy people spend just walking. Each rubber slab from UK-based Pavegen Systems gets depressed by about 5 mm each time it gets stepped on. Using just that small movement, it can convert the kinetic energy used into electricity, which is then stored in the slab. Specifically, 5 percent of the energy harvested is used to make the slab's LED glow, making it clear to users that their energy has been captured. The rest can be used to power pedestrian lighting, information displays and many other applications. Pavegen's patent-protected technology has also been used to harvest energy from users' footsteps on stairs; custom branding is available. Following recent tests in East London, Pavegen is now seeking both investors and additional testing sites for its eco-iconic innovation. One to get in on early...? Website: www.pavegensystems.com Contact: hello@pavegen.co.uk Spotted by: James Graemer
Media_httpwwwspringwi_qauul
Games have long been used as an educational tool, and not just for kids. Canadian Akoha, for example, encourages players to be more kind. Now, along similar lines, Play Rethink invites users to redesign everyday objects to make them more sustainable. Play Rethink ("The Eco-Design Game") is an effort from London-based Rethink Games to help people think—or rethink—how to make everyday objects and services more socially and environmentally friendly. Each game includes a multicoloured wheel and 98 drawing cards along with an eco-strategies key card and an instruction sheet with activities. With each spin of the wheel, players get a card asking them to rethink a particular everyday object, such as a chair or a vacuum cleaner. They then describe their idea for a more sustainable approach by drawing it on the card. Ideas players are particularly proud of can be uploaded onto the Play Rethink website, where others can rate, comment and be inspired by them. What's more, each month Rethink Games selects one idea to serve as the project of the month, and it's currently working on setting up partnerships with organizations that can help develop those ideas further. Play Rethink is sold online and through select London retailers. Pricing is GBP 24.95, with refill card packs available for GBP 5.95 each. Corporate workshops to help promote innovation are also available. Facilitating the idea generation process is all very good and well, of course; what will make this really interesting, however, is a way to turn the best ideas into reality. RedesignMe found a way to do that through partnerships with manufacturers, and it also took the critical step of paying the Generation C(ash) consumers whose ideas got used. Play Rethink may be a game, but it's also another way to tap into the global brain. Who will help pave the way toward some real results? (Related: iPhone game gets kids into the (hidden) park.)

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Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:44:54 -0700 Are you interested in a lot of different things? http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/03/15/are-you-interested-in-a-lot-of-different-things http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/03/15/are-you-interested-in-a-lot-of-different-things Then you are a scanner. I have a few scanner friends, and they are usually working in something quite dynamic like radio-producing or docco-making, because those professions need a curious mind, a wide general knowledge and a desire to keep moving on. See www.scannercentral.co.uk for a monthly event run by a coach who specialises in helping ideas people. Some people have a lot of ideas but there is only so much time to devote to them. Ideas are like seedlings, and they ain't much unless you nurture them, focus on them and give them the right kind of attention. If you have too many, you need to thin them out, or none of them will grow very well. But what if you have a problem deciding which to thin out? You need to choose. But you just can't, because you are so interested in all of them. This is the crux of my problem right now. (and for as long as I can remember! )

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Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:06:04 -0800 Notes taken...2006 http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/03/10/random-facts http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/03/10/random-facts I'm spring cleaning, and throwing a lot of paper away - years of copious note-taking - it's hard to let go but I feel better if I can write certain bits of my notes down here. Walmart now controls as much wealth of 40% of the US population. The water needed to produce 1 lb of beef could be used to be in for months. Producer responsibility is a new idea in the US. In Brazil, in 1993, it was decided that food was now a right of citizenship. The city acts as convenor, bringing together business and labour - there were dozens of innovations of how to make food accessible - such as accessible priced food listed at bus stops. How the developing world is "holding" our natural way of doing things... We have to move from a carbon fossil economy to a living carbon economy. the fossil age has created a a mechanistic paradigm of thinking.. Soil not oil Preparing for climate change - eg farmers who have been forced to grow indigo for textiles for a national market, should now be growing food to feed themselves. Save ancient varieties of seeds = adaption capacity Skyscrapers reflect the human condition in our time - they don't touch - isolated. Technology isolates. Future visions: we'll take ships across Atlantic, keep working on the internet on the ship The more you can empower others the more you can empower yourself Don't keep digging up weeds, plant better trees...

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