"The difficulty lies not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones." - John Maynard Keynes

excercise bath tub

Have you seen those bathtubs/showers for people who want to sit in their bath tub (usually for old or handicapped people)? They open from the side, have a seat in them...basically it looks like a raised up jacuzzi.

Why can't people make this kind of bath tub into a standing pool? You can bathe in it, or swim (on the spot) in it. Works great for people who want to run but can't due to their knees or something. Aquatic exercise in your own bathtub! :)

Buddhist farming

Workless farming? Those two words seem to be an oxymoron. Well, not to Fukuoka Masanobu, the author of "The One Straw Revoluntion"and the founder of the Fukuoka method of farming.

His philosophy is that we should learn how to do less with plants to get more yield, instead of conventional farming, which is to work more for the plant (e.g. use pesticides so the plant doesn't need to fight of pests), so that the plant can concentrate on growing.

He spent 30 years perfecting a system to grow food with the least energy. He has four principles: No cultivation. No fertilizer. No weeding. No pesticides. He claims he can produce enough food to match conventional farming techniques on the same amount of land.

Here's an example of his method (from wikipedia):

There is no plowing, as the seed germinates quite happily on the surface if the right conditions are provided. There is also considerable emphasis on maintaining diversity. A ground cover of white clover grows under the grain plants to provide nitrogen. Weeds (and Daikons) are also considered part of the ecosystem, periodically cut and allowed to lie on the surface so the nutrients they contain are returned to
the soil. Ducks are let into the grain plot, and specific insectivorous carp into the rice paddy at certain times of the year to eat slugs and other pests.The ground
is always covered. As well as the clover and weeds, there is the straw from the previous crop, which is used as mulch, and each grain crop is sown before the previous one is harvested. This is done by broadcasting the seed among the standing crop. Also he re-introduced the ancient technique of seed balls. The seed for next season's crop is mixed with clay, compost, and sometimes manure, and formed into small balls. The result is a denser crop of smaller but highly productive and stronger plants.

He continued on this path of farming because of inspiration from Buddhism: the concept of "mu," which means nothingness, to return to a state of "do-nothing." (Hard to understand for me western types...do nothing sounds just lazy).

I think more parts of our life can be like the Fukuoka method of farming.

Slowing down?

Now I understand why the workers in the Scandinavian countries work less, but with more efficiency.

When you're at work for 7 or 8 hours, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're actually working for 7 or 8 hours. Lots of time is spent socializing (which can be argued that it enhances work place harmony), surfing the internet, personal phone calls/emails, etc etc. From my limited work experience, it seems like at least a few hours a week is spent on doing these things instead of working.

Of course, without real evidence to back up my claim...but I think cutting our work week to 30 hours wouldn't damage our economy too much. Plus, people won't get as stressed and have more time for other activities (e.g. volunteering, leisure, continuing education).

Although...all this saved time won't be very productive if you increase your commute by living further from the office...

Families are external hard drives?

Part of my job is to do community outreach, which essentially means I hand out pamphlets and talk to people at events.

I find it really interesting how I repeatedly come across the same situation: two people (married or in a relationship I assume) walk by together. Both stop to listen to my sphiel, but only one really listens and takes my pamphlets. And often, immediately afterwards, I can hear the other one asking the one that listened what I was talking about.

Maybe it's because of my habit of only focusing on one pair of eyes when I talk....but I think most likely it's because we treat our other family members as external hard drives. (I read this somewhere before...I just don't remember where).

Because we live so close together, we simply have to ask certain members of the family about certain things they are good at remembering (or doing) instead of learning it ourselves. Therefore we gain an extended memory; our skill set/memory just doubled because one more person is in our family.

It's quite obvious when you consider parents always asking their kids how to use the mostly simplest of technology again and again. It's not that they can't learn, it's just that they don't have to.

This division of labour in the family might be a huge advantage evoluntionary wise....?

Thinking from a plant's point of view

TED talk by Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma." Twists your thinking a bit doesn't it?

Blue Planet Run

Beautiful, beautiful photobook on water around the world. Free!

Download here

From Amazon.com


I think most books should be like this in the future :)

Cars and Guns, Germs, Steel

I just finished watching "Who Killed the Electric Car?" and I just finished reading "Guns, Germs, and Steel."

In the first, the seemingly superior invention of the electric car way back at the end of the 1990s was 'killed' and covered up by the automobile industries. The film points to car companies, oil companies, US government, and consumers (I think that's all) as those who should be responsible. And then we spent billions into developing the hydrogen fuel cell technology (and hybrids).

The latter one, talks about human history and some of the trends in different societies. One particular one caught my eye was that over millennia, constantly, there have been societies that have not adopted clearly superior technology (that was invented or imported) and reverted back to their old ones. The reason Jared Diamond offered is that those societies were so isolated (or in China's case, unified under one supreme ruler so early) that there was no competition whatsoever. In other societies, if one tribe doesn't adopt a new superior technology, they would either get assimilated, conquered, or massacred by the other tribes that did. In Europe, all the different countries had different rulers who had a lot of money to invest in different technologies; the superior ones stayed.

That brings to me to worry about the future of the increasingly converging 'developed' countries of the world. Our political leaders, business leaders, and even economic leaders are increasingly the same bunch of people (or people with the same kind of ideologies and paradigms). Are we becoming like the unified China before the modern age? Are we going to start killing all our new innovations because our leaders believe it is not in their (or their company's) interest to do so? How much power are we giving to these leaders to control our future? Is globalization the new isolation?

iPledge

At work, I proposed a 'campaign' to the Green Team for our office. It's called "iPledge."

The idea is simple:

Each month, a new green habit will be posted up.

Each month, people who signed up for the challenge will pledge to follow that habit with all other iPledgers.

For example, here's a bunch of pledges:


I pedge to…for a month:

• To not buy coffee without a reusable cup
• reuse all my single-sided paper
• Bring a reusable bag with me everywhere I go
• Recycle my clothes by donating it to people in need
• Throw on a sweater instead of turning the heat up
• Buy as many things as possible in bulk
• Unplug cell phone chargers and microwaves when not using (reduce phantom load)
• If it's yellow, let it mellow; when it's brown, flush it down
• Always wash full loads
• Turn off the water when soaping up your hands or brushing your teeth
• cutting dishwashing detergent in half with baking soda.
• use indian nuts to wash laundry and reuse them, boiled to make dish washing soap, then pop them in the compost
• For saving water in the toilet, I put a full bottle of water in the toilet tank
• Hang your clothes to dry when possible
• Buy toilet paper made from recycled paper!
• Bring tupperwear in your purse to restaurants for left-overs
• Make your own wrapping paper from scraps or use comics from the local newspaper
• Reduce your household potable water use by over 30% by recycling your greywater with a Brac System
• turn off the heat dry on your dish washer. air dry is good enough
• Do something with the cold water that is wasted while the water is heating up in the shower. Place some buckets under the shower so that the water fills the buckets rather than running down the drain. Use the water to water your plants or flush your toilet.
• reuse coffee grinds as an exfoliant and anti-cellulite treatment.The caffeine apparently promotes circulation and reduces water retention.
• Drink tap water; Most places in BC have the highest quality tap water in the world
• Use a timer power bar to reduce your phantom electricity load
• Donate your old eyeglasses when you buy a new pair.
• sell things you no longer need on Craigslist or leave them at the office for someone else to use
• schedule your showers right after someone else has just showered so you don't have to waste time and water waiting for the water to warm up
• Place mirrors across from windows and behind or across the room from a lamp to light up a room

(Most of these were found here:
http://www.thegreenpursuit.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=52&Itemid=46)

Have fun encouraging your friends or yourself or your co-workers to pledge to become greener!

Statistics and Individuals

I saw this quote yesterday: "Statistics don't mean anything to the individual."

Without any quantitative evidence, my intuition tells me this is quite true. Even if only 0.000000001% of humans are abducted by aliens, if you were abducted, it doesn't really matter what the probability is.

But when leaders are making decisions "for the greater good," all they have is statistics to look at. The most you can hope is to maximize some kind of statistic (e.g. the number of people who can go to school). How do we reconcile the differences between the leader and those being led?

No more fights?

I was at a conference a few months ago. One of the speakers had a great way to resolve conflicts:

If any two people are arguing, stop the argument, take 5 seconds to time out, and then argue for the other person.

Meaning...you have to argue for the other person from their point of view. Apparently, the speaker and his sibling never got into real fights because their parents forced them to resolve conflicts this way.

What an amazing way to gain more understanding of the person you're trying to communicate with



P.S. I don't even know what category to tag this in :p

Gifts of money...in a new way

How about a website of gift certificates to your favourite charity?

So you go and buy your loved ones a gift certificate to any charity of their choice. And then you give it to them.

After all, giving only makes you happier!

Paying it forward with gifts:)

Dog Washing Machine

So I was washing my dear doggy yesterday and I realized how much easier it would be if she could just stand on a platform while water and soap is squirted at her.

1. have a platform that the animal (or anything for that matter) can stand on. platform also needs to squirt water.

2. have a cylinder (that can become smaller or bigger) that covers the whole body of the animal. The cylinder needs to be able to spin around fast so water can be squirted out.

3. need to be water efficient and fast at washing whatever is inside.

I thought this might even work with a chair for old people to sit on. I think some old people might have trouble reaching down to their toes to wash them?

plus all the water used can be recollected and used to ...er... make acidic soil more alkaline

Some Ground Rules

So we have to lay down some ground rules for posting on this blog to make the experience fun and pleasant for everyone:

1. No idea is too crazy or silly! This is an ideas blog; we encourage all kinds of random ideas that pop up in your mind daily. To borrow a cliche (which actually almost became the name of our blog), one person's trash is another's treasure. I'll even start by posting a random idea about dog washing machines :D

2. Please tag all your posts with your name or pseudonym so it's easier to search. Please also tag what your post is about (e.g. inventions, politics, economics, engineering)

3. Make lots of comments on other people's ideas!

Caution: Thinking Might Go On Here (once in a while...)

Hola!

Welcome to the blog where crazy inventions, questionable moral systems (as in still in the progress of being defined), unrecognizable political systems, and a whole slew of other random ideas are thrown into a big melting pot, in the hopes that we might actually get promoted to the two percent George Bernard Shaw belongs to.

"Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week."

---George Bernard Shaw

If you also think that you think, give us a shout. We'll be happy to add you as our ideas contributor, or as we like to call ourselves, the 3 percent.