Cell phones usually contribute to urban noise pollution. But the folks at Paris’s Sony Computer Science Laboratory have created an app that lets any GPS-enabled phone help us understand the problem. Behold NoiseTube:
Serenity now!
… Read & Discuss
We no longer learn to cook solely from generations-old oral traditions. Our recipes don’t tend to get handed down from village bakers, local brewers, or blood relatives. So, when the holidays hit, chances are we’ll head to the bookshelves for ways to make stuffing or cranberry sauce. This approach is not without its pitfalls.…
Read & Discuss
I often carry with me through airport security more than 3 ounces of toothpaste, in the hopes that I can helpfully explain to a TSA agent that toothpaste is not a gel, aerosol, or liquid, but is—by definition—a paste. Sadly, they have yet to try to take my toothpaste.
Luckily for me and all travelers, the TSA knows how complicated deciding what fits into the ever-nebulous “gel, aerosol, and liquid” category, especially with holiday specific items,…
Read & Discuss
Apparently very little. A Times reporter took one out for a test drive past its 40 mile battery range. What happens is that the gas-powered generator kicks in—silently—giving more battery power to the car. Its not as if you suddenly switch to a gas-powered engine; you’re still using electric power, just not stored electric power. Indeed, even while the generator is on, accelerating is silent, as you’re just putting more battery power into the engine, not…
Read & Discuss
Ped Shed over Drive Shed
Cities could close and re-purpose or retrofit parking garages to create incentives for walking or riding bikes, mixed with unique spaces for work, play, art, learning, farming, and other sustainable, entertaining, and productive experiences.
This is part 19 of a continuing brainstorm on the future of cities, inaugurated at the CEOs for Cities Velocity conference in September, 2009. We’ll post a new idea each day until we run out, at which point we’re counting on…
Read & Discuss
Today on Twitter we asked our followers when they last went to see a doctor or dentist and whether the visit was covered by health insurance. We collected some of our favorite responses below. We ask a question to our Twitter faithful once a day, so if you’re not yet following @GOOD, make sure to sign up and participate in the conversation.
Read & Discuss
From our friends at TreeHugger:
We aren’t sure if this is in the wild, or someone’s pet crab to whom the owner gave an offering of a broken bottle as shelter. Either way, it’s kinda cute and kinda frightening. It doesn’t take much of a leap of though to figure this might be increasingly what our ocean critters look like—from crabs using broken bottles to octopi and eels using various discarded baskets and jugs for homes.
Read…
Read & Discuss
Designed by Inesa Malafej and Arunas Sukarevicius from Lithuania, the Dancepants converts kinetic energy from running or dancing into electricity for your MP3 player.
More info here.
Read & Discuss
Yesterday, we featured the work of the photographer Richard Mosse, whose series “Breach” documents U.S. soldiers living in Saddam Hussein’s former palaces. Today, Mosse’s striking new series “The Fall” opens at the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City. It’s a collection of plane wrecks from around the world, and it’s utterly breathtaking. You can see a few photos after the jump. Here’s the description from the Jack Shainman site:
The Fall is a photographic survey of our historic…
Read & Discuss
There’s a Jack Johnson song called “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” and we all know these three R’s are a good place to start when it comes to living a more sustainable life. While recycling tends to get the most attention, reducing and reusing can be equally effective tools in the battle to get by without creating a mountain of waste in…
Read & Discuss
The televisions in 6.5 million American households will stop working when stations are forced to switch to the digital format—and I don’t care.
Although it’s been pushed back time and again (yesterday the Senate voted to postpone the transition deadline once more, from February 17th to June 12th), the switch from analog to digital television will happen eventually. When it does, valuable radio spectrum will be…
Read & Discuss
As an English teacher and language columnist, I know as well as anyone that the world is full of errors, errors that sometimes seem more numerous than monkeys at a banana convention.
There are spoonerisms, which are unintended reversals like “The Lord is a shoving leopard.” There are spellchecker-caused boners, like a recent student who wrote me, “Thanks for the calcification.” There are plain ol’ malapropisms, which give George W. Bush a grand…
Read & Discuss
Imagine Nevada’s Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, as a great sand pit, and imagine the population of the western United States as a colossal ostrich burying its head in the pit. And now, imagine the sand level dropping so fast that the willfully ignorant bird is forced to confront the…
Read & Discuss
There is an article in the Times about a new book promoting veganism by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson called The Face on Your Plate: The Truth About Food. I have a hard relationship with vegans and vegetarians. Partly because the idea of that diet repulses me, partly because I am pretty sure that I would need a disgusting amount of vegan food to get the number of calories I need on a daily basis (I’m not saying this…
Read & Discuss
About a year ago, my undergraduates had to explain to me what they meant by “Facebook group.” About six months ago, they tittered when I told them I had joined: professor- and parent-types were embarrassing, slightly unwanted invaders into their youthful site. About two months ago, I started getting frequent friend requests from, well, friends. Facebook is now officially open to oldsters.
Me and my peeps love Status Updates. We…
Read & Discuss
That’s the primary conceit of Urban Mole, a conceptual project by designer Phillip Hermes. He suggests using the existing sewer infrastructure to transport all manner of packages via robotic messenger—a series of tubes, if you will (reminds me of pneu-mail). The sudden lack of street-clogging delivery trucks could have a profound effect on congestion, both in terms of traffic and air quality. You can see a similar project called UNITX, including an actual prototype, here.
If…
Read & Discuss
Early on a recent Sunday morning I boarded a train to San Francisco’s Mission District to learn how to butcher a whole hog. The class, taught by the chef-turned-butcher Ryan Farr, was held in La Cocina, a non-profit shared-use community kitchen that Farr is using as a temporary venue until he opens his new butcher shop, to be called…
Read & Discuss
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most prevalent greenhouse gas. It is emitted when fossil fuels—such as gasoline, oil, and coal—are burned, and it traps heat in the atmosphere. We produce more CO2 than the environment can process, raising the temperature of the planet. It’s getting hot in here.
Clearly the carbon situation is a challenge. We recommend opting for public transportation more often, shifting to renewable energy sources, and recycling. Are there…
Read & Discuss
Bees, as we all know, unwittingly help flowers reproduce as they collect nectar. But humans have a strange and symbiotic relationship with plants, too—and it’s one in which we are manipulated more than we realize. That relationship is the subject of The Botany of Desire, a documentary adaptation of Michael Pollan’s eponymous 2000 book that will air on…
Read & Discuss
A look at the technology, design, and people behind the Mission One motorcycle
The world’s fastest production electric motorcycle was built in San Francisco’s Dogpatch—an industrial neighborhood bordered by the city’s waterfront. It is an amalgam of drydocks, former steel mills, and factories. Constructed in the 1860s and having largely survived the 1906 earthquake, the zone maintains a smoke-stacked atmosphere of sturdy stone and brick, the streets redolent of coal- and oil-powered commerce. It is appropriate…
Read & Discuss
GOOD readers, our friends at Design 21’s Social Design Network (read about them here) want to pose a challenge to you. They want to know how you define social design. It’s very simple and very broad. Let us know what you think in the comments. The first 25 commenters will get a GOOD t-shirt and a stainless steel Allumonde ring from Design 21. Make sure you’ve included your real email with your GOOD profile, or we won’t…
Read & Discuss
It sometimes feels like stuff this wonderful doesn’t happen anymore. Fortunately YouTube is there with seemingly every moment of television available so we can still enjoy it:
Thanks Folkert (via Spacecollective).
… Read & Discuss
Solar technology is nothing new. For literal millennia, humans have been harnessing the sun’s rays for energy. Over the past few decades, the dream of a solar-powered future has mostly conjured up images of rooftops covered by photovoltaic panels, turning every house into a mini power plant. But a somewhat lower-tech and much older solar solution…
Read & Discuss
Data visualization guru Ben Fry has created a unique map of the United States by displaying all of the nation’s 26 million roads—and nothing else. As he says:
“No other features (such as outlines or geographic features) have been added to this image, however they emerge as roads avoid mountains, and sparse areas convey low population.”
The resulting image of a transportation network sans substrate is very reminiscent of the plastinated human circulatory system pieces from Body Worlds. One…
Read & Discuss
Recent Comments
[...] here to read the rest: Does Innovation Belong in That Recipe? | GOOD ... Read & Discuss
Social comments and analytics for this post... This post was... Read & Discuss
Now I have lived in Los Angeles and now reside in Phoenix. After moving... Read & Discuss
This reminds me of one of my favorite books from childhood, Bill Peet's "Kermit... Read & Discuss
No, it's sad - I know with all the garbage in the ocean this is becoming a... Read & Discuss