:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Sunday, May 04, 2008 ::

'Post

Compost Fungus
Originally uploaded by gusset.

Today is the start of "Compost Awareness Week," or CAW as it has been unnecessarily abbreviated. (We prefer to simply refer to it as The 'Post in our house.)

The awareness week "is an initiative of WRAP and The Composting Association, and together they will be encouraging everyone to 'Green up their Environment' this Sunday 4th May to Saturday 10th May.

"The initiative began in Canada in 1995 and was brought to the UK for the first time in 2001 by The Composting Association. Since then, it has gradually been adopted by other stakeholders including community composting groups and local authority waste departments as a week in which to concentrate composting promotional efforts.

"If you’re new to home composting, you may need some help so visit the consumer pages on the CAW website for lots of tips on how to make and use compost, as well as where to buy peat-free compost that contains recycled materials. There are downloadable leaflets which include information on how to be greener in the garden, as well as an events locator which will help you find your nearest compost event. Another site worth visiting is homecomposting.org.uk

"Reduced cost compost bins are also being offered in partnership with some councils so if you need one, enter your postcode here to find out about offers in your region.

"And for the ultimate in composting accessories – de rigeur, you know – click here."

PS If anyone can identify my fungus I'd be interested. The one pictured above that is. The other one is a whole other blog. ;-]

Labels: Environment, Flickr, Garden, Recycling

:: Dan 4.5.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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How electronics companies line up in the green stakes

Labels: Environment

:: Dan 3.5.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Jesus Could Have Walked on Ice

Rare conditions could have conspired to create hard-to-see ice on the Sea of Galilee that a person could have walked on back when Jesus is said to have walked on water, a scientist said today.

The study, which examines a combination of favorable water and environmental conditions, proposes that Jesus could have walked on an isolated patch of floating ice on what is now known as Lake Kinneret in northern Israel.

Looking at temperature records of the Mediterranean Sea surface and using analytical ice and statistical models, scientists considered a small section of the cold freshwater surface of the lake.

The results suggest temperatures dropped to [-4 degrees C] during one of the two cold periods 2,500 –1,500 years ago for up to two days, the same decades during which Jesus lived.

Labels: Environment, Literature, Religion, science

:: Dan 22.4.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Flogo
Originally uploaded by RLabay.

Over on LiveScience we learn that a new company has started using "a mixture of soap-based foams and lighter-than-air gases such as helium" to create "floating ads and messages" in the sky.
Unfortunately dubbed Flogos, these floating logos can be made – or printed, really – every 15 seconds by "re-purposed snow machines," thus "flooding the air with foamy peace signs or whatever shape a client desires. Renting the machine for a day starts out at a cost of about $2,500."
[via bldg blog]

Labels: Environment, Flickr, Typography

:: Dan 22.4.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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wildwalk 02
Originally uploaded by gusset.


There is a passage in John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids where he decribes how quickly London was taken over by plant life once the human population had moved out. It seemed a little over the top to me when I first read it. Until I saw this. The closed down Wildwalk building in the centre of Bristol is still full of thriving plant life despite not being cared for. And in places it has broken through the façade to the outside, so it can hang it's branches in the sun and rain again. The building is being eaten alive from the inside. Unfortunaely it looks like it's going to be reopened (as an aquarium) so we're not going to be able to chart nature's conquest over it as I would like to see. Maybe in a few years we'll see it being torn apart from the inside by a giant squid. I look foward to that.

Labels: Bristol, Ecology, Environment, Urban Decay

:: Dan 15.4.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Noise more important than environment says NAT

Labels: Acoustics, Environment, News, Noise, Politics

:: Dan 21.2.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Labels: Environment, Politics, Video

:: Dan 15.12.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Complete Receipt Defeat
"I recently bought a four-pack of Play-Doh — big plans for the weekend — at my local Toys R Us and received, along with my purchase, over a foot and a half of receipt. That comes out to almost an inch of paper for every dime I spent. Here it is, broken down by height in inches..."
[via lmg]

Labels: Environment, Humour

:: Dan 3.12.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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They know their market. Who do you think this book is aimed at? (There's a clue in the cover art.) Or this one? And shouldn't this one have an "anti-" in the title?

Shameless cash-in on political paranoia or dummy publication created to lure and track terrorist groups?

Labels: Environment

:: Dan 12.9.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Bristol Kite Festival 05
Originally uploaded by gusset.

Computers to fly kites and produce energy | The News is NowPublic.com
A cunning idea for getting the most out of wind energy, anyone who flies a kite knows how you can keep it up even in very low winds by flying a figure of eight pattern, and the idea of controlling that effectively robotically is fascinating. Unfortunately the article is very slim on details of how the power is generated from doing this, except to say that "when the kites tug on the lines this turns the turbine." I'd like to see more detail there, and know if it generates enough energy to power the computer that's controlling it for a start.

A couple of my Bristol Kite Festival photos from last week appear alongside the article, but everyone else's are much better, have a look at those.

Labels: Environment, Flickr, Kites, Robots

:: Dan 11.9.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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The Rambler visits the US:
'WTF-check-your-perspective moment: From TV news: “It’s 101 degrees in Texas at the moment, but don’t worry if you’re going to the game – they’re closing the roof and the air conditioning will be on.” While we Brits worry about the carbon differential between organic and non-organic beef, Texans are air conditioning sports stadia…'

Labels: Environment

:: Dan 10.9.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Started
Originally uploaded by coconinoco.


Slashfood reports on the possibilities of Solar Cooking; with a pot, a sheet of glass, and a solar reflector you can have a slow cooker without any power requirements other than the light of the sun. There is a How To guide to building one here and downloadable plans at solarcooking.org. Coconino has some flickr photos of his solar cooking experiments in the UK.

Labels: Cooking, Environment, Food, Physics

:: Dan 20.8.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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"Yangtze river dolphin driven to extinction
· Intensive survey reveals disappearance of species
· Scientists blame shipping, hunting and fishing"


"So long, and thanks for all the fish."

Labels: Ecology, Environment

:: Dan 8.8.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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"Blackle.com - Saving energy one search at a time".

"In January 2007 a blog post titled Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year proposed the theory that a black version of the Google search engine would save a fair bit of energy due to the popularity of the search engine. Since then there has been skepticism about the significance of the energy savings that can be achieved and the cost in terms of readability of black web pages."

Hmm. May save approx 15 watts on a CRT monitor, negligible benefit on an LCD/TFT. Loses a lot of Google’s functionality. Might be better just to switch to one of the darker iGoogle skins.

Monitor Energy Information

Labels: Computing, Environment

:: Dan 24.7.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Mr. Electricity, how much electricity do computers use?
Interesting site that also serves as a warning about the effects on your hair of messing with electricity too much.

Labels: Environment

:: Dan 2.7.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Bristol is in the early stages of establishing itself as the largest 'Sustainable Community in the land' and this 'Transition' label refers to the changes away from unsustainable practices into something more sound. Transition City Bristol is based on community action and follows a similar initiative that originated in Kinsale (Ireland), and has also taken off in Plymouth, Falmouth, Lewes and other places.

From the site:
A discussion on Radio 4's You and Yours about the scheme.
And what's with the nut obsession in Hallen?

Labels: Bristol, Environment

:: Dan 18.6.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Power to the party people: Eco-clubbing is coming

"An average-size club, open three nights a week, consumes 150 times the energy a four-person family does in a year. ... It's perhaps the ultimate consumerist activity. ... Enviu/Doll plan to take eco-clubbing to a new level. The collaboration has resulted in a number of systems, currently in development, that could minimise the footprint of clubbing. ... For example, the principles of acoustic design are based around the same as those applied to Roman amphitheatres, where the sound is encouraged to bounce off surfaces, thus allowing music to be played at a considerably reduced volume ... the lighting uses the same LED technology found in car tail-lights.
[the roof space] incorporates small tubes in which to collect rain water, which is then heated by sunlight to provide warm water to the wash basins within the club below. ... one thing clubbers do a lot of is sweat. Loaded with warm perspiration, the air rises, where it is sucked out of the space, passed through a cooling chamber where it condenses and can then be used to flush the lavatories. ... Most inventive of all is the development of a dance floor that converts the movement of clubbers on it into electricity."

Labels: Acoustics, Clubs, Environment, Music

:: Dan 5.6.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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