Yearly Archives: 2007

Chain for Energy Consumption Awareness

Mi illumino di meno poster I received the 5 things chain from bonaria. I guess “un gioco e’ bello quando dura poco” (a game is fun if it does not last forever), so I think I better pass a different chain.

Mucio started a chain to spread the “M’illumino di meno” campaign of Caterpillar. The “M’illumino di meno” campaign declared February 26th 2007 as “Energy saving day” (giornata del risparmio energetico). The goal is twofold: become more aware of how much energy we daily use and start with simple (and less simple) acts to reduce our energy consumption. Some simple ideas are in the text of the song/jingle of the campaign. You can download or listen the song from caterueb and read the text (in Italian) at the end of this post.

Mucio didn’t pass the chain to me, but this is a different chain, it is a chain you can pass without waiting for someone to pass it to you or, if you prefer, consider that this post is passing the chain to Everybody. So, don’t wait! Pass it to your friends, now! And there is no limit on the number of friends you pass it to as well. 5? Fine. 9? Good. 15? Better. 100? Perfect!

For people who does not understand Italian, I’d like to mention as well the Climate Change Game made by the BBC that I found yesterday via the glorious WorldChanging. The Climate Change is a Flash game where you are president of the European Nations and you must tackle climate change and stay popular enough with the voters to remain in office.

Ah yes, the last and most important part. I pass this chain to:

  • bonaria (because she passed me the 5 things one I didn’t pass)
  • marcella (she is not blogging but flickring so the challenge is to pass the chain via an artistic photo about energy consumption)
  • marina (because of interesting discussions on her blog)
  • marco (who does not appreciate pointless blogo-chains, let’s see if he appreciates this one)
  • francesca e marco (because they are in US and there is a lot to do there as well about energy consumption)
  • bru (because it is the first one in my blogroll ;-)
  • pandemia (because he cares abour the environment)
  • ingegneria senza frontiere – trento (because it is an association that cares about the environment as well, and i want to check if the blog masters check incoming links ;-)
  • napo (because he says I never link to him ;-)

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Links for 2007 01 26

Terrific GapMinder talk: preconcepts and myth about development, visualized!

I highly recommend you to watch the presentation Hans Rosling gave at TED. It is inspiring and passionate, funny and moving, it is the kind of presentation I would like to be able to give, one day. I suggest you to download the file (zipped MP4) and watch it full screen (I did it already at least 5 times!) or just click on the play button here below.

Rosling is founder of Gapminder, a non-profit that brings vital global data to life. In this presentation, with the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, he debunks a few myths about the “developing” world. [Recorded February, 2006 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 20:34] (from TED blog).
If you want to create yourself graphs like the ones you saw in the video, you can do it with the GapMinder tool (hosted by Google). Explore the data and find even more preconcepts you hold.
[via bruno [via ethan]]

Links for 2007 01 22

World Social Forum 2007 WebTV

My friends of Ymir are currently in Nairobi (Kenya) operating the WebTV of the World Social Forum 2007. Thanks to their work, it is possible to get an idea of what is going on in Nairobi.
The original idea was to broadcast the entire Forum live but they are having great problems in getting an ASDL connections, even if all the agreements were ready before they left for Nairobi. So at the moment you can watch a lot of recorded interviews. They are still working for getting an ASDL connection or more. And don’t worry, most of the videos are in English and just a few are in Italian. It is a pity they decided to use QuickTime format so that I’m having troubles watching the video on my Ubuntu Linux box but, as I said, they had more basic problems to think about until now such as the connection. So, don’t wait, go to www.worldsocialforum.tv.
[via Trentino Cooperazione]

Links for 2007 01 18

Links for 2007 01 17

Apple products will be 100% recyclable

Maybe you have missed the part of Steve Jobs speech in which he announces that all Apple products will be 100% recyclable and Apple will take back no longer wanted products so that they don’t get dumped in Asia as e-waste poisoning people and lands. If you have missed this part, press the play button in the video below or go to the youtube page.

GP is simply great! [via Houtlog]

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“Cosa e’ Software Libero” explained with videos of Stallman

richard stallmanGreat explanation (in Italian!) of what is Free Software by Robin Good. It contains also videos of Stallman (both on Youtube and in non-proprietary format OGG) interviewed by Robin. Looking at the first video, I wondered “how many times Stallman repeated the mantra <Freedom 0 is the freedom to run the program for any purpose (…), Freedom 1 is the freedom (…)> (This is of course what he repeated precisely also when he came in Trento).
More than 1 million times? I guess this is what happens when you are so ahead in time than your fellow citizens, Stallman started to speak about these concepts in the 70s and he still has to repeat them precisely the same after more than 30 years! I guess it is very boring for him. Luckily enough for Richard, Robin also asked him “Qual è il ricordo più bello del tuo soggiorno a Roma?” (What is the best memory of your staying in Rome?”) and the answer is … well, go see the videos.
Richard speaks in English but in the blog post there is the translation in Italian, so it is also a good excuse to learn a bit of my wonderful language. ;-)
[via gnuvox] [photo curtesy of guadalinex]