Kamal Meattle inspired Personal Fresh Air Workspaces :)
23 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in environment Tags: environment, fresh air, house plants, Julio Radesca, Kamal Meattle, pollution, TED
A couple of years ago my friend Ara was talking about this particular TED talk by Kamal Meattle:
Source: http://greenspaces.in/blog/ted09/
I recently re-visited the TED video – and found this on the comments section: (wow!) A project inspired by Kamal Meattle’s talk…
Personal Fresh Air workspace by Julio Radesca
Personal Fresh Air workspace by Julio Radesca
From Julio Radesca’s website:
The desk nests air-purifying plants. The structure of the desk forms a hydroponic system that feeds them. These plants not only produce fresh air, but also act as a partition wall reducing noise and visual pollution while keeping the occupant comfortably focused. The hydroponic system makes the caretaking of the plants practical and clean. The soil is replaced by white hydro stones, which retain the water for a longer time, reducing the need for watering. With the addition of several of these desks the office environment becomes tranquil and alive.
CERES, East Brunswick
08 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in environment Tags: ceres, melbourne
LOL, this poster is adorable…
So a couple months ago my bike got stolen, and I wish I could say the same about my bike thief. But no, it was my fault: A few nights in a row I left my bike outside (in the rain! poor bike), all because I was too lazy to change the code of the garage remote. My justification was even worse — I was pretty sure no one would steal it as it was a pretty shabby looking 2nd hand bike to start with. I never really took care of it…maybe if I knew how, it would be a different story… although now that I think about it, I probably could have been less lazy and actually wiped off the cobweb which was a result of me going home to KL at the start of the year (it eventually came off from general use, who am I to disturb spidey’s habitat? trust the force of nature and wind to take care of it organically!).
This is the only photo I have of my stolen bike…
..and even this photo had less to do with the bike itself, I was more touched by the kind & helpful Yarra Trams officer who was nice enough to help out when the pump thingy wouldn’t pick up the orifice or whatever you call it on the tyre! All I can say is that I hope the bike thief would be a better owner to it than I ever was, it was a good 2 years. Hopefully the bike thief didn’t chop you up for parts, and you ended up in a place like the………………… CERES BIKE SHED! (which is really what I wanted to post about….pics of CERES!)
I really do love this place and the whole concept of it. Maybe it’s cause KL doesn’t have something like this that is so accessible and encouraging to care for the environment, but I walk around in awe of this space. I told three people, all of which were born and bred in Melbourne, and all of them gave me a very nonchalant response to my visit to CERES – their visit there were during compulsory school trips.
The bike shed visit was a bit of a bust for me personally though, the whole point is to keep going and work on a bike in bits and pieces and eventually make a one that suits you. Unfortunately, an hour into learning from Hank (or Frank, I forgot his name), they realized they were running low on many key parts, or the bikes that didn’t need much fixing up were not the right height. I also realized that I really couldn’t afford to spend the following few weekends on this bike making/hunting project 
It was really fun though! The volunteers are really friendly, and they’re just happy for people to come and help out. It was cool to just pretend for a bit that I was a mechanic.
I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the park, taking some photos, looking at chickens and before I went home I bought coffees for the two volunteers, both of whom helped me out and made the whole visit really worth it. Till my next visit:
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Mulu Caves, Sarawak
01 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in environment, friends, malaysia Tags: conservation, eco-tourism, malaysia, Mulu, Sarawak
My friend LS who saw my Mulu pics on FB just sent me this Youtube clip cause I mentioned that I have yet to watch the BBC’s Planet Earth documentary series. Thanks so much!
This video pretty much summed up my trip there, which is now almost 2 years ago. I would love to go back there again though, we only covered the very amateur/beginner flavour of what Mulu and the region had to offer.
Below is a slideshow of some pics from my trip with my 2 very loud (and sometimes obnoxious, but mostly gentlemanly) ex-schoolmates Paik & Devan:
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some notes:
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We had the best guide Mr.Nangkai – he was sweet and bashful, but I think by the end of our stay, he was very happy to have gotten rid of us — Paik kept calling him Mr. Tak Tahu ( Mr. I don’t know) cause there were a couple of times Paik couldn’t get any useful information. It wasn’t that it was like pulling teeth talking to him, I think he was just really shy and didn’t know how to handle Paik’s ‘loudness’ (we were later told that the local tribe, the Penans , are generally a reserved bunch). Also Devan called him ‘Tangkai’ – he said it was an honest mispronunciation (tangkai in BM means stem). Next time we go back I will contact Mr. Nangkai again!
The Deer Cave (Gua Rusa) was a real delight – that was the cave we were warned was known as the Guano Cave. It didn’t stink. Like not in the way that you would imagine it to smell. Apparently the reason it was named after the deers that gathered at that particular cave back in the day was Because of the guano. It tainted the streams and gave the water a more flavoursome taste for the deers. And so the locals ended up naming it The Deer Cave.
The Clearwater Cave (Gua Air Jernih) with the gushing streams also had a ‘fountain of youth’ which Devan really soaked up! It is still unknown where the source of the water is from. There had been numerous explorations in the past, the most recent one was done by the National Geographic team who had thought the water originated from Mt. Kinabalu … nope!
All the ‘Stalaktit’, ‘Stalagmit’ and ‘Tiang Kapur’ formations were all really amazing, and alive and still forming, which was really cool to see. You really felt like the cave system was this living thing, with it’s acoustics, and the ripples on the walls and the bedrock etc…really really cool. Every one had different takes on what some of the more unique formations looked like, but for me all I saw was beheaded heads placed on stakes during elizabethan times – either that, or Scream masks. I really lack imagination!
I have a new love and appreciation for bats. I always thought of them as sort of like vampirey associated creatures…but not anymore. They are actually pretty cute…and the species that we saw, some of them are tinyyyy! It was rainy season though, so our ‘bat show’ wasn’t as spectacular as what we were promised. But still very cool. One of the things we were told to check whilst hanging out at the forest, was to see if we got bitten by mosquitoes….cause apparently Bats were nature’s insect repellant….hehehe. So Devan & I survived unscathed….but Paik had soooo many mozzy bites, all of them on his back for some weird reason. Dev took a really funny photo of me just counting Paik’s bites…they looked more painful than itchy….hehehe. Poor guy. It must be something about Paik’s blood, cause Dev and Paik shared a room and Dev was mozzy bite free!
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detroit
02 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
in environment, urban Tags: Ads Worth Spreading, born of fire, chrysler 200, detroit, eminem, slums, TED, urban decay
I was just over at the TED|Ads Worth Spreading page to check out the winners of the competition.
“With this competition, we’re seeking to reverse the trend of online ads being aggressively forced on users. We want to nurture ads so good you choose to watch.”
And omg, the Eminem and Chrysler ad was so awesome!
But what’s even more awesome about watching the ad, is reading the comments below it. ( I’m clearly missing watching the Gruen Transfer.)
I think the highest rated comment there is rather naive:
Mar 22 2011: While this ad is a well-produced piece of story-telling, the problem with this type of advertising, and one I am hoping TED will be more critical of, is that we, as consumers, don’t believe it for a second. In today’s world, I feel like advertising that is dishonest about the product cannot survive. The jingoistic pro-Detroit, “we’re back” theme makes us feel good, but does anyone actually believe that Chrysler makes a product that people want? I mean, objectively, the cars are terrible. And while we’d all like to support “the American worker”, they would be much better off if they worked for a company that actually made a respectable product. We, as consumers, now sense advertising created by agencies with no regard for the story’s veracity vis-a-vis the product, and we reject it.
I feel like Russell Howcroft : No one’s coercing anybody to buy the product, it’s an AD!
But in saying that, if people love the commercial as a beautiful piece of story telling, but not enough to go out and buy the Chrysler 200, is that a failed ad campaign? Or is the message of morale and pride recovery of a once great American city from depression and decay the real success of this campaign?
Check 100 Abandoned Houses project for some tragically beautiful photographs of Detroit.
Brandon Boyd + Hurley = Target Sea Pollution
30 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
in environment, incubus Tags: brandon boyd, environment, hurley, incubus, sea pollution
Hurley tees and tanks with an original drawing from BrandonBoyd, depicting a whale taking bottles out of the ocean.
On his collaboration with Hurley, BrandonBoyd says:
My relationship with Hurley began over a decade ago and was born of a mutual appreciation for surfing, music, art and like minds. We have done projects together in the past but it seemed like it was time we truly put our collective heads together to make a real dent in a situation that affects us all, most importantly the swiftly growing problems in our oceans. We start herein as surfers and musicians, and are moving forward as stewards of our Island.
Read more >here<.
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