Future Craft/Love Sounds

Mindless(?) people eating burgers while watching a reBurger presentation by the Yes Men.

I started out with an old handbag with a worn-out straps…

…and an even older receiver. I attached two screw eyes to each end of the receiver…

…so that I could use simple key rings and bolt snaps to…

…attach the receiver to the bag.

And voila, a ready-to-use high-tech (low-tech?) handbag!

Here is another one.

Another favorite of mine is the Finnish/Japanese design store Secco, who’s collections are called things like: Wasteland Garden, Qwerty River (products made from computer keyboards), Rubber Hills (products made from rubber tire inner-tube), and LP Towers (products made from vinyl records).

Just found a website called Upcycle Art - a DIY project page with pretty cool trash and junk art, such as soda can tub bracelets and soda bottle lamps.

Just found this web2.0-ish website called BadBuster, which tags brands and company names with an environmental score directly in your browser.

According to this Swedish article, Swedish families consume and throw away a total of 414 million diapers per year, which is approximately 2% of the country’s total waste quantity. Each individual baby uses a total of 4000-6500 diapers.

Modern plastic diapers are problematic from a environmental point of view since:

• The production consumes a lot of energy: the energy used for producing one baby’s diapers, i.e. 4000-6500 diapers, is enough to heat a house for 2-4 months.
• The production involves natural gas, oil, and cellulose, as well as chemicals such as bleach.
• Trucks are used for transportation.
• Although cellulose and soft plastics can be recycled, the huge amount of liquid that diapers usually contain decreases the amount of energy that can be regained.

One possible solution to the disposable plastic diaper issue is to replace them with re-usable cloth diapers. However, according to Swedish authorities cloth diapers are not a better option per se. Here are some recommendations for how to make them a better option:

• Use organic cloth diapers.
• Use the full capacity of the washing machine when you wash the diapers.
• Use non-toxic and organic laundry detergent.
• Use “green” power to run the washing machine.
• Let the diapers air-dry after being washed.

In addition to being environmentally friendly, using cloth diapers can make you save up to $3000 per child.

You can sew your own cloth diapers or buy them. Very Baby makes custom-made cloth diapers.

Additional readings:

Getting Started with Cloth Diapers

The Joy of Cloth Diapers

The Diaper Debate 10 Years Later

I worked at Nokia last summer and was quite often reminded to unplug my currently idle cellphone charger. Before the summer, I had no idea how much power an idle charger or adapter actually uses because of the transformer. (No wonder the charger is always warm when I touch it.) Nokia is the first mobile company to implement alerts to remind people to unplug their chargers. In a press release Nokia writes:

Around two-thirds of the energy used by a mobile phone is lost when it is unplugged after charging but the charger itself is left in a live socket. We want to reduce this waste and are working on reducing to an absolute minimum the amount of energy our chargers use. The new alerts also play an important role, encouraging people to help us in this goal by unplugging their chargers.

According to the report enough energy to power 60,000 households per year would be saved if 10% of the world’s cellphone-using population unplugged their phones once they were done charging.

According to U.S. Department of Energy, “nearly 75% of all electricty used to power electronics is consumed by products that are switched off”.

These numbers suggest that we can reduce our overall enery consumption drastically by unplugging home electronics more carefully.

Another solution is to use devices that do not have to be plugged in. Andre Minoli designed a crank-driven cellphone called Motorola PVOT. Apparently, you get one minute of talk time with 25 cranks.

Chul Min Kang and Sung Hun Lim have come up with an ingenious modular power strip called the E-Rope. Among other things, this “twistable” device enables users to shut off the flow of power to any cable simply by twisting the socket section 90 degrees.

One core HCI principle is to never make users feel out of control, since that easily induces frustration, uncertainty, or even fear in people. Modern Subway gates is one example of technology that fails on that particular point. The old ones were mechanical and were fully controlled by the person who passed through them. Now, the gates are electronic and as a user, you have absolutely no control of when and how they will open and close. It is like one of those old medieval assault courses where you have to pass swinging swords and other lethal obstacles.

I say: Let’s get them mechanical gates back!

Here is yet another take on de-technologizing: human memory. According to this article, featured in Wired, young people are less able than their elders to recall standard personal info. Possibly due to the fact that young people to a greater extent rely on memory aids, such as digital calendars, phone books, and other services.

I remember watching one of Jamie Oliver’s food shows (The naked chef) - a visibly disturbed Jamie is about to slit the throat of a lamb but hesitates. Not until the butcher himself takes Jamie’s hand and pushes the knife into the lambs neck, the task is completed. Jamie is close to tears. And as I sit there, in my comfortable couch, I think to myself: “This is sick.”

Our modern world enables us to distance ourselves from and protect ourselves from disturbing things. We buy pre-packaged meat and don’t have to worry about killing the animal, we live in gated communities so that we don’t have to deal with criminals and poverty, we buy products that have been produced by young children because they are cheaper, we fight wars 1000’s of miles away from our own territory, but we are totally ignorant of the costs and consequences of our comfortable and safe lives. What if people had to kill the animal themselves in order to be allowed to eat the meat? And what would happen if we would go back to having pitched battles in which our leaders actually lead and fight the war?