Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Dear God,

Dear-god.net is a new blog site that I recently discovered. It gives people the chance to publicly write personal letters to God. This site is similar to PostSecret. Visitors have the chance and thrill of peering into the private lives of strangers. Messages to God can be posted under the following categories: belief, confessions, death, dreams, faith, family, friendship, hope, humor, joy, love, money, sex, work, stress, gratitude, & health.
This article from TheCoolHunter is a good follow-up from my Alcoholic Architecture post last week. Here, instead of drinkable architecture, we now have drinkable art. Artist Hannes Broecker created an interactive art installation of framed colored liquid for visitors. By the end of the night the liquids had all been drained and consumed.

Acqua Veritas

I had a bottle of SEI water the other day. It is bottled from the same source as my tap. Today, bottled water is a billion dollar industry, and major contributor to plastic bottle waste. The city of Venice has begun to rebrand its tap water, calling it Acqua Veritas, in order to compete with bottled water companies. Check out the full article on BldgBlog

Can the Spam

Digital communication isn’t always green. This report on the Economist describes the environmental impact of spam email and messages on the internet. In 2008, 62 trillion unsolicited e-mails were delivered, using 33 terawatt hours of electricity. That’s the same amount of energy that 3.1 million cars use in a year.

Best Cities for Millenials

BusinessWeek listed the top cities for Millenials to survive during our current Recession. Big cities top the list because they provide a “thick” job market. But also key are cities with a “thick” social meeting market. Networking is key for Gen Y’s to finding jobs. #1 City – Boulder, Colorado

CityCargo

In July Amsterdam’s CityCargo is set to go live! All goods for inner-city stores will now be transported via a specially equipped tram. Some addition questions presented on this Pantopicon post are: What if these trams would also carry waste out of town? Or filter/clean city air while running?

10 Creative Rubik's Cubes

This article from Core77 showcases 10 rubix cube spin-offs. These spin-off show the power of a good idea/product. For every good object/idea created, more often than not, spin-offs will emerge. They will try to ride on the tail of success of the original, try to top it, and improve upon it. Usually, they come across as gimmicks.