August 28, 2007
This is a rather super cool robot that mimics the ocean’s manta rays. I guess that makes this a sky manta, a perfectly awesome sounding pet. It’s filled with helium and is made by European robot manufacturing company Festo. Check out the lovely video of the sky manta in motion and you’ll want one for your own house. They need to make a much smaller version of this for regular indoor use. Even better they could make a giant wind resistant one that would fight Godzilla. Be sure to check out the video at either Festo or Gizmodo.
from Gizmodo
August 27, 2007
In Japan, you gotta separate your garbage, and put it out on different days. Plus, you’re not supposed to put it out the night before, otherwise the crows cause sh1t. It’s a bit of a pain, some places have up to 45 different recycling categories; that means you have to separate your garbage into 45 different piles. So anything that makes this tedious process more fun, I thoroughly applaud. Check out these enjoyable colour coordinated garbage bags from MAQ which are available at a few Tokyu Hands and Lofts. They’ll run you around $3 for 10 45L bags.
from Pink Tentacle
August 26, 2007
Not much of an uber-post today, two links from Neatorama. The clouds just look awesome, but the gallery of zombie action figures is an shout-out to the zombie walk that happened in Halifax yesterday. Didn’t see it, I just like anything that involves people dressing in costume.
zombie thor
from Neatorama
August 22, 2007
That’s what Japan is trying to do, the country is looking at using these ubiquitous utensils for biofuel production. Each of Japan’s 127 million residents uses on average 200 pairs of chopsticks a year. That’s equal to 90,000 tons of wood a year. It’s nice that they’re finding use for this waste, but it’d be better if people just brought their own chopsticks in the first place. China is on that tone, looking to eliminate the 45 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks it uses every year. Read the whole article here.
If you don’t know a lot about biofuel production, almost any sort of waste product can be converted into fuel. Wooden chopsticks are relatively easy to convert (compared to say plastic waste) as it can converted to ethanol through pyrolysis. I could go on for several posts about the different types of biofuel production so this much information will have to suffice. If you’re facing a craving check out the wiki entry here.
from Japan Probe
August 22, 2007
According to a Nikkei Business Daily survey, young people in Japan’s capital are less and less interested in owning a car. A survey of Tokyoites in their 20s was conducted in 2000, it found that 48.2% were interested in buying a car and 23.6% actually owned a car. Fast forward seven years and my oh my has it changed – only 25.3% wanted to buy a car and a meager 13% owned a car.
Why is this happening? The economic downturn in Japan is making citizens more concerned about their savings; the source article noted that these people are also spending less on booze, designer clothes and sporting goods. While this might not be signaling a change in environmental conscientiousness of young Japanese , a decrease in consumption of pointless consumer goods is undoubtedly a good thing. Cars are a huge drain on the economic resources of any individual – here in Nova Scotia GPI Atlantic reported that the average family’s largest expenditure was transportation. In America, it’s something in the range of $9000/year that the average American spends on their car. These costs are undoubtedly higher in Japan as gas is almost double the price and road tolls are all over the place.
On a side note, I was late for work today because my bus was late. It made me wish I had a car.
from Japan Probe
