Joanna Chaplin's Blog – March 2010 Archive (15)

So I emailed Adam Boesel of the energy-neutral gyms I blogged about here: http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/pedal-power . I asked if someone involved with the gyms might check out EVOKE as a mentor. He did respond, and while he thought that the site was pretty interesting, he didn't have enough free time to join and get involved in the community. I wonder if one problem with the EVOKE network as it stands is that the…

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Here we are doing a thousand small things to help change the future, and that's all well and good, but meanwhile there's a real life crisis going on right now. 70% of Venezuela's power comes from hydroelectric dams. A drought this year has depleted energy production by 40%. The government has mandated electricity rationing and started a campaign of replacing light-bulbs using the military (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8543469.stm), but the… Continue

Sometime when I was a kid, I remember making drawings of people exercising on machines that turned their work into energy. After all, it's work wasted simply for the cause of burning calories. Agents from countries not in the US will probably boggle at the concept. But I was just a kid. I had no idea how to even share my idea, much less implement it. But it's now a reality, completely independent of my idea. Adam Boesel has created what he's pretty sure is the world's first energy neutral gym.… Continue

I've been trying to think about a way to have online social role-playing games (RPGs) to raise money for charity. One of my friends tried to lobby Blizzard Entertainment to have an in-world fundraiser of World of Warcraft currency for some need that fit into the feel of the world, the results of which would cause Blizzard to donate real money to a related real-world cause. The lobby attempt never got really far, but it got me thinking. Escapism games draw a lot of players. What if there was… Continue

So I delayed on this mission, since the results of my action don't start happening until the summer, but my husband and I are buying a share in http://www.tangerinisfarm.com/ . This will result in supporting a local farm, and eating tasty local veggies all summer.

I stumbled on this through my RSS feed to MAKE magazine: http://www.oswash.org/ . It's a collaborative effort to produce low-tech washing machines for various types of needs. Washing machines were one of the big time savers in American history, as well as ovens and microwaves and other appliances. It's part of why women and African-Americans were able to make such strides in civil rights: the labor cost that fueled the unequal social construct went way…

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I actually heard back from Evans Wadongo, whose project I described here: http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/my-inspiration . It only took a couple of days, but he only friended me on Facebook, thanked me for my interest, and urged me to spread the word of his project to family and friends. Which, honestly, was all I was expecting from someone who eats one meal a day to save money for solar lanterns. He's on tour now… Continue

"Mmm, hon, it smells wonderful. Here's your stool, Seth, wash your hands." Seth washes his little hands intensely. I'm a little worried that the "good hygiene" special speaker that came to his kindergarten class scared him a little too straight, but if all it means is cleaner hands, then it's not that big of a deal.

"Thanks, Jo. It's almost done. Just have to tidy up a bit."

"I wanna set the table!"

"We'll both do it. Here are the forks, the knives, and the chopsticks. Here are… Continue

I admit, I'm struggling with this one. I live in a rich nation, and a rich state within that nation. Boston isn't quite as cosmopolitan as New York City, but there's still plenty of conspicuous spending. Not that we don't have poor people. It's just that, on average, people in this state have trouble getting food because they are out of work, not because of lack of education. Yes, I know that's a generalization. But I specifically live in a fairly well-off suburban area. Most of the… Continue

As I was searching the web for cool things, as I often do, I found this link: http://calearth.org/building-designs/eco-dome.html



They are little adobe huts made out of earth, coiled around in modified sandbags, and can be built quickly and provide shelter from the elements, particularly after a large-scale disaster. They are kind of smallish, but I think they are cute! They remind me a little of Park Guell, an… Continue

I wrote the following in response to a private message from Agent Boyden : http://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/JohnDBoyden . He encouraged me to put it in a blog post. I wrote it in frustration and in a fit of nervous energy. I'm a little embarrassed, since I always get verbose and sesquipidalian when I'm nervous, especially when I'm writing online. (For those who did not learn English as a firstlanguage, I write too much and my words… Continue

So I know that this is a game. And games have rules and scoring. However, I honestly don't care about the scoring. I don't want to treat this like a game, like yet another way to get a high score and show people you've never met before how cool you are. I don't want this to be an "alternate reality game" because I want to make it my reality. I am hoping that when the scripted game is over, they will leave up the network, and allow the people who make it past the fad to continue to post, to… Continue

I could just take one of the bullet points by itself, but I feel that the real secret that I identify with is hidden among several of these statements. Let me first list them.



"Don’t fight culture (If people cook by stirring their stews, they’re not going to use a solar oven, no matter what you do to market it. Make

them a better stove instead.)"



"Listen to the right people. "



"Understand by observing the… Continue

When Alchemy calls I am knee deep in sequencing data for the lab samples in the experimental rice crop. The first field tests are coming up too few months. It would be nice to nail down the chromatin-opening region (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics) that over-expresses the vitamin cartridge that we inserted into the genome. Monitoring the expression during the test would give that much more data to improve the next crop. As soon as… Continue

I chose Evans Wadongo to follow online as my hero. I first learned about him by reading an article on CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/02/11/cnnheroes.wadongo/index.html?iref=allsearch . This was before I learned about the EVOKE network, and I marveled at his ingenuity and vision. He and teams of local volunteers make solar lanterns out of scrap metal, bulk-bought LEDs, and scrap bits of solar… Continue