I read the
article on the increase in violence against women in Haiti as a result of the earthquake there. While looking for more information on the issue, I ran across this
article from Human Rights Watch about the same issue. Human Rights Watch has an entire section devoted to women's rights and I believe it could…
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Added by Charles Fiertz on April 12, 2010 at 2:47am —
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Although it's still in the research phase, Saul Griffith's company Makani Power is developing a way to generate electricity from kites. While we are all familiar with wind power generated from giant turbines, Griffith says, in his
TED talk, that there is much more potential for energy production using free-flying wings, such as kites, than turbines because free-flying wings can sweep…
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Added by Charles Fiertz on April 2, 2010 at 3:57pm —
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I gave a micro-loan via
kiva.org to Sra. Sonia in Leon, Nicaragua. It's here fourth loan from Kiva and this time she is using the money to pay for the university expenses of here daughter who is taking cla**** in Business Administration. Still $300 needed as of the time of writing!
When I decided to loan to Kiva, I looked through the different sectors to decide which I believed to be the most important. I settled on education because I believe that…
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Added by Charles Fiertz on April 1, 2010 at 7:09pm —
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I believe that cell phone transactions are likely to make the greatest impact in transforming the future of money. Such transactions are becoming increasingly widespread and they have several advantages. First, cell phone coverage gives the reach and mobility of internet-based transactions but mobile networks often spread faster than the internet into rural communities. With the increasing spread of cell phones that can access the internet via mobile networks, the spread of mobile transactions…
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Added by Charles Fiertz on April 1, 2010 at 6:31pm —
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In four years, hopefully I'll have graduated from college with a semester or a year studying abroad. After I graduate I'm not really sure what I plan on doing. Current plans involve possibly going to graduate school, volunteering for the Peace Corps and/or trying to earn a Fulbright.
I don't really have a wh*** lot of direction for where I plan to be ten years from now. I envision myself as possibly living somewhere in Latin America, which is a region I've thoroughly…
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Added by Charles Fiertz on April 1, 2010 at 2:05am —
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I decided to follow Cleantech Blog,
http://www.cleantechblog.com/, because I believe that the most important issue facing the world today is a shift from a wasteful system which produces global warming and other harmful effects to a sustainable, clean system which combats global warming. If this shift is not made, no other change - no matter how morally righteous - will succeed because the harmful effects which will be caused by runaway global warming…
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Added by Charles Fiertz on March 31, 2010 at 6:13pm —
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"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication"
I think simplicity is the most important of all the goals on the list to focus on because it is a way to accomplish so many goals by focusing on a single idea.
Simplicity means innovating on existing platforms because it's simpler to improve what's already there than to bring in new tech.
Simplicity creates transparent tech - if it's simple, it should be easy to…
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Added by Charles Fiertz on March 31, 2010 at 6:12pm —
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For a truly shocking action on par with the world-record breaking toilet line, I envision having people worldwide build a some kind of tower - possibly a human tower - the same height as the amount which the groundwater table has been depleted in the local area. This should show people how much they have depleted their local groundwater table and remind them to conserve water. Also, because it relies on local measures of the groundwater tables, it should be more poignant to more people since it…
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Added by Charles Fiertz on March 31, 2010 at 6:12pm —
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Most people have heard of rainwater harvesting, a relatively simple technique which uses rain for a variety of water uses instead of tapping overexploited groundwater tables. There are two other techniques which are also very useful and can be used in areas which don't have heavy rainfall: dew-harvesting and fog-harvesting. Both techniques are quite self-explanatory. Dew-harvesting is the newer of the two ideas, beginning around three years ago while fog-harvesting has been around for…
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Added by Charles Fiertz on March 31, 2010 at 1:00am —
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Being a broke college student out in the middle of nowhere, I couldn't do a wh*** lot of donating. Instead, I picked up a couple of newsletters from various organizations which work on the water crisis. I'm also contemplating doing something more both on campus and when I return home this summer. Finally, and probably most significant, I gave a presentation on the water crisis to the Maryland Collegiate Honors Council about both the severity of the crisis and a variety of possible solutions…
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Added by Charles Fiertz on March 31, 2010 at 12:30am —
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While the idea of pumping water up from the ground using ideas like the play pump is great, such ideas run into the problem of rapidly depleting groundwater tables. The Q Drum makes transporting water from a distant source, such as a river, easier than carrying it and the ceramic water filter can be used to purify the water collected from a river to guard against diseases such as diarrhea. Both of these ideas are quite simple, reducing dependence on those outside of the…
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Added by Charles Fiertz on March 30, 2010 at 8:30pm —
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