I’ve been a loyal Palm user for many years. Going back to the old Palm M105 I’ve been a Palm diehard, up through the Tungsten T, Tungsten T3 (best PDA ever), a Treo 650, Treo 755p, and now the Palm Pre. Don’t get me wrong, I really do like the Palm Pre and believe that it is the best smartphone on the market and webOS certainly has more potential than any other platform, but years of observation have left me somewhat jaded on the future of Palm. 
This time one year ago I was lost as to what my next phone was going to be. My Sprint contract was close to being up for renewal and while I was still a fan of the old Palm OS, it simply couldn’t compare to the offerings from Apple and Google. Problem is, Android a year ago was still pretty darned rough around the edges and even then I didn’t like the idea of being locked in the Apple iPhone ecosystem. And Sprint, oh poor lowly Sprint, they didn’t have a single new phone that I found really appealing. My Treo was by no means in bad shape – the 755p was a tank, after all – but I’m a self-professed technology whore and I had a bad hankering for the latest.
Thankfully, it wasn’t much longer before Palm revealed webOS and the Pre. I though I was saved, and through the next six months that it took for Palm and Sprint to finally ship the phone I read everything I could about it, jumped back into discussion of the phone and Palm, and eventually came to be a writer and editor for PreCentral. The Pre finally landed in my hands on launch day and I couldn’t have been happier.
Kimberly-Clark clearcuts ancient forests to manufacture Kleenex tissue products.
Kleenex, one of the most popular brands of tissue products in the world, contributes to the destruction of ancient forests. Its manufacturer, the Kimberly-Clark corporation, has been unwilling to improve its practices, continuing to rely on paper and pulp made from clearcut ancient forest including Canada’s Boreal forest. Kimberly-Clark clears these ancient forests, essential in fighting climate change and providing home to wildlife like caribou, wolves, eagles and bears,into products that are flushed down the toilet or thrown away.
Kimberly-Clark is the largest tissue product company in the world. It manufacturers the popular Kleenex brand of tissue products, which is sold in several formats – toilet paper, facial tissue and napkins. Kimberly-Clark produces 3.7 million tonnes (4.08 million tons) of tissue products annually and generates net sales of $14.3 billion US. The company has offices, factories and mills in 38 countries, and its products are sold in 150 countries. Kimberly-Clark also produces a line of commercial toilet paper and paper towels that are sold to institutions like universities, high schools, governments and businesses.
As consumers and inhabitants of this planet, it is our duty to send a clear message to companies that disregard our natural treasures and destroy the very home in which they prosper.
Take Action! Don’t purchase Kimberly-Clark Kleenex products.
Tags: environment, kleenex
The Report Card
HP, Lenovo, and Dell haven’t fared too badly in some of Greenpeace’s previous e-waste reports, but it looks like three companies have fallen well short of the organization’s expectations this time around, with each getting called out for failing to live up to their promises. Specifically, all three had said that they would eliminate vinyl plastic (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in their products by the end of this year, but they’ve now apparently told Greenpeace that they won’t be able to meet that timeline, and only Lenovo has come forward set a new deadline (the end of 2010). The big winner, on the other hand, is Philips, which has jumped from 15th place to 4th as a result of some new recycling initiatives, prompted at least in part by public pressure. And, as you can see above, Nintendo is once again dead last, although we’re pretty sure that’s simply a result of sheer mass at this point.
What a shame. If Apple is able to move their entire laptop line to a sustainable and environmentally friendly model, why can’t these companies? Let’s put the pressure on!
Tags: bad, dell, environment, HP, Lenovo
You think you’ve seen or heard everything. Yet, deep down you know you don’t quite understand the number or meaning of that which you see. Here’s a video that will open your mind up just a bit more.
Tags: amazing, thought-provoking
Researchers at the Blue Reef Aquarium in Cornwall made a discovery worthy of a Frank Herbert novel: A massive, 4-foot-long reef worm that was chomping through their local corals.
According to This Is The West Country:
Staff eventually lured it out with fish scraps – but not before it bit through 20lb fishing line.
Curator Matt Slater said: “As part of our tropical marine displays we have been painstakingly propagating a variety of corals. They are extremely slow-growing and every one we have lost to these attacks was a major blow.
“In the end it got so bad that I decided to literally take the display apart to find out who was responsible. I could hardly believe my eyes when I finally caught sight of the culprit.
“It really does look like something out of a horror movie! It’s over four feet long with these bizarre-looking jaws. Having done some research we also discovered that it is covered with thousands of bristles which are capable of inflicting a sting resulting in permanent numbness’.”
The worm has been taken into protective custody, placed in its own tank. No word yet on whether it is pooping out spice, or whether it’s going to be used to create the water of life.
Tags: animal, giant worm
We’ve seen those tilt-shifted photographs that take real images and make them look like minatures. Now, someone has made a video of it! Take a look.
Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.
Here’s a rather disturbing but interesting work of “art”.
Daito Manabe used a system that converts music to electrical impulses and wired up his friends’ faces to twitch in time to the song.
Tags: face, music, synchronized
Second Earth
One Earth just doesn’t cut it anymore. As our population grows and we continue to consume resources at an alarming rate, we’ll need the equivalent of a second Earth by 2030 to maintain our current lifestyle. That’s the finding of the latest report from the World Wildlife Fund. And since we don’t have a spare lying around, it’s time to make a drastic change.
The WWF, in conjunction with the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network, released The Living Planet Report 2008, which projects humanity’s ecological footprint relative to the Earth’s biocapacity. And, after looking at factors such as deforestation, water consumption, pollution, climate change, and overexploitation of wildlife, the findings are dire:
Our global footprint now exceeds the world’s capacity to regenerate by about 30 per cent. If our demands on the planet continue at the same rate, by the mid-2030s we will need the equivalent of two planets to maintain our lifestyles. And this year’s report captures, for the first time, the impact of our consumption on the Earth’s water resources and our vulnerability to water scarcity in many areas.
But the report isn’t entirely pessimistic. The WWF believes that humanity can alter the path of overconsumption and, by turning toward sustainable practices, close the gap between mankind’s ecological footprint and the Earth’s biocapacity:
The good news is that we have the means to reverse the ecological credit crunch – it is not too late to prevent an irreversible ecological recession setting in. This report identifies the key areas where we need to transform our lifestyles and economies to put us on a more sustainable trajectory.
It’s either that or get on that space colonization thing ASAP.
More at Phenomenica.
Tags: 2030, growth, human, planet, population
