6 posts tagged “environment”
hypermiling
verb
a method of increasing your car's gas mileage by making skillful changes in the way you drive, allowing you to save gas and thereby have an easier time withstanding the rising oil and gas prices.
according to hypermiling.com (i'll just refer to them as HM), the first step in this process is always knowing your gas mileage:
calculated on my fill-up this morning
second, determine if you are an aggressive driver. according to HM, "Drivers apply their brakes between 10 and 25 percent more time than they need to. If drivers leave a big enough buffer between them and the car in front - at least 2 seconds or more - there would be more time to coast before putting on the brakes. And if you see a red light way up ahead, why bother to keep your foot on the gas?"
and can shrink my 23.7 mpg even more.
third, determine if you sit at red lights too long. when stopped, your mpg is zero. waste. coasting to red lights, you are not losing the momentum you burned your gas to achieve while at the same time waiting out the light. depending on the light, you could avoid having to fully stop at all.
but i have been able to coast through some.
fourth, keep moving in a traffic jam. HM refers people to an article about negating traffic congestion waves.
"On a day when I immediately started hitting the usual 'waves' of stopped cars, I decided to drive smoothly. Rather than repeatedly rushing ahead with everyone else, only to come to a halt, I decided to try to move at the average speed of the traffic. I let a huge gap open up ahead of me, and timed things so I was arriving at the next 'stop-wave' just as the last red brakelights were turning off ahead of me.
"I kept this up for maybe half an hour while approaching the city. Finally, I happened to glance at my rearview mirror. There was an interesting sight.
"It was dusk, the headlights were on, and I was going down a long hill to the bridges. I had a view of miles of highway behind me. In the neighboring lane I could see maybe five of the traffic stop-waves. But in the lane behind me, for miles, TOTALLY UNIFORM DISTRIBUTION. I hadn't realized it, but by driving at the average speed of the traffic around me, my car had been 'eating' the traffic waves. Everyone ahead of me was caught in the stop/go cycle, while everyone behind me was forced to go at a nice smooth 35MPH or so. My single tiny car had erased miles and miles of stop-and-go traffic. Just one single 'lubricant atom' had a profound effect on the turbulent particle flow within the entire miles of 'tube.'"
but this sounds like a cool experiment.
fifth, accelerate slowly from a stop. with an automatic car, let the car's idle allow you to start rolling for a second before using the gas.
sixth, carefully use cruise control in city driving to keep acceleration up hills, etc. smooth. learn how to accel, decel, and cancel the cruise control in advance to avoid accident.
i just found out about and started using Forestle today, and now it is gone. the premise of this particular search engine was that they would use their profits received from the google searches and advertisement clicks to purchase rainforest land.
any searches using Forestle now result in the following message:
Google ended partnership with Forestle!
Dear Forestle user,
We just received an email from Google in which they announced the end of the partnership with Forestle. They said that we offered "incentives to click artificially on sponsored links" and that this was not complaint with their policies..
Well, we don't agree with that!
We displayed a note at the top of the Forestle result page that says "only click on Google sponsored links if you are really interested in them". Also we saved 0.1 m² per search and not per click! So where did we offer incentives to click on ads?
In our opinion Google ended the partnership, because Forestle became too successful: Yesterday we earned almost 200 USD and saved more than 4,000 square meters of rainforest!
We will try to reactivate Forestle and clarify this issue. Meanwhile, we ask you to use the eco-friendly search engine www.Znout.com. Officially Znout does not save rainforest, but it reduces your energy consumption thanks to black backgrounds and EcoServers considerably.
We will inform you with a message on www.Znout.com, when we are able to revive Forestle. So please make Znout your home page or install the Znout plugin for your browser.
@ All blog writers: Please report about this issue to help us revive Forestle
Thank you,
Your Forestle team
you can purchase one toothbrush, or a toothbrush subscription of four toothbrushes to be sent to you at a frequency of your choosing.
very nice.
laundry
- switched from laundry detergent to laundry soap made from fels naptha soap, borax, washing soda, and oxyclean booster
- switched from fabric softener to white vinegar scented with essential oils
- switched from using the drying to hang drying clothes (except for towels, which need to be fluffy from the drier)
- switched from windex to annie bond's cleaner using white vinegar, water, and a touch of dish soap
- switched from random surface cleaners to full strength white vinegar
- switched from soft scrub to annie bond's soft scrubber recipe using baking soda and dish soap
- switched from long showers to bucket baths (though unlike the caption to this photo, i use soap and get perfectly clean)
- switched from shampoo to 1 tbsp baking soda dissolved in a cup of warm water in a spray bottle
- switched from conditioner to a rinse of 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar mixed with a cup of cool water in a spray bottle. (i have also added various things to it: lavender essential oil, sage essential oil, rosemary essential oil, nasturtium flower essence, a cinnamon stick, two cloves, a cardamom pod. may try out more things later.)
- switched from face wash to a 50/50 mix of apple cider vinegar and water.
- switched from disposable products to the diva cup
- switched from only toilet paper to an option of or cloth baby wipes or toilet paper (for the more serious matters)
- switched from clay-based (strip-mined) scoopable litter to compostable pine-based scoopable litter
- homemade deodorant
- hand washing clothes with the rapid washer
my next experiment in alternative means.
enviro/architech/random: the urban cactus is a very interesting looking housing project. seems like everyone gets a really nice balcony. can i live there?
machines: theo jansen's strange skeletal, insect-like machines that walk, scurry and creep along using wind power. creepy and fascinating.
photography: red-hot filthy library smut. which translates to mean, photos of really cool libraries
that are just... wow.
backlogged deliciousness from my kitchen: more testing of the naughty curry recipes. this time mindy and i made pineapple couscous. yum. and it was easy.
then dana and i made this really complexly spiced (though easy to prepare), delicious dish called nepali creamy almond 'chicken'. it may be a good idea next time to try and keep an eye on the cardamom pods. bitind down on one of those is intense!
last night i made the naughty curry kitchen's version of 'chicken' makhani: spicy comfort food. i think i am becoming a spice addict. the house still smells warm and amazingly tasty.
more to come. (i can't help myself)
on a non-indian-spiced tangent: this shrimp and tomatoes over soft polenta looks damn good.
deliciousness delivery!: mindy brought me chinese baked goods! man! custard things and various yummy buns. i wish cinci was a real city and had chinese bakeries. mmmmmmm.... pineapple buns!
they went well with the toasted head cabernet i picked up.
randomness: gnomes??
wireless: necessary expense i my life, but i can't say that i am particularly thrilled with what my provider offers, or any of the normal providers for that matter. so, i got really excited when i read about earth tones on ecogeek:
"Well, what if a communications company cared about more than profit. As long as we're dreaming, what if they gave 100% of their profit to environmental organizations. Earth Tones, a very unique internet and phone company, does exactly that. Their bills come on 100% recycled paper, but they strongly encourage you to use their electronic billing service. Their wireless handsets are all recycled and they will even recycle your old wireless phone for free."
the rate plans weren't bad and their coverage map was impressive. i would probably switch over, but their only downfall seems to be a lack of text messaging plans. you have to pay per text. that just won't work for me. worth checking out, though.
belated halloween fun: fully functional transformer costume!
costume construction: better late than never to post these photos? it was really fun putting these costumes together.
i cut up an old pair of pajamas and used them as a pattern for my fur pants
much careful measurement, and scientifical testing went into the construction of sara's Bat Cape.
dyani's masterpiece in the works. this photo shows her sewing the feather trim onto Flaming Gay Robin's cape.
things i want to do: i want to make soap. i am thoroughly unimpressed with most of the fragrances
added to soap available these days. i don't want to smell like a fruit salad. i
do not want to smell like a bouquet of flowers. i do not want to smell like whatever this 'rain' smell or this 'fresh' smell or this 'mountain breaze' smell is. i want to smell like earthy things. twigs. rosemary. dirt. saw dust. leather. roasted almonds. tomato vines. cedar. eucalytus leaves.
i found a site that has melt and pour soap making supplies and instructions. now i just need to find the time, and some spare funs, and just the right smells.
other thing i want to do: i also want to make mittens. my hands are cold! some fuzzy black mittens would be just the thing. someone should show me how to knit. i have looked for instructions, but i don't know that anything can replace the real live example.
toy for mac users: quicksilver. it is hard to describe what this program does other than to say that it gives you efficient, easy, immediate access to the farthest buried areas of your computer with just a few keystrokes. just download it and test it out using the quick tutorial by this guy dan dickinson.
wtf?: the backlog also includes pzizz, a bizarre (and ridiculously priced) piece of napping software. that's right. a computer program to assist you in napping. i never knew it was complicated enough to warrant that
smart playlists: sure, i knew they existed and it seemed like they could be useful theoretically, but i don't think i really understood how they could help me tame a somewhat large (and growing) music library, such as mine. check out this. and then this.
on the topic of music: do you have old cds that you haven't listed to in a million years and will probably never listen to again? do you have hesitation/opposition/disinterest/guilt in obtaining music via illegal means? maybe you should look at what lala is doing. you list the (unscratched, playable) cds that you want to get rid of, and create a wish list of cds that you would rather have. they provide the shipping supplies. someone wants a cd you have, you can send it to them. someone has a cd on your wish list, it will ship to you for $1 and a small shipping fee. it is like a used record store, only online. my only complaint about their set-up is that when discs on your list become available, they just ship. no confirmation function. the only thing limiting that frequency is whether you have been sending discs out and whether you are on 'vacation' mode.
home construction: ran across one of my old bookmarks for this couple who have outfitted their house with a number of overhead walkways and cat ziaed ceiling-level doors between rooms. highly colorful, and downright genius. check out the cat house.
fredo viola video: for that beautiful track, the sad song.
stenciling words: written on the city is a collection of stenciled text. fantastic.
we didn't do text, but: dana and i sketched and cut a stencil of some fluffed topped grasses and then stenciled a bit in the basement of her house. i think it turned out pretty well for a first attempt.
the hipster pda: the simplicity. it is almost too much.
letter writing guilt: i am supposed to be sending snail mail to yifat and ellen, but i end up sending nothing, or big bursting at the seams envelopes. one day i googled letter writing club on a whim and found this discussion. people were really baffled by the idea:
"Ok, let me get this straight. A whole bunch of (20-something) people get together in the evening at a location to engage with the lost art of hand correspondence (or, alternatively, to engage with the lost craft of typewriting) while consuming cookies that somebody baked, and drinking no-coffee/not-beer. And it's oversubscribed. Are there bands, too? It sounds almost frighteningly "hip"."
another article about this group had a photo of the place. i want to play too! and look at all of those carefully crammed in filing cabinets! ebay typewriters are not too pricey, but they refuse to list shipping costs, and who knows where you would get ribbons for these archaic machines.
valence video: when i stumbled across this video, i didn't have the attention span to read and see what it was about, but it looks quite cool.
this ridiculous mess: of random stuff that is probably only of interest to me, was brought to you by the letter U.
