The Good Morning
Encouraging, updating, informing, reforming, growing and nurturing your connection to good goings-on in this wild world.
morganmaher.net
Apr 2nd, 2009 @ 1:16 am
Back in November of 2007, Santiago, Chile, was the host of the first — and, sadly, never repeated — Hollyweed International Psychoactive Film Festival. The festival showcased an international selection of films related to psychoactive substances of natural origin, such as marijuana, coca, and ayahuasca.
The first prize winner was a short animation by a young Chilean painter and muralist named José Benmayor Mansilla, known as El Grio, who paints oddly compelling cartoon-like and brightly colored creatures on canvas and public walls.
Benmayor’s winning project at the film festival was called Ayahuasca
Read More: http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2009/02/animated-ayahuasca.html
@ 1:14 am
Classic Sesame Street animation - “Imagination”
@ 1:13 am
“The way you see a thing depends on where you are - whether you’re sitting on the ground or standing on a star.”
@ 1:12 am
“Geometry of Circles” is a series of unnumbered animation pieces created for Sesame Street in 1979 with music by Philip Glass.
The shorts consist of the movement of six circles (each with a different color of the rainbow) that are formed by and split up into various geometric patterns.
@ 1:09 am
Tony Vegas’ Animated Acidburn Flashback Tabu. This short is Vince Collins’ Life Is Flashing (Before Your Eyes). A bell, a cup, a duck. Of course.
Mar 3rd, 2009 @ 11:11 pm
El Sistema
‘El Sistema’ is a network of children’s and youth orchestras, music centres and workshops in Venezuela, in which more than 250,000 children and young people are currently learning to play an instrument.
It was set up over thirty years ago by José Antonio Abreu, who was driven by the utopian vision of a better future. In the dangerous and poverty-stricken shanty towns of Caracas, Abreu lifts children out of poverty through music, changing both people and structures. The story, which has all the makings of a fairytale, is the extraordinary account of a vision that has become reality.
Watch the amazing performance at the 2009 TED Conference
http://www.ted.com/talks/astonishing_performance_by_a_venezuelan_youth_orchestra_1.html
***
El Sistema
A film by Paul Smaczny and Maria Stodtmeier
The film shows the gripping way ‘El Sistema’ functions on a daily basis in a typical nucléo: the ‘La Rinconada’ nucléo is located adjoining the barrio of the same name. The area around the nucléo is considered as one of the most dangerous and poorest areas in Caracas. Up to 300 children find their daily destination here. In the film, three selected young people from the nucléo are accompanied through their daily lives for a whole year. The kids come from different backgrounds, family circumstances and stages of personal development. There are correspondingly few overlaps in their biographies – up until the day when they become part of the ‘system’ and are confronted by their own instruments, as well as the love, persistence and patience of their teachers. One of Jose Antonio Abreu’s key goals is to broaden young people’s horizons and encourage them to organise their own lives in a meaningful, responsible way. The film documents the personal development of the children and teenagers, few of whom will be crowned by a successful musical career. This is, however, not what the system aspires to.The film explores the central question: what can the system accomplish by connecting young people with classical music, and to what extent can it change their lives?
http://www.el-sistema-film.com/
Feb 26th, 2009 @ 5:03 pm
AuroraMax
The Canadian Space Agency is teaming up with partners in Yellowknife and Calgary to set up a camera that will capture images of the aurora borealis and put those images on a website.
The space agency is working with the City of Yellowknife, Astronomy North and the University of Calgary on the five-year AuroraMax project.
“It shares our sky with people who may have never known our sky was this spectacular,” James Pugsley, president of Astronomy North, told reporters in the N.W.T. capital Wednesday.
The AuroraMax project is being set up in time for scientists to watch the solar maximum, the period in which the northern lights are expected to be more frequent and active. The solar maximum is expected to take place in 2012.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/02/26/aurora-max.html
Feb 20th, 2009 @ 11:23 pm
Real Life, Children's Dreams
A collection of children’s illustrations recreated as photographs by Yeondoo Jung
@ 11:18 pm
Book of Dreams
“El monstruo de colores no tiene boca”, or in English, “The monster of colours has no mouth” is a collection of children’s dreams illustrated by various artists worldwide. Visit the Book of Dreams Flickr set to see dozens of these illustrations.
Seen here: a child’s dream interpreted by José Luis Ãgreda.
Feb 19th, 2009 @ 4:52 pm
Tokyo Green
Green Island are raising awareness of the need for more green stuff in Japan.
They’ve been re-imagining some of Tokyo’s busiest spots as green spaces.
Feb 18th, 2009 @ 3:19 pm
India's Solar City
“Nagpur in Maharashtra would be the first solar city in the country, under a programme of development of solar cities being launched tomorrow,” an official statement said.
Nagpur: population 2,420,000; is 13th largest urban conglomeration in Indiaand 114th largest city in world. It ranks as 143rd largest urban area in world in terms of population.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagpur
@ 3:12 pm
Garbage Powered Garbage Mobile
A British borough recently announced that they have come as close to closing that loop as anyone in the world. Kirklees Council has adapted their municipal garbage truck to be powered by the very trash that it collects!
The van is a Smith Edison Transit truck that goes around collecting rubbish from 25 bins that are located around the city. This rubbish is then taken to the Energy from Waste power station that generates electricity that powers the truck that runs around the city collecting the trash - and so the circle is completed.
The Smith Edison van has been fitted with a 40kWh lithium-ion battery that provides the truck with a maximum speed of 50mph and a range of 100 miles. Not all the trash is used to power this vehicle though - the trash is also used to power the town. The Electricity from Waste power station provides around 10 megawatts into the national grid.
http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/02/17/garbage-fueled-garbage-truck/
@ 3:08 pm
Veggie Car
How to Convert Your Car to Run on Vegetable Oil
Start here:
http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/02/17/converting-your-vehicle-to-run-on-veggie-oil/
@ 3:06 pm
SunCat Batts
Designer and inventor extraordinaire Knut Karlsen recently unveiled an inspired approach to portable power that can’t be beat for its elegant simplicity: a prototype battery capable of charging itself when exposed to sunshine. His slick set of SunCat C-cells are wrapped in flexible photovoltaic panels and will slowly recharge when left to bask in the sun - just like a cat.
http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/02/18/suncat-solar-batteries-by-knut-karlsen/#more-19494
Feb 15th, 2009 @ 2:20 pm
Turning Waste Into Energy
T wo huge tanks with rounded, mushroom lids loom above the snowdrifts, the first glimpse of Alberta’s oddest-looking electricity plant and also its greenest.
About one megawatt of power flows out on the wires — enough power to run the next-door feedlot and turn on the lights in 700 homes in Vegreville and Two Hills.
Two more gigantic tanks are under construction, and beside them, the site is cleared for the final installation, an ethanol plant, the greenest in Canada, thanks to homegrown, Alberta inventions.
Right now, Highmark burns its biogas to make electricity. The company has developed 40 secret recipes to turn almost any kind of organic waste — slaughterhouse waste, sugar beet waste, municipal sewage—into biogas. It is seeking international patents in a California law office.
With the new tanks, power production will quadruple. The company could sell more into the grid or use the power to run a greenhouse. Or an ethanol plant — a very strategic combination, as it turns out.
http://www.calgaryherald.com/Technology/Feedlot+manure+reborn+renewable+natural/1292090/story.html
