Yearly Archives: 2008

One Small Step

This entry was posted in Drug Laws on by

You can help in the battle against the so-called war on drugs.
This Massachusetts Initiative may not go far enough and would not be required in a free country. But we don’t live in one and the initiative is One Small Step in the right direction:

On November 4, 2008, Massachusetts voters will have the chance to pass a ballot initiative decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana — removing the threat of jail time for possessing an ounce or less of marijuana for personal use.

Help Massachusetts take this step by financially supporting this initiative. Send contributions to:

Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy
P.O. Box 130151
Boston, MA 02113

Or, online here.

You can also help by asking your congressional representative to support the Personal Use of Marijuana Act.

Learn more at the Marijuana Policy Project.

Not For the Vertigo Impaired

This entry was posted in Photography Potpourri on by

The Space Needle cleaning crew in action:

080515_Space_Needle_clean_large_3.jpg
Photo: Karcher GmbH & Co.

Employees of Karcher GmbH & Co. are doing the work. They get paid. Karcher does not:

Early on, Kärcher determined that it would donate its cleaning services of public monuments, donating skilled labor as well as the technical, analytic and supervisory services necessary to complete such projects. Their reasoning was twofold: not only was the donation a goodwill gesture, but the feedback the company’s engineers received was invaluable in refining the innovation and manufacture of future cleaning systems.
To that end, Kärcher has carried out some 80 cleaning projects on historical monuments,…

Via Kottke.

Many could be living off the grid soon!

This entry was posted in Energy on by

From MIT:

In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn’t shine.

Watch the brief video then read the linked article:

Video thumbnail. Click to play
Click To Play



It will be interesting to see if this technology can be available in less than the 10 years the article suggests.

Technology like this, if it can be cost effectively delivered, can turn the whole electrical energy conservation movement on its head as well as dramatically reducing residential carbon footprints.