Month: June 2007

Ayiti: The Cost of Life

- Adam Clare

Yesterday’s post of a controversial videogame didn’t go over so well. It’s good to see that readers will speak up if they question the goodness of an item!

Anyway, today I thought I’d show a different game that is actually educational. It’s the most challenging game I’ve ever played – I can’t win at it all 🙁 Ayiti: The Cost of Life is the game and it’s a creative way to show how hard life can be for some people, it’s a really good educational tool.

What is it like to live in poverty, struggling every day to stay healthy, keep out of debt, and get educated?

Find out now in this challenging role playing game created by the High School students in Global Kids with the game developers at Gamelab, in which you take responsibility for a family of five in rural Haiti.

Fatworld is a Socially Aware and Awkward Video Game

- Adam Clare 7 Comments

fattyIan Bogost makes games, but not just any game – he makes games that try to raise awareness about how messed up North American society is. His next game is called Fatworld and Wired has the info on this impending game of fatness.

Remember you are what you eat, not what you play.

In his latest, Fatworld, players navigate a consumer paradise (A), rule their own empire of restaurants and convenience stores (B), and enjoy food allergies, diabetes, heart disease, and death (C).

You can play his early game Airport Security to get a taste of what kind of social commentary to expect.

Calls for Mercury Ban in India Following Ban in EU

- Adam Clare

Mercury, a dangerous heavy metal, has not been allowed to be traded in the EU, and recently the UN has called on a global ban on mercury. This near-global effort to limit mercury use has now hit India, as the country is feeling more pressure to at least regulate their mercury trade. India is currently the world’s largest consumer of the metal which means that if more change is to happen, India needs to be part of it.

Earlier this year, Toxics Link joined a large number of non-governmental organisations to call upon Governments across the globe to place a ban on mercury exports in a bid to check increasing mercury pollution at the 24th United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Governing Council meeting held from 5th to 9th February 2007.

Slow Down, Improve Your Life

- Adam Clare

Carl Honoré wants us to slow down and take things easy, that doesn’t mean that he wants us to become lazy though. He wrote a book “In Praise of Slow” to let us know about the slow movement. In a world in which everything (including walking speed) is speeding up we no longer take time to stop and smell the roses – let alone deliver them on a unicycle.

CNN, the 24 hour information-overload news network, has a good article on why we should slow down.

If it all sounds to you like the musings from a slacker’s manifesto, you’re not yet in tune with the concept of the slow life. Resist the tug of technology: turn off your mobile, don’t send that email just yet and try and forget, just for a few minutes, about the thousand tedious tasks that you feel need to be done.
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As well as the slow food movement, there are slow towns, aiming to improve the quality of life for inhabitants and making them more pleasant places to live. It’s more a philosophical statement rather than a directive. Ludlow was the first UK town to achieve slow town status, but admittedly, life in this Shropshire market town has never been anything other than sedate

Delivering Flowers Via Unicycle: NYC to Pennsylvania

- Adam Clare

Hey, Things Are Good people. Earl Pickens here. I’m a singer/songwriter/unicyclist from Central Pennsylvania.

I’m writing to see if you might be interested in my unicycle music video. I made it to go with a song I wrote for my wife. It’s been on YouTube for about a month and a half and it’s gotten thousands of plays in that time, and seems to be spreading warm, fuzzy feelings wherever it goes. Thought you might enjoy it:

Hopefully you like unicycles.

Cheers,
Earl

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