Month: April 2011

New Ways to Style Denim

- Adam Clare

Sandblasting jeans seems to be the cool thing to do nowadays. I’m not big on fashion so this is all strange to me. Well, as you can probably imagine sandblasting denim is not good for the environment so some smart people have figured out a better way to blast your jeans.

Blue denim jeans are one of the most popular and iconic fashion items in the world; now a study published in Biotechnology Journal reveals a cheaper, more efficient and eco-friendly method for treating dyed denim. The process of ‘surface activation’ used to wash-down the denim following dyeing could also offer an alternative to the dangerous, and internationally banned, sandblasting technique.

“The global production of denim is estimated at 3 billion linear meters and more than 4 billion garments per year,” said Thomas Bechtold, from the Research Institute for Textile Chemistry and Textile Physics at the University of Innsbruck. “To create blue jeans denim is dyed with indigo an organic compound which is estimated to be produced in quantities of over 30.000 tons per year.”

Read the rest of the article.

I still don’t get why we need sand in our jeans.

Project Democracy

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Canadian democracy has been ridiculed lately and rightly so. Under Harper’s pathetic leadership we have seen the largest mass arrest in Canadian history, the largest deficit this country has ever seen, the attempted dismantling of a working financial economy and Canada’s international reputation erode to meaninglessness. That on top of the Conservative’s repulsion of anything remotely environmentally friendly.

All of this has got a lot Canadian really angry at their current leadership (if you’re not angry about this you really should be). Now a bunch of Canadians have launched Project Democracy to rid Ottawa of the worst prime minster that Canada has seen this century.

I encourage every Canadian to vote out Stephen Harper’s Conservatives across the country!

When was the last time you saw good news posted here about action that the Conservatives have taken in Ottawa? It’ll be a great news day when we announce that Harper is no longer Prime Minster of Canada!

Project Democracy is a tool to help you determine if there is a way to “amp up” your vote and stop a Harper majority. By using a riding by riding election prediction model based on the most up to date public opinion research, we can tell you which Party is best positioned to defeat the Conservative in your riding. Just enter your postal code in the box to the right.

Check out Project Democracy now.

Stripespotter: A New Tool for Wild Animal Tracking

- Adam Clare

Tracking wild animals can be a difficult task be it tagging or just eyeballing the count. Researchers have adapted barcode reading to non-other than zebras. Now they can easily track zebras based on their individual stripe pattern. Neat!

A team of computer scientists and biologists have developed a barcode-like scanning system called Stripespotter that automatically identifies individual zebras from a single photograph. The system is more accurate than other image-recognition programs and could be used on additional animals with stripes, such as tigers and giraffes.

On top of that, it’s simple to use. Ecologists in the field take pictures of the animals using an everyday digital camera. That image is uploaded to a Stripespotter database. The scientist highlights a portion of the photographed animal, such as its hindquarters, and the program analyzes the pixels in that portion and then assigns a “stripecode” to the animal. When additional images of zebras are uploaded to the database and the hindquarters highlighted, the Stripespotter program compares the stripecode with others in the system. If it finds a match, it provides feedback about why two images of an animal are similar.

Read the rest of the article.

Here’s the project’s page: Stripespotter

Frank Gehry’s Cool New New York Project

- Adam Clare

That crazy architect Frank Gehry has an environmental and socially conscious development going up in New York City. I love it when high-profile people work on projects that are down to earth.

Unsurprisingly, New York by Gehry is not seeking LEED certification, but a spokeswoman informed Inhabitat that the building does have a variety of green features, including low-e windows, Energy Star appliances and greywater filtration. Plus, the building has lots of green/outdoor space.

Probably the biggest surprise to come out of the luxury building is that all 903 apartments will be rent stabilized. Developer Forest City Ratner received Liberty Bonds and city tax breaks for the building, so in return they must keep the apartments rent stabilized for 20 years. Plus, a senior vice president at Ratner told DNAinfo that they are offering one month free rent. But that doesn’t mean they’re cheap — rents still start at market rate, which is $3,580 for a one bedroom.

Read the rest at Inhabitat

Worldviews Conference on Media and Higher Education

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

The Worldviews Conference on Media and Higher Education is happening this June in Toronto and they want people who are interested in discussing the relationship between academia and media to attend. I was invited to a pre-conference brainstorming session recently and I have to say that I’m looking forward to this event.

There are a lot of really good people speaking at the conference so if you’re interested in how the media represents academic findings and how academic institutions relate to media organizations you should conference out.

Higher education affects every aspect of our lives – from the economy and the environment, to culture and communications. While the media play a critical role in shaping public understanding of this institution, little discussion has taken place about how that influence is manifested – or about how, in turn, higher education uses the media to mould how the public perceives it.

But that’s about to change.

Introducing Worldviews: Media Coverage of Higher Education in the 21st Century. This innovative conference, scheduled for June 2011 in Toronto, Canada, will not only examine these issues, but explore why it’s important to do so.

The 2011 inaugural conference will consider a range of important issues, including:

How media coverage of higher education has changed over the past two decades and where it is headed
The impact of social media and how it is changing what is covered and how higher education is understood
The role the media play in influencing public policy debates on public education
How higher education engages with the media to inform public opinion
The different realities of the developing and developed worlds

Visit the conference’s website.

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