Category: Mind Space

India Continues to Blog

The Indian Government recently tried to stiffle free speech of many of its citizens by blocking their access to certain blogs and blogging sites. This was in reaction to the recent terror attack in Mumbai, the blogosphere and many people around the world felt that India reacted too strongly.

India has announced that they wanted to selectively censor some pages and that “Because of a technological error, the Internet providers went beyond what was expected of them which in turn resulted in the unfortunate blocking of all blogs.”

Well, today, the Indian Government has said that itwon’t ban bloggers. Free speech online can continue in India!

Students Cleanup Their ‘Hood

Students at Spain Middle School, which is nowhere near Spain, in fact the school is in Detroit Michigan. Detroit is renowned for it’s urban areas that are falling apart, well these kids had enough. For a school project they utilized technologies used by NASA and marketing corporations, GIS – also known as Geographic Information Systems.

They went around their neighborhoods documenting all things wrong. They plotted the location of say an abandoned car and took a picture of it and went on to the next sign of urban blight. After collecting all their data they took the next logical step.

“They students have compiled their material into Power Point presentations for Detroit city council members, highlighting areas that have been neglected and need improvement. They were able to show, for example, that the number of abandoned homes in one neighborhood had increased by more than 50 percent. The Wayne County prosecutors’ office began targeting the area.”

With GIS technology becoming more accessible hopefully we can see it used for more projects like this and maybe for tracking environmental damage too.

Happy Planet Index

a green good happy streetlight The Happy Planet Index is an innovative way to track the state of the planet. The HPI lists the GDP to show that wealth doesn’t equal happiness. This is a great project, even though as a planet we have a lot of room for improvement in terms of happiness.

“The message, simply put, is that when we measure the efficiency with which countries enable the fundamental inputs of natural resources to be turned into the ultimate ends of long and happy lives, all can do better. This conclusion is less surprising in the light of our argument that governments have been concentrating on the wrong indicators for too long. If you have the wrong map, you are unlikely to reach your destination.”

It’s a good thing they have a guide to make the planet happier.

The happiest countries on the planet are:

Vanuatu
Colombia
Costa Rica

You can even calculate your own HPI

Congestion Charging

“Complete idiots” will be charged more in London. To be more exact, the city of London has decided to charge a higher congestion fee for SUVs. According to the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, SUV drivers are “complete idiots”.

The reasoning behind this move to charge SUVs more is rather elaborate. One of the reasons is that it was recently found that in the US 11.5% of pedestrians hit by SUVs are killed, smaller vehicles kill only 4.5% of pedestrians hit. Londoners also are fans of SUVS, 14.9% of car sales are SUVS, which is much higher than other English cities. Drivers of vehicles more friendly to the environment will have a reduced congestion fee.

London’s congestion fee has been wildly successful and hopefully this addition to it will be too.

Sod Off!

sod wheelSome enterprising grad students at Dalhousie in Halifax, Nova Scotia, have taken the park on the road. The architecture students were exploring the concept of public and green space and came up with this groovy way to always walk on the grass!

“”We’re looking at the idea of green space in the city,” said grad student Kevin James. “Even in the Public Gardens, you’re not allowed to walk on the grass.”

Halifax Downtown Coun. Dawn Sloane says they’re right, except for the Public Gardens statement. In fact, playing on the grass is allowed in the children’s area, but the problem is nobody knows about it.

“I think our biggest issue right now is that not only is our green space being utilized for some of the wrong reasons, but they’re under- utilized by the communities, and we do need more,” she said.”

The concept isn’t perfect because when the sod is over your head dirt falls on you. If the concept really dries up then maybe they’ll turn it into a hot tub.