Arm Power to Light Entire Continent

from the bbc

Windup radios already exist and now the company that makes them has created windup light bulbs so people can create their own light!

As part of its LifeLight Project the Freeplay Foundation has drawn up designs for a charging base unit that would be able to power up several detachable lights that can be used around a home.

The Foundation aims to train women to sell and maintain the lights
“They could use them for study or for safety – to help them if they go somewhere at night,” said Ms Pearson.

Working prototypes are now being made that will be tested with families in Kenya to refine the design.

NaNoWriMo 2007 Begins!

runnerNational Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is upon was again!

Get your plots out and your writing hands ready to write your novel in one month – remember that it’s quantity not quality!

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

We also mentioned NaNoWriMo last year.

Do the Green Thing

green thingDo the Green Thing is an online community dedicated to doing green things. What is a green thing? You can probably get an idea by looking at good news involving green things and the environment. Remember that living green is good for you and the planet!

Green Thing is a community that’s here to help as many people as possible in as many countries as possible to do the Green Thing. A community of Green Things across the world will not only make a sizeable CO2 saving, it will encourage governments and businesses to do the Green Thing too.

List of Good Halloween Sites

It seems that Sean over at Mashable has gotten disapointed about how halloween has been celebrated recently and wants to revive the fun in the day. In order to reinvigorate Halloween he’s collected list of more than 20 Halloween websites.

Halloween has gotten a bum rap for a lot of years in the United States as being about evil. In truth, it was originally about celebrating the fall harvest. Either way, Halloween is gaining in popularity again, and with it being on a Wednesday this year, that means you can use the weekend before and after for your celebrations! We’re gathered together 20+ sites to help you make the most of your Halloween night and coming parties.

I haven’t looked at the sites yet, but I like his attitude.

IBM Turns Electronic Trash Into Solar Cache

IBM has started a new program that recycles old computer chips and converts them into solar panels. They are taking computer chips (which are usually chopped to bits) and ‘erasing’ the chip pattern then putting them as wafers in solar panels. This will surely make solar power cheaper in the future!

The 3 million scrapped wafers each year could be used to create solar panels to power 6,000 houses, IBM said.

“It’s a simple process but it really returns benefits on so many different levels,” Jagielski said. “Not only do we reduce our overall use of silicon, but then to be able to create a raw material for the solar panel industry is kind of a good story all the way around.”