The Debt Trap

Great article from The New York Times about Americans digging deeper into debt. They are not the only ones at fault. Read how the credit card companies and mortgage lenders reap profits from the fees they charge. It doesn't matter whether people can pay the loans off because the companies bundle up the loans and sell them as securities. NIMBY attitude and we are paying for it now with the credit crisis.

View the Article

Al Gore's Speech to End Carbon-Based Dependence

Listen to Al Gore's speech about global warming, the oil crisis, and his plan to move from oil to alternative sources of energy.

View the Video

Climate Change has reached the Critical State

Learn about the effects climate change will have on the world in this blog. Unless something is done to halt it dire changes are certain.

View the Blog

Massive Algae Bloom in China Threatens Olympics Sailing Races

The country’s official news agency, Xinhua, reported that algae currently cover a third of the coastal waters designated for the Olympic sailing competition.

View New York Times Article

Garbage covering an area bigger than Texas Floating in the Ocean

Read about the largest landfill in the world that is floating in the ocean.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/great-pacific-garbage-patch.htm

The Materials Economy...The Story of Stuff Movie

Click the link to view the video about how things are made, the resources that are used, and where they go and the effect they have on the planet, full life-cycle of stuff.

http://www.informaticus.org/Movies/StoryOfStuff.mov

Changing Global Climate Documentary

Meltdown: Inside Out is an audio documentary, produced by Inside Out, that explores four regions of the world where the effects of climate change are being felt, the Arctic ice cap, Greenland ice sheet, Peru's mountain glaciers, and Antarctica.

Click the link to go to the web site where the documentary is being presented. It may take a few minutes before starting to play. (Duration 1 hour)
Listen to the documentary

Weekend Nonsense News - Little Known Law

Weekend Nonsense News on a little known law. (Duration 30 seconds.)

Listen to the Newscast.

Blogs, Bloggers, and Podcasting

Blogging and podcasting are great ways of finding out about what is happening in the world, things that one might never even know about. There are blogs and podcasts of all kinds of things, politics, entertainment, and educational, anything you can think of. From your own home you can communicate with others, anywhere in the world, who share these interests.

The blogs that I have been reading are The TED Blog and Long Views blog which have talks by people who are concerned about the future of mankind both physically and spiritually. The podcasts that I have listened to have allowed me to "attend" seminars that would otherwise be impossible to be a part of. I have listened to some Dharma lectures and seminars sponsored by the Long Now Foundation. In my blog I have links to some of these talks.

Blogging has had a profound effect on society. The viral level of communication has given grassroots organizations more power with the ability to raise money and to connect to millions of people with the click of a button. The bi-directionality of this communication has given bloggers a more accurate picture of "what is going on". It's nice to see this revitalization of democracy.

Karen Armstrong Talks About Compassion in Religion

The TED conference held in the first week of March, 2008, is over and now videos of the talks are available. The topic discussed by people from all walks of life was "What is life?". This is a video of guest speaker, Karen Armstrong, where she talks about bringing compassion back to religion. (Recorded March 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 21:27.)

View the video at TED 2008

Weekend Nonsense News - Breaking News

Weekend Nonsense News has breaking news! (Duration 30 seconds.)

Listen to the Newscast.

Introducing Weekend Nonsense News Podcast

This is the introduction to the Weekend Nonsense News broadcast. It will be a series of news podcasts that poke fun at anything under the sun. Subscribe to it to watch it evolve... (Duration 30 seconds.)

Listen to the Introduction

Craig Venter talks about synthetic life at TED 2008

The TED conference held in the first week of March, 2008, is over and now videos of the talks are available. The topic discussed by people from all walks of life was "What is life?". This is a video of guest speaker, Craig Venter, where he talks about creating new life using digital technology to assemble genes and covers the reasons why we would want to do this, and the bioethics of synthetic life. (Recorded March 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 32:52.)

View the video at TED 2008

World Wide Telescope introduced at TED 2008

The World Wide Telescope uses the web to allow people to navigate through the universe pictorially. It is a creation of images from many different telescopes all woven together. It will be available in the spring and is located at www.worldwidetelescop.org. The picture to the left is the "first light" image from the Large Binocular Telescope of the galaxy NGC 891.

View the video introducing it at TED 2008.

Craig Venter talks on DNA, genes, and the sea at TED 2005

Craig Venter and his team were the first to decode the entire human genome. Since then he has been a pioneer in the new field of genomics. In 2003 he and his team spent a year sampling and mapping the ocean's newly discovered biodiversity. Cataloging and decoding the genes was finished in 2006 and it was during this research that he took a break to give this talk to the TED conference in 2005. He shares his discoveries one of which are the 2,000 photoreceptor genes found in the Sargasso Sea. He talks about the potential of environmental genomics to monitor the safety of air, water and offshore drilling, and then ends with his vision for engineered species that can replace the petrochemical industry by creating clean energy.


Craig Venter: A voyage of DNA, genes and the sea

View the video at TED 2005

First Post

This is my first post. I will be talking about global warming, synthetic life, sculpture, and anything else that is interesting. I will include articles, pictures and links to videos.