Thursday, February 19, 2009

Round Up

In this round up: Cap City compost bin discount, green home in the ATL, White House solar panels, pharm animals, studio organization, sheep to shawl, kangaroo rescue, K.C. Cole on math, non-hierarchical management, and high-yield produce is less nutritious.

Re-Nest has a very informative post about discounts on compost bins for Richmond, Virginia, residents. Well, OK, it's for all of central Virginia, but I know a few readers of this blog happen to live in Richmond, so I'm trying to appeal to them specifically. Did you catch that Bob and Rebecca? No pressure.

Jetson Green posted about a green home in Atlanta, Georgia. I wish it were mine. Via Re-Nest.

Re-Nest also has an informative post about the history of the solar panels on the roof of the White House.

David saw the cute goat pictures in the paper this morning and DEMANDED that I blog about Andrew Pollack's article F.D.A. Approves Drug From Gene-Altered Goats. Most importantly I am to direct you to the goat graphic.

Whip Up is posting a series about craft studio organization that is quite inspiring. I'm particularly enamored of the functional storage examples collected in this post. My studio will get there, gosh darn it!

I few weeks ago I heard a great report on NPR's Day to Day about a sheep to shawl competition. Definitely worth a listen.

Due the horrible fires in Australia apparently there is an spike in the number of orphaned baby kangaroos, a.k.a. joeys. Apparently these orphans need pouches. Whip Up has a nice post with a super cute picture of a joey in a pouch and a link to an organization collecting pouches.

I just heard a piece on Marketplace by K.C. Cole about the human brain's inability to comprehend large numbers. Apparently Ms. Cole has written a number of books on math and science for lay people. The mini-bio at the end of the Marketplace piece mentioned The Universe and the Teacup: The Mathematics of Truth and Beauty. At first I thought it might have to do with math and art, but from the descriptions on Amazon, not so much. Anyone read her books and feel like recommending one?

Rebecca has been sharing a lot of awesome stuff through Google Reader so I thought I'd pass them on. First, Kottke's post about non-hierarchical management in the workplace. Rebecca noted, "It'd be interesting to study this in the classroom too. I think that often it takes more than one, but certainly there can be an effect."

Seconding what I've posted about, Kottke posted about how high-yield produce has been found to be less nutritious. Rebecca noted, "I guess paying twice as much for organic vegetables is justified because I don't have to eat twice as many." Which is pretty much word for word what the Organic Consumers Association concluded.

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2 comments:

Rebecca said...

Thanks for the composter link. I'm going to have to get one. Maybe we can get down to one bag of trash every other week...

Sarah said...

That would be so impressive. I totally want a Soil Saver Classic, but I think I'm going to have to settle for something I hammer together from scraps in the garage. My biggest concern is protecting the wooden fence my compost pile has to be adjacent to in order to be in contact with soil. The Soil Saver Classic would fit so nicely in my little corner.