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Art: Nat Damm

Dorothy Le

Planning and Policy Director, Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition
Los Angeles, Calif.

Dorothy Le wants to get you out and about on two wheels. Not sure where to start? Watch her series of videos on how to find the bike that’s right for you. At the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition,
she works to make the archetypal car-obsessed city more welcoming to
cyclists and to make the cycling community more welcoming to women and
people of color. Le has organized community bike tours, women’s
bicycle rides, safety workshops, a bicycle count. While a student at UCLA, she led E3: Ecology, Economy, Equity, an environmental and social-justice organization, and helped launch the Green Initiative Fund, a grant-making fund for sustainability projects on the UCLA campus.

Follow the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition on Twitter.

Watch a video about Le’s bike activism:

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Filed under: Convertible, Performance, Etc., Tesla, Electric

With the thousands of prizes given away on The Price is Right over the centuries decades, it’s hard to top the things that have come before. But, today, a new record will be set. To mark Earth Day, Drew Carey and company will offer up a Tesla Roadster on today’s show. According to a short note Tesla sent us, “This will be the most expensive prize ever offered on the show. CBS anticipates this to be one of their most exciting episodes ever.” If you miss it on the broadcast, you can watch the show here, probably starting tomorrow. Having not seen the show in years, we were honestly blown away by how excited the people who “come on down” still get as they make their way to the stage. Amazing.

UPDATE: Video added after the jump. We won’t spoil the outcome for you.

[Source: Tesla]

Continue reading Earth Day Prizelust: Tesla Roadster on Price is Right is most expensive freebie ever [UPDATED w/video]

Earth Day Prizelust: Tesla Roadster on Price is Right is most expensive freebie ever [UPDATED w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 22 Apr 2010 18:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As the U.S. Coast Guard continues to search for 11 workers missing in an oil rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana, concern is widening about the potential for a “major” spill because of the explosion. BP and the Coast Guard are moving assets in to help combat a possible spill. At a news conference this afternoon, officials talked about a one mile by five mile “sheen” that’s on the water now, the result of the explosions on the rig. The rig itself has slipped underwater. There’s a remotely operated vehicle that’s underwater checking for damage. Two pipelines in the area were closed as a precaution. The Deepwater Horizon sat 42 miles off the coast of Louisiana.

Although the search continues for the 11 missing workers, officials say they have reports from survivors that the missing may have been near the site of the explosion and may not have been able to evacuate. Published reports say workers on the rig only had 5-10 minutes to escape. The survivors, about 115 of them, are safe and have been reunited with their families. The Coast Guard has seached about 2000 square miles looking for the missing.

Do women spend more time in the restroom than men?

“The stereotype that women spend more time in the restroom than men was examined, with the expectation of a small magnitude difference. Method.—Men and women (N = 120, 60 each sex) were observed entering and exiting the restroom in a college library. Participants were of various ages and ethnicities. Data were collected during 4 days in 2 wk. for 1 or 2 hours at different times in the afternoon, evening, and night. The number of stalls, urinals, and sinks and proximity to convenient and discrete observation posts were similar. Time spent in the restroom was measured in seconds using the online U.S. government clock (www.time.gov) set to Eastern Standard Time at a library computer terminal. For purposes of interrater reliability, two observers timed each participant and retained the data only if the observers agreed within a margin of 2.0 sec.

Results and discussion.—An independent samples t test indicated that women (M = 178.9 sec., SD = 96.6) spent significantly more time in the restroom than did men (M = 118.4 sec., SD = 102.6; t118 = –3.33, p = .001; d = .34). The average difference was 61.5 sec. Johnson, Sholcosky, Gabello, Ragni, and Ogonosky (2003) found that women were nearly twice as likely as men to wash their hands after using a public restroom. This act of routine hygiene by itself could substantially account for the additional time women spent in the restroom in our study. Participants were not observed while inside the restroom and results are based on students in a university library. The results support the belief that small, real gender differences have been exaggerated in common lore.”

Photo: Engrish.com

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I always imagined fairies as pansy Disney cartoons. But Gwenael Nicolas’ ‘Sparks’ lamp paints a different picture—one of a brazen, orbicular creature of light that leaves sharp crystals in its wake. [designboom] More »

by Grist

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Art: Nat Damm

Rob Jones

Cofounder, Crop Mob
Carrboro, N.C.

Like a growing number of young folks across the country, Rob Jones, 27, likes to
get his hands in the dirt, making his foodshed and community more robust and
vibrant. Once each month, Jones and a band of
young agrarians alight upon an area farm. Calling themselves the Crop Mob, they do a big project together—say, break new ground for raised beds or harvest a labor-intensive crop like
sweet potatoes. The host farmers make a big meal, and everyone eats together.
Sustainable agriculture is “way, way, way more labor-intensive than industrial
agriculture,” Jones told
The New
York Times Magazine, and the long hours can hamper one’s social life.
Crop Mobs help by creating a “sense of community that people are looking for”—and “you get a lot of work done.” Since the Times article came out, the
idea has gone viral. Crop Mobs have broken
out all over the country. Read a Grist
article about Crop Mobs.

Follow Crop Mob on Twitter.

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Steve Breeze popped into my last post and muttered something about the serial or “Oxford” comma which was, until shortly after I read that comment, missing from the blog title. It’s a bone of contention, this penultimate comma in a list of things.

For example, is it “The grocer had carrots, rutabagas, and celery,” or “The grocer had carrots, rutabagas and celery”? Which is right? Not even copyeditors agree. For me, even though I can get emotional about some punctuational issues (if the grocer has carrot’s and rutabaga’s, I will take my business elsewhere), this one is like gun control: an issue about which I am able to take sides to the satisfaction of the divided majority. I can see both sides, and am OK either way. Take the comma or leave it.

But it seems like this is a critical question that will affect the success of this blog and the fates of us all, so please weigh in. I will play the winner. Make your arguments below.

Filed under: About this Site

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A flying frog that changes colors, a stick insect that’s a foot and a half long, and a “ninja slug” that shoots “love darts.” These are among the 120 new species discovered or described over the past three years on the lush island of Borneo–the Southeast Asia island divided between Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei.

On Earth Day, the conservation group WWF released a report on some of the recent discoveries in a 54-million-acre nature preserve known as the Heart of Borneo. WWF ecologist Adam Tomasek says that on an average, three new species were found every month.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Slugs?

This colorful green and yellow slug species, named Ibycus rachelae, was discovered atop high mountains in the Malaysian section of Borneo. The slug has a tail three times the length of its head, and it wraps the tail around itself when it is resting. From the Ariophantidae family, this unusual species makes use of so-called ‘love darts’ in courtship. Made of calcium carbonate, the love dart is harpoon-like which pierces and injects a hormone into a mate, and may play a role in increasing the chances of reproduction [Guardian].

Image: Peter Koomen / WWF

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“I’m not sure when ‘accessible’ became a dirty word,” Ms. Alsop said. “I’m not of the belief that something has to be inscrutable in order to be great.”

Ms. Alsop is Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony (and, early in her career, of Oregon’s Eugene Symphony) and she’s being quoted in this morning’s New York Times in Vivien Schweitzer’s engaging profile of composer Jennifer Higdon, the freshly minted Pulitzer Prize winner for her Violin Concerto, written for performer Hilary Hahn.

Alsop, a fan, expanded on Higdon’s music: “Her scores are ‘very strong rhythmically … with real scope and shape and architecture. She knows how to bring out the best of the various instrumental colors in the orchestra.’ She added that Ms. Higdon’s music is ‘very immediate, authentic, sincere and without pretense.’”

Sounds right. Almost a year ago — on May 18, 2009 — Mr. Scatter had this to say about Higdon’s music, on the occasion of an impending concert of her music by Third Angle:

As I type I’m listening to a recording that Third Angle artistic director Ron Blessinger gave me of Philadelphia composer and double Grammy winner Jennifer Higdon’s Celestial Hymns and Zaka, and I’m liking it a WHOLE lot.

It’s jangly, insouciant, nervous, brash yet somehow introspective music. It’s thoroughly American. And it’s accessible, which in this case means not dumbed down but smart and extroverted — speaking, like Gershwin and Copland and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich and many others, in a voice that would actually like to be heard by an intelligent general audience. Makes me think of Bartok crossed with Charles Lloyd, maybe because of the clarinet and flute.

What’s more, from everything I’ve heard and read, Higdon’s a delightful person, exactly the sort of public ambassador that contemporary classical music (I know; that sounds like an oxymoron. Can you think of a better way to say it?) needs.

Prizes are prizes, with all of the politicking, guesswork and compromises that go along with that. But sometimes you’re glad they turn out they way they do. Cheers, Jennifer Higdon. Enjoy the Champagne.

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Art: Nat Damm

Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart

Founder, Vaute Couture
Chicago, Ill.

Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart, 27, launched Vaute Couture last year with a line of chic, eco-friendly, cruelty-free, ethically
and locally produced coats that are warm enough for Chicago winters. As a vegan, model, and MBA, she brings a unique perspective
to her work—and strong values too; all profits from one of her styles
are donated to Farm Sanctuary, a haven for rescued farm animals. Vaute Couture also sells vegan-themed T-shirts and jewelry. Hilgart tells you about it all on her blog.

 

Watch Hilgart talk about her business:

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Valerie Martinez

Ambessa Cantave

by Grist

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Art: Nat Damm

Zakiya Harris

Founder and Executive Director, Grind for the Green
Berkeley, Calif.

Zakiya Harris, 32, founded Grind for the Green in
2007 to use hip-hop to move youth of color from the margins to the
epicenter of the green movement, helping steer them toward educational
opportunities and green careers. The group puts on the solar-powered
G4G Eco-Music Festival in San Francisco, and this Earth Day it’s
rolling out a Get Fresh campaign that aims to get young people educated
about and active in environmental issues. Harris also makes her own
music as one half of the eco-conscious hip-hop duo FIYAWATA and works as an eco-marketing consultant.

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Los Angeles without traffic—in pictures

by Grist

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Art: Nat Damm

Matt Golden

President, Founder, and Chief Building Scientist, Recurve
Sausalito, Calif.

Matt Golden, 35, has become a golden boy of the nascent energy-efficiency industry. He started Recurve—formerly called Sustainable Spaces—back in 2004 before retrofit
was hip. While Recurve works on a software-driven solution to scale up
the energy-efficiency business from mom-and-pop shops to a sustainable
industry, Golden spends much of his time in Washington lobbying for Home Star and other legislation to fund energy-efficiency work and create thousands of jobs. Read more about Golden in a Grist article on Home Star and a Grist article on Sustainable Spaces.

Follow Golden on Twitter.

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Wanderlust wrote in to point out the rumors doing the rounds today that Hulu is getting ready to launch a paid subscription service, something that’s popped up before. Apparently Hulu is looking to offer the five most recent episodes of a show for free, then will charge $10 a month for access to older episodes. There aren’t a ton of details, so it’s not clear exactly how the plan will play out. But we can say this: unless Hulu is adding some real value for users, and not just putting currently free content behind a paywall, it’s doomed to failure. It’s pretty clear that some of Hulu’s corporate overlords think all of its content should be behind a paywall. But erecting a paywall will simply drive Hulu users to unauthorized downloads and streams, delivering those content providers absolutely nothing. All too often these paywalls are based on the idea that once users have nowhere else to go, they’ll start paying; the reality is, though, there’s always somewhere else to go.

Hulu’s success thus far has been by attracting users with a good choice of content presented in a good interface, reflecting something of an understanding that the way to compete with free, unauthorized content is to offer users something better. It’s already started to undermine some of its success by blocking certain browsers in an attempt to force users to only access its content (and its advertising) through means of which it approves, and the paywall represents yet another step towards replacing a product that’s better than unauthorized content with one that’s worse. In any case, when online streaming TV shows are already pulling in some high ad rates, does it make any sense at all for Hulu to start throwing up paywalls?

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by Grist

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Art: Nat Damm

Cisco DeVries

President, Renewable Funding
Oakland, Calif.

Sure, you’d love to have solar panels on your roof, but where would you
get tens of thousands of dollars to install them? Cisco Devries, 36,
has come up with an innovative answer: Property Assessed Clean Energy
(PACE) is a new type of financing program that lets private property
owners pay for energy-efficiency and renewable-energy projects over 10
to 20 years via an addition to their property tax bill, instead of
coming up with the cash up front; the financing comes via municipal
bonds, and if an owner sells the property, the tax surcharge transfers
to the new owner. The concept was first introduced in (where else?)
Berkeley, Calif., in 2007; since then, 17 states have cleared the way
for municipalities to use property taxes in this way, and more than 200
U.S. cities and counties are working to launch programs. DeVries’
company, Renewable Funding, helps communities set up and run PACE programs. Read a Grist post by DeVries.

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It was reported earlier this month that Audi’s global quarterly new-car sales passed that of Mercedes-Benz for the first time ever. Audi outsold Mercedes-Benz 264,100 to 248,500 during the first three months of 2010 and reported that quarterly sales hit a new record of 25.9 percent above the same period last year.

Audi, which has been enjoying two decades of dominance in China, will face some competition from Mercedes-Benz and BMW in the world’s largest auto market.

Both BMW and Mercedes-Benz will roll out a range of new models at the 2010 Beijing Motor Show specifically for the Chinese market as they seek to steal market share from Audi.

Audi’s market share has dropped more than 20 percent in the last six years in China.

– By: Stephen Calogera

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)

Noah’s full review of what may be the coolest phone-as-object out there right now: The Android-powered HTC Legend.

by Grist

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Art: Nat Damm

Jim Cochran

Farmer, Swanton Berry Farm
Davenport, Calif.

Despite what many consumers may think, organic rules don’t
ensure fair treatment of workers—and tight profit margins mean that
working conditions and pay on organic farms are too often no different from those in conventional operations. But Jim Cochran, 62, who launched California’s first organic strawberry farm in 1987, refused to accept the established norms. In 1998, he became the first organic grower to sign a contract with the United Farm Workers union—and he approached them.
Then, in 2005, Cochran rolled out what might be the nation’s first
stock-ownership plan for farm employees; workers begin earning stock in
the operation after putting in 500 hours. “The dignity of farm labor is
a founding principle of Swanton Berry Farm,” Cochran says.
If the farm’s crowded stands at Bay Area farmers markets are any
indication, it is possible to protect the earth, treat workers well,
and make a profit at the same time.

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Republican Sam Caligiuri, running for Congress from the 5th District, had a strong 1Q of 2010, bringing in more donations than his two leading GOP opponents, Justin Bernier and Mark Greenberg.

Caligiuri said he’s especially proud of the fact that he raised more in individual contributions than Democratic incumbent Chris Murphy. “I was thrilled to have had such a successful fundraising quarter, and exceptionally grateful to my many supporters,” Caligiuri said in a press release touting his fundraising numbers last week.

But the canned statement doesn’t touch on the all-important cash-on-hand figure, a category in which Caligiuri is lagging. He has $204,320 in the bank; Bernier, who has been in the race much longer, has $248,869. Greenberg has $404,027, a sum that includes the recent $250,000 personal loan he made to his campaign.

Murphy trumps them all, with more than $1 million.

“Every one of us will be at a financial disadvantage against Murphy but that’s not the key issue,” Caligiuri said.

 

 

 

He noted that when Murphy was challenging Republican U.S. Rep. Nancy Johnson in 2006, he, too, was the underfunded candidate.

“The incumbent is always going to have more cash on hand,” Caligiuri added. “The challenger has to be able to raise enough money to get their message out and you have to have the race dynamics on your side.”

It was that dynamic in 2006, a wave of anti-Republican sentiment, that allowed Murphy to topple a long-term incumbent and her financial advantage.

“We have the same dynamic at work for us,” Caligiuri said. “People are very upset with what Nancy Pelosi and Chris Murphy are doing in Congress. His votes are out of step with what people in the 5th district want.”

“We will get out-raised and outspent by Murphy but as long as we remain competitive, we will have the resources to beat him on the strength of our message.”

Caligiuri said unseating Murphy is the main goal, whichever Republican candidate emerges as the party’s nominee. “If I don’t win the convention, I have said all along I will back our  nominee,” he said.