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Lifehacker
We've covered a few before, but since you guys keep uncovering examples of companies supplying you with gizmos in ridiculously voluminous packaging, we're building a new Hall of Shame to give these things a home, and embarrass the perpetrators.
As you've probably heard by now, China's been dealing with a massive tainted milk problem. Now that hundreds of tons of milk products have been recalled, precincts are scrambling to figure out what to do with the resulting trash. One city in Southern China has decided that one great way to get rid of all that melamine-laden fluid is to bake them into bricks and cement.
We've posted about China's e-waste problem before; a problem that stems from other countries needing to offload their trash and China being more than receptive because of good money to be had from salvaging. But what we haven't seen much of is video. 60 Minutes tried recently to capture it, but were attacked from Chinese residents that wanted to keep their lucrative e-waste mining business intact. VWag found this longer Current documentary from 2007 that has longer footage—and angry citizens. See for yourself where that old 386 PC you threw away is going. [Current via Valleywag]
60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley went to Guiyi, China to document the lives of Chinese e-waste workers there. He was able to get footage of what these pits, which process much of the toxic electronic scrap we in the West throw away, look like--despite being jumped by angry e-waste lot owners and nearly having his camera confiscated.
In 2005, a control room for the A and C subway lines in NYC caught fire. "No larger than a kitchen," the room held 600 relays, switches and circuits that keep track of trains and keep everything running. Officials originally thought it would take three to five years to get the lines back to normal capacity. (Thankfully it didn't.) The epic repair time was because the fixed-block signaling system dates back to 1904 and only two companies in the world were able to repair it, one in Pittsburgh and the other in Paris. This is technology's trailing edge, according to Peter Sandborn in IEEE Spectrum: the huge, crippling problem of obsolescence.
Since the 1980s, cities like Guiyu, China, have been taking in electronic waste from other countries for dismantlement and processing. It's great for other countries, but takes a huge toll on the people managing the effort because of the "metal extraction of circuit boards" and "open dumping of waste and ash residue into open water". It's made the well water and ground water of Guiyu undrinkable, and has to be trucked in from other villages. The lead poisoning level in children is 69%. [China-Pix via Crunchgear]
Posted by Nick Broughall at 2:31 PM on February 22, 2008
English backpackers are about to find that working in an Aussie pub is not quite the easy ride ticket to free drinks it used to be.
The Barilliant is an integrated liquor management system. What does that mean? It means that computers moniter every single drop of alcohol you pour and order. The idea is that when you order a drink, the bartender swipes a wristband, enters the order, receives payment then pours the ordered drink, with beer and spirits measured to the millilitre. The idea is to prevent wastage and theft.
On top of that, the Barilliant also monitors every facet of the beer, from keg contents to gas pressure, so that publicans can be more efficient in making sure every beer is the perfect temperature with the best possible head.
The final component of the system is Pulse TV, a screen that acts as a point of sale marketing tool, displaying promotions, advertising, or negative publicity about the pub across the road.
Posted by Nick Broughall at 12:50 PM on February 22, 2008
The K-Rudd Government has been having a big week this week. On top of looking at getting ISPs to tackle piracy, and introducing an energy rating system for household gadgets, they've also decided to declare the obvious, in that John Howard's NetAlert Internet Porn Filter was a complete waste of taxpayers money.
Of course, that was obvious to anybody with a clue when it was announced, and even more obvious when 16 year old Tom Wood hacked it within 30 minutes of it going live. But now it's official, and the actual stats show just how colossal a failure it was.
Yes, you read it correctly: The street lights in the Indian town of Thiruneermalai are run on digested curry. As National Geographic describes it, the human waste from an area housing complex collects in a sump, where the methane gas produced by the "sludge" is used to operate a generator. This biogas produces 3,000 watts of electricity daily, enough to keep the town bright at night. And you thought ovens running on garbage were gross. A friend who lived there this past spring tells me it never smelled bad, but then again, he's been known to generate a fair share of biogas himself. (Just kidding, Gelf!) [National Geographic]
How much do you think it costs to power all of the computers left on overnight? According to a recent study, $1,720,000,000.00. And that's just in the USA. It's a stat raised by a company keen to sell power management software, but it is still a pretty freaky figure. 30% of corporate computers are left on overnight. Is this the fault of lazy users, or unreliable sleep / hibernate settings that make people scared of powering down? [EcoGeek]
