Wind power using kites

Another nice TED talk about using kites to harness the power of wind.

http://www.exchangemagazine.com/morningpost/2009/week13/Tuesday/032416.htm

F**K YOU BUDDY

I found a great website where you can watch all sorts of documentaries for free...

here's a nice one made by BBC, it's called THE TRAP, episode 1: F**K YOU BUDDY

About consuming and autenticity

Another movie from TED (I think there was one already here before). This one about consuming and authenticity...it isn't great, but it does mention some interesting points:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/joseph_pine_on_what_consumers_want.html

ISRAEL'S YOUNG CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS

These are teenagers that refuse to join the army and demand peace with Palestine.

They are in jail because of that. 

http://december18th.org/

Electric cars

Here is an interesting documentary about electric cars and the oil industry. It is a dutch program, but most of it is made of interviews in english, with (dutch) subtitles.

http://www.vpro.nl/programma/tegenlicht/afleveringen/40004478/media/40102294/

Sarah Palin...

...and it's time we had that bresh of freth air... 

Sen. McCain

Oceans

Today I was confronted with two pieces of information regarding the oceans.

The first, a movie, regarding the garbage on the oceans, particularly in some areas of the Pacific Ocean. Makes you wonder...I had once seen a documentary about the same subject, where a girl showed a huge amount of tooth brushes, lighters, toys and other plastics collected at a beach in Hawaii.

Now, I just arrived from a lecture by Dos Winkel, an underwater photographer and conservationist, about the state of the seas and of the fish. He presents a grim image of the state of the oceans, as nets plough the bottom of the seas in search for fish, catching everything in their way, and leaving only devastation, for what is mostly only by catch.
Furthermore, all the garbage we dump in the sea causes the fish we eat to be contaminated with toxic metals, and other contaminants, while it is increasingly advertised as healthy.

The film of the speech I attended will soon be available online. Meanwhile the dutch version is available here I hope (couldn't see it on a mac...).

By the way, there are plenty of nice lectures on all kinds of subjects available for viewing in the studium generale of the TUDelft.

Regress...

If there is one field where we have not achieved any progress over the last 20 years, that field for me is transportation.

For me it's worse traveling now than it was before. 

Airplanes are cheaper and go everywhere at anytime, but they are the exact same airplanes as ever (no major evolution). And airports are chaotic and never has there been more hassle with security as now, and flights are always late. 

Traveling by car is getting more dangerous as the highways are full of cars and trucks, gasoline gets more expensive everyday and traffic jams are worse all the time.

Traveling by train, if you live in Germany, is ridiculously expensive (to visit my parents in law, 300 km away, costs 300€ for 2 people if you get the ticket the day before, it costs 60€ gasoline by car...). To get anything cheaper you have to get your tickets in the most inconvenient times. And you have to change 4 times train before you reach your destination.

Climate Justice

"Climate change was first seen as a scientific problem, then an economic one," explained report author Kate Raworth. "Now it is becoming a matter of international justice.

I wonder...if it changes to an international justice problem, then nothing will ever be done about it...I think it is best to leave it in the economic view...

America

"People, the world over, have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power" 

Bill Clinton, 2008