Archive for the 'environment' Category

How to reduce your junk mail

Published by Tristan on November 28, 2008 in business, environment, media, products and shopping. 0 Comments

Indianapolis weekly newspaper NUVO has a terrific article this week about how to reduce the amount of junk mail you receive. I’ve noticed that, since we moved, we’re getting more junk mail than ever - crap advertisements from RedPlum, Shop Local (a grave misnomer - read NUVO’s story about junk mail to find out why), Value Pack and more. We get one of these almost every day, and read/use NONE of it, so NUVO’s tips are much appreciated.

I’m pasting the most important part of their article here because it’s buried at the end of the story on their site, sans hyperlinks.

How to cut your junk mail down by 95 percent in 30 minutes

1. Call The Indianapolis Star at 317-444-4517 to stop the weekly ShopLocal advertisement.

2. Go to DoNotMail.org and sign the Do Not Mail registry petition. Then use the junk mail opt-out tool. It will ask you for your name and address, and all of this information is then automatically input into 18 separate pre-written and addressed letters, which you can simply print off and then mail. This will stop a vast majority of crap from clogging your mailbox. A brand-spanking new septic system, if you will.

3. Submit your name and address on Yellowpagesgoesgreen.org and be automatically removed from every local phone book vendor’s hit list.

4. Go to Catalogchoice.org. After setting up a simple account and using their database to find the catalogues you’ve been receiving, they will contact them on your behalf to discontinue them.

5. Recycle all those hulking Christmas-time ads (and everything else, for that matter) at any one of the thousands of free public recycling depots in Marion County, handily listed on Paperretriver.com. You will have a hard time spitting in any direction without hitting one of these; there is probably one at your grocery store, kid’s school, your work … everywhere.

6. Fill out and mail U.S. Post Office Form 2150, “Prohibitory order against sender of pandering advertisement in the mails,” if there are any specific brochures, catalogs, or items that you do not want to receive, or do not want your kids to see.

7. Stop the coupons

Val-Pak: Just enter your address at: www.coxtarget.com/mailsuppression/s/DisplayMailSuppressionForm.(Note: This is a cap sensitive Web address.)

Money Mailer: There are many ways to get rid of this coupon book.
Mail: 12131 Western Ave.
Garden Grove, CA 92841
E-mail: jlimon@moneymailer.com
Phone: 714-889-3800
Fax: 714-889-1590

Valassis: Either call 1-888-241-6760 or www.advo.com/consumersupport.html.
Allow five to six weeks; will suspend it for five years.

RSVP Indianapolis: 317-844-7787

8. It is not the right of any company or person to keep sending you mail that you do not want. Contact any mailers that continue to leak their garbage through to your mailbox and ask them to stop. Most of them will be agreeable to your request. Otherwise, you can use the pre-paid postage envelopes they send you to stuff with anything you want (minus dead animals, bombs, etc., don’t be an idiot) and mail it back to them. Urban legend contends that you can attach these envelopes to a box of any size and mail them old tires, bricks, roof shingles, a screenplay … the most expensive parcel you can find.

Plastic: the worst kind of oil-related spill?

Published by Tristan on June 24, 2008 in animals, biology, environment and health. 0 Comments

Could plastic be the worst kind of petroleum-related disaster, even worse than the oil spills we’ve all grown to know and love?

Take a trip with VBS.tv in the video above to visit the North Pacific Gyre, an area bigger than Texas where much of our trash ends up floating around, where it kills wildlife and likely makes its way back to us. Nothing like a little Bisphenol A in our systems!

To watch the whole series of 12 videos, visit VBS.tv.

Angie’s List blog; new dogs for adoption; mixing with Ableton Live

Published by Tristan on April 4, 2008 in AdoptAnAnimal.org, Angie's List, Indiana, animals, energy, environment, music and podcast. 0 Comments

This post isn’t as focused as those previous, but read on, kind sirs and madams:

A big week for me at Angie’s List and for Adopt An Animal. At Angie’s List, I set up our magazine department’s blog and released List-en up!’s first true video podcast. I say “true” video because previous episodes were in what was technically a video format, but were basically a still-image slideshow with pictures to accompanying the audio. This time, though, I actually followed a home energy auditor and videotaped the house-inspection process. After watching the video, I hope you have an audit performed on your home to find out how much money you can save through some simple energy-efficient upgrades.

Blue House Blog logoAs for the blog, you’ll notice that its design is basically the same as the Angie’s List podcast site. For the “Blue House Blog,” as we’re calling it (thanks to Brandon Smith, Angie’s List magazine artist and Goldfish Don’t Bounce bandmember, for the awesome logo!), I used the same Wordpress content management system, and the same theme, K2, simply because it works well. It looks good on its own, but is easily customizable and functions quite well for the most part. And though I have little PHP-programming experience, going into the code and fiddling with certain things isn’t too difficult. And there’s a tremendous network of free plugins, forums, and bloggers that serve as terrific resources for any Wordpress-related problem.

On a Wordpress-related note, I’ve posted some more dogs for adoption in Indianapolis at my Wordpress-based Adopt An Animal site. Please check them out (an adult female German Shepherd and adult male Pit-bull mix) and let me know if you or someone you know is interested.

Finally, I hope to install Ableton Live this weekend and create my first digital mix of some songs I’ve been really into lately. If you have any experience with Live and have tips to offer, please let me know. Thanks!

Beautiful 100% Recycled Business Cards from Natural Printing

Published by Tristan on March 21, 2008 in AdoptAnAnimal.org, business and environment. 0 Comments

Natural Printing logoI received an order of business cards for Adopt An Animal the other day from Natural Printing, and they look great! (Check out the design below.) This is the first time I’ve designed and ordered business cards for myself, and I’m quite pleased with the final product. I originally thought about using a service such as VistaPrint to get free cards, but they didn’t offer 100% recycled (as far as I could tell), and I couldn’t quickly figure out a way to simply upload the custom card I designed myself instead of using their templates (such was the case with similar free-business-card sites.) I found a few other places online offering recycled cards, but most required huge orders and were considerably expensive. Natural Printing allowed me to order a relatively small number of 100% recycled cards (don’t be fooled by the rather unattractive example) for a relatively cheap price ($60.) Sure, it was more expensive than VistaPrint’s free cards, obviously, but with Natural Printing, I got exactly what I wanted, quickly, and supported a small business at the same time.

This being my first business card design, I was a bit apprehensive that I may have set up the printing layout incorrectly. Natural Printing’s website gives guidelines on how to set up your design’s layout so it prints correctly, and though the directions are easy to follow, Mark from Natural Printing let me know of a minor problem shortly after I submitted my order - the version of Adobe Illustrator I was using (CS2 12.0.1) was too high, even though it’s a few years old. So I saved the design as a PDF, sent him the update, and quickly heard back from that my design was good to go. About a week and a half later, the little box showed up, stuffed with perfectly aligned little cards.

I chose to use a one-sided design. I originally thought about including Adopt An Animal’s services on the back of the card, but I realized that many times when people give me business cards, I write notes on the blank side about the organization or the person I met. I could’ve used lighter ink on the card’s backside had I used it, but chose to go the simpler one-sided route. I also figure that it’s a good idea to use matte printing, because glossy cards are virtually impossible to write on.

The one minor issue I have with my order is that the heavy-duty, pure-white cards say nothing about being 100% recycled, which I think would be a nice feature and selling point for Natural Printing. I’ll probably let Mark know about this and see what he says, but in the meantime, if I order more cards, I might just put a small watermark on the bottom mentioning this fact. It might look a little self-congratulatory (”Hey, I use recycled products!”), but with so many business cards floating around out there, people may as well start printing them on recycled paper!

Adopt An Animal business card

Indianapolis Power and Light: Hiding behind a green mask?

Published by Tristan on February 6, 2008 in Indiana, energy and environment. 0 Comments

CFLs save moneyI just received a free Home Energy Efficiency Kit from my local electricity provider, Indianapolis Power & Light (IPL.) As Napoleon Dynamite would say, it’s flippin’ sweet!

After I found out about it from Shawndra (whom I met once at the only Irvington Green Initiative meeting I’ve been to :P ), I ordered a kit online at IPL’s website (click here to order one ASAP if you’re an IPL customer) less than two weeks ago, and it was on my doorstep when I got home today. I pretended I wasn’t excited about it and let it sit on my kitchen counter for awhile, but couldn’t resist the urge to open it before my wife got home. Continue reading ‘Indianapolis Power and Light: Hiding behind a green mask?’

Comparing the candidates’ views on green policy

Published by Tristan on February 1, 2008 in asides, economy, environment and politics. 0 Comments

Care about climate change/the environment/our national energy policy? If you drive a car, eat food that travels via a gas-fueled vehicle, use electricity, or are alive today, you should.

Thus far, the presidential candidate debates have been sidestepping the environmental and energy-related issues. Not to say that the war in Iraq, health care, and the economy aren’t important, but everything’s related, so we should give consideration to other things. This handy-dandy chart from Grist compactly compares the candidates’ viewpoints on greenhouse emissions caps, fuel economy standards, renewable energy, biofuels, coal, and nuclear energy. Since few people in the mass media are talking about these things in the primaries, you might want to research it yourself before picking a candidate.

           

Open-source, affordable, green housing on the way

Published by Tristan on January 25, 2008 in asides, economy, environment and home. 0 Comments

Everyone’s been talking the past year or so about global warming, going green, etc. In terms of housing, green construction standards (such as the US Green Building Council’s LEED) have been a hot topic in the U.S. and in other parts of the world (India’s wealthiest resident is building a 60-story “green” home in Mumbai). It’s all well and good that wealthy people like Al Gore are going green with their mansions, but what about the estimated 1/3 of the population that will be living in slums by 2030?

Architect Cameron Sinclair might tell you with a straight face that those people will make decent homes out of wealthier people’s “green” refuse. Sinclair, winner of 2006’s TED prize, started the Open Architecture Network to spread affordable housing throughout the world — a rather impressive goal. The projects in the network are rather interesting, to say the least. According to Sinclair, “Someone’s working on a $700 house. The Now House is a World War II retrofitted home that’s carbon-neutral… There’s a spinach-powered house, there’s a grow-your-own clinic, a clinic you eat. All of these projects have to be sustainable.” So even though the gap between rich and poor isn’t shrinking, it’s good to know that people like Cameron Sinclair are planning a future that’s better for everyone.

One way to choose your presidential candidate

Published by Tristan on January 24, 2008 in economy, education, environment, health and politics. 0 Comments

USA Today Candidate Match Game screenshotHaving trouble figuring out which U.S. presidential candidate to root for? The USA Today “candidate match game” is an interesting way to resolve your candidate conundrum. Through a series of 11 questions, the game shows you the top three candidates for the next presidential election that best match your ideas and values. As you answer each question, colored bars change size to show which candidates match your position on key issues ranging from health care to the environment to the war in Iraq. At the end of the 11-question series, you’re given the opportunity to weigh each category on how important it is to you compared to the others. This might be the most interesting part: adding substantial weight to certain categories significantly changed some of my top contenders.

Unfortunately, none of the top three the game referred me to are even remotely considered true contenders in this tight race. Does this mean I’m vastly different from the average American voter/”caucus-goer”? Or does it mean that taking online polls isn’t a great way to find answers to extremely important dilemmas?

BBC coverage of Japanese whaling; what’s the point of blogging, anyway?

Published by Tristan on January 22, 2008 in animals, asides, environment and media. 1 Comment

I’ve written a few times about this season’s whale hunt by the Japanese, but have realized that the BBC’s Jonah Fisher is a much better source for it. He’s aboard Greenpeace ship Esperanza and is also keeping a journal of the events, so I’ll just link to his diary. Rather than me regurgitating what I’ve read elsewhere, you can go straight to the source.

That’s my problem with blogs: most of them are used simply for regurgitation of info that can almost always be found more easily and with better information elsewhere. This whole “news aggregator” phenomenon of Digg, Newsvine, Reddit, etc., etc., etc. often leads viewers/readers to blogs with summaries of other stories, so what’s the point? I guess blogs are good for diary-like entries; they’re good for friends and family to check out and stay updated; they’re good for illegally posting copyrighted content. But what else are they good for? My guess is absolutely nothing (UNHH - say it again!) Oh wait, they are good for one more thing: wasting time.

Australia to monitor Japanese whaling

Published by Tristan on January 9, 2008 in activism, animals, asides and environment. 0 Comments

Australian whaling surveillance vesselA quick update on my post about Japanese whaling last year: According to the BBC, Australia has sent a large customs ship, as well as an Airbus plane, to monitor Japanese whaling activities and collect photos and video surveillance in preparation for a possible legal battle against Japan’s whaling practices. Go Aussies!

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