Archive for the 'Social Change' Category

Above, Lubov Galkina, an entrepreneur from Ukraine, requests a loan of $1000 to expand her business.

If you are anything like me, you would like nothing more than to avoid throwing yourself into hordes of crazed shoppers, Christmas music, and mindless consumerism this holiday season. You probably also want to get everyone “the perfect gift” and always wait til the last minute to do so, meaning you have missed out on internet shopping due to shipping concerns. Heck! You’re probably even reading this right now to procrastinate! Never fear, we have just the solution for you.

By now, you may have heard about Kiva, the microfinancing organization that has allowed users to give over $15 million in small loans to entrepreneurs in developing worlds. You may not know, however, that they have gift certificates, which, with a Kiva account and a credit card, you can purchase for as little as $25 and print out at home. No shopping. No hordes. This is especially appealing when you consider how you were probably going to throw at least $30 at some stupid bobble head toy that your friend would have laughed at once and then thrown away. Instead, your recipient now gets to pick out which deserving, underprivileged individual the loan goes to and after the loan is repaid, can reinvest or make off with the cash, all the while being reminded again of how awesome you are. Give a gift that keeps on giving and return the meaning of Christmas back to the season all at the same time. Amazing.

Happy Holidays Everyone!
Link, to Kiva Gift Certificates

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I’ve been spending some time on my own projects in the last month, and the one I’m most proud of is called ARMSFLOW.

ARMSFLOW is a data visualization which displays arms transactions globally between 1950 and 2006. It was created with data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

ARMSFLOW includes 14,619 arms transactions (each is a sum of 1 year’s exports) and 228 government entities.

Visit ARMSFLOW

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This was covered by Engadget already, but it is amazing enough that we’re jumping on the bandwagon.

Victor Kaonga points us to Dr. Cedrick Ngalande, a Malawian, who has built a prototype power source made specifically for Africa. It generates power using sugar and yeast for up to 8 hours at a time.

Link »

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Happy Usability Day everyone! That’s right: Nov 8th is World Usability Day.

At the Vestal Blog, we try to present you with interesting and useful information every day. Let us know how we’re doing! Please send us your feedback at blog@vestaldesign.com. And do the world a favor today: be useful!

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Have you ever wanted to move things with just your thoughts? Well ‘sci-fi’ isn’t too far away. Brainloop, a media project created by the Aksioma Institute for Contemporary Art in Ljubljana, is turning brainwaves into movement, in this case through a program like Google Earth. Simply by thinking about moving your right hand, you can transmit a non-muscular signal to the ‘Brain Computer Interface’ unit and elicit a response from the program, such as zooming in, allowing you to travel the world literally without lifting a finger.

Aside from just being cool, this could have some very real applications for the physically disabled. While this might not replace Helper Monkeys anytime soon, it’s a step towards creating a different medium for people to communicate and turn thoughts into actions.

Link to Brainloop

Video:

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There’s quite a bit of dialog going on now about my friend Star Simpson and her comedy of errors. So, you all know where I stand, but I invite you all to check out some new articles recently posted and discuss!

Boston Herald
Boston Herald 2
Wired Article
Machinist: Salon.com
Boston Globe

So, speak your mind … and if you decide you’d like to support Star, you can make a donation (or buy a sweet t-shirt) to help with legal fees here.

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Just wanted to share a news tidbit with you all… My friend Star Simpson was arrested today at Logan Airport in Boston for wearing an LED sweatshirt she made that was mistaken for a bomb. (This picture above is the inside of the sweatshirt.) I’ll keep you posted on opportunities to support Star and keep your eyes out for an Instructable on “How to get arrested at the airport without getting shot” ; )

Boing Boing Article
NY Times Article
CNN Article

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...just a little silliness for your enjoyment…
Video by LoadingReadyRun

ps. sorry for disappearing again… we’ve been busy with some very cool stuff. I’ll be posting about it soon!

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Click image above to play video

Freestyle Walking: No longer just a euphemism for your friend falling on their face! Check out this great new video for RJD2’s “Work it Out.” (click image above) While just plain cool, reading the blurb from the YouTube page is simply inspiring:

Bill Shannon who was born with a degenerative hip condition. His legs cannot carry his own weight and so he has lived a life on crutches. He has developed a new way of moving through life on his skateboard and the crutches.

At our current rate of consumption, the human population can similarly not “carry its own weight” and is leaving a massive ecological footprint. In the same way this young man has “developed new ways of moving through life,” I think we should jump on the problems at hand as opportunities to develop something just as creative and unique. Just look at the neat design of those crutches! They look a lot more like fun than a necessity. Solving climate change and a host of other green problems should leave us with the same fly-high kind of feeling. So let’s do this thing in style.

Link to Bill Shannon’s website
Link to video

See Also: Hip Hop 1930s Remix, Roykopp’s Diagram Music Vid, World Changing Book

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Click above image to view animation

This narrated time-lapse animation from a recent article on obesity spread through social networks in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) does a beautiful job visualizing the issues. Considering that, more and more, folks like the World Health Organization (WHO) are framing the discussion of obesity as an epidemic, being able to watch it contagiously spread through this visual representation is quite powerful. While the colors and lay-out may not have been quite as graphically impactful as it could have been, (colors not quite bright enough, links too thin, etc.) it’s reassuring to observe people working on these important issues avoid a drier presentation of their findings in lue of these dynamic tools made available by new technologies. Hopefully we’ll see more of it as these tools become more accessible.

Link Washington Post article
Link to animation
Link to original NEJM article

See Also: Gapminder, Breathing Data, Vestal Tree Simulator

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