Below are the 7 most recent journal entries recorded in orangeforahead's LiveJournal:

Tuesday, May 29th, 2007
5:23 pm	Teach Efficient Driving You can boost the overall fuel-efficiency of your car as much as 30% by simple vehicle maintenance and attention to your style of driving! That's what this article proclaims. There are many more websites, and they are all easy steps. But driving efficiently isn't enough! Your mission is to teach the teachers. Yes, the driving teachers. Here's the plan. 1) Use a tool like google local to find the driving schools around you. 2) Call or email them, and ask if they teach driving efficiency. 3) If not, tell them how easy it is! Make sure to speak to a manager. 4) If you live in a big city, get some friends to help you. You've shared these tips with your friends, right? Driving tips can be found on these websites: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/driveHabits.shtml http://eartheasy.com/live_fuel_efficient_driving.htm http://save-on-gas-prices.com/save_on_gas_by_driving_more_efficiently.html and many more! Now go forth, and teach good habits. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 24th, 2007
2:07 pm	News Updates Nearly 80% of People Believe Gas Prices Have Been Manipulated "According to a recent poll on Daily Fuel Economy Tip, nearly 80% of people believe that oil and gasoline companies have manipulated the supply of gas in order to cause prices to shoot through the roof." Full story here, based on a poll on dailyfueleconomytip: http://www.dailyfueleconomytip.com/?p=371 That's a very high percentage of suspicious people! It's not just the average consumer who is suspicious, however. House OKs 'outrageous gas prices' bill "The U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday passed legislation authorizing the Federal Trade Commission to investigate and punish gasoline price gouging." Full story: http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/05/23/house_oks_outrageous_gas_prices_bill/9282/ This quote has me hopeful. "'Today, every member has a choice,' said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich. 'Side with big oil or side with the consumers who are being ripped off at the gas pump.'" (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, May 11th, 2007
12:35 pm	Flash Mob! A flash mob just stormed by my job, first a bunch of pirates fighting, who fell into seizuring at the sound of a whistle. Then the zombies came. About 100 people total. Now how do we tap into that collective power? Yesterday there were many people organized down there starting a hunger strike. Apparently the UC system is working with a giant, corrupt corporation to develop new Hydrogen Bombs. WTF. It's been a very busy week. I don't entirely understand the math in one of my classes, and in the other I've launched miles past the book into preparing for a graduate course I'm going to take next quarter. My last game was last-minute, but for this next one, Josh and I are going to make an Interactive Fiction / Experimental Film. I'm using the Dreamwalker concept I'd developed last year, and if we do it well, we'll upload it as a flash experience. Also, I've had lots to do for a conference the Global Chillers are organizing, called "Choosing to Face the Crisis." We have a speaker on "The Economics of Climate Change", some fellow who didn't talk for 7 years or something like that, and (my speaker) a talk on "making a personal climate change plan". I'm also trying to think of a workshop to run. We have several practical ones, like making a compost heap, how to maintain your bike, etc. I want to make one on persuading other people to make life changes. There are two ways to make global change: make policy change, or make ideas that inherently spread themselves; teach people to teach people. So there was absolutely no response online to my idea, Day Without Gas. However, other people thought it was a good plan. I think the problem was how soon I had it planned. And, as with many ideas, someone else gets to it first. There's a group with a bunch of people proposing it in June. That will give us lots of time for planning and brilliant execution. It also means I can devote more energy right now to other crazy experiments. I think it's time to dive into the grottos of inspiration! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, May 4th, 2007
8:29 pm	World Without Oil, meet Day Without Gas A student on my campus created a facebook group with the idea of a Gas Out on May 15th. This idea, based on a myspace meme, is that a one day gas boycott will have an effect on gas prices. This is certainly false, and the execution is being poorly handled. This is the seed of a good idea. Let's improve upon it, and spread it like a wildfire. On DAY WITHOUT GAS (or GAS OUT), bike, or use public transportation. Simple as that. Only, don't just do it, get everyone you know to do it. Just one day. Flier for it, make a website, tell you workmates, your classmates, your neighbors. Make banners, chalk the streets, organize your local team to get everyone on board. Postscript: I have a problem with the existing facebook group. 1) the information is unprofessional (caps etc), 2) it frames the reason as a protest, and 3) It quotes unsourced facts (the effects). I'm going to contact the group creator and address these, but if we think this idea will work, we must avoid these shortcomings. This isn't a protest against high gas prices, this is an exercise in breaking dependence and exercising our collective strength. In fact, the "gas effects" have been falsified on Snopes. We should embrace this fact and explain it. I propose taking this existing protest and modifying it, hijacking and improving upon it. Ideas? Strategies? (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, April 23rd, 2007
6:17 pm	disappointing Today, I read that there is 25K available through this competition for projects which use IT to address big social problems, like environmental issues or poverty or the like. The deadline is today, and I think I can write a good proposition with a couple of hours, even make up a budget breakdown if I need to. That was at 3:15, when my class starts. It ends at 5:00, which is when my professor tells me I actually have a good shot at it, because there isn't much competition for it for some reason, and that he would back me or find me a professor. As soon as I get to a computer, 5:15, I find that the deadline, no exceptions, was 5:00pm! My idea isn't actually my idea, nor do I know how significant it would be. It's distributed solar power. Right now, if you have solar power, you can sell your excess back to your power company (PG&E here). 1: You lose a great deal of energy converting it to AC for long distance travel and 2: You lose energy over the wire. 3: My understanding from someone else is that power companies don't pay you the wholesale price for the energy you sell. You're getting ripped off by monopoly. That fact I haven't verified. Essentially, you have a client-server model, with energy instead of information. A much more efficient and robust system would be the analogue to a peer-to-peer model, where you sell directly to your neighbors, through automated micropayments. I'll talk to a couple of professors and see what they think of the idea. Maybe there's another way to try the experiment. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
12:20 pm	SEC Vision and Action I'm involved with a number of student organizations on campus, such as the college democrats (I'm the secretary), the santa cruz futurists (I'm a co-founder), the society of physics students (where I'm often refered to as captain). The org that takes up the most of my life however is the Student Environmental Center. I'm involved in two ways. Number one, I'm an employee: I'm "the website guy" (Enviroslug). Number 2, I've just recently joined the Global Chillers, which had decided to join the SEC as a campaign (good thinking, we have a giant budget!). All of the other campaigns take on some local issue, like Green Buildings, Food Systems, Transportation etc., where the Global Chillers are of course about the Big Picture. So far my contributions have been motivational: I proposed that there are two ways we can make global change, and we should have a project going for each in a given year. They are 1: Inspire people to inspire people. It's one thing to change the behavior of the people you come into contact with, but you can only talk to so many people, we need to construct effective memes. 2: Change Policy. That's hard, and will require coordination between the UCs. It's time to awaken the old alliances! Anyhow, today our Vision and Action plans are due, for those of us who get paid to do things. I had a great one that I wrote over our planning retreat, and now I'm trying to remember my lost scribbles. This is what I have: ( Vision and Action Plan, Spring 2007 ) The way our environmental structure works is like this: There is the SEC (Student Environmental Center), the ESLP (Education for Sustainable Living Program) and the CSC (Campus Sustainability Council). The CSC has an absurd amount of money, and they decide who to give it to. The SEC governs "campaigns", which are student-led teams to accomplish change within some area (the transportation campaign spent a long time fighting for biodeasel for the campus buses). ESLP runs classes that teach students about all sorts of things, for instance a class on green purchasing. Not all of their "classes" are really that, but are ARTs (Action Reasearch Teams). These sometimes evolve into campaigns. I'm very excited about one ART, the Sustainable Living Guide. This sounds similar to my idea, the Environmentalist Toolkit. Hopefully we can work together to create a hybrid, something that would make the website immediately useful to absolutely anyone. That's my mission. (Comment on this)
1:30 am	Happy Earth Day, Earthlings First post. Why am I here? Some mad reasoning has lead me to believe that making a livejournal will give me better means to changing the world. Why Orange For A Head? Well, it's the name and punchline of one of my favorite jokes, which is very long the way I tell it, and very unfunny to most (everyone gives a pained smile by the time I'm done).This year I have fewer than 50 books checked out from the library so far. My room is a city, towers of books, the majority abstract math or something about ancient technology. I can't help but snatch up everything interesting, even if I won't get to it for half a year! I am: Gregory Benford A master literary stylist who is also a working scientist. Which science fiction writer are you? I've never read any of Greg Benford. Frankly the classic sci-fi sounding titles make me skeptical (I prefer the psychological and social complexities that emerge from a sci-fi premise to the actual meat of the science, but those might be there). Then again, I'd probably be interested in it purely for the physics, but it's a different way of enjoying a story, the academic attraction of a thing. Found this off of mPathyTest's journal, along with a couple of really intense stories by James Tiptree, Jr (really Alice B. Sheldon). I know better than to ruminate on the fate of humanity at this hour, so I won't talk about the stories, but do read them! It got me thinking about core course (Ethics of Emerging Technology, this class everyone in Crown has to take as a freshman), and the long discussions and arguments I had. I think the Luddites in there were more frustrating than the technophiles, because the latter were excitable but welcomed ideas, whereas the former were just pessimistic and demanded stasis, devolution. I always wondered, will they get their own country, or live on reservations? I joke, but actually the Amish population is one of the fastest growing in the world! (Comment on this)