Feeling bored by the Internet? Want to see something fun & useful that will truly rock your socks off and might just make your day?

Let us begin.

Sustainable Energy – Without The Hot Air – David JC MacKay

Described by Boing Boing editor Cory Doctorow as “the Freakonomics of conservation, climate and energy”, this is a book you shouldn’t miss, not least because it’s available entirely for free. You can buy the book on Amazon (note the thirty-nine 5-star reviews) – but you can also read the entire contents online or download them in PDF form, free of charge.

Author MacKay is an English Physics professor, so he really knows his stuff. What is remarkable is how elegantly and breezily he conveys it. (This is no ponderous high school textbook). Want to know what it would really take to balance the energy budget? Want to know the real numbers behind renewable energy? This is the book for you.

The Brain Pickings of Maria Popova

Since 2005, Wired and The Atlantic writer Maria Popova has been reading more books than most people get through in a lifetime. If that wasn’t enough, she only reads good books – the most fascinating, quirky, inspiring and thought-filled reading material lining our shelves today. And if that wasn’t enough, she blogs about them too. Her website, Brain Pickings, now gets more traffic than the New York Review of Books, and no wonder – it’s a treasure-trove of suggested reads that may very well make you a better human being.

(Check out an interview with Maria here).

Read The Best Journalism On The Internet

Love good writing? Love reading? Love knowing what’s really going on in the world? Check out our reading list or our recent post on 10 sources of quality journalism – but if you don’t want to have to trawl for the good stuff yourself, there are websites that curate and archive the most fearless, insightful and beautifully-written journalism out there.

Try Longform (above)…

…and Longreads, and Byliner.

For a one-stop bookmarking of the good stuff, check out Conor Friedersdorf’s list of nearly 100 pieces of superb journalism. And if you have a Kindle – why not use Klip.me to send these articles to it, and do your reading offline?

Browse the Open Culture Language List

Being bilingual gives your brain a good workout – we all know this, but there’s increasing amounts of scientific evidence to back it up. So why not take 10 minutes out of your day and start a new language? Problem: those courses can be pricey. Solution: this colossal archive of  free resources (ebooks, audio, video) for learning 40 languages from Arabic to Yiddish. (Thank you kindly, Open Culture).

Sloth Yourself Silly 

To keep your smile topped up, watch this trailer for Animal Planet’s Meet The Sloths every day. And if that doesn’t work, scroll through these 111 adorable pictures of them at Buzzfeed. Sloths – they bring the happy. (More cuteness at Slothville).

See The World Up Close

Earlier this year the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite orbited our planet six times and took a series of staggeringly detailed images that NASA stitched together and released on Flickr. The above image is one; this is the other. Incredibly beautiful, yes – but we’re not done yet. Under the “View All Sizes” buttons on each page you’ll find the original high-resolution image…and they will blow your mind: (Hi-Res Image 1)  (Hi-Res Image 2)

Know At A Glance When Your Edible Garden Is In Season

As you may have guessed by now, we love infographics – but we were particularly taken with this set from the good folk at Chasing Delicious. Work out when your fruit, vegetables and herbs are in season, and plan your meals accordingly.

Listen To Neil Gaiman Talk About Doing What You Love

A few months ago author Neil Gaiman was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and was asked to give the Keynote Address to the 2012 graduating class. The speech he gave has become an internet phenomenon, and is a must-watch for anyone doing anything creative (read: everyone).

For those on a tight schedule, the transcript is here.

Explore An Idea a Day With The Change This Manifestos

Running since 2004 and born of an idea by Seth Godin, the Change This manifestos are short, succinct and above all fun downloadable books built around ideas. Their authors are some of the internet’s smartest people (the aformentioned Seth Godin is a contributor). There are hundreds of titles to choose from, they’re all easy on the eyes and stretchy on the brain – and they’re all completely free. Get started here.

Let Jodi Ettenberg, Legal Nomad, Show You A World Of Food

Jodi Ettenberg is a globe-trotting food nut with a thing for spices and gluten-free cooking. An ex-lawyer, she’s been traveling the world since 2008 and garnering mentions in the New York Times and on Jason Kottke’s super-popular blog. Her site is a wealth of tips on traveling the world, but for sheer eye-candy you’d be wise to go to her food page and start clicking for some really incredible nom-shots.

Images: MSVG, orangeacid, NASA Goddard Photo & Video and David JC MacKay.

The post Bored? Here Are 10 Awesome Free Things On The Internet appeared first on EcoSalon.

I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.

-John Cage

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Image: Jeff Kubina

The post Evolve appeared first on EcoSalon.

Add some diversity to your color range.

With the Presidential race heating up and candidates like Michele Bachmann showing her true colors, I thought it would be refreshing to reflect on a pallet that champions the marvelous diversity that is integral to our national character.

Rainbows might not be for everyone. I get it. Some people prefer monochromatic color schemes; others don’t like color at all. But I think we can all agree that every time we stop and gaze at the kaleidoscope of a rainbow, we recall that tiny remembrance within: there is a pot of gold, a treasure, on the other side.

The wooden rainbow shown above is made from sustainably harvested wood, and finished with non-toxic paint and a homemade natural wood polish of beeswax, jojoba oil, and essential oils. From Imagination Kids.

Below is what it would be like if My Little Pony or Speed Racer moved in. The Rainbow House (well, 830-square-foot apartment) was created by Hong Kong designer Max Lam of Moderne.

It features a rainbow that runs continuously from the living room to the bedroom, streaking through the kitchen all the way to the golden commode.

San Franciscans know the Rainbow House on Clipper Street, seen here. If only some other people we know would embrace the same spirit of diversity and inclusion. Just saying…the world would be a much prettier place.

What is a Free Printable? Here’s one…

It’s a curious crowd-sourced phenomenon of circulating inspirational quotes or vintage images. It’s also an efficient way to print, frame and decorate your home or cube with messages that inspire you, like the one above sourced from Simple As That. Another printable maven worth checking out is The Graphics Fairy.

Also worth a gander are these crayon-drip paintings by JK Create’s Jessica Kerbawy. No two pieces are ever alike and the color combinations are endless.

Jen Stark’s construction paper sculptures, meanwhile, have me aching for a less complicated time and place: art class, where we all mused on rainbows – Michele, too – because we believed in that pot of gold.

Images: The Art of Intuition; FreshHome; Moderne.hk; Imagination Kids; We Heart It; PJLighthouse, Vendoluzes;

The post The Rainbow Decorating Coalition appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnBeen there, thought that.

Several months ago, Kimberly Clark announced that they would begin manufacturing a line of eco-friendly toilet paper. The paper would be produced without an internal cardboard tube, and could, conceivably, save millions of pounds of trash each year.  Toilet paper, by definition, is thoroughly and inarguably disposable, so finding a way to reduce its environmental impact is an astounding feat. And yet, I reacted to the news of this development with annoyance, feeling  somehow that I had been this close to coming up with that very idea. Taking the cardboard center out of a roll of toilet paper is brilliant but it’s also staggeringly simple. I think that given enough time I would have definitely come up with this idea myself– much the same way that some people think a monkey, if given infinite time and access to a keyboard, will eventually type the complete works of William Shakespeare.

This has not been the only time I felt like a terrific idea was rudely ripped right out of my consciousness. The world is littered with the best sellers I almost penned, screenplays I almost came up with, and articles I came very close to writing – all of which ended up being written by someone far less deserving of greatness; someone who actually sat down and wrote the damn thing.

For example, the guy who authored Marley and Me, a book about a sweet but overly exuberant Labrador retriever, must have surely stolen my idea, since I had a wildly hyperactive black lab and a long-simmering intention to write a book about him. I never got around to actually writing that book, but I thought about it quite a lot and I mentioned it once to a second cousin in New Jersey. Surely that counts for something.

Sadly, there are a limited number of great ideas, which is why I must frequently ransack the life experiences of my family members for inspiration. This does not make me popular at home, where my blood relatives live in fear of seeing themselves mentioned in print. When my daughter was in middle school she used to dread going to the nurse’s office. She would skulk in, trying to be invisible, wanting to quietly score some ibuprofen for an already mortifying case of cramps, only to have the well-meaning RN loudly exclaim, “Ali, I just read all about your bat mitzvah!”

My family would no doubt prefer to have their lives remain private. And when they express this to me I explain, gently but firmly, that I would love to be able to write a first-hand account of being an astronaut, a state senator, or even a rodeo clown, but the fact is, for the past 20 years my primary occupation has been washing other people’s underpants. It follows, naturally, that family life is often my topic of choice.

Of course, I am not the only one who has thought of mining the role of wife and mother as grist for the mill – the trash cans of magazines and newspapers everywhere are filled with the perky, housewifey efforts of those of us who think of ourselves as this millenium’s answer to Erma Bombeck. I will frequently read a “mom” piece and come away convinced that it has expressed an idea that I was right on the verge of having.

Which just goes to show that –tubeless toilet paper notwithstanding – there really aren’t a whole lot of original ideas left.  And the ideas I do have are frequently stolen right out from under me, before they are fully formed. My friend Stephen has experienced this too, and he announced recently that he wanted his tombstone to read, “I was going to say that.” I admire Stephen for coming up with such a clever epitaph…just seconds before I would have thought of it myself.

Susan Goldberg is a slightly lapsed treehugger. Although known to overuse paper products, she has the best of intentions – and a really small SUV. Catch her column, The Goldberg Variations, each week here at EcoSalon.

Image: fanpop

The post Anna Karenina? I Thought of That. appeared first on EcoSalon.

Looking to connect and shape your community? Wondering how to create new social systems? Searching for like-minded, environmentally concerned citizens?

Look no further. I’ve found the place you’re looking for: The Hub.

The Hub is an international organization with a new platform for innovation and exchange. They aim to combine social and environmental concerns with economic viability. For the Hub, a thriving system produces thriving individuals. They seek exposure, connection and collaboration amongst their community members to create new value systems with an entrepreneurial spirit.

The platform provides ample opportunities for networking through physical spaces, events, workshops and an online community. The physical environment includes offices, communal workspaces, meeting rooms, and project spaces located in numerous cities across the globe. They also offer an online database for connecting individuals and organizations with a focus on social and environmental change.

I spent an afternoon working in their San Francisco communal office space, and the place was exactly that – a hub, humming with activity and innovative energy.

Expanding its efforts to promote idea exchange The Hub Bay Area leads by example, teaming up with non-profit and for-profits alike, including Intersection for the Arts, Tech Shop, and Forest City.

Looking for inspiration? Head to the Hub, pronto.

The post Hub for Social Innovation: Re-Shaping Community and the Way We Work appeared first on EcoSalon.