Tech Tuesday: Nokia Cares

I've actually lost count of how many weeks it's been since I promised reviews of my new 'toy' (I think it was 3). The good news is, I can finally start fiddling with it to start blogging. It's a new Nokia N96, which I managed to wrangle from a certain 'smart mofo with tats' who is involved with the device's marketing locally. So let's consider this my 'full disclosure' clause, I have the phone for the purposes of marketing it-of course the fact that I needed an upgrade anyway with my N95's backlight giving in meant the timing was perfect. I did make 100% sure that I'm not 'censored' in any way, so they obviously have a bit of faith in the product.
The reason for the delay in actually getting to it (and here's where I'm sure Nokia wishes there had been some kind of censorship) is that the first thing I did with the phone -hook it up to a PC and update it to the newest firmware- bricked it. Luckily there's a Nokia Care Centre across the road from our offices, so dropping it off there to get sorted out was no problem, unfortunately it did take almost three weeks for the handset to work it's way up the Nokia Care food chain to someone that realized it was completely fried and issued a replacement handset. I got that replacement today. I can't say the Nokia Care experience was at all pleasant, with the care center only starting to keep me in the loop when I payed them another visit and politely kakked them out for lousy customer service.
One positive aspect is that I discovered Nokia Care points recycle mobile phones, and I mean any kind-not just Nokias. So next time you're looking at that tangled mess of old chargers and broken phones in your desk drawer, throw it all in a bag and drop it off at your nearest Nokia Care center.

I wish I could pass on some gem of wisdom about being careful when updating firmware, but the truth is I did absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. I connected a brand new, fully charged phone with minimal settings adjustments to my PC via USB and accepted the update prompt when Nokia’s PC suite informed me new software was available. I shudder to think how many people’s phones may have been bricked this way.

Next week I’ll finally have a real article on the phone, probably focusing on first impressions and ergonomics. See you then :)

Digital trash for all

One of the changes headed for the SA broadcast market is the switchover from an analogue to a digital TV transmission signal. This is in keeping with similar changes being made worldwide, and helps free up spectrum for other uses (as digitally encoded signals use less spectrum than analogue ones). As is typical with anything involving technology regulation in this country, the swapover has seen numerous delays. According to MyBroadband, the powers-that-be are currently aiming for an initial commercial launch near the end of the year.

This swap-over, along with the eventual discontinuation of the analogue signal, is likely to drive an increase in the sale of digital TVs. Downconverting set-top-boxes will be available, and will be partially subsidised by the government, but I would expect many households that have been avoiding the expense will see this as an excuse to upgrade to an LCD TV while they still have a perfectly serviceable CRT.

This is good news for the environment from from an energy point of view (if they go for a similarly sized set) due to the higher energy efficiency of LCD sets. However it has huge implications from a waste point of view. A culture of recycling and responsible personal waste management is seriously lacking in South Africa, and a lack of public education on the subject does not help. I have seen no mention in any of the articles relating to this swap-over on how the resulting e-waste will be handled. As it is finding a nearby location to do basic plastic, paper and metal recycling can be a challenge, and most people don’t bother. I would like to see the government using this change in technology as an opportunity to educate individuals on the importance of correctly disposing of old electronic equipment (which typically contains many toxic materials).

America is about to go through the same switch switch and faces similar issues as a result (see this article on Grist), however they seem to have at least taken some steps in the right direction. Their Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides excellent information on recycling e-waste and events were held to inform the public about the problem. In amongst all the electioneering and political posturing, I would really love to see a little bit of attention on this looming issue from the individuals tasked with managing our country.

Yes, the US elections matter

A couple of weeks ago, I was surprised by a comment my sister made, she said she was sick of constantly hearing about the US elections, and couldn't understand why everyone was so obsessed with it. As pointed out in one of the recent US presidential debates, international perception of America and Americans took a serious dive over the last 8 years. South Africa is no exception, and the typical opinion of South Africans about Americans is hardly positive. I believe that as a result many South Africans (my sister included) have become largely apathetic to what happens in The States. We are so tired of having American culture shoved down our throats and seeing the American government seemingly shoving around 'lesser' countries in the foreign dealings that we seem to be averse to hearing anything more about them.

The problem is, as much as we hate it, what happens in America really does have an effect on us down on Africa's southern tip. With US consumption as high as it is (despite their relatively small population considering the country's total land mass) there isn't a country in the world that doesn't depend on exports paid for in US dollars. Being such a massive consumer of every resource imaginable, the US also has the means to muscle through deals that affect smaller countries' buying and selling power in the world markets.

Most importantly in my opinion though, the US is seen as a world policy leader by many of the major developing countries. World leaders and citizens are finally waking up to the fact that climate change is a reality, that it is almost certainly caused by human activities and similarly that human activity can be changed to counteract it.

The policy choices made by the next American leadership will not only shape how that country reacts to the threat of climate change, but will influence the behaviour of developing giants India and China. Both of these countries are immensely populous and are only now going through a stage of development America and Europe had the privilege of experiencing while their populations were small enough to not massively impact the rest of the world. Asking these nations to hamper their development while America behaves responsibly to the environment will be difficult, doing so while the US continues to ignore the global consequences of it's people's wasteful lifestyles will be impossible.

I have no doubt that this is the most important election Americans have voted in for at least three decades. The economic and political instability that will forever be George W. Bush's legacy will take radical new policies to repair, and the seriously worrying state of our planet will require leadership willing to make very uncomfortable choices focused on the medium and long term instead of short term re-election goals.

Where have all the heroes gone?

There is no shortage of people and organizations prepared to pronounce the evils of movies and video games. I'm usually the voice of reason arguing why these naysayers are being paranoid and sensationalist. For once though, I'm the one concerned about the negative effect about entertainment media. I'm worried that they are doing far worse than desensitising us against violence, but rather against our own ambitions. While watching the excellent Lions for Lambs a couple of weeks ago it struck me how skilled hollywood has become at manipulating our feelings, easily leading us from a sense of terrible loss, to proud patriotism, to self-satisfying anger at injustices of all kinds. While this is great for story telling, I worry that it takes away the drive for us to fulfil the need for such emotional extremes in the real world.

What if by making easily available a quick fix of bold heroics in Saving Private Ryan, or activist achievement in Who Killed the Electric Car we are actually suppressing the need that would normally lead us to go out and really make a difference in our community by acting. Similar concerns were recently raised about Guitar Hero killing off real guitar heroes (though it was shown the game was actually increasing interest in making music). This may seem like a far fetched idea, until one considers how complacent we have become about everything. Sure, people will moan around the water cooler about the latest shocking revelation of refugee mistreatment on BBC's website, or government dawdling when it comes to climate change, but then they go home and turn on the TV, and all is forgotten in a blur of manufactured experiences.

The world's population now numbers in the billions, an order of magnitude greater than just a hundred years ago, yet do we have a proportionally greater number of heroes? There are certainly those that go out and make a difference, both in their communities and on the world stage, but they are far outnumbered by the zombified masses that would rather feed their need to 'make a difference' by watching someone do it on TV.

It also seems as if the dwindling number of heroes in the world are fighting an impossible army of villains who take advantage of this mass euthanasia of people's drive to make a difference. Corporate leaders and corrupt government officials are free to destroy the world as the people that should be rising up to challenge them rather watch an episode of Battlestar Galactica or lead a heroic raid in World of Warcraft.

I don't think it's any coincidence that as I have spent less time playing video games and watching TV I have become more and more aware and saddened by the state of our world, and also more driven to do something about it. And doing something feels good, it feels a lot better than watching someone else do something in HD widescreen. Perhaps if more people tried replacing some of their screen time with real activity time we could begin to solve some of the terrible problems our world is facing.

Hyperkiloing

While high oil prices undoubtedly have advantages for the environment and society in general, forcing many commuters to finally realize that public transport is the way to go, those of us that don't have that option are suffering somewhat. When you have no choice but to pile into your car every day and hit the highway to get to work, there's not a hell of a lot yo can do to escape the high price of petrol.. or is there?

Hypermiling is a growing movement worldwide which utilizes non-aggressive driving to improve vehicle fuel efficiency. By slowing down, anticipating traffic movement and not madly racing from robot to robot and stop to stop (where you'll have to waste energy braking anyway) the mileage achievable on a tank of fuel can be stretched quite significantly.
Interestingly enough while some extreme hypermiling tricks such as rolling through stops and drafting could potentially increase your accident risks, the simpler methods such of those mentioned above are actually likely to improve road safety. You'll be safer and saving money.
I started my own minor hyperkiloing (stupid imperial systems..) experiment a few weeks ago. I limited my speed to 100km/h on the highway and strictly sticking to the speed limit in other areas. I don't accelerate rapidly away from stops and pay attention to upcoming stops, coasting to slow down instead of rapidly breaking.
Yesterday was my first refuelling since I started made these changes and I was pleasantly surprised. While the R525 to fill my 50l tank was hardly cheap, I got some satisfaction out of the fact that instead of getting my usual ~650km to the tank, I had squeezed an extra ~90km out of it and reached ~740km! My daily commute is 18km one way, so with the current petrol price of R10.50/l here are a couple of ways to look at this improvement:

• That's an extra ~14% out of my tank, that's just over R70 worth of fuel.
• It's an extra 2.5 full days worth of extra work commuting per month.
• Annually this will save ~1.6 tanks of fuel, which is ~81l of petrol or ~R850 (probably much more as oil goes up).
  
• My mileage has improved from ~13km/l to ~15km/l or..
• In the popular alternate notation from ~7.6l/100km to ~6.7l/100km.

KNRA Cleanup and Snare hunt

Natz and I visited the Klipriviersberg Nature Reserve for the first time in May when they had one of their guided bird walks (they have one every month, check out their calendar). It's a surprisingly large reserve (the largest in the Joburg Metro) and besides being beautiful has an impressive array of fauna and flora and even an archaeological dig site! Not bad at all considering how close it is.

Well a reserve of that size obviously takes some maintenance, and part of that is occasional cleanups (stupid litterers) and snare removal excursions by volunteers. There will be one this Saturday July 5th, starting at the Silent Pool entrance (map here). Any extra hands would be welcome, and it's a great reason to get out in the open and away from overpopulated (and overrated) shopping malls. To quote Sue of the reserve association:

Suggest old clothes, comfy shoes, own water and lots of energy

For more info, there are contact details on the reserve's site.

[Update: 10/07/2008]

We went, we saw, we collected. Andrew joined Natz and I as we split from the main group to collect on the opposite bank. We quickly filled the three bags we had on us. We found a dodgy, stereotypical old boot too :)

We (apparently) don't need no biodiversity

Dot Earth has an extremely sad story about two species that are now officially considered extinct. These are not some obscure insect or microbe, but rather the Caribbean Monk Seal and Yangtze River Dolphin. Specifically in the case of the dolphin, a letter from government biologist Robert L. Pitman points out that this Chinese water mammal was wiped out not due to being hunted for food or some other need, but simply because of human lifestyle. The following quote is eye-opening and saddening:

Sorry if I got a little emotional here, but the disappearance of an entire family of mammals is an inestimable loss for China and for the world. I think this is a big deal and possibly a turning point for the history of our planet. We are bulldozing the Garden of Eden, and the first large animal has fallen.

Listen to this!

If you're bored of your looping MP3 playlist (those are all legal, right?), here's some interesting listening material for you.

Lay off the stuff

I've posted about The Story of Stuff before, and also about Colin Bevin aka NoImpactMan. Well recently Rebecca Clark, a Methodist preacher from the states gave a great sermon preaching the same lose-the-stuff concept and emphasised the advantages. She also mentioned Colin's project and challenged her congregation to try abstaining from some of their stuff for a couple of days. Whether you're a Christian or not, this is a great sermon to listen to, and if you are a Christian you'll find it interesting to hear the Bible does indeed back up the 'less stuff' mantra. The sermon page can be found here, or stream the MP3 below.

Gamasutra Podcast is back!

After the GDC Radio Gamasutra Podcast had to be put on hold for a while for personal reasons, Tom Kim is back in the saddle at last. For this edition he's interviewing Gamecity director Ian Simons, and I have to say it sounds like an awesome event and I wish I could attend it! Ian also has some interesting views about the industry and how we continually compare ourselves to cinema. Check it out on GDCRadio or stream it below.

Climate doubters insert

This is a video I picked up on NoImpactMan. It's an insert from a Canadian TV station on the misinformation campaign funded by big energy companies. It  unfortunately doesn't reveal much, but it's nice to see the media is catching on to this FUD from the energy corps instead of propagating it.

Some great ideas

Do your bit

I'm currently working on a community service website that I hope will be up in a month or so. Working on the site has had my mind buzzing about other useful community site ideas, one was a site to link people with charities or organizations that would help them get involved. It turns out it's such a good idea, it's already been done :)

ForGood is a local site that does just that. They offer suggestions and resources for concerned locals that may be looking for a good cause that could use their skills. These causes are not only related to environmental issues, but to community security, health and education issues as well. Pay them a visit, sign up, and find somewhere to apply your skills and make a difference!

Upgrading already

I'm a self confessed geek, I love gadgets and I'm always wishing for some upgrade or other. Of course now that I don't use my PC for gaming, opting for console gaming instead, I really don't need to upgrade nearly as often (or at all if I'm to be really honest with myself). Many of us could quite easily forgo those unnecessary PC and laptop upgrades if we just applied some common sense and put the effort in to get our existing hardware back to it's peak. LoveThe1YoureWith is a website that preaches exactly that method, and offers some advice on how you can get your PC up to scratch again without replacing the whole damned thing (and adding to the scary amounts of e-waste rapidly being added to our landfills). They carry a (pretty corny) video to get the idea across:

No Impact Man asks for reader support before talking to bigwigs

The awesomely inspirational Colin Beavin (AKA No Impact Man) has a meeting scheduled on Friday with Jerrold Nadler, Congressional representative of New York's Eight District to chat about climate changes and request his support on the issue by introducing a new resolution to the House of Representatives, support a green job creation policy project and pass a letter on his behalf to the house speaker and assistant whip.
He is asking for readers to support this effort by emailing letters to him by Thursday. While this may seem to only affect the Americans, policy makers in developing countries such as our own do look to the developed nations for policy examples, so any decisions there have the potential of influencing change here as well. Head on over to Colin's blog and follow the instructions to send in a mail. Note the following suggestion for international contributions:

Meanwhile, those of you who aren't American citizens, please put "From a world citizen to whom American policy makes a huge difference" in the subject, so that I can deliver them but keep them separate.

And before you shrug this off thinking you don't have anything to offer, remember we really CAN make a difference!

Who says we can't make a difference?

The push on palm oil consuming companies like the one I mentioned last week targeting Unilever is seeing some serious success. Last week Unilever called for a ban on further deforestation, and this week the Indonesian Palm Oil Association bowed to that pressure and agreed to stop levelling forests and instead make use of already available land (why the hell they didn't already do that is beyond me).

Dove, good for your skin-or is it?

We've all seen the Dove ads on TV, typical soap and cosmetics fare with slow motion views of beautiful woman using Dove on their flawless skin and proclaiming the difference it has made and how much healthier their skin looks and feels.

Well it turns out that's a really short lived effect. Global warming has this pesky habit of drying out your skin, no matter how much dove you apply to it. As it turns out that lovely moisturizing bar is contributing heavily to deforestation (to make space for palm oil plantations) which is in turn releasing huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and removing the means to process it.

GreenPeace, Friends of the Earth, and other organizations are running a campaign to get Unilever, manufacturers of Dove and many other popular consumer brands that utilize palm oil from unsustainable sources, to call for a stop to such deforestation and instead buy from responsible suppliers.

Watch their video on the problem below, and then visit their action page to see how you can help!

Revamped and rearing to go

I've installed a new template (as you've most likely noticed if you aren't reading this in a feed reader). This has taken quite some time, so I won't have anything 'useful' to post before next week-when I hope to post on the use of RSS feeds to control your browsing. I do have two short notes though:

I have been diligently practicing my Tai Chi since February and I'm really enjoying it, though I'd really like to start taking lessons again. As luck would have it, an actual Shaolin monk has taken up residence in Benoni and is offering martial arts lessons-including Tai Chi. How cool is that.

The other thing is less positive. I have been doing a lot of reflection and realized that I want to become an active environmentalist-a passion of mine when I was younger that I lost touch with. Do you think I can find an organization anywhere nearby that I can work with? Not a damn! So yeah, suggestions would be welcome.

 

Technorati Tags: tai chi,template,shaolin,environmentalism

Scary story

The Story of Stuff is a concise, well written mini-documentary that exposes the true nature of the shopaholic consumer lifestyle many of use lead. It shows in an easy to grasp, straight-to-the point way why this culture of consumption is unsustainable, and how the droves of stuff we buy on weekend shopping trips -and most likely dump within six months- is destroying not only the environment we ultimately depend on to survive, but also the people that help to create it. The video provides some really eye-opening statistics and is bound to have you thinking twice about your next purchase (and hopefully every purchase thereafter). The full video can be downloaded from the site, and some teasers are available on YouTube, including this one:

Earth Hour

Ecogeek has a post today on an initiative called Earth Hour, in which companies and individuals around the world turn off their lights in a show of recognition of climate change. While as South Africans many of us may joke about Eskom making the decision for us it is worth taking part in. Unfortunately this is a bit short notice as the scheduled time is 8pm tomorrow evening, but I'm sure you can think of something to do with the lights out for an hour ;)

Go, Go, Green!

I just had to mention a pair of inspiring posts that appeared on two of the blogs I subscribe to.

Idiot advertisers

Hank from the EcoGeek blog posted a statement to the U.S. Coal Lobby, who's banner advertising 'clean coal' ended up on the blog for a couple of hours. The statement is quite powerful, and I love the first line:

"No...you're not green. You're full of crap."

Having grown up in a (stinky, smoggy, asthma-inducing) coal mining town I can only agree with every word. Sad then that Eskom is focusing on coal power moving forward to solve our electricity crisis.

You CAN make a difference

Then there's Colin from the NoImpactMan blog that posted an inspiring rant about how we optimists can make a difference. Despite all the nay-sayers and skepticism, our faith in humanity and belief that things can be better are not wasted. Screw realism, stick to optimism. A choice quote from that post:

"I believe in the goodness of human nature. I believe we can get distracted by many things, but that, ultimately, we all want to do what is best. Because that is true of people, I believe we can make the planet better for all of us, that we can have peace, feed the hungry and end war."

An idea to encourage environmentally friendly manufacturing processes

I was going to ad this as a section in my last post, but I thought it warranted it's own post..

Last week environmental analysts released a report that Sony was the most environmentally responsible of the console manufacturers, this was a bit disappointing to me and I really hope MS gets their act together. Along those lines, I was thinking on the long drive to Witbank yesterday about incentives and so on with regard to environmentally friendly manufacturing. If there is an accepted scale for how 'green' a product's manufacturing process is, why not apply this in a timed program to encourage green production. Let's say such legislation imposes a goal percentage of X% of all output from any company to be green rated at, G% or higher. Any company that does not meet the required percentage pays a tax on the manufacturing cost of the shortfall, and any company that exceeds the percentage receives a return on their excess as an incentive. This has the effect of making green products more attractive to produce, while funding the subsidies from gradually more expensive non-green products. The gradual adjustment of the required percentages prevents the shock from being so massive that non-green companies are driven out of business, while encouraging them to think ahead to keep their business profitable.
To illustrate, let's say the time-line is as follows:

Year	Compliance percentage (G)	Min output to comply (X)	Max output incentive (Y)	Tax/Incentive percentage (T)
2008-2011	50%	10%	10%	5%
2012-2015	65%	20%	20%	6%
2016-2018	80%	50%	50%	7%

Then if 5% company A's total output is 50% or more green, it falls short of the minimum by 5%, and will have to pay 5% tax on the manufacturing cost of that shortfall-a total of 0.25% of it's overall costs. Not enough to drive anyone out of business, but enough to be noticed.
By contrast if 18% company B's output is 50% or more green, it qualifies for a 5% return on the manufacturing costs of it's 8% excess-a total of 0.4% of it's costs. The 10% max output limits this effect to 0.5% at this stage, but ensures that the tax gathered from non-compliance should cover the cost of subsidies.
Looking forward to 2017, if company A's compliance has reached 40% of total output being 80% or higher green, it's shortfall is now 10%, taxed at 7%-increasing it's total tax to 0.7% of gross production. If company B has really excelled and reached 100% of it's output being 80% or higher green rated, it will receive a boost of 3.5% of it's overall manufacturing costs.
This system has obvious benefits such as using 'dirty' manufacturing to subsidize 'clean' manufacturing, thereby making the latter far more attractive than it currently is. The are other less obvious advantages as well, such as attracting high tech investment, boosting demand (and potential funding) for highly qualified workers, boosting local research in related areas, green technologies available to locals at a lower cost boosting their use by consumers.. the list goes on and on.

Efficient electricity use in the home

As part of Blog Action Day I was hoping to post something bemoaning Eskom's blocking of alternative home energy generation solutions-but I haven't been able to find a reference proving that this is the case do for now it's just hearsay. Instead I decided to look at some basic tips for efficient energy use in the home, which is particularly relevant considering our country's current dodgy electricity situation. Most of the following is from altenergystore.com.

Use flourescent bulbs
Right next to your every day 100 watt bulbs in your local Pick 'n Pay are funny looking bulbs that look like twisted tubes. These are compact flourescent bulbs (CFLs). CFLs are available in just about every size and shape you need and typically use around 70% less energy than their traditional counterpart while providing the same light!

Use natural light
Think skylights. Many reasonable natural light systems exist that will not only  bring light into your house but will often improve air circulation as well (without making your house look like a moon base).

Ghost loads
I was surprised to discover how much extra electricity 'standby' devices like TVs, DVD players, PC's etc consume over time. New to me was the fact that chargers and other AC/DC adapters chew juice even when they're plugged in but the device they charge isn't. For a household like mine (and probably that of any other gadget whore) that means at any given time ther are probably about a dozen devices and chargers happily sucking up power while doing absolutely nothing useful.

Upgrade your stuff
Sometimes the good old fashioned way isn't the best way of doing things. Newer devices often do as good a job at the same (or lower price) than their old-fashioned equivalents. A good example of this is in-line water heaters which use less electricity than an always-on always-heating geyser.

Gas up
Gas cooking is no longer limited to the skottel-braai you haul out on summer days. When upgrading your kitchen it's possible these days to get an really nice and shiny gas equivalent to that boring old electric plate system you were considering-and you'll still be able to eat hot meals when Eskom decides it's your turn to be load-shedded. Gas based heating and lighting options abound as well, though without a gas utility system they're unfortunately not as practical locally.

First prize
Of course if you want to go all the way (I know I want to when I move into my new place), you can always consider renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power. I still haven't been able to confirm if it's possible (ie legal) to augment your Eskom supply with alternate sources in SA, but at the very least your outside lights can be powered by solar charged reserves,  water for certain purposes can be heated by rooftop heating tubes and those outside plugs are good candidates for a separate 'off grid' power source. I'll probably blog more on the specifics of this when I start doing it in my new place :)