Simple…and kind of obvious study with real results.
My question: Are we going to see higher prices for things that kill us or keep doing business as usual?
My meta-question: Why do humans have such a hard time doing what is good for themselves?
Comments welcome!
Andrew Kim is obsessed with consumer electronics. He was delighted to discover that there was a profession for people for him. I got on the phone with Andrew and we chatted a bit about the very awesome re-design he did on the classic coke bottle. Design Fabulous is Andrew Kim’s design blog. He’s a student at College for Creative Studies in Detroit.
What prompted this design?
Mid-term project: “Design a product that is eco-friendly.” I wanted to use empty coke bottles for insulation but then decided I wanted a real solution instead of a band-aid.
What was your inspiration?
MacBook Pro as inspiration: The battery fits into the laptop like no other laptop. Bottles should fit in trucks too! It was only logical to make the bottle crush-able to conserve space.
Andrew Kim was born in Korea and grew up in Vancouver, Canada. He’s only a freshman at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit but clearly he’s got a bright future ahead of him. His dream job is to work for a cell phone company like HTC.
Cool.
So far he’s been contacted by the head of design at Coke and by CNN. He was surprised about the attention that the project got because it was one of the quickest projects that he’s done. He only spent 4 weeks on the project and he finished it up over his spring break.
Even though Andrew doesn’t drink coke, because it’s not a big influence back home (oops Coke – looks like you missed Korea…and maybe Canada), he picked Coke because there is so much emotion attached the brand.
Most of the design was done in Photoshop but it’s still really well done. Surprisingly, Andrew has been getting a lot of negative feedback (and a lot of positive feedback) from folks. Reading through these comments, I think that some people really missed Andrew’s vision and got really caught up in details.
And to address 80% of silly criticism: yes, they fit well in cup holders in cars and they’re actually easier to hold than cylindrical bottles.
Andrew is thinking about doing a second version but he’s also has another project on the line. His next project will focus on nutrition and hardware that would supply vitamins with an interface on a smart phone. He’s thinking from scratch about the whole experience.
Best of luck Andrew and thanks for the interview!
The OTS V20 http://www.ots.org/v20.php
The BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf might find its technological savior in Hollywood. Kevin Costner, actor and apparent tech-aficionado, has a technology that is designed to separate oil and water to minimize environmental damage from oil spills. For more than 15 years, Costner has funded the company Ocean Therapy Solutions (OTS) and its team of scientists to work this technology, originally obtained from the Department of Energy in 1992-93 via a technology transfer agreement. Today, the company has a series of five machines that process 2-200 gallons-per-minute of contaminated water. Due to the scale of the Gulf oil spill, the V20 (200 gallon-per-minute) version is the likely front-runner. Another example of the long-term positive impacts of basic R&D funding.
Costner’s centrifuge technology separates the oil and water to a greater than 99% purity – meaning it gets almost all of oil out of the water. After initial testing by BP, the oil company has signed on the dotted line to purchase 32 of these machines for use in the Gulf. Each machine is capable of processing 200 gallons-per-minute of contaminated sea water, removing about 3,000 gallons per day of oil from the water, depending on the concentration of oil in the water.
After two months of botched “containment” and failed “top kill” efforts, I am heartened to learn about a technological solution that might help in the situation we have now – where the oil has already escaped and we are already experiencing the negative environmental impacts.
Bottom line: Costner might have a technological that can cleanup contaminated water from the BP oil spill disaster.
ATTN: Please don’t read this post if you are unable to think for yourself.
3.5 million gallons of crude (the approximate total amount spilled so far 06/09/2010) is less than 0.5% of our country’s daily oil consumption. The total amount of oil spilled is a tiny amount relative to how much we consume in the US every day. This spill is nothing compared to the damage we’re slowly doing to the planet. And the first people who should be put on trial are all of us (you, me, everyone), not BP.
I don’t support freaking out and sensationalism in general but especially not in this case when it actually hurts progress. These sort of over-reactions not only spread hate (the Consumerist – ironically doesn’t get that we the consumers are the real culprits of this spill), but don’t solve what’s going to be a 150 year problem by the time we start to seriously address it. The consequences of our oil addiction will ultimately affect the planet for over a millennium. This spill is not a big deal when you look at the big picture.
Accidents like the one at Piper Alpha are far more upsetting to me than this spill. See this 3 part video on Piper Alpha that shows a time when another British company, Occidental in this case, had the power to stop a huge accident from occurring but failed to do so. [Yes, the re-enactments are a bit corny, but they get the facts right.]
Bottom Line: BP is not my favorite company (Texas City Refinery Explosion is one of my top reasons), but I think they’re trying to handle this situation appropriately. Rioting about it is like hiding under your desk during a nuclear fallout – it’s a fool’s errand.
Think I’m wrong? Post a comment (and start biking to work).
Update: The numbers have changed significantly since I wrote this. They’ve probably spilt 10x the oil than the numbers I used. Definitely a lot of oil. Definitely a tragedy for a lot of people. My point remains: We the people have demanded the oil and we too should bear some of the responsibility.
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Slow Money on Poverty
-Woody Tasch in Inquires into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered