Mr. Burnett never dreamed that his film would get a commercial release. But today “Killer of Sheep†is widely acknowledged as one of the most insightful and authentic dramas about African-American life on film, as well as one of the earliest examples of the politically aware black independent cinema that was taking shape in the 1970s.
Monthly Archives: December 2007
a greener apple
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/agreenerapple/ Apple has been criticized by some environmental organizations for not being a leader in removing toxic chemicals from its new products, and for not aggressively or properly recycling its old products. Upon investigating Apple’s current practices and progress towards these goals, I was surprised to learn that in many cases Apple is ahead of, or will soon be ahead of, most of its competitors in these areas. Whatever other improvements we need to make, it is certainly clear that we have failed to communicate the things that we are doing well. It is generally not Apple’s policy to trumpet our plans for the future; we tend to talk about the things we have just accomplished. Unfortunately this policy has left our customers, shareholders, employees and the industry in the dark about Apple’s desires and plans to become greener. Our stakeholders deserve and expect more from us, and they’re right to do so. They want us to be a leader in this area, just as we are in the other areas of our business. So today we’re changing our policy. Now I’d like to tell you what we are doing to remove toxic chemicals from our new products, and to more aggressively recycle our old products.
Technorati Tags: apple, environmentalism, philosphy, products, cradletocradle, sustainability
gender diversity at web conferences
Gender diversity is popping up again in the blogs. Just thought I'd pass these along. http://www.kottke.org/07/02/gender-diversity-at-web-conferences
With that in mind, I collected some information about some of the most visible past and upcoming conferences in the tech/design/web space. I'm reasonably sure that the organizers of these conferences were aware of at least one of the above recent complaints about gender diversity at conferences (they were both linked widely in the blogosphere), so it will be interesting to see if those complaints were taken seriously by them.
And a site that lists potential speakers for conferences:
http://www.personism.com/2006/10/11/list-of-women-speakers-for-your-conference/
Making a list is just a start, but what a freaking list it is. I am psyched.
Many thanks to all the contributors to comment threads here on Personism, and over on design*sponge. Marc and Sara over at Wooster Collective also provided some excellent suggestions.
Technorati Tags: gender, pdx, pdxpug, perl, philosphy, diversity
near-zero energy home
http://www.betterhomebetterplanet.com/index.php?mode=systems From BASF, but the website has a fair amount of detail. And they make some pretty crazy claims:
The BASF Near-Zero Energy Home-Paterson, N.J., harnesses the power of the sun to generate electricity and heat water. As a result, the home draws almost no power from the grid, greatly reducing utility costs. Two solar energy systems are integrated into the BASF ULTRA-Cool® coated metal roof from Englert.
Technorati Tags: design, efficiency, environmentalism, homedesign, sustainability