jason

Green Gadgets Shown To Be Eco-Hazards | EcoGeek: “two MP3 players, one that looks like it has sustainability on the brain, but in actually can’t be recycled, can’t be upgraded, and toxic substances are used in its manufacturing. The other MP3 player looks sleek in a non-sustainable way, but is more durable, can be upgraded, and recycled.”

Good article and links.

Jeremy just posted a link to the Internet Literacy Handbook by the council of europe. Fun summer reading.

Slashdot | Louisiana Passes Intelligent Design Law: “The US state of Louisiana has passed the ‘Science Education Act,’ a piece of legislation that could allow Intelligent design to be taught in schools. From the article: ‘The act is designed to slip ID in “through the back door.” More at

We’ve been talking a lot around the notion of the real and the virtual (in my grad class ‘children, technology and play), and this past class we were looking at a number of Mimi Ito’s papers on edutainment and children’s gaming. The ability for the virtual to influence the real is something that has always fascinated me… this morning on CityTV there was a band who was covering the old A-Ha song “Take Me On” from the mid-80s, and it struck me that that must have been one of my earlier experiences with the virtual/real liquidity. And here it is.

Now I was not expecting it to be this easy. This is about on par with the rest of the world… on average. Rogers blinks on iPhone pricing

Rogers Wireless Communications Inc. is learning the hard way that the iPhone isn’t your average cellphone and that Apple fans aren’t your typical cellphone customers.

After receiving a deluge of calls and e-mails, and watching as more than 50,000 potential customers signed an online petition protesting against the company’s iPhone pricing policies, Rogers bowed to mounting pressure and slashed its data fees just two days before Apple Inc.’s coveted touch-screen cellphone arrives in Canada.

While poring over e-mails and transcripts from recorded customer calls, Rogers executives quickly learned that customers don’t see the iPhone so much as a traditional cellphone as they do a pocket-sized Internet portal, one that is sought after by tech-savvy users.

In order to recover some of the momentum it had hoped to carry to the launch of the summer’s hottest electronic device, Rogers came up with a new plan that more than triples the amount of data a customer can send and receive on an iPhone, making it cheaper to surf the Web and send text and e-mail messages….

Under the new plan, customers who purchase an iPhone and sign up for a three-year contract any time before the end of August will be eligible for a $30-a-month data plan giving them access to six gigabytes of data. Rogers previously had charged $100 for a 6-GB plan. The special rate is available not just to iPhone customers, but to any Rogers customer with a 3G smart phone, such as the BlackBerry Bold, which is expected to be released later this summer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7489296.stm

Walking down the catwalk in front of the great and the good in New York is a far cry from using your hands to clean up human excrement for a living.
But this week a group of such women - known in India as scavengers - have been doing just that. They have been attending a United Nations conference here and doing some modelling at the same time.
In all, 36 scavengers from India have been invited by the UN to attend a conference to mark the UN’s International Year of Sanitation.
The women were brought up from early childhood for the demeaning work.
Scavengers are invariably from the lower-caste, “untouchable” (Dalit) community. They carry the human excrement in pots on their heads. They can also be found clearing rubbish from the streets and open drains outside homes.

Reading this you will note the sense of possibility and change… when appropriate support is made available.

This article Mother’s junk food ‘harms child’ is interesting for the obvious reasons, but it also because it reminds me of the potential for… I’m not sure of the word… criminalizing(?) lived experiences relating to parenting. I’ve edited the content down, so check out the full article if it is an interesting topic.

Eating a poor diet when pregnant or breastfeeding may cause long-lasting health damage to the child, animal studies suggest.
The offspring of rats fed fatty, processed food had high levels of fat in their bloodstream and around major organs even after adolescence.
The animals had a raised diabetes risk - even if they ate healthily.
Studies by the same team have already shown that rats whose mothers were fed junk food during pregnancy and breastfeeding were more likely to crave similar snacks themselves.
However, the new twist is that even when weaned off this diet themselves, the damage may already have been done, they suggest.
Dr Stephanie Bayol, one of the researchers, said: “It seems that a mother’s diet whilst pregnant and breastfeeding is very important for the long-term health of her child.
“We always say: ‘You are what you eat’, but in fact it may also be true that you are what your mother ate.”
Of particular concern was fat gathering around the major organs, which has been implicated in the development of type II diabetes.
“Humans share a number of fundamental biological systems with rats, so there is good reason to assume the effects we see in rats may be repeated in humans.”
However, Dr Simon Langley-Evans, a nutrition researcher from the University of Nottingham, said that the study did not prove that a mother’s diet could affect the health of offspring beyond the effect on cravings and appetite.
He said: “I’m not convinced they have shown this - everything you are seeing here could be the result of obesity caused by increased appetite. “What it does show is that this early influence from the mother is very important.”
Dr Iain Frame, of the charity Diabetes UK, warned against drawing firm conclusions from animal studies.
However, he said: “This study does lend some weight to the established argument that children of mothers who have poor diets during pregnancy have a higher risk of developing diabetes and heart disease later in life.”

Anyone in higher ed needs to read this: Two-Year in Hell :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education’s Source for News, Views and Jobs

Job Listing #666. University of Hell at Seventh Circle. Visiting Assistant Professor, two years (with possibility of converting to tenure-track position at culmination of two-year appointment). Beginning September 2009. Teaching load of forty-three courses per semester, with no more than thirty-nine preparations (i.e. instructor will teach more than one section of some courses). No official committee duties, but will be expected to contribute occasionally to departmental administrative work. Competitive salary, given local economy. Candidate must exhibit evidence of strong potential for both research and teaching, and significant flexibility in his/her expectations. For further information, repeat the name “Mizrakreth, Chair of Hiring Committee” three times.

Canadian iPhone: Consumer Revolt against Rogers tariffs - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

When Rogers/Fido announced the iPhone voice/data plans a few days ago, the proposed rates were not received warmly. Over ten thousand people are letting their eDispleasure be heard on the “Rogers iPhone3G == Ruined” protest website.

See http://www.ruinediphone.com/sign.php