Field stripping your Mac

Designers love their Macs. But do you really know how to handle them? Here is a set of guides that walk you through even the most daunting repair. Need to replace that laptop screen? Check. Want to fix that free laptop you scavenged? Check.

So why are these guides free? Well you will need a few parts for that fine machine right??

iFixit.com

Tired of Advertising

Spotted in Los Angeles, last summer.
These ads rotate independent of the tires so that they always stay right side up.

Ideas That Matter: Call fo Entries

Sappi paper is once again looking for projects to fund as part of its Ideas That Matter program.
They provide grants (for everything, but design) of materials for non-profit organizations. Designers from around the world can download an application from the Sappi site.
The deadline is May 2006.

Take Action: Protect Your Food

You have til Thursday to tell your representative to vote "No" on House of Representatives Bill H.R. 4167, the "National Uniformity for Food Act". From the Organic Consumers Association:

The House of Representatives will vote this week on a controversial "national food uniformity" labeling law that will take away local government and states' power to require food safety food labels such as those required in California and other states on foods or beverages that are likely to cause cancer, birth defects, allergic reactions, or mercury poisoning. This bill would also prevent citizens in local municipalities and states from passing laws requiring that genetically engineered foods and ingredients such as Monsanto's recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) be labeled.

The House will vote March 2, 2006 on a bill that would gut state food safety and labeling laws. H.R. 4167, the "National Uniformity for Food Act," lowers the bar on food safety by overturning state food safety laws that are not "identical" to federal law. Hundreds of state laws and regulations are at risk, including those governing the safety of milk, fish, and shellfish. The bill is being pushed by large supermarket chains and food manufacturers, spearheaded by the powerful Grocery Manufacturers of America.

Big food corporations and the biotech industry understand that consumers are more and more concerned about food safety, genetic engineering, and chemical-intensive agriculture, and are reading labels more closely. They understand that pesticide and mercury residues and hazardous technologies such as genetic engineering and food irradiation will be rejected if there are truthful labels required on food products. Industry-sponsored H.R. 4167 is gaining momentum and must be stopped! Act now! Preserve local and regional democracy and protect yourself and your family from unsafe food by sending an email or calling your Representative and urging them to vote "No" on H.R. 4167.

Take Action Now

Excess All Areas

The BBC's Excess All Areas is an entertaining harm-reduction resource in the form of a virtual online dance club where you can feed a club kid all the drugs and alcohol you want, just to see what effects it has on him.

via WFMU

Olympukes

Olympukes, designed by Jonathan Barnbrook as an antidote to the hyper-commercialism of the 2004 summer Olympics, is a free download from his site VirusFonts.com.

The future of energy is dog shit.

San Francisco is pilot testing a program in which dog waste from a popluar park is collected and used to create energy via the methane it emits. Read more here.

Avast ye matey

You love pirates right? You know that you do! Get on board...

Graphic Dissent

Our friend Jason Justice will be having a solo exhibition of his design work for the social justice movement at The Thoreau Galleries in San Francisco, March 2- April 20th .

If you're going to be in the area, check it out and tell us about it!
More Info

Graphic Imerative

The Graphic Imperative is a lovely online collection of Peace & Social Justice posters that are part of a travelling exhibition that will be in Philadelphia this April.

via Social Design Notes

Back to school.

In need of a more green education?

The Minneapolis College of Art and Design is offering a Sustainable Design Online Certificate.

And The New College of California is offering a Green MBA.

T-shirt Utopia

Better Thinking, a UK based socially responsible marketing company; Howies, a socially responsible clothing company; and Kate Fletcher, an eco-textiles consultant, have set up a blog showing their attempt to make The Perfect (and in this case, perfect means most environmentally/socially responsibly produced) T-shirt.

via treehugger

Fall into the Gap

Serve Marketing has put together a lovely flash based site, which graphically demonstrates the disparity of wages between Men and Women in America, as part of their public service ad campaign Close The Gap .

Culturas Populares

Here are a few images from the exhibition Culturas Sin Fronteras La Migración en México found at the wonderful Museo Nacional de Culturas Populares in Coyoacan, Mexico City. The beautifully designed exhibit discussed the effects of migration on Mexican culture, historically and in the present day.

Must See TV

Ever wished there was a non-corporate, independent news channel dedicated to providing alternative world reporting (in America)? Well, the folks at Indepenent World Television are actually trying to make it a reality.

thanks Melinda

Seeing Yellow

Austrian artists Christoph Steinbrener and Rainer Dempf's Delete! project is an art installation that transforms neighborhoods by covering all signage and advertising with yellow plastic/cloth.

See more at their (somewhat difficult to navigate and mostly in German) website.

There, diagonally!

Spotted in Mexico City: On a display of bottle cap buttons in a popular shopping area, a swastika in the midst of a bunch of lowbrow humorous saying and pop culture images including the well known Che face.

*Please Note: I had a great time in Mexico and didn't encounter any anti-semetism whatsoever.

Multi-touchscreen

Sometimes it only takes a small change to how a technology works to make it radically cooler and more dynamic. Take a look at this NYU prototype of a multipoint touch screen. Simply by adding the ability to have more than one touch point you can suddenly do things that are so much more natural to us as apes with opposable thumbs.

Skip forward in the video to see how they are able to quickly organize photos in a manner the older of us might remember before the digital photo revolution. (of course you would be able to resize them on the fly!)

YouTube Video (via Wired)

Traditional Knowledge Digital Library

India is creating an online database of traditional knowledge to prevent unscrupulous types from trying to patent and profit off of them. The Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TDKL) will contain everything from herbal medicines to yoga positions. From the story in the Christian Science Monitor:

"We do not want anyone selling our own knowledge to us," says Ajay Dua, a top bureaucrat in the Department of Industrial Policy and Planning, which oversees intellectual-property rights. "Also, we would like anyone using our traditional knowledge to acknowledge that it is from India."

These concerns are not unfounded. In the past decade, India has fought several costly legal battles to get patents revoked. The impetus for TKDL came in 1997, after India successfully managed to get a US patent on the wound-healing properties of turmeric revoked.

"This patent claimed the wound-healing properties as a novel finding, whereas practically every Indian housewife knows and uses it to heal wounds," says R. A. Mashelkar, chief of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

Read the full story here.

This seems to be the official TKDL site here.

Tastes Like Burning

Spotted in Mexico City: A campaign for cigarettes that would seem to be rather ineffective (especially with the large required "smoking causes cancer" banner at the botttom).

Cavemen kill fisherman in drunken mishap

There is nothing that reminds you what an incredibly diverse and secretive world we live in so much as when you discover a tribe of pre-neolithic xenophobes living on an island in the Indian Ocean - and they absolutely porcupine you with arrow. And your rescuers. These people have muddled through time since the stone age in complete isolation and there is nothing I don't find fascinating about this story.

I smell a rat.

Spotted in Mumedi, the new design museum in Mexico City, Mexico. It says, "Behind the American Fantasy"

K sozhaleniyu, ya poka ne govoryu po russki.

Can someone tell me what this Russian site says about the previously mentioned article on socially conscious design in the new issue of How magazine?
Babelfish was no help with translation.

Talk the Walk

Can selling "green" change the world?
Read the highly detailed, well-researched report Talk the Walk - Advancing Sustainable Lifestyles through Marketing and Communications produced by Utopies, The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and find out.

(thanks Ann)

Fast Food Trash Be Gone!

Oakland City Council to vote on tax on restaurants and convenience stores to help clean up litter on the streets.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Some Oakland, Calif. residents are sick and tired of tripping over burger wrappers and soda cans, and the city is ready to do something about it.

The Oakland City Council is proposing a tax on fast-food restaurants, gas station markets, liquor stores and convenience stores that serve take-out food or beverages. Councilwoman Jane Brunner, who wrote the legislation, estimates that the tax will raise approximately $237,000 a year, which would cover the cost of a clean-up crew and the initial purchase of trucks and equipment to keep the streets and sidewalks surrounding the city's schools litter-free.

The eight-member Oakland City Council is expected to vote on the ordinance Tuesday. If approved, Oakland would be the first city in the U.S. to force restaurants and stores to chip in to clean up the mess, according to reports.

Participate or Protest?

On March 25th, the NYC chapter of the AIGA will be holding a conference on socially responsible design called Grow: Design for Sustainability.

It should be particularly interesting to activist designers, as two of the notable presenters will be employees of the questionably sustainable corporation Wal-Mart:

Tyler Elm Director of Strategy and Sustainability, Wal-Mart
&
Amy Zettlemoyer Director of Packaging, Wal-Mart/Sam’s Club

A reason to laugh and cry about the internets future

A reason to laugh:
Become a telecom revolutionary. FON has put together software for wireless routers with the aim of creating a large community based wifi network. You share your bandwidth you get to use the community wifi network. lets just call it the entrepreneurial socialism

FON via Gizmodo

A reason to cry:
We continue to see an assault on the open nature of the internet. Once again the large telecoms are looking to assert thier natural monopolies into the internet realm all in the name of saving us from spam. They propose a email postage fee to reach thier members quickly. Guess who will pocket that money.

Now is a good time to hassle members of the senate commerce committee if this upsets you. Especially if one of your congress whores are on it.

NY Times via BoingBoing
Senate Commerce Committee

PEN

Poets, Essayists and Novelists (PEN) is a non-profit group that fights for the rights of imprisoned and exiled writers around the world. Founded in London in 1921, PEN is a leader in the fight against censorship and oppression.

HMO OH NO

Have you had a nightmare healthcare experience? Michael Moore wants you in his next film.

UnFair Use

A new trademark law before the Judiciary Committee ("HR 683 - the Trademark Dilution Revision Act") contains anti-speech aspects that would prevent the use of famous trademarks to illustrate a point when discussing public issues. From the article at StockPhotogrpher.info...

The Act would give companies considerable leverage in preventing artists and photographers from employing their marks in images by claiming the mark is being "diluted". The bigger the company, the more famous the trademark, the easier it will be to prevent you guys from using it. National companies with highly recognizable marks would have more leverage than any single creator or small business and would easily outspend any of you to prevent your using their mark. Exceptions for fair use, non-commercial use, reportage, commentary, etc. currently existing could disappear and would be no defense to claims of infringement of a registered or unregistered mark. Trade dress is often unregistered.

read the full article here and find out how VW plans to sue the creator of the image above

The author suggests you contact Senator Arlen Specter, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, 711 Hart Building, Washington, DC 20510 to voice your opposition to this bill.

(thanks Lynda for passing this along)

Green Pages

Frequently I need to find socially responsible products for my office and clients and one place I like to start with is the Green Pages.

FYI they're a paid listing, like the Yellow Pages, so it is limited in some ways, but I find it's often easier/quicker than just blindly Google searching.

Get Organized!

The National Conference on Organized Resistance is this coming weekend (February 3-5) in Washington D.C.

Sorry, for the late notice, but you can register at the door for only $12.