Friday Hope Blogging

Oy, what a week. The best news, as far as I'm concerned, is that it's over. (Actually, that'd be the second-best news, after the advent of Whiskey Ashes. Hooray for that, says I.)

To continue the theme of extracting benefits from human filth and corruption, I guess I should note this:

Highland Energy Inc. president David McLennan smelled an opportunity with the rotting garbage at the old Upper Sackville Landfill site. In July, the 32-hectare dump will make history as the first landfill in Atlantic Canada to turn its decomposing tires, buses, and food into energy.

A new study shows that green businesses outperform those who "stay the course":

In a report tabled to the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, it was suggested that they outperformed the ‘business-as-usual’ guys by over 7%. An analyst at Innovest, who prepared the report speaks, unusually, in plain language, so we quote him: "These companies in the medium and long term will outperform their peers because those factors [social and environmental] will become increasingly germane to their performance."

Apropos of which:

The hedge fund giant Man Group revealed plans yesterday to become one of the first FTSE 100 companies to go completely carbon-neutral, reducing the number of flights its staff take, and committing to pay "carbon offsets" on the environmentally-unfriendly activities which it cannot avoid.

I was very interested to note that Man Group intends to use videoconferencing in place of air travel whenever possible. For some reason, I'd never thought about the impact of this technology on business travel and the airline industry.

Irrepressible.Info is a campaign launched by Amnesty International to protect Internet freedoms. They have a number of actions you can take, but I especially like this one:

Undermine censorship by publishing irrepressible fragments of censored material on your own site.

They've prepared a database of censored material, which you can access here.

A study on the cost and benefits of AIDS treatment shows, not surprisingly, that spending money to save people's lives can save people's lives:

Per-person survival increased by three months in 1989-92 and then by two years in 1993-95; both eras were characterized by the introduction of certain measures to prevent opportunistic infections. But in the four HAART eras spanning 1996 to 2003, per-person survival increased by approximately eight, 11, 12, and 13 years. Over the past 10 years, the investigators concluded, widespread adoption of HAART regimens, in addition to prophylaxis, led to at least 3 million years of life saved in the United States.

It's not enough to stay alive, though. One must make the most of one's time on earth. That's why you should go here to see the effects of resonance on rice grains. (Turn your speakers down first, though!) Then, go here to see the effect of heat on popsicles. (Links via Coudal.)


Also, via things: City of Lost Refrigerators. Window seat photos. An airplane scrapyard. Magic posters. And circular saw blunders in anaglyphic 3D.