“God is the only one with the message. It’s a message of hope and urgency, because he’s not going to wait much longer. His message is a simple one: we are all connected. Our hopes, dreams, our children’s future, reflecting back in each other’s eyes. We fight our own personal battles, but we know we are not alone. Because only together can we make our short time on this planet mean something. Only together can we be the stewards of our own destiny. And we hold in our collective hearts one noble goal: to save ourselves, save the world.”

1. Nathan Petrelli, The Second Coming, Heroes.

Revised on September 26, 2008.

There has been a surge of webpage re-designs in 2008, though some may be controversial, the momentum of Web 2.0 has continued to revitalize content delivery in the digital age, and how far have we come. Not only has the front-end interface been upgraded to cater for more intuitive, efficient surfing, server load on the back-end has been reduced, and upon the client-side, next generation browsers have promised enhanced performance and sophisticated features, under even tighter security. Not to mention the unprecedented growth and potential of mobile browsing. Now all that I need is free city-wide Wi-Fi.

1. 10 hot web re-designs of 2008, CNET.

“The bottleneck saver is designed to be attached to liquid soap dispenser necks and restricts the amount dispensed in order to reduce unnecessary wastage in consumption. This is especially pertinent as the manufacturers of shampoos, liquid soap, lotions… have an incentive to encourage more rapid usage. A standard depressing of a nozzle may indeed yield more lotion/shampoo than is really necessary for the user. The bottleneck saver becomes a subtle mark of defiance in the face of more copious consumption patterns.”

This design well deserves a second thought; minute ideas like this one can not only change the way we interact with everyday objects, but how these forms of interaction can be made sustainable, challenging consumptive behavior. It is a much worthy example that reminds us how “a little goes a long way”; sustainable design should relate and permeate intuitively to our ways of life and manner of living. There are a variety of products, for example those through the Future Friendly initiative, that inherently contemplates environmental demands, saving energy and reducing waste and packaging based upon the properties of the product itself. “Every small step towards a greater good can help preserve our world and prepare it for generations to come.”

Looking for more simple ways to do your part in helping the planet? How about 50.

1. treehugger » orcadesign.

Here is an excerpt of recent articles I’ve shared on my Google Reader.

The end of aviation: what will happen when we can’t afford to fly?

McCain vs. Obama on renewable energy.

Chase Jarvis: Advance testing the Nikon D90.

‘Traffic from space’ videos blow our minds. BBC

What’s it like to stand on the Water Cube’s high-dive platform?

1 percent of Australia’s geothermal power potential equals 26,000 years of energy.

Slow down in a world built for speed. Carl Honore

“Thanks to an unprecedented set of restrictions on cars and factories for the Olympics… the skies over Beijing have been cleaner than ever… but the weather isn’t even the most popular topic of conversation. The bigger issue for many, and the question that’s been biting at everyone for years, how will Beijing stay beautiful after the Olympics are over?”

“What’s a one-party government with its hand in the auto industry, and a public increasingly discontent with pollution, to do? An odd-even car ban has proven to be great for Beijing in short term. And it’s already left behind a healthy legacy: strong public debate over the environment that the government has no choice but to heed, at least in part… still, it’s unlikely the car ban will stay in place. To say nothing of the impact to the auto industry, cars are too important to the middle and upper classes, and those classes are too important to the government… and just as well, a car ban is neither as fair nor as sustainable as measures that alter demand and supply. If Beijing simply bans half its cars every day… it would only be delaying bigger problems down the road. It will be a long, hard road, but it doesn’t need to be crowded or dirty.”

1. 10 ways Beijing (and other cities) can keep its skies blue and roads gridlock-free, TreeHugger.

The intriguing thing is, the waste society exorcise just seemingly disappears; that’s modern civilization, that’s the beauty of the system. When anything that is no longer useful just vanish, it becomes no longer a worry, no longer an issue one needs to regard. It becomes an intuitive convenience. There are components of society that we subconsciously take for granted, and one just happens to be the social infrastructure that regulates and mediates our social processes, and conveniently all is good.

But is all actually good? Is that, and should that be the end of our worry? One sure hopes so, but you very well know that this common environment is one closed ecosystem. In other words we are all shitting in one single pool. The reason we continue to do so is because consciously it appears that nothing is wrong, however, is what we cannot observe, non-existent? It seems to be so, and that is what we strive to believe. Is there no emissions when the sky is clear, no additives when the water is fresh? It makes no sense at all. Indeed vision can be very deceiving, and how well does this illusion flourish by our strive for ignorance. This is the disappearing act.

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