Print may be dead...

...but that doesn't mean it can't be repurposed. Case in point: this intriguing Re-Nest post, via Lifehacker:

Weblog Apartment Therapy Re-Nest shows how to repurpose a pile of old magazines or vintage books into a small table in just about 10 minutes. Pulling it off is a simple matter of tucking every 10 pages or so back into the spine of the magazine--you don't even need glue or any additional supplies.

I'll admit that the long shot of the plant stand appearing on Re-Nest (not the one appearing here) makes the piece look a little unstable, though I still do like the concept. In any case, at the rate things are going you should be able to decorate your whole living room with old books or magazines pretty soon. Take this post from BoingBoing, for instance, which talks about a chair made out of books that otherwise would have been discarded.

Books and magazines have long been used as furniture, or at least as accouterments, as Janice Radway's A Feeling for Books, Henry Petrowski's The Book on the Book Shelf, and Catherine Lutz and Jane Collins' Reading National Geographic all have clearly shown. Still, I wonder if the mass digitization of printed matter, combined with an upsurge in feelings of environmental responsibility, will hasten the transformation of books and magazines into furniture proper.

Then again, all this just as easily could be a passing fad.

Pushing 30

From the Wired Listening Post:

On this day [August 17th --TS] in 1982, Sony and Philips Consumer Electronics released the first CDs to the German public, forever changing the way music would be distributed, marketed, consumed and appreciated. Now would be a great time to change it all again.

Does this mean I'm officially getting old? In any case, you can check out the full article here. It's worth the read.

"Light's out" for Google?

Google often celebrates holidays and other major events by changing the look of its home page. At Thanksgiving, for example, you're likely to find pilgrims gallivanting, or perhaps an unfortunate turkey or two running for their lives. Valentine's Day usually means hearts and all that mushy stuff, St. Patrick's Day brings shamrocks and leprechauns...you get the drill. Well, today, Google's usually white background has been turned black in an effort to raise awareness for Earth Hour--an event designed to curb global energy consumption and raise awareness about global climate change.

Let me say that I'm behind the Earth Hour event. It's a fantastic idea, and I'd love to see its principles institutionalized. (It does make me wonder, though, about the prospects of Earth Day, which is a different event celebrated every April, getting downsized to a mere hour--but that's a topic for another post.)

However welcome Google's promotion of Earth Hour may be, I still find it strange for two reasons. First, I read a fascinating article by Ginger Strand called "Keyword: Evil--Google's Addiction to Cheap Electricity," which was published in the March 2008 issue of Harper's. There, she notes how Google's new server farm, to be built in The Dalles, Oregon, will consume about as much power in a given day as the entire city of Tacoma, Washington. Second, though I'm grateful to Google for plugging Earth Hour, the company gives no indication that it's planning on unplugging anything itself. It offers this statement instead:

Given our company's commitment to environmental awareness and energy efficiency, we strongly support the Earth Hour campaign, and have darkened our homepage today to help spread awareness of what we hope will be a highly successful global event.

Much as I respect Google--one of the most heavily-trafficked websites on the internet and host of Differences & Repetitions via Blogger--and its decision to promote Earth Hour, I'm sad to say its doing so seems more like carefully calculated corporate greenwashing than it does a genuine effort to cultivate environmentally sustainable practices. To point out the obvious: turning a computer screen black is not turning it off.

In addition to extinguishing all our lights for an hour, how much more of an impact could we make if we unplugged everything--lamps, toasters, computers, even Google itself (yes, YouTube too)--for an hour?

All those trees!

An interesting post I thought I'd pass along from the Environmental News Network....

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PLANT A TREE FOR EVERY BOOK YOU READ

Want to get a new book but worry about its environmental impact? Worry a little bit less. With the help of Eco-Libris, you can plant a tree for every book you buy or read.

Says Raz Godelnik, an Eco-Libris co-founder, the company works with readers, publishers, writers, bookstores, and others in the book industry to balance out the paper used for any book by planting trees. About 20 million trees are cut down annually for virgin paper to be used for the production of books sold in the U.S. alone. Eco-Libris raises awareness about the environmental impacts of using paper for the production of books and provides book lovers with a simple way to do something about it: plant a tree for every book they read. Ten dollars will cover tree planting for ten books.

To date, Eco-Libris has balanced out over 24,000 books, resulting in the planting of more than 31,500 new trees! Kedzie Press is collaborating with Eco-Libris in a "Million Tree-A-Thon" initiative to plant one million trees for one million books by the end of 2009.

The Eco-Libris program is being offered by some local bookstores; otherwise, it's easy to participate on-line.

Thumbs up, Eco-Libris.

You can read my interview with Eco-Libris here.