Plastic Bottles: 20 Times stronger than Bricks Life in Africa has many challenges: from disease to poverty and war. The continent also has a reputation for extreme difficulties that are fixable, but a lack of resources often prevents the problems from being solved.This is where resourcefulness comes into play: if you don’t have what you need make do with what you already have. A surplus of empty plastic bottles is something that not only affects Africa, but the entire planet. In a small village in Nigeria, a solution has been applied to not only provide shelter in a poverty stricken country, but find a use for refuse. Packing sand into plastic bottles is a technique that started nine years ago in India, South and Central America. Adding to the appeal of the simple technology, the houses are ideal for the hot Nigerian climate because the bottle bricks buffer the house from the intense heat. Photos above from Ego Nigeria
ImageMagick: Convert, Edit, Or Compose Bitmap Images Manifesto Fever The Holstee Manifesto The viral potential of a creative and thought-provoking manifesto has been proven by brands like lululemon and Holstee who have grabbed the attention of millions of viewers, both online and off. These manifestos contain words of intention and inspiration, and are designed to embody what is important to them and what they stand for. After Inc. featured an article on the explosive success of the Holstee manifesto a few weeks ago, manifestos from other businesses and organizations — like Project Living Well and Tiny Devotions — have started popping up. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone who has viewed the Holstee manifesto knows what Holstee is, or what Holstee does. As they said themselves, “We wrote a manifesto but we never wrote a business plan.” Holstee Manifesto Greeting Card Whether it’s a total coincidence, or the Holstee story sparked ideas, the following manifestos have hit the web over the past week: The Tiny Devotions Boho Manifesto
How to Photoshop the color of absolutely anything Photoshop and Photoshop Elements are the ultimate re-colorizing tools because you can use them to put a fresh coat of paint on anything. You can repaint your car, change the color of your cabinets, and even recolor your hair before heading to the salon. Here are two easy ways to get it done that work in nearly any version of either program: Using a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer Open an image and create a selection of the object you want to recolor. Lesa Snider Next, choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation and click OK in the resulting dialog box. If necessary, use the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer’s mask to hide or show the color change in certain spots, say, if your selection wasn’t perfect to start with. Using a Solid Color Fill Layer set to Hue mode This technique is works well for changing color without changing how light or dark it is. Save your master Of course, there are other ways to change color, too.
Know-How Show-How | local knowledge documentary heritage network How can I contribute? Great that you want to contribute to Know-How / Show-How! How does it work? We are looking for 5 minute clips about the person, the story and the knowledge that inspires you. Don’t worry, it’s easy to do! How do I make a movie? Before you start: - If you know the person, you can jump right in. - If you don’t, take some time to get to know them, make them feel relaxed and explain the process before you start filming. Presentation at the International Festival for Ethnographic Films in Sofia The results from the workshop “Preserve to Pass-on” Know-How Show-How has conducted during the “Goat Milk Festival” in Gorna Bela Rechka will be screened at the International Festival for Ethnographic Films in Sofia 4-9 november. Know-How / Show-How featured in Bulgarian documentaries Preparation for the fine willow skeinwork Workshop ‘Preserve to Pass-on’ From 18 to 24 May 2013 Know-How / Show-How put on the workshop “Preserve to Pass-on” in Bela Rechka, Bulgaria. Willow working
dotEPUB — download any webpage as an e-book Wed, 01/25/2012 Exploring canvas drawing techniques I recently started working on adding some good-looking brushes to Fabric.js. We've had free drawing functionality for a while, but it was... laughable. Just a simple pencil of varying thickness. Far from anything you would see in those amazing drawing applications popping up in the last few years — Mr. doob's Harmony, deviantART's Muro, or mudcu.be Sketchpad. image by Krzysztof Banaś I started experimenting with different styles and techniques — edge smoothing, bezier curves, ink and chalk and pen and stamp and patterns — oh my. So I've got an idea to create sort of an interactive tutorial. I'll go over different code implementations of brushes so that you can understand how to implement free drawing on canvas yourself. Before proceeding, it's good to have general understanding of HTML5 canvas. Basics So let's start with a very basic approach. Simple pencil§ We observe "mousedown", "mousemove", and "mouseup" events on canvas. Smooth connections§ Well, that's a start. Point-based approach§
Crowdfunding, Investment in startups, microinvest, mymicroinvest The Rise of Urban Farming and Other Varieties of Sustainable Ag My newest buzzword for 2011 is CSA. I'd never heard the term until recently, but now it seems to be popping up all over, as is interest in sustainable agriculture and urban farming. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture -- the practice of signing up with a local farm for weekly produce and, in some cases, meat and dairy. I first read about CSA in Kristin Kimball's recent memoir, "The Dirty Life," which is justly attracting rave reviews on Amazon. A Manhattan writer who gave up the city for love, she has been farming an organic spread, Essex Farm, in upstate New York since 2003, with her husband, Mark. Kimball's book is an engrossing depiction of the back-breaking work and edible rewards of CSA. Urban farming is also on the rise. Urban farming comes in a variety of models. A vision of urban and vertical farming. Next Page: More visions of urban farms.