From a Search to a Seed: How a Search Engine is Saving The Rain Forest

Making Green by Making Green

It's common knowledge that big businesses like Nestle are trying to destroy the world, and it's up to startups, Ma & Pa shops, trendy West-Coasters, and selfless techies to stop them. But how? Well, seeing that the big picture is comprised of many brushstrokes, it comes down to that old cliché, "Every little bit counts." Take Ecosia as example, a new search engine that uses clicks to generate funds to offset deforestation in the Amazon... 

The Atlantic Forest, Brazil. Can you believe this Eden is highly threatened by deforestation? Can you believe if you search "Atlantic Forest" with Ecosia you can help save it?

Text-Free Internet Browsing

A Less-Than-Better Way To Browse

(but still worth its weight in art)

Imagine reading a book with no words, yet gathering from it an entire story. It would literally be a tale of nothing; unless it was a picture book; but that's regardless of what I'm trying to say.

What I'm trying to say is that last week I brought you a post about lookingatsomething, the briefly amusing weather website-artpiece from 33-year-old Dutch-Brazilian creator/designer/artist Rafaël Rozendaal. This go round, it's a little more interesting than rain makin'. 

The Best Weather Website

A Digital Artist's Interactive Art(ish)

Look at something.

Okay.

Well, more specifically, look at this: www.lookingatsomething.com. It's the best weather website out there on the internet, simply because you can control it; the website and the weather. Well, you can make it rain, anyway.

It's the most recent project from visual artist, Rafëal Rozendall. 

                                       


                                       (That's this guy) ------>                          

Around the World in 8.0 Mbps

Petra, Jordan

It used to be a rare, cool thing to find a great website on the Internet. Now, however, anybody with a connection can create a website; with so many persons creating websites, more and more great websites have surfaced. Like this one, for example.

But there are some that beg to be exploited.

One of my favourite is www.earthcam.com, a website that brings you views of public areas from all over the world. Today, I checked the surf in South Florida (it's flat), peeked through the columns of the city of Petra, Jordan (literally, a city in stone), stoked my romantic side (don't take that the wrong way) with a view of Paris blanketed beneath a thin sheet of snow, and virtually patronised one of the most famous pubs in Dublin (The Temple Bar).

The site allows you to access live camera views as well as archives; so you can see how good the waves were while you were visiting relatives in Boringtown, Nowhere; or watch a pedestrian (in)discretely pick his nose in Time Square. Additionally, EarthCam allows you control over some of the cameras, with zoom, volume and cam manoeuvrability functions.


The only real downside to EarthCam? Well, while you get a picture of all these exotic and enticing places around the world, you don't actually get the real picture: you're not there to see it yourself. So, if you're actually paying for your Internet connection, I advise you learn to hack the local Starbucks' feed and stash that money in a savings account. Let those dollars roll up, and get yourself a plane ticket, dude. Budhapest is so much cooler than it looks.