Ted Ritzer: EcoTourism

ZON Dollars Where the Virtual & Real World Collides for Good in the World

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 23:36:47 GMT

ZON DOLLARS CONCEPT-JAN 1, 2007

Dear Google Org, Amazon and Linden Labs People:

I submit this idea for your consideration:

It has been posted to the Internet via Google docs, its URL is:

http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dcjvvpr5_2frhqm6

ZON Dollars Where the Virtual & Real World Collides for Good in the World:

The idea for ZON dollars has its roots in three things I read as the final moments of 2006 played out:

1. Allision H Fine's wonderful new book: "Momentum-igniting social change in the connected age.", which can be purchased at Amazon. 2. Amazon's new project that uses 37signals Ruby on Rails to build a new application called Unspun , which is based on an application Amazon has called the mechanical Turk. 3.An article called: "What is Second Life?" Of course, the reference to a virtual currency comes directly from Second Life's "The Linden dollar".

I guess the challenge delivered by Allision Fine in her book: "Momentum" is how do we harness technology and the economy to do good?

ZON dollars is my attempt at doing just that through the creation of a virtual currency that at its core involves both voluteerism and doing good throughout the world.

ZON dollars can only be earned by:

1. individuals or corporations donating to recognized charities(those that can issues tax receipts) for conversion into ZON dollars, for the sole purpose of motivating people to do good. through the use of those ZON dollars. 2. doing virtual work through participating companies like Amazon's Mechanical Turk Service, a portion, determined by the worker goes to charities in the form of ZON dollars, while the remainder goes to the virtual worker, to be used as they see fit. 3. corporations who are so confident of the worth of their product that they openly invite comparision by consumers, donate ZON dollars to encourge concensus rankings of their product using Amazon's new Unspun service. People are encouraged to vote on the best products i in those categories, and the ZON dollars are distributed to the charity that the sponsoring corporation names when they open the community concensus on their product category.

ZON dollars can be converted to:

1. real currency for use to purchase goods at Amazon.com or via Google's new ecommerce system. 2. they can be converted to Linden dollars for use in Second Life.

So I guess those are my inititial thoughts related to the ZON dollar concept, I will now publish this, and also email the concept to the above named entities that could actually implement the concept, a. Google.org, Amazon's Unspun & Second Life.

As Allision Fine's book title says, I wonder if this concept will:

'ignite social change in the connected age"

Sincerely

Gregers Ritzer-January 1, 2007

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 17:18:15 GMT

Top 10 Astronomy Images of 2006. The Bad Astronomer writes "Astronomical observatories on the ground and in space return many terabytes of data every year. But which bytes are the best? I combed through thousands of pictures to find the Top 10 astronomy images of the year."

[Slashdot]

Fri, 25 Nov 2005 00:12:32 GMT

EcoModo - The Best of Treehugger.

This week at Treehugger: A Weapon of Mosquito Destruction: The Mosquito Magnet. A Hand-Powered Night Vision Monocular that allows you to see in the dark without batteries. Hewlett Packard decides that having toxic flame retardant on the outside of its laptop casings might not be such a good idea. Also, from the Crazy But Cool Department, a man builds a private island out of empty soda cans (can this be called a Do-It-Yourself island?), and finally, we have a look at how Google and PowerEscape fight runaway energy consumption.

The person who invented this cross between a barbecue and a motorboat really hates mosquitoes! Lucky for us, he or she also had a dislike for insecticide and these glowing traps that vaporize insect dust in the air we breathe. The way this "biting insect trap" works is by emitting a fake "breath" of CO2 with a scent that is attractive to the little vampires (mosquitoes locate their victims primarily with exhaled carbon dioxide). The device then sucks in the bugs in a radius of up to 1.25 acres (around 5,000 square meters) and dehydrates them (and then turns them into MREs?).

This device is a night vision scope, and quite fortuitously, it doesn't require any batteries. Instead, it's has a lever-activated power supply, so you can generate your own power ad hoc, and thereby see in the night, without fear of energy failure (that is, unless a sudden lassitude engulfs you).

Hewlett Packard has announced that it will remove a bromated flame retardant (BFR) from the outer case parts of all new products released after December of 2006. BFRs have been associated with endocrine disruption and impairment of mental skills, and have been found in women’s breast milk. Bromated flame retardants in electronics can also make e-waste more hazardous. For something that is supposed to make the product safer, it sure seems dangerous.

We couldn't make this stuff up: this man, Reishee Sowa of Puerto Aventuras, Mexico, apparently grew tired of trying to live self-sufficiently on dry land, and did what any of us would have done. He built his own island out of used pop bottles. 250,000 of them, plus some construction leftovers and bags of leaves, make up "his island," though he's quick to point out that it's technically not an island by traditional standards. "You see not even the president is allowed his own island in Mexico," he says, "but technically I don’t have an island, I have an eco space-creating ship."

Google vice president of operations Urs Hoelzle told us in a TG Daily article a little about Google's energy efficiency problems and how it tries to solve them, and this post is about PowerEscape Insight, a way to optimize software so that the hardware it runs on requires less power. It can of course be applied to computers, but also certainly to all kinds of electronic that might run software that makes chips run hotter than they should.

Treehugger’s EcoModo column appears every Tuesday on Gizmodo.

[Gizmodo]

Sat, 19 Nov 2005 16:54:27 GMT

Republicans' wild Western land grab. A historic makeover of mining laws could sell out tens of millions of public acres for drilling, casinos and condos. [Salon salon]

Fri, 03 Dec 2004 01:57:17 GMT

BBC: Blog picked as word of the year. Slow news day. [Scripting News]

Tue, 06 Jan 2004 17:43:47 GMT

Mexico Breaks Ground on Sustainable Tourist Destination [GreenBiz | News Center]

Sat, 27 Dec 2003 02:54:46 GMT

Nature Netwowrk-webcams of animals from around the world

Fri, 26 Dec 2003 18:11:39 GMT

Calculate Your Ecological Footprint

Fri, 26 Dec 2003 05:38:05 GMT

Wildlife Brings £4.8 Billion to the UK Economy - Study [Environmental News Network - ENN.com]

What is your animal personality?

Wed, 24 Dec 2003 18:10:59 GMT

What is your animal personality?

Stolen from Pesons Nos Maux, who got it from Quizilla:

What Is Your Animal Personality ?
What Is Your Animal Personality?
brought to you by Quizilla

Wed, 24 Dec 2003 17:54:48 GMT

Merry Christmas from the Accordian Guy worth repeating:

Stole this file from the above site, cause I think it really does capture some of both the frustration and the joy of Xmas.

All the best from WIFLblog and enjoy the Accordian Guy's Christmas story, and don't forget to visit his site:

the Accordian Guy Christmas story now follows:

Merry Christmas, and I mean it in the nice sense of the phrase

by Joey deVilla on December 24, 2003 12:13PM (EST)

This is from last year (with a little polishing up), but it's worth repeating.

While I do believe that some traditions should be put to rest, I also believe that a lot of tradition-bashers are poor-impulse-control cases. Having abandones any actual tradition or culture of their own, they fill the void with a couple of < href="http://www.utne.com/">Utne Reader platitudes, a mild revulsion for anything even vaguely Judeo-Christian, even if it aligns with their beliefs, a pro-pot slant and a half-formed belief in eye-for-eye karmic payback.

Standing for almost nothing, they tend to fall for just about anything.

Chris Baldwin's summed it up pretty handily -- and perhaps unintentionally -- in a Bruno comic from last year:

To borrow the line about Klansmen and Martin Luther King Day: C'mon, Bruno, how hardcore a secularist must you be to not want a day off?

Of course, those of us who celebrate Christmas would argue the exact opposite: here we took a beautiful Christian holdiay and destroyed it through corportization and "We're white, we're straight, we're sorry!" guilt.

(There's a Randroid who would take another tack and say "here we took a beautiful commerical holiday and destroyed it in usual religious fashion." Haven't we developed some kind of Ayn Rand repellent yet?)

In the end, I believe that intent counts.

I'm certain there is no malice, no implicit "convert or die" message and no forcing of one's beliefs on others when someone wishes someone else a Happy Chanukah, Eid, Diwali, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia, Tet or even Festivus, the actions of certain vicious zealots notwithstanding. Balanced minds do not see any implied Hitler overtones at Oktoberfest nor Hirohito/Tojo insinuations at the sushi house, and neither do they see the Crusades in Christmas.

When people say "Merry Christmas", most of them are really saying "Happy Holidays, and I'm celebrating them Christmas-style. You do your thing, and I'll do mine. Come by for drinks."

That what I'm really saying, anyways.

No matter what you believe, enjoy the break from the hustle and bustle of 21st century life. Be nice to each other. Hug someone you love.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Sat, 20 Dec 2003 03:01:01 GMT

Down As She Goes MP3

Fri, 19 Dec 2003 21:26:59 GMT

10,000 Birds

one of the few birding blogs in existence!

Check it out at:

http://www.10000birds.com/links.htm

Sat, 13 Dec 2003 05:49:02 GMT

SSC Sustainable Use Specialist Group. A new collaborative project is working to develop tools for the management of wild living resources from a quantitative review of the factors that determine sustainability [IUCN Species Survival Commission]

Sat, 13 Dec 2003 05:35:33 GMT

Beyond Backpacking. Super ultra lightweight camping [Cool Tools]

Sat, 13 Dec 2003 05:35:05 GMT

Building the Six-Hour Canoe. Cheap way onto water [Cool Tools]

Tue, 09 Dec 2003 03:50:36 GMT

The World's Cheapest Destinations

Mon, 08 Dec 2003 02:18:55 GMT

First Ever Lawsuit Filed By Non Profit Environmental Education Foundation [Environmental News Network - ENN.com]

Sat, 06 Dec 2003 04:39:44 GMT

Robert Macfarlane on a nature writing renaissance. Books: Nature writing in Britain has been in decline for 70 years. But Guardian First Book Award-winner Robert Macfarlane detects signs of a renaissance [Guardian Unlimited]

Wed, 03 Dec 2003 04:20:21 GMT

Community Partnership Leads to Reconstruction of Tourist Lodge in Botswana [African Wildlife Foundation: News and Headlines]

Wed, 03 Dec 2003 02:29:47 GMT

$1,000 reward for bald eagle killer [CBC Edmonton]

Wed, 03 Dec 2003 02:15:23 GMT

ECOLEX: WORLDíS LARGEST ENVIRONMENTAL LAW DATABASE LAUNCHED ON THE WEB [IUCN - The World Conservation Union]

Wed, 03 Dec 2003 02:10:50 GMT

Canada's boreal forest would be spared under conservation accord [Environmental News Network - ENN.com]

Sat, 29 Nov 2003 23:20:10 GMT

Norris promotes skiing in Alberta to British travel media [News - Government of Alberta]

Sat, 29 Nov 2003 05:05:53 GMT

Bird Sound Recording Workshop [Cornell Lab of Ornithology]

Sat, 29 Nov 2003 04:57:03 GMT

The Chinchaga Wilderness

November 25: The provincial government today announced that logging will be prohibited in a 3,500 square kilometer region immediately north of the existing Chinchaga Wildland Park.

Click here to download the CPAWS press release
Click here to download the government press release

New booklet on the Chinchaga released by CPAWS!
Click here to download the pdf file (800 KB)

Wed, 26 Nov 2003 05:05:57 GMT

Government and Corporate Leaders Demonstrate That "Conservation is Good Business" in Africa President of Botswana Highlights Benefits of Sustainable Development in Africa [African Wildlife Foundation: News and Headlines]

Wed, 26 Nov 2003 04:56:17 GMT

The Ultimate On-the-Fly Network. Here's how a flock of reclusive seabirds became pioneers of pervasive computing. A case study from the sensor net frontier. By Martha Baer from Wired magazine. [Wired News]

Tue, 25 Nov 2003 06:06:08 GMT

Ski resort needs another look: environmentalists [CBC Calgary]

Tue, 25 Nov 2003 06:00:06 GMT

NatureServerExplorer-an online encyclopedia of life

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:54:07 GMT

Rejuvenating Our Innate Love of Nature Motivates Social and Environmental Activism [Environmental News Network - ENN.com]

Thu, 20 Nov 2003 01:11:51 GMT

What Foreign Ecotourists Expect [Earth Island Institute: What's New]

Wed, 19 Nov 2003 15:01:03 GMT

Satellite Swan Tracking Project:

Long Point Tundra Swan Monitoring Project

Tue, 18 Nov 2003 03:32:34 GMT

Petzl Myo 5 Headlamp. Serious hands-free night lighting [Cool Tools]

WIFLblog nominated to BlogsCanada Top Blogs list

Tue, 04 Nov 2003 01:43:25 GMT

WIFLBlog nominated to BlogsCanada's Top Blog list

so the little banner with the maple leaf represents that latest honor, and the following email was what notified me of this honor, thanks BlogsCanada!

"Hi Ted,

In October, WIFLblog was nominated to BlogsCanada's Top Blogs list. The November
2003 top ten list has now been published and your site is included. Congrats!

The Top Blogs page is at http://www.blogscanada.ca/topblogs/.

Best Regards,

Jim Elve
www.blogscanada.ca"

As is appropriate you will also see Dave Pollard's How To Save The World, another Canadian Salon blog, has also been nomiated to BlogsCanada's top blog list. I must admit to stealing a number of Dave's great articles and reposting them on WIFLblog. Check Dave's blog out for yourself at:

http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/

Sun, 02 Nov 2003 19:04:08 GMT

World Heritage Site Map

free PDF file for downoad, click above link

Mon, 27 Oct 2003 03:43:37 GMT

Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2003 [Surfbirds.com - World Birding News - Wild Birds and Birding]

Sun, 26 Oct 2003 01:56:00 GMT

The Green Volunteers:

If you would like to volunteer for some international conservation projects check out The Green Volunteers at:

http://www.greenvol.com/index.html

Fri, 24 Oct 2003 05:07:05 GMT

Love nature? It's in our genes [Environmental News Network - ENN.com]

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 13:15:27 GMT

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, FORESTS AND EDUCATION AT THE CORE OF LATEST IUCN UNGA ADDRESS [IUCN - The World Conservation Union]

Tue, 21 Oct 2003 23:35:04 GMT

CanadianWolves.net to highlight wolf issues across Canada [Environmental News Network - ENN.com]

Tue, 21 Oct 2003 19:56:36 GMT

Hinterland Who's Who spoofs

These 60 second wildlife videos were broadcast in Canada for decades, they were so well known, they spawned their own spoofs.

Try them here, caution not suitable for young children:

http://www.hww.ca/media.asp?mcid=4

I think my favorite is the Canadian Mountain Kangaroo!

On the other hand both the old and the new real CWS Hinterland Who's Who are completely suitable for children, try them out at:

http://www.hww.ca/media.asp

Or if you would like some audio clips of wildlife, primarily birds try this link:

http://www.hww.ca/media.asp?mcid=5

Tue, 21 Oct 2003 16:51:46 GMT

10,000 Birds Blog

Just found a great new birding blog that is well worth checking out, try it at:

http://www.10000birds.com/team.htm

Tue, 21 Oct 2003 03:00:38 GMT

Sir David Attenborough joins World Land Trust as a Patron [Conservation News from the WLT]

Tue, 21 Oct 2003 00:08:01 GMT

World Land Trust to exhibit Wildlife Art [Environmental News Network - ENN.com]

Sat, 18 Oct 2003 05:36:24 GMT

Top court to rule on value of Canada's natural resources [Sierra Legal Defence Fund]

Sun, 12 Oct 2003 22:13:12 GMT

Conservationists Bring the Castle Wilderness to Albertans [Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS)]

Sun, 12 Oct 2003 22:07:06 GMT

Greening the Ivory Towers [OneWorld.net -]

Sun, 05 Oct 2003 23:44:12 GMT

Ontario government stonewalls protection for national park wolves [CNF MEDIA ROOM]

WIFLblog Recommends Recommendo

Sun, 05 Oct 2003 23:31:34 GMT

I revisited Kevin Kelly's Recommendo site

http://www.kk.org/cooltools/

And I have to say it is filled to the brim with cool tools, well worth a look.

For those of you from the 60-70 era, Kevin worked with Steward Brand of the Whole Earth Review and Catalogs, before he left and started up Wired Magazine.