A concept for a train that never stops showed up on youtube recently. A very interesting idea, since this would save a lot of energy to accelerate the train and time that is otherwise wasted for passengers to get on and off the train. Have a look:

It really looks like a reasonable idea, but definitely has its technological challenges.

And the following version is for laughs. The echo makes this one sound like a public address, perfect communist style.

Why is this world racing at the speed of light – or so they tell us – yet strength lays in the calmness and endurance?

I read this post on swiss-miss this morning:

“Daddy, What’s a Brand?”

We live in The Age Of Everything. Why commit? There are 80 milllion Millennials aged 9-28 in the U.S. alone. Half are already in college or the workforce, and the women will be a tornado. They group around shared affinity more than shared nationality, they’re prosumers not consumers, and they care more about peer recommendation than corporate reputation. They grew up in a world where change is too fast to process, but they know one thing: if you wait a minute or two, something better is sure to be along. They live on an IV drip of real-time connection, and are fiercely interdependent. If you’re a company, failing to consider their preferences would be, in their own vernacular, WOMBAT–a waste of money, brains and time.

I don’t understand that things move so fast, but we generally don’t take the time off to renew ourselves, which truly lays in calmness and just letting time go by.

How do things like this time-piece fit in with the junkworld of Walmart products?

I’m always excited to see a few companies with great products and services at the green living show. Check out the following links (no particular order):

Sander Design (Landscape Architecture)
Martin Liefhebber (Architect)
Solares (Environmentally Integrated Homes)
Green Enterprise Ontario and Green Enterprise Toronto
Traffic Design with the Worlds Greenest Business Card
Project Innovations with its Water Recycling System

The following are companies that I discovered this year:

Chariot Carriers with their Bike Trailers (Respect for Manufacturing in Canada)
Living Arc – Green Roofs for Industrial Buildings (creating great environments in urban settings)
Fair Trade Jewelry Company (recycled silver + fair trade diamonds)
Wiggers Furniture (Great Furniture, made with FSC lumber)
Homestead House (I never knew about milk paint and how great it looks)

I think the big looser (with the worst product) at the show was:

GE with their heat pump water heater. Here’s why: The heat pump takes the temperature out of the surrounding air and “concentrates” it into the water (sorry for the simplistic description, I hope you understand it though). This effectively cools down the air in the room where the water heater is installed. Not a bad concept IF YOU LIVE IN TEXAS. Here in Ontario, you spend a lot of energy to put that heat into the air in the first place, why take it back out for the water heater?

Common sense not so common. Here is an example of a guy that wrote a letter to the editor at our local newspaper about how technology and cars evolve. Watch to see what I mean.