Emily Tobias

I came across this company via the core77 blog.

(from the blog)

Toronto-based design group Castor gets called a lot of names, especially sustainable—that S word whose egregious misuse irks us so. Not that Castor isn’t sustainable, there are just so many better ways to describe them.

As far as their actual products are concerned, we suggest descriptors like recycled, or perhaps upcycled. The short doc, Castor is French For Beaver (it is—we checked), recently made by Carling Acthim and Lana Mauro, takes a closer look at two of Castor’s best known lighting designs, the Tank Light and the Tube Light, both of which re-purpose cast off materials like old fire extinguishers and burnt out halogen tubes and turn them into hanging light fixtures whose final form is completely removed from their previous lives.

CASTOR IS FRENCH FOR BEAVER | Carling Acthim & Lana Mauro from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo.

Here are some stills of their final products.

Toy Boats – A Sydney Tilt-shift Time-lapse from Nathan Kaso on Vimeo.

I just watched and fell in love with the aesthetics of this short film. One of the reasons why is that my father has a model railroad and this effect reminds me of the trains… I think when I was little I imagined that the trains and people would come to life in the model railroad and run around like this video! Enjoy!

from the vimeo website:

(text taken from the Wired website)

One big problem with renewable energy projects is that they have to go somewhere. They have to occupy a part of the very environment that their proponents are often trying to save.

Photographer Jamey Stillings beautifully captures this tension in his images of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS). Located in Southern California’s Mojave Desert, the plant aims to eventually be the largest solar thermal power plant in the world – making enough electricity to run 140,000 homes all by focusing the sun’s energy to create steam.

Problem is, the system is located smack in the middle of the threatened desert tortoise habitat and the companies that built the system have already had to allocate $56 million to care for and relocate these ground dwellers. At least one major environmental group has argued the plant should have never been built on its current location.

I am currently loving the illustration of Helen Eady. Here are some of my favorites!

Please enjoy this beautiful video by the oh so talented blogger Oh Joy!

It made me smile, I hope it brings happiness to your day as well.

Make Someone Happy – No. 03: Food & Friends from Oh Joy on Vimeo.