Emily Gertz

For Popular Mechanics: "Build Your Own Electromagnetic Interference Detector"

2012-05-15T19:11:20Z

I'm thrilled to have an Environmental Monitoring with Arduino project in the June issue (already online) of Popular Mechanics. We adapted the electromagnetic interference (EMI) detector to PopMech because it strikes a good balance of fun, easy DIY with pragmatic results:

Once operating correctly, the EMI gadget can find the energy vampires hidden in home or office: devices that appear to be turned off, but continue to suck down a trickle of "standby power" to operate features like digital clocks or remote control sensors.

Added up across the average two-dozen-plus consumer electronic devices in a household, times tens of millions of households, standby power use can significantly the nation's load of energy-driven air pollution (including climate-altering greenhouse gas pollution), as well as our electric bills.

At least it's easy to find...if you build and use this gadget.

My latest for Ecomagination: "Curves Ahead: A twisting tower could advance Vancouver's green goals"

2012-05-14T15:08:33Z

My new byline for Ecomagination covers "Beach and Howe," a proposed complex of low+mid-rise buildings plus skyscraper designed to revitalize street life around Vancouver's Granville Bridge, while advancing the city's goals around high-density sustainable development in its downtown.

Early blogospheric attention on the design was focused on the skyscraper's dramatic (even sexy) curve-and-twist, as well as the conceptual pollution-absorbing gardens.

But what's really compelling, 21st-C urban green about Beach and Howe is how it's nestling into the oddly shaped urban spaces left behind by elevated highways and bridges, and converting them into a welcoming, functioning neighborhood. If it gets built. (And it seems to be on track toward final approval.)

Completing this article turned into a bear *, because it was harder than expected to land an interview with the architect/the architecture firm. There would have been a big hole in the piece without that key conversation.

But it was wonderful to speak with several smart people -- one of journalism's primary joys, speaking with smart people -- about this design specifically, and the possibilities of sustainable cities generally. And I've got a new book on the to-read list: Patrick Condon's Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities: Design Strategies for the Post Carbon World.

* No offense intended to actual bears.

Slideshow: "Environmental Monitoring With Arduino" goes to the Gowanus Canal!

2012-03-29T00:27:19Z

Must Listen: This American Life/@ThisAmerLife's gutsy, wrenching "Retraction" of its Apple story

2012-03-17T17:01:02Z

Since being alerted that material in a past broadcast--the most listened-to broadcast in the show's history--was very likely fabricated, the radio show This American Life hasn't just retracted the story. It's just released its examination of how it ended up putting the material on the air at all.

To retain or re-earn public trust, TAL chose to handle its mistake transparently, instead of grudgingly or totally out of sight. I find this remarkable--not because I'd expect less of TAL, but because so few people ever heed Watergate's alpha lesson: The cover-up is always worse than the crime.

If you listen to "Retraction" via streaming or podcast, go ahead and donate some money to TAL. Bandwidth costs, and with this story the TAL crew has only underlined how deserving it is of our dollars. Or, save yourself some guilt by finding it on the terrestrial radio, or buying a TAL mobile app.

Full disclosure: The TAL story, as well as its retraction, deal with working conditions at Apple factories in China. I use Apple products and own shares of Apple stock.

Monday Cheer: Rachel Maddow demonstrates how to make a champagne cocktail

2012-03-05T20:28:39Z

Short, sweet, and clear as a champagne flute:

Important Independent Journalist Disclaimer: No endorsement of Howdini is intended or implied in the re-posting of this video. Enthusiasm for journalists making champagne cocktails, however, is fully endorsed.

Friday Cat Blogging: Downton Tabby

2012-02-24T12:34:24Z

"I killz him wit my sex...Ummmm...haz to moov body."

If not pitch-perfect, still funny. Particularly if you a Downton fan (guilty), relish internet cat humor (let's not even go there), and like poking a sharpened stick at the pretensions of event television.

My New Book Is Out! "Environmental Monitoring With Arduino" from @OReillyMedia

2012-02-02T18:52:41Z

Want to know the temperature? Humidity? Noise level? Local radiation?

We can measure that!

My new book is out: Environmental Monitoring With Arduino, published in both e-book and print formats by O'Reilly Media, co-authored with Wired's guru of "What's Inside," Patrick Di Justo.*

Our book features several projects combining open source computer programming and environmental sensors. Each one shows any DIY electronics maker, even beginners, how to build their own gadgets that monitor noise levels, detect electromagnetic interference (phantom/vampire energy drain), measure local, radioactivity, and more.

We also explain how to put your data online on web pages, Twitter, and the crowd-sourcing data network Pachube.

Patrick and I began devising these projects as a means to teach me Arduino and circuit-building. O'Reilly has been an enthusiastic partner in bringing them to the wider world. Now we're looking forward to seeing how people build, hack, and improve upon our original designs.

* Patrick is also co-author of The Science of Battlestar Galactica.

Friday Cat Blogging: DIY Tweeting Arduino Cat Toy

2012-01-27T17:26:46Z

Arduino On My Mind Dept: My new O'Reilly book, Environmental Monitoring With Arduino, is here! So lately I've been eyeballing maker, hacker, and crafter blogs and feeds more avidly.

I deeply admire that Mark de Vinck devoted so much thoughtful attention to designing and building and decorating this Kitty Twitty Cat Toy -- it tweets a message when Tabby bashes at the little lure on the wire -- because my utilitarian mindset does not bend naturally toward this approach to using Arduino.

Then again, the true Rulers of the Internet must be appeased.

Image and link via Make Magazine

Friday Cat Blogging: I dream of George

2011-12-23T18:03:55Z

He's warm and relaxed, sitting on my lap, flitting his tail expressively (very George, that) as I stroke him from head to rump. Under my hand, it feels just like George's fur felt: soft, thick.

In the real world he's still dead, I don't forget that. But we are getting this special chance to visit together, outside of time and space.

George front, Pushkin back, April 2009:

Latest @TPM Byline: "UN Seeks Help in Poverty Fight From Social Media Gurus"

2011-12-20T16:16:57Z

Excerpt (also, a run-on sentence, for which I'm fully culpable):

"With around five million cell phones in use around the world today -- and that number poised to only grow exponentially in the coming years, especially in developing regions -- mobile connectivity remains one of the most powerful tools that UN staff should harness, said Adam Hirsch, Chief Operating Officer of social media blog Mashable, particularly if and as online payment systems around the world start to standardize around a few protocols and systems, such as near field communications or NFC (also called "wave and pay" technology -- found most prominently in Google Wallet technology)."

Read the whole thing at Talking Points Memo Idea Lab.

Friday Cat Blogging: How to gift-wrap a cat

2011-12-08T23:04:43Z

(Oops, hit the publish button too early. Well, it's Friday somewhere...)

H/T The Consumerist

Latest Byline: "Earthscraper Concept Takes Sustainable Design Underground," for Ecomagination

2011-11-22T16:19:15Z

"Earthscraper has become the architectural equivalent of a shot heard 'round the world. Since first surfacing this past summer on a handful of major design and tech blogs like archdaily.com, thetechnologyreview.com, and gizmag.com, this conceptual design for a 65-story, 82,000-square-foot inverted pyramid underneath Mexico City now commands over a quarter-million stories in diverse publications around the globe.

"Why has the experimental skyscraper design, created for a 2009 "Skyscrapers of the Future" competition in the architecture magazine eVolo, attracted so much attention?"...read the rest at Ecomagination.

Latest Byline: "This Guy's Toast," Q&A with designer of "The Toaster Project," for OnEarth

2011-11-15T01:49:51Z

Designer Thomas Thwaites is on The Colbert Report tonight. [Updated on 11/15 with link to the video-EJG]

I recently interviewed him for OnEarth Magazine about "The Toaster Project," his attempt to "build a simple electric appliance from scratch."

Here's an excerpt:

Something I really like about The Toaster Project is that you use a light touch when discussing environmental problems that other writers go at with a sledge hammer.

I think that approach is slightly retrograde. It's not looking forward. The fact is, you can't just stop, rebuild everything, and then start again on a different kind of path. The only way is to gradually move towards changing things for the better.

Everyone is constrained by their lives. In a way, we have free choice about everything we do, but who's got the time and energy to make those free choices according to conscience all the time?

I call that "the underwear problem." No matter how much you want to shop ethically, or how much money you spend, your underwear is going to be this mass-produced commodity, made too cheaply by people who may not have been treated very well. But who has the time and skills to opt out by making their own underwear?

You can go to absurd lengths, living in a sort of teepee in the forest and growing your own food. That's nice as a project, but it's not a solution to a problem that is a global consumer problem. There's no way smallholding is going to feed the seven billion people in the world. That kind of retreat is not useful, I think....read the rest at OnEarth Magazine.

"Ms Bialek is the face of prejudice that Cain has been waiting for."

2011-11-08T15:54:21Z

Perceptive comment by user Arf about Herman Cain's motivations and goals, in response to this John Cassidy post at The New Yorker:

Herman is not worried about the allegation rendering his Presidential campaign a failure. He is not running for President. His concern is the impact on his bid to be a Fox New's [sic] analyist. Like Sista Sarah, he can play the victim wronged by false accusations. Ms Bialek's narrative given under the eagle eye of Ms. Alred's representation fits the false accusation narrative perfectly. Bialek is the "she-said" half of the tale and nothing more. Interesting that she attended a Tea-party function, has high profile legal representation and recites facts that fit a social, and not strictly business narrative. To succeed in Sarah World Mr. Cain must have a coterie of accusers. Ms Bialek is the face of prejudice that Cain has been waiting for.

Latest Byline: "Nanocrystal Device Could Be The Next Big Battery," for TPM IdeaLab

2011-10-28T00:55:31Z

A small Wyoming company believes it may have discovered a game-changing alternative to conventional batteries.

On Tuesday, materials scientist Michael Haag introduced attendees of the two-day World Technology Summit to the "Quantum Energy Device" or QED -- a battery of sorts made not from chemicals, but from silicon nanocrystals.

Haag is founder and chief technology officer of Universal Nanotech, a small Cheyenne, Wyo.-based start-up company.

Haag said the device keeps a charge dozens of hours longer than a typical AAA alkaline battery, and at a fraction of the weight.

In early testing, he said, a regular alkaline battery containing more than 20 grams of active material discharged all its power along a bell curve in 2.5 to 3.5 hours, while the QED, with only 300 micrograms (less than a tenth of a gram) of active material, maintained an even level of power for five days...read the rest at Talking Points Memo IdeaLab.

Image: Universal Nanotechnology's silicon nanocrystals