Next time you make a run for the border don’t forget to bring along all the old decrepit cell phones from your junk drawer. As our rock-n-roll programmer Shawn demonstrates, recycling your old phones is easier than ordering two bean burritos.

Taco Bell’s new marketing slogan is “The only thing greener than our guacamole is our phone recycling bin.” Although catchy, I think “The only thing greener than our guacamole is any other restaurants guacamole” would be more accurate.

All joking aside, it’s nice to see big companies making an effort to help out the Earth, which has given so much to them.

Pardon the diversion, but I have to share.

Gas prices are steadily rising and the AC on my 1998 Honda Civic is teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown. So as of June 1st, I decided to embark on a mission to get through the summer* on one tank of gas**. (Driving is for sissies!)

With approximately 11 gallons in a full tank, and let’s say conservatively I get 25 miles to the gallon around town, that leaves me about 275 miles of driving through the end of August. That’s approximately 20 miles per week.

In the 20 days since I’ve started my quest, I’ve already burned through maybe 1/5 of a tank. Fortunately, if you can call it that, divine intervention is preventing me from burning through any more gas at the moment. I very flat tire. I’ll probably just let my car chill till the weekend and get it fixed then. In the meantime, I am getting used to walking and biking just about everywhere — the grocery store, the gym, work.

Not only does the flat tire prevent me from immediately driving, it also forced me to clear out all the junk from my trunk in order to access the spare and jack. I bet I’m at least 40 pounds lighter back there. I knew I had junk in my trunk, but not that much junk.

I realize that this is nothing. Many people take the car and gas problem totally out of the equation all together. Still, I think for me, this is a reasonable and positive goal for my wallet and the planet.

Take that, oil cartels of the world!

And check out Nick’s post on Gas Saving Tips for some more ways you can save on gas.

*My “summer” will run from June 1st to August 31st.
**I’m also cheating — I can’t count the one trip to Duluth I have planned (which pretty much burns exactly one tank of gas.)

With gas prices soaring and no end in sight, many drivers are adopting new habits to help ease the pain. Lifehacker, The Consumerist and many other sites offer great millage stretching tips, but some of my favorites are not usually mentioned.

#1 - Order At The Counter
If you frequent fast-food joints, or anything with a drive through window, don’t idle in a long line of cars. Instead, park and order inside. It will probably take about the same amount of time, and you won’t be sitting in your car getting 0 MPG.

Keep reading for the rest of my tips.

Read the rest of this entry »

The hunt for alternative fuels is heating up, with corn-based ethanol seemingly the front runner to replace oil. Mexican farmers are even destroying fields of the rare Blue Agave cactus, which is used to make premium Tequila, in favor of planting corn.

However, there is another crop that can be grown easier and yield more ethanol per acre — grass. Specifically Switchgrass, nature’s shag carpet. This native US crop grows in tall bunches all over the country, and needs very little fertilizer.

With a high ratio of energy in vs. energy out, and carbon dioxide absorbing properties, Switchgrass could be the energy of the future. It has my vote, the last thing I want to see is Tequila prices skyrocket.

If you are like me and have built a multitude of computers over the years, you surely have a box or two of spare parts lying around. I call mine “Nick’s Box Of Wonders.” When desperate enough I reach into this treasure trove of outdated RAM and ZIP disks to bring a sickly machine back to life, upgrade an old clunker, or even build a Frankenputer.

Some parts however, I find myself passing up each time I dip into the collection. I eventually give up on these unique items, and they get squired away forever or tossed. One such item is a really cool XEON heat sink. I couldn’t imagine just throwing it out, so instead I found three new uses for it:

A Business Card Holder - very classy

An iPod Dock - just add any sync cable

An Inbox - No one else in my office sorts mail like this

A pretty interesting view of of our culture and environmental issues through art. Artist Chris Jordan is working on a series called “Running the Numbers : An American self portrait” - where statistics are converted to images in the form of large format art works. As the description states, I can imagine they are even more impressive when seen in person but these works are pretty astonishing (and startling) at any scale.