Is in Mali. Read about it here.


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I've posted about the invention of bottle lights before, the brilliant (literally!) idea that has really taken off in the developing world, particularly the Philippines. Here is an article about the inventor behind the concept. Congratulations, sir. Your humble idea is definitely making the world a better place.

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Here's a guy who has an immensely cool Decrease Worldsuck idea: the Civilization Starter Kit.



Marcin Jakubowski built a tractor in six days. Then he told the world how to do it: he made the designs, the budget and an instructional video available free online. A farmer and technologist and the founder of Open Source Ecology, Jakubowski has identified the 50 most important machines required for modern life—from the soil pulverizer to the oven—and is working to make a prototype of a low-cost DIY version of each so that anyone anywhere can build them. “If we can lower the barriers to farming, building and manufacturing,” he says, "then we can unleash massive amounts of human potential."



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is to Alicia in Bolivia, who will use the money for seeds (corn, potato and onion) and fertilizer.

I have a ways to go to catch up with jbru, who just funded his 39th loan. (Well, I have also invited seven people who've accepted my invitations to join Kiva, and they've made a total of 53 loans. So that's something!)

Kiva is offering FREE $25 trials to new lenders. Click here to learn more.

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This is a GREAT story. Watch this: it'll be the best ten minutes you'll spend today.

A 9-year-old boy spent the summer building a cardboard arcade in his dad’s small auto parts store in East L.A.

His first and only customer, who happened to be a filmmaker, decided to bring some more people to play.

9 year old Caine Monroy is about to have the best day of his life.




Oh, and by the way – if you go to the Caine’s Arcade site they put together, you’ll see that people have chipped in over $137,000+ for him to go to college. There's also a Facebook page.

This decreased worksuck in a major way. Kudos to the loving dad. George Monroy, who found a way to foster his son's creativity while running his business. Here's an interview done by the local NBC affiliate, which includes a short interview with the dad, and it's hilarious: "We're in a junkyard and this is the front office. So he started taking up half the office. And then he had three-quarters of the office, and I just kept moving over and over as he kept building. He kept using bigger boxes. Then he tried to make a ticket thing with a leaf blower. He made me go buy a leaf blower so he could blow tickets around inside the box. So we bought a leaf blower, we plugged it in and tickets were flying everywhere."

Kudos also to filmaker Nirvan Mullick, who took the trouble to NOTICE.

A short film by Nirvan, produced by Interconnected.

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The folks who brought us the Help for Haiti campaign, Andrew Slack of The Harry Potter Alliance and the rest of fannish folks he coordinated with to create the Imagine Better project, started dreaming big when news came that The Hunger Games was going to be made into a big movie. Why not harness that activist spirit to use the movie release to talk about hunger issues? And so they dreamed up a social media campaign called Hunger is Not a Game, which seeks to connect fans of the books (and movies) to the global food justice movement. See an article about it in the New York Times here.

Fans starting from the stories they love to make the world a better place. Sounds wonderful, right? But apparently not to Lionsgate, because on the very day of the movie release, Lionsgate sent a cease and desist letter, ordering Imagine Better to stop the campaign because it “is causing damage to Lionsgate and [their] marketing efforts.” See the cease and desist letter as reported here and here; the letter ends: "We are truly making an effort to work with you on this. We have the ability to take down your sites as a violation of our trademark and other intellectual property laws. We hope that will not be necessary as this is too serious a subject." Note the juxtaposition: "We want to work with you" with "We will Shut. You. Down."

Dumb move, Lionsgate. Very, very dumb. And the internet told them so. A change.org petition was set up and the response on social media has been swift. As the Leaky reporter puts it:

What is most startling about all of this, in my opinion, is how extremely aggressive Lionsgate is being, not even bothering to veil their threats of takedown and worse. Despite all of this, Mr. Slack has responded, cool as ever: “Fans have been changed by this story and have expressed a wish to change the world based on the message of this story. I would hope that Lionsgate would celebrate fans, not pick on them, for taking the message of their own movie seriously. It’s amazing that they’re working with two great partners already to fight hunger. But why get in the way of fans who are working with a third one?”

Do you see anything wrong with Andrew’s suggestion? No? Us neither. Finally, as Leakycon Lit-Day Organizer and Queen of the Internet Maureen Johnson puts it, “PR people and all relevant others: it’s shortsighted (and stupid) to try to protect your “brand” from positive fan involvement and charity. Also, if you (again PR and relevant types) think you can control the media narrative anymore-that kind of thinking will bite you in the ass.”

Lionsgate seems to have cottoned on. The LA Times now reports that Lionsgate is backing down.

As well they should.

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Check out Emotional Bag Check. Here's an article about it in Wired magazine:

Life sucks, right? But music makes it better. That’s the worldview behind Emotional Bag Check — a site that lets you suggest songs to cheer people up.

It’s simple. Go to Emotional Bag Check, and choose whether you want to offload a problem or help out with someone else’s.

If you want to get something off your chest, all you need to do is type what the problem is, provide an e-mail address, and someone will read it and return a song they think is relevant along with (optionally) a message of support.

If everything’s going pretty well for you, and you just want to help other people out, then you’ll be confronted with someone’s problem and asked to pick a song that’ll make them feel better. Here, a sense of duty suddenly kicks in — you’ve got a direct line to someone’s heart, and you don’t want to waste it. You’ll find yourself taking a substantial amount of time to choose a song that’s just right for the situation, as if this person were a close friend.

The developer, Robyn, answers FAQ questions here. Also on Twitter at @emobagcheck.

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What I did this year to decrease worldsuck:

( JanuaryCollapse )

( FebruaryCollapse )

( MarchCollapse )

( AprilCollapse )

( MayCollapse )

( JuneCollapse )

( JulyCollapse )

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For those of you who were around when I celebrated my fiftieth birthday, you may remember I did a campaign to raise money for Charity:Water (with your help, I raised approximately $2000, which was 2/5 of what's needed to install a well). Charity:Water promised to report back to let me know exactly how my money would be used in eighteen months. I have received the following message from them:

Hi Peg,

By now you’ve heard from us about Dollars to Projects, and that we’re sending you proof of the water projects you funded through mycharity: water. It’s been about 15 months since we sent your money to the field, and you’ve been so patient.

We need just a little more time.

We’re sorry to say it, but we need some more time to report on the individual water projects that you helped to fund. Your projects were due this December, but things are moving a bit slower than expected. We plan to send your Dollars to Projects data in mid-2012 so you can see how every dollar you raised helped fund projects for people in need.

( For now, we’d like to share some info about the country, region, and partner putting your funds to work in the fieldCollapse )

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about one of my favorite decrease worldsuck ideas: solar water bottles.




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