The Week #251

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  • 🌎 Happy Earth Day! 18 years ago when I was an exchange student is when my interest in the environment really started to take hold. I was literally out seeing the world, watching movies like Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and reading books like Lester Brown:s Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.  ( This book is readily available in PDF from

    It all made sense to me. I tried (and failed) to gather a group of us to visit Earth Day Tokyo that was being held in Yoyogi. So I went by myself. I had a good time visiting the booths and being around people that cared about similar things. I wasn't alone. But I still had no idea how I could get involved professionally and "help the cause".
    Then and...

    This year I finally went back (with the fam)! I wouldn't have guessed that 18 years ago I'd be building the tech that is central to combating climate change and powering one of the main sponsors of the festival: Octopus Energy. Somehow I managed to find a way to help the cause.

    Back to this week – the Octopus Energy booth was really great. There was a bicycle you could pedal to generate electricity. I think it does a really good job at conveying just how much energy is required just to light a single bulb. Leo gave it a go but the bike was a little too big for him.
    Now

    Next year I hope to go again and maybe spend a more time at the booths, getting better connected to local environmental activities and to reinvigorate my granola-eating, Birkenstock wearing self.
  • ☀️ Fossil fuels fell below 50% of  US electricity for the first month on record (source). Further evidence that renewable grids will only accelerate. It's not only the morally right thing to do, but it's also the economical thing. Happy days when the moral and economic choice is the same.
  • 📞 With Skype shutting down in a few weeks, I ported my inbound number to a US carrier and an eSim on my phone. Slightly sad that I'll have a monthly $5 dollar charge instead of a yearly $23 fee, but alas. However, as the number is now connected to an actual cell carrier, I wonder if this will enable me to receive SMS and such like from banking applications now?
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