Oct 14 2008 Elephants Text Message Rangers To Warn Villages Of Their Impending Doom

Several elephants (including a male named Kimani) in Kenya's Ol Pejeta conservancy have special collars that send text messages to park rangers should they start to venture too close to a village.

The huge bull elephant had a long history of raiding villagers' crops during the harvest, sometimes wiping out six months of income at a time. But this time a mobile phone card inserted in his collar sent rangers a text message. Lesowapir, an armed guard and a driver arrived in a jeep bristling with spotlights to frighten Kimani back into the Ol Pejeta conservancy.

Not a bad idea. The texting comes as a result of having to kill several other elephants as a result of their crop-destroying behaviors. Kimani is the last of a group of six regular raiders, and has already been deterred 15 times by his texting. Now if I could just rig up something similar for my girlfriends when they venture too close to the house unexpected....

UPDATE: F*** it, I'm going with shock collars.

Kenya's elephants send text messages to rangers [yahoonews]

Thanks to Romeo and Jason, who have both put on shock collars and taken turns running across an invisible fence.

Jun 11 2008 Washer Works With A Single Cup Of Water

Well we've seen water conserving washing machines before, but in this age of waste, there can never be enough conceptual green washers. And now inventors at Leeds University claim to have invented a washer than can efficiently clean clothes using only (two girls) one cup of water and a bunch of plastic chips.

The process is based on the use of plastic granules (or chips) which are tumbled with the clothes to remove stains. A range of tests, carried out according to worldwide industry protocols to prove the technology performs to the high standards expected in the cleaning industry, show the process can remove virtually all types of everyday stains as effectively as existing processes whilst leaving clothes as fresh as normal washing. In addition, the clothes emerge from the process almost dry, reducing the need for tumble-driers. Xeros' technology uses as little as a cup of water in each wash cycle and could also bring benefits to other industrial processes such as wastewater treatment and metal degreasing.

Interesting. There is speculation as to whether the energy (and oil) involved in manufacturing the plastic chips necessary to wash clothes outweighs the water saved. So we'll see how that plays out. Regardless though, those stupid inventors have it all wrong. Screw using plastic chips, they need to build a washer that cleans with Doritos. Now that's a freaking washer.

Washing Machine Drinks Just One Cup of Water Per Wash [uk.gizmodo]

Thanks to Andrea, who washes clothes the old fashioned way, by buying new ones

Mar 21 2008 Washing Machine/Toilet Combo Saves Water

If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times -- just pee in the freaking shower like a normal person. Well for those of you out there that want to go green but don't want to pee on your foot, there's the WashUP washing machine/toilet combo. Basically after a load of clothes are washed the machine saves the water to later flush the toilet. As an added bonus if you happen to run out of toilet paper you can just grab one of your roommates shirts out of the thing. Awesome design. Now I can die happy knowing I've seen what a washing machine would look like riding piggy back on a shitter.

WashUP: A washing machine on your toilet [slipperybrick]