Tag: trees

On the Open Benches project

Open Benches is a map of thousands of “memorial benches – added by people like you”.  Just type in a search request and see if anyone has dedicated a bench to someone or something, like people and their dogs. For example, this bench was dedicate to Veronica Calver.

You can find examples all over the world, including my town, Toronto. Thanks to the folks who put together this wonderful crowd sourced project.

P.S. If you want to first get a commemorative bench or tree in Toronto, you can get more information on that, here.

 

It’s a short life, and the older you get, the shorter it gets. However…(some birthday thoughts)

I am fascinated by this clock above. Called Shortlife, it is developed and sold by Dries Depoorter, who explains that…

‘Shortlife’ is a small device showing how much percent of your life is completed based on your personal life expectancy.

You give him your birthday and your gender and he programs the clock based on this information and “the average number in your country provided by the World Health Organization (WHO)”.

It’s a good momento mori.

If you want a more accurate estimate of your life expectancy, you can go here. That online calculator’s estimate “is based on a detailed statistical analysis of NIH-AARP data and conducted by Wharton professor Dean Foster” and takes into account not just your age and gender, but also other factors like how fit you are and how much you drink and smoke.

Based on that calculator, it estimates I have twenty more years to live, if I am lucky. It also states that there is a 25% chance I won’t have more than a dozen. Of course it is just an estimate, a probability. I could die today, or I could live for another 40 years. But the likelihood of 12 (and no more) I think is good. When we were in school, 12 years felt like an eternity. I suspect these will not.

One problem with such a clock is it meant for people who see the glass increasingly empty. We need a clock that shows things increasing full. There is such a thing, of course. But it’s not a clock. It’s a tree. If you plant a tree and you are lucky, the tree will grow along with you. Growth: that’s what trees represent. A tree you plant can represent you as a growing living thing, not as a dying thing.

I think the clock is smart, of course, but I think a tree is wise. Get both, and be wiser, still.

P.S. I wrote about the joy of planting and owning a tree, here. That tree is no longer on my property, and perhaps that makes it better.

Today in good robots: reforesting drones


I’m often critical of robots and their relatives here, but these particular drones seem very good indeed. As that linked article explains:

swarms of (theese) seed-firing drones … are planting 40,000 trees a day to fight deforestation…(their) novel technology combines artificial intelligence with specially designed proprietary seed pods that can be fired into the ground from high in the sky. The firm claims that it performs 25 times faster and 80 percent cheaper compared to traditional seed-planting methodologies.

I am sure there is still a role for humans in reforestation, but the faster and cheaper it can be done, the better. A good use of technology.