F.lux - Automatic VDU brightness tool

Wow, it's all about links today, but I just have to share this one! ;) Check out this neat bit of (totally free) software - F.lux - it's basically a little toolbar app that automatically, and gently (if you check the "Slow 60m" check box during configuration) adjusts the brightness of your VDU depending on the time of day - it's location aware, so it knows when the sun is about to rise/set and will tweak the temperature accordingly, there is also a handy button to quickly disable it for an hour if you want to be doing something temperature critical (like photoshopping some pictures), it's supposed to be of great benefit when it comes to doing things like trying to go to sleep after extended periods staring at a monitor with the brightness turned all the way up (and let's be honest, when was the last time you actually manually adjusted the brightness on your VDU to account for environmental factors? It's only ever for battery life)...gotta be good for the environment too... ;)

Green Canary Day - Cardboard Canary Wharf

More art, sorry to keep being so cultured, but I spotted this last week in the lobby of One Canada Square, it's called (ever-so-inventively) "Cardboard Canary Wharf" and was constructed by artist Nicky Burrell in order to help celebrate "Green Canary Day" (which actually seems to go on for two days, and is now in it's seventh year apparently), there were supposed to be a lot of other things going on in order to promote environmental friendliness, but this was the only bit that I managed to stumble upon (a number of them only taking place on Saturday or only between the hours of 10am and 3pm which kind of ruled my participation out)...

Still, quite a clever piece, I especially liked the little Jubilee Park, complete with tiny cardboard water features and trees...wouldn't have fancied making all those little windows on the buildings though...actually it looks like the artist got a bit tired of it too, the closer you get to the river the less detail seems to be in evidence... ;)

Wonder if it went in the recycling afterwards?

(only kidding ;)

Environmental Issues - Canary Wharf

Every morning the Jubilee Line and the DLR chew up and then disgorge well in excess of 100,000 commuters (in the space of about an hour) onto the 14.1 million square feet of office that loom over the 97-odd acres of flood plain collectively known as "Canary Wharf"...(called this because historically this area was predominantly used as a dock for imports from the Canary Islands)...I could stop there, having already gifted you at least four interesting facts about this part of London with which to impress your friends and family, however, this statistical information has been presented to you to highlight a real potential logistical problem...and one that the London Underground addresses by name...

Each morning, an announcement is on loop at Canary Wharf station "Please do not discard your Metro Newspapers anywhere on the station or escalators, please carry them with you and use the bins provided", you don't get that at any other underground station I have visited (and it's worse if any freebies or leaflets are being given away, they especially are fair game for escalator dumping), but if you consider *most* commuters *will* pick up a Metro (or buy another morning paper), this is a colossal amount of paper waste ending up potentially dumped at the doorstep of Canary Wharf estate management -every day- and you know what? Apart from in the back of the dedicated (electrically powered) recycling carts -

- or the recycling bins -

- there isn't a stray copy of Metro anywhere in sight...so someone has actually got something rather perfectly right...It's easy to always complain about things that go wrong, but in this case some congratulations are in order, so jolly well done to Canary Wharf... ;)