:Michael Anuzis

I’ve been blogging for over a year about designing a gadget that tracks the unified environmental efforts of millions of people and allows everyone to celebrate their contribution. A few weeks ago it looks like Google released a gadget called ‘Energy Saver‘ that does just that.

It doesn’t allow people to track their contributions in as many ways as I’d like to see, but it does provide a beautiful/simple way for people to make a difference with hardly effort at all by “Enabling and optimizing your computer’s power management settings to help save the world energy.”

If I wasn’t already working on a different startup, I’d love to take this idea to the next level with my domain greenolution.com. Previous posts of mine detailing that business model & vision:

- The Greenolution Pitch
- Three Design Opportunities for a Brighter Future
- Anyone Join Me for $25 Million
- Count Down Your Carbon

If you combined CDYD and Google’s Energy Saver gadget and threw in a global goal, a gadget easier for people to paste on social networking sites than the Google Gadget, and some greentech product recommendations on the most cost-effective technologies currently available, you’d have my idea for greenolution.com.

Aside from possible ad revenue, you could add an e-commerce portion of the site to sell the greentech conveniently to consumers/businesses, or at least collect affiliate earnings.

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That’ll be the headline in a few months after my latest startup goes live. I’ve already discussed severe inefficiencies & redesign opportunities with the current educational systems. The time has come to take action.

This startup has been under development the past several months & it’s nearly time to unveil it to the public. Half a year ago I released a couple low-quality Game Theory lessons on YouTube to see the kind of response I’d get and what kind of market was out there for the concise teaching of academic material. Below shows some interesting feedback (see the comments.)

F’d up comment aside (hey, can you say he’s wrong?), if that’s the feedback for the junk recorded while hardly awake yet, I’m excited to see the impact & education I can provide when I invest significant time & effort and make it twice as fun. Wish me luck.

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If you haven’t seen Randy Pausch’s ‘Last Lecture’ where he shares his thoughts on life & death, you’re missing out. I couldn’t agree more with his approach to making the most of life despite a rapidly impending death.

I’ve embedded Randy’s full lecture below (1h 15m)

Some of you may prefer this shortened (12 min) version he provided on Oprah.

& for some different thoughts with the same aim, you might enjoy this podcast where I share some of my personal strategies for keeping it positive despite impending death. Enjoy!

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I don’t normally post music videos (in fact this is the first one ever), but being the most amazing video editing I’ve ever seen I wanted to share it with you. Watch it full screen if you want to catch the hidden stuff.

Fun Fact: Played soccer with Joe (red tie) in elementary school. His hair hasn’t changed since.

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Just finished recording an mp3 that I’ll be using in place of an alarm clock every morning when I wake up. I’m using Jakes MP3 Alarm, free software which will play an MP3 at a time you specify. I used Audacity, free MP3 editing software, to record the mp3 and overlay a pleasant background to my voice.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I didn’t stick to my last morning routine for even a week. I think the weakness was that all too often when I’d wake up I just wouldn’t have the instant self-discipline to tear myself out of bed and start exercising. The night before I could always sit there for a moment and say “When I wake up I WILL exercise and meditate,” but by the time my alarm would go off the previous night’s determination would have faded away.

I’ve always thought Jackie Chan had it easy in this regard. His dad threw cold water on him and forced him to wake up and work out for an hour. Chan didn’t have a choice, so sure enough he got up. I might not have someone over here throwing water and then forcing me to get up, but I’ve always liked the idea and leveraged it in the Mp3.

Another weakness of the previous routine was that all the items in my first option set were hard-core cardio, and some mornings you simply don’t wake up feeling cardio. This time I’m including the hard cardio option (Kung Fu), but also including Tai Chi and Qi Gong as options. Millions of Chinese people wake up to Tai Chi every morning and enjoy stellar health. It should at least be an option.

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An invigorating talk by Larry Lessig on the need for more open copyright laws that will let creativity flourish. Whether or not you agree, to understand Lessig’s position is vital in the debate.

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Giving an undesired gift used to be considered better than nothing. “At least it’s thoughtful, right?” Not anymore, at least not in my book.

The question is all over the place, “Is consumerism sustainable?” In its current form the answer is clearly no. Now, not only are you giving someone a random object that will take up space, you’re potentially giving them a guilt trip for wasting natural resources on their behalf. How thoughtful!

Here’s a suggestion: Give your friends and family a gift that will keep on giving. One that can be immediately converted to cash if they so choose, but that is more likely to give them a warm feeling inside for the next 8-12 months… at which point they can re-use it for the same warm feeling, or withdraw it for that cash if it turns out they need it… with the cycle continuing endlessly. Now there’s a great gift!

To those of you who insist on giving me gifts, the #1 thing on my wish list would be Kiva gift certificates to help grow my portfolio. Thanks & happy gift giving!

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Just bought a $200 laptop for my mom, with a matching $200 laptop going to a child in a developing country. It’s fun to think about the kid out there who will get the internet from a laptop matching this one.

The laptops are not killer for 3D gaming, but they can use pretty much any web app out there. These laptops are also durable, weather resistant, & have some sweet design innovations. The ability to purchase one of these laptops expires Dec 31st, 2007. They won’t arrive in time for X-Mas, but if you’re interested you should order one now!

Bonus Tip – the matching laptop is tax deductible!

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Imagine if you could play a fun game that would teach you vocabulary while providing food for hungry people around the world for every word you guess right. Let’s cut to the chase – there’s no imagination necessary because you can do just that at FreeRice.com!

This is a beautifully innovative website that personalizes the difficulty for you with each question you answer. It contains vocabulary advanced enough to help prep someone for the SAT, GRE, or LSAT, while also being able to provide a fair challenge for people new to English.

I was planning on prepping zero for the vocab section of the GRE (unacceptable opportunity cost). Sitting alone with a static-text book learning vocab you’ll rarely use just to prove you have the cognitive discipline to memorize a bunch of jargon? Screw that. Make it a fun and addictive game, and give my winnings to starving people while you’re at it, now you’ve got my attention! It almost sounds too good to be true, but check it out and you’ll see for yourself – FreeRice.com

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