Some people believe that Internet access is more than a service, it’s a human right. As we all know, the Internet provides us with a plethora of information and connection, some of it invaluable. Simply put, it can change lives. And one man plans on making it available to everyone:

One man’s bankrupt satellite company is another man’s opportunity to spread free Internet across the world. That’s the hope of Kosta Grammatis, CEO and founder of ahumanright.org, who sees having an Internet connection as a basic necessity — in fact, a human right — for every global citizen.

Grammatis is raising $150,000 to create a business plan for buying a communications satellite and moving it to a new orbital slot to provide free Internet service to developing countries. He has his sights set on the TerreStar-1 satellite: a spacecraft the size of a school bus that launched in 2009 and is owned by a company that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October.

The idea of making free Internet available to all may sound like a pipe dream, but Grammatis has the right combination of technical background and ambition for the job. His resume includes working as an engineer for private spaceflight company SpaceX, as well as creating a bionic eye camera to transform a one-eyed filmmaker into “Eyeborg.”

Top 10 Countries that say Internet access is a basic right

Grammatis and his team plan to pay the bills by allowing telecommunications companies to buy and resell high-speed bandwidth, even as they provide a slower connection speed for free to everyone. They have also begun to develop an open-source, low-cost modem that could provide developing countries with their link to the satellite and the rest of the world.

To achieve this dream, ahumanright.org launched a “Buy This Satellite” initiative on a new website.

Q: SPACE.com: What are the basic goals of ahumanright.org?

Grammatis: ahumanright is charged with promoting Internet access as a human right. The organization also promotes endeavors that can ensure everyone has a chance to get online. We try to do this in three different ways:

• Connect with businesses and governments and discuss the creation of a “free” segment to their networks
• We have been envisioning our own free network with our friends at NASA and other industry experts
• We attempt to buy and re-purpose underutilized infrastructure to bring free Internet to the people

SPACE.com: How much geographical coverage can TerreStar-1 provide in terms of Internet? Could it provide service to all of Africa?

Grammatis: Currently it can cover all of America, southern Canada and northern Mexico. Not entirely Africa.

SPACE.com: What considerations are going into the choice of where to park the satellite? How will you weigh public or donor opinions?

Grammatis: That is a very complicated question that has no simple answer.

SPACE.com: How much do you envision the open-source, low-cost modem might cost?

Grammatis: We’re aiming for less than $100, but that’s dependent on a lot of factors.

SPACE.com: Do you have any business partners or larger-scale funders in mind?

Grammatis: Plenty. Google comes to mind first, Richard Branson second. People and organizations who like taking big risks and doing things that have a lot of positive impact.

SPACE.com: Are there any possible plans to repeat this process for other satellites, if this ultimately proves successful?

Grammatis: Already in the works! We’ve got another collaboration coming together that should be announced soon if things go as planned.

To contribute to “Buy This Satellite’s” goal of raising $150,000, go here.

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

If you live where I do, you wouldn’t be able to open your front door this morning, the snow drifts are so high. The idea of doing anything outside is overwhelming when simply opening a door is a challenge! Plus, there are the cold temperatures. And the whipping winds. In short, it’s a good day to stay indoors…or is it?

A full-fledged snow day brings out that little child in us, where heavy snowfall meant no school and outdoor fun. So what does it mean as an adult? How can you benefit from a grown-up “snow day”?

1. Get out in it! There’s a tendency as adults to withdraw from the cold and to stay in artificial heat until it’s “safe” to go outdoors again. It’s good to take some time and adjust to the cold temperatures, feel the crisp air, walk around and get some circulation. (This doesn’t just mean snow shoveling, which is far more strenuous.) Take a short walk around first. You’ll be surprised that it’s not as intolerable as you think. And walking in the snow is a great workout!

2. Revisit your books. Books have a naturally therapeutic effect on our bodies. We breathe more rhythmically and genuinely relax into a good story. Find that book you’ve put aside. Get in touch with the act of reading again. Remember it’s meditative effect on our minds and souls and imagination.

3. Boil that water. Non-caffeinated teas and other warm beverages are a wonderful way to hydrate and warm us up naturally. Teas also possess a naturally calming effect on our systems. There’s a ritual each of us have when we drink teas, whether we’re aware of it or not. Get in touch with yours again.

4. Remember that nothing is alright! We’ve become almost robotically programmed at this point to stay busy. But it’s alright to do nothing; to contemplate, dream, nap, doodle, stare out a window without a thought in your head. We’re not machines. We’re people. And “lazy” isn’t always as bad as we think.

Snow days can be magical days, if we remember how. What can you do in the midst of this Winter to remind yourself of its magical qualities and peaceful effects?

We have no affiliation with this company. But I wanted to take a moment to recognize the wonderful works of Ten Thousand Villages. I stumbled across them last night when I was looking for a last minute gift. During a time of the year where commercialism is rampant, remember, there are places to buy gifts where your dollars really make a difference.

Nationally recognized for our commitment to social responsibility, Ten Thousand Villages creates opportunities for artisans around the globe to earn a fair wage. Artisans use this income to pay for food, education, healthcare and housing for themselves and their families. Ten Thousand Villages is a nonprofit program of Mennonite Central Committee.

Our Vision

One day all artisans in the developing countries will earn a fair wage, be treated with dignity and respect and be able to live a life of quality.

Our Mission

Ten Thousand Villages’ mission is to create opportunities for artisans in developing countries to earn income by bringing their products and stories to our markets through long-term fair trading relationships.

Here’s the story of one merchant:

The cooperative Candelas La Luciérnaga (“Firefly Candles”) is a Hondura's project of the nonprofit women’s organization Actions for Popular Development (ADP). The work of ADP, an organization dedicated to the empowerment and welfare of women, includes a shelter for abused women and their children, a home for pregnant women and a microlending program. La Luciérnaga supports ADP financially while providing the women artisans with income. La Luciérnaga artisans produce a variety of candles, decorated with natural materials like dried flowers and leaves. Candelas La Luciérnaga was established in 1999. Women of the ADP abused women’s shelter decided to make decorative candles after having difficulty raising funds for the shelter. Ten Thousand Villages purchases candles from La Luciérnaga. Ten Thousand Villages has purchased products from La Luciérnaga since 2002.

Artisan Group: Gospel House Handicrafts Ltd
Country: Sri Lanka

Gospel House provides training and work to youth with little education, financial means or prospect of employment—those most at risk in the midst of Sri Lanka’s political uprisings. Employees are hired without regard to race, caste or religion. Artisans are trained on the job, and receive monthly wages.

The teenagers survived mainly on coconuts and rainwater

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Three teenagers survived 50 days adrift in a tiny boat in the South Pacific by drinking rainwater and eating raw fish and a seagull before being rescued by a passing trawler, a senior crewman on the fishing vessel said.

The trio – Samuel Pelesa and Filo Filo, both 15, and Edward Nasau, 14 – had been given up for dead on their coral atoll in the Tokelau islands, where a memorial service was held for them after extensive searches failed to find them.

The boys set off on Oct. 5 in their aluminum dinghy from their home island to one nearby. It’s not known how they went missing, but the outboard motor on their boat may have broken down at sea.

Worried family members reported them missing and the New Zealand air force launched a sea search. No sign of the tiny boat was found.

On Wednesday, the tuna boat San Nikuna spotted a small dinghy bobbing in the open sea northeast of Fiji, with three people aboard waving frantically, said first mate Tai Fredricsen. They had drifted 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) from where they set out.

“We saw a small vessel, a little speedboat on our bows, and we knew it was a little weird,” Fredricsen said.

The fishing boat pulled up alongside the smaller vessel and asked the teenagers if they needed any help, to which they readily replied that they did.

“All they could say was ‘thank you very much for stopping,” Fredricsen told New Zealand’s National Radio on Thursday by phone from the ship. “In a physical sense, they look very physically depleted, but mentally – very high.”

The teens and their boat were hauled aboard the fishing trawler, which was on its way to Fiji Friday where it would deliver the trio into medical care.

Source: Huffington Post

It’s often easy to feel overwhelmed by difficult circumstances. We feel frozen, incapable of taking a step forward. This story proves that it’s possible to overcome that spiritual (and physical) inertia and move forward anyway:

More than 60 towns in France are going back in time. They’re returning to horse drawn carriages as a methold to collect trash, instead of fuel-inefficient trash trucks. Smart move!

Garbage trucks are some of the heaviest polluters to drive through city streets. In the US, green trends like using fuel from waste to power the trucks are making headlines—but French towns are taking a different tactic: trading in the trucks altogether for horse-drawn carts.

The swap makes trash-collection fuel-free (except for a few carrots), exhaust-free, and silent, but for an occasional neigh. In the medieval town of Peyrestortes, the decision was made for practical reasons as much as environmental: “You can’t turn a waste collection vehicle around here. We used to block streets to traffic and keep waste in open skips,” the town’s mayor, Jean Baptiste, told The Guardian.

More than 60 towns in France are using horses to collect recyclables and waste, and the novelty of the trash-collectors is helping the general public gain awareness of what materials they should be recycling, helping the towns save considerable money. “People are composting more,” said Saint Prix’s mayor, Jean-Pierre Enjalbert. “Incineration used to cost us €107 a tonne, ridiculous for burning wet matter, now we only pay €37 to collect and compost the waste.”

As France trades in horsepower for horses, it’s not the only country getting help with trash-collection from four-legged friends: A town in Sicily has been carting glass and cardboard recycling on donkeyback for the past three years, and its mayor estimates that the conversion from a fleet of trucks has saved 34% of their costs.

No telling whether horse-drawn garbage collection will gain traction in the U.S., but as a clean, green, quiet, and cheap trash-collecting solution, it seems to be win-win all the way.

Source: Gimundo

Halloween has to be one of the more positive holidays, in my opinion. It’s fun for children and adults. The time of the year is powerful and rich. Here’s a little history on the holiday itself:

Halloween, celebrated each year on October 31, is a mix of ancient Celtic practices, Catholic  and Roman religious rituals and European folk traditions that blended together over time to create the holiday we know today.

Straddling the line between fall and winter, plenty and paucity and life and death, Halloween is a time of celebration and superstition. Halloween has long been thought of as a day when the dead can return to the earth, and ancient Celts would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off these roaming ghosts. The Celtic holiday of Samhain, the Catholic Hallowmas period of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day and the Roman festival of Feralia all influenced the modern holiday of Halloween.

In the 19th century, Halloween began to lose its religious connotation, becoming a more secular community-based children’s holiday. Although the superstitions and beliefs surrounding Halloween may have evolved over the years, as the days grow shorter and the nights get colder, people can still look forward to parades, costumes and sweet treats to usher in the winter season.

That’s right - Halloween is just around the corner. And what a perfect holiday it is! No stress, no worries - just plain fun! Today I spent some time gathering some Halloween images to get you in the mood:

(above) King David apparently

Here’s a few random facts to get your mind thinking in random directions! Always good, as a creativity booster:

Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.

Coca-Cola was originally green.

The state with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska

The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400

The average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000

The world’s youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.

The youngest pope was 11 years old.

The first novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.

Those San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades - King David, Hearts - Charlemagne, Clubs - Alexander theGreat, Diamonds - Julius Caesar.

Q. What occurs more often in December than any other month?
A. Conception.

Q. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what?
A. Their birthplace

Q. Most boat owners name their boats. What is the most popular boat name requested?
A. Obsession

Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter “A”?
A. One thousand

Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common?
A. All invented by women.

Q. What is the only food that doesn’t spoil?
A. Honey

Source: Random Facts but are they True?

Ingenuity and eco-consciousness lead to smart inventions like solar trees, not only helping out the planet but revitalizing a community:

New solar powered street lights installed in Angkor Wat, Cambodia add much needed public lighting to the area, in a fun, low-energy design that increases night-time safety and facilitates greater earnings for local businesses. Nothing Design Group conceived of the tree-like design, and developed the lights in partnership with Asiana Airlines and Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). The project team wished to create lights that would both increase night-time safety and help elevate Cambodia’s image.

As a UNESCO World Heritage site, Angkor Wat attracts many tourists, but before the lights were installed, many did not venture out at night. Now, the added lighting encourages both tourists and residents to be out at night, which creates benefits for both: tourists can integrate more with the local community and locals can generate more income by keeping markets and other businesses open later.

So far, 16 solar streetlights have been installed, and the team plans to install 5 to 10 more a year until 2015.

Source: World Changing