Links of the week

A photo of a cow looking towards the camera, surrounded by other cows

People like pictures, right? I’m going to try and make future links posts a bit more colourful than previous ones by throwing some pictures in there – maybe some alternative styling along the way.

The meat of the post will still be links, but the pretty pictures will make it more digestible. Speaking of digestible meat…

A photo of a cow looking towards the camera, surrounded by other cows

Giving up just half your hamburgers can really help the climate · MIT Technology Review

Drastically shrink your climate footprint without drastically changing your diet. Just give up half your meat.


One of the projects I’ve dreamt up in my mind but never got around to actually doing is something I call The Rooftop Project. If you ever want to hear me ramble about something, ask me about it one day.

In a nutshell it’s basically the idea of finding roof spaces in and around the city and transforming them into roof gardens. Since people react positively to greener environments, then it would benefit residents from a mental standpoint but also provide cleaner air, with plants sucking up carbon dioxide and expelling oxygen. It would also help the inner-city nature thrive, providing roof-top safe havens for birds and bees.

With that in mind, I always get a little buzz when I see stuff like this:

A campus-like park of concrete offices topped with green roofs in Shenzhen

Vanke Design Community is cluster of workspaces topped by parks · Deezen

A campus-like park of concrete offices topped with green roofs in Shenzhen.

Three cube-shaped vertical forest apartment blocks for Egypt's New Administrative Capital, which is being built to the east of Cairo.

Stefano Boeri unveils vertical forest apartment blocks for Egypt’s new capital · Deezen

Italian architect Stefano Boeri has designed three cube-shaped vertical forest apartment blocks in the east of Cairo, Egypt.


In the world of tech, I’ve been closely watching the value of cyptocurrency recently. Of course, you’ve probably heard of Bitcoin by now, but when it comes to other coins (or ‘altcoins’ to the people who know), then I have to keep reminding myself of why I opted to show interest in some of them.

The tech or ethical principles behind some altcoins is great. Whilst they might not be out-performing in worth compared to their more famous counterpart, Bitcoin, they still serve a purpose.

I really like the privacy and principles of Zcash. It’s a coin that seems to cause a mixed-reaction in the crypto community, and this week there has been a mixed bag of incoming news:

A fancy graphic showing the Electric Coin Company (Zcash) branding.

Electric Coin Company Statement on Sustainability · electriccoin.co

The Electric Coin Company, founders of the cryptocurrency Zcash, talk about the company’s future and going “All in on ZEC”.

A mockup of the coinbase wallet.

Coinbase UK Dropping Support for Cryptocurrency Zcash · CoinDesk

The cryptocurrency exchange gave no reason for the removal of Zcash, but said all remaining ZEC balances will be converted to British pounds in users accounts.

Despite their UK arm dropping support for one of my favourite currencies, Coinbase are an excellent entry-level way to get into crypto. Sign up for a Coinbase account and switch some of your local currency for digital currency.


As usual, if you see any interesting things — drop me a message on your preferred messaging app of choice or leave a note in the comments.


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