UP | uncultured project

Last Thursday was a good day for the YouTube Community. One YouTube’s biggest personalities (Michael Buckley of the What the Buck Show) was on the frontpage of the NY Times. The article was about something a lot of people within the YouTube community already knew – how it’s possible to make money (sometimes a lot of it) through YouTube.

I posted this scan of the frontpage of that issue because I wanted to show you what the main story on the frontpage was. You might not think that a story about the plight and suffering in the people in the third world (the frontpage story) has anything to do with YouTube. But for me – and what I’ve devoted myself to these past two years of my life – they couldn’t be any more related.

We live in incredibly trying financial times. Forget the boardroom table, all of us are feeling this hardship at the dinner table. And money which could have been used to provide mosquito nets to every man, woman, and child in a malaria hot zone, or education to every child in the developing world, or clean water to every human being on the planet – is instead being spent on bailouts for Wall Street.

As it gets harder for us to convince politicians the importance of those beyond our borders – we’ll need new ways to continue the fight against global poverty. And YouTube is absolutely critical to that. This year’s Project for Awesome is a great example of that. We can keep the conversation going about global poverty well into a future where the mainstream media debates whether the day’s main story should be about a new bailout or Britney’s new single.

And, as my parents and I look into the family financial situation to see how many months (not years) this project can continue, this NY Times article is a poignant reminder of the fact that it is theoretically possible to make this project sustainable. All that we’ve been able to do together – all the lives this project has been able to touch – cost about 1/10th of what Michael Buckley earns through YouTube’s partnership program.

I’m not saying I will ever (or even deserve to be) as popular as Buck. Whether or not I can continue to sustain what I’m doing, I just hope that one of the greatest technologies of modern history can be used to fight one of the biggest plights that humanity faces.

So what was I doing in Kenya? I had mentioned before that I had tagged along with Vestergaard-Frandsen. It turns out that the CEO of Vestergaard Frandsen decided to single-handedly create the world’s largest privately funded global health campaign.

It was so big, in fact, that even CNN decided to cover it:

The way I see it, the CEO of Vestergaard Frandsen basically packed his bags, liquidated a huge part of his personal savings, and went to Kenya to see how he could make a difference. Why does that sound familiar?

I definitely feel a kinship with Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen – and his willingness to spend his own dime to do this is one of the many reasons I am proud to support these guys in whatever way I can.

During these Christmas Holidays, there is one person in particular who will never be too far from my thoughts and prayers. His name is Adam and he’s one of the many people from within the YouTube community that have been supporting this little project that I’m doing.

Here’s the video where he talked about and votes for a Pond Sand Filter in Challenge Poverty:

Unfortunately and tragically, recent events in Adam’s life have shown me he is a far stronger person than I will ever be. This holiday season has brought a lot of bad news to Adam and his family. During the Thanksgiving Holidays, he learned his parents were getting a divorce. This sad event was compounded by the tragic and sudden loss of his mother who recently died in a car crash.

I can’t even type this without getting a knot in the pit of my stomach. I can’t imagine what Adam and his family is going through right now. Some people think I’m pretty strong to have endured the kinds of challenges and sacrifices this project has demanded. But quite honestly? I don’t think I would have had the strength or composure that Adam is clearly demonstrating during this trying time.

If you’d like to convey your condolences to Adam and his family, you can see his YouTube channel (where many in the YouTube community are leaving their condolences and prayers).

I didn’t drink purified cow feces to be sensationalist. I also don’t consider myself a stunt man. This quick video up on my secondary channel on YouTube shows some of the reasons why I did this particular experiment and some of the science behind why I was at virtually no risk in doing it.

In my latest YouTube video, I drank rain water mixed with cow feces after it was purified to crystal clear (and safe) drinking water thanks to a purifier called the LifeStraw Family. I recently stumbled across another way to provide clean and safe drinking water using solar power. Take a look:

There is a lot to like about this way of water purification. What this basically is doing is distilling the water. That means, not only does it get ride of all the bacteria, it also gets rid of a lot of the salts and metals that are dissolved in the water. The fact is, if I was drinking water that was purified in this method, I wouldn’t have iron poisoning/overload now.

But, at the same time, there are even more downsides. This isn’t anywhere as near as easy to use, maintain, or operate as a pond sand filter or the LifeStraw Family. Even the rather knowledgeable guy doing this experiment in the video ended up shattering two bottles just to purify about a bottle’s worth of water. The equipment he used is also very delicate, hard to find in the developing world, and (as the guy in the video warns) must be handled with extreme care.

The fact is that, whether you are dealing with a pond sand filter, a LifeStraw Family, or a solar water purifier,  none of these options is really a perfect solution. Nothing beats the convenience we have here in the developed world of being able to turn on a tap and get clean, clear, and safe drinking water. I think that’s a right everyone should have. But the first step is to make sure that people at least don’t die from the water they drink.

And, with such amazing science, technology, and options at our disposal, there shouldn’t be any reason for anyone on the face of this planet to be drinking unsafe water.

FACT: Over 1.1 billion people (that’s more than 1 in every 6 human beings) don’t have access to safe drinking water. So what does that mean? Do they go thirsty? More often than not, it means getting water from contaminated sources of water. That includes rivers which, in the developing world, often are contaminated because it contains waste from farm animals upstream.

That can change – and all it would take is $1.66 per person, per year. The LifeStraw Family is a product I learned about during my recent trip to Kenya. I tagged along with Vestergaard Frandsen which, in addition to helping me come to Kenya, was giving away thousands of these water filters to rural villagers in Kakamega. I have a lot of respect for Vestergaard Frandsen but even I was a bit skeptical at the claims they made about the LifeStraw Family.

First, they claim that the LifeStraw Family uses nanotechnology to filter water down to 25 nanometers. Not only does it meet US EPA guidelines as a microbiological filter but, they claim – it exceeds them. Not even their smaller LifeStraw Personal water purifier (which I use and carry with me) is that advanced. And, unlike the LifeStraw Personal, this product is supposed to last 3 years for a family of five. All for a total cost of $25.

It sounded like BS. Oddly enough, while their claims do hold up, a lot of BS was involved in the making of this latest video.

For the more academic approach to testing this product, please check out these test results from a study by the University of Arizona. As always, Vestergaard Frandsen which did pay for my trip to Kenya, did not do so with the requirement that I endorse their products. If I got sick from this test, this would have been a very different video.

“Did your mom come with you?” asked my family doctor as he stepped into the office. I nodded. “Go get her” he told me. My family got lots of test results from our family doc: everything from my lactose intolerance to my mother’s pregnancy (all those years ago) – he had was always the one giving us the news. This was the first time he asked me to call in someone else into the room….

Full medical disclosure and my reaction after the jump…

Continue reading ‘Full Medical Disclosure: Iron Poisoning’