Category Archives: Better All The Time

Kaizen!

Occasionally on Facebook I get to point out that anything I post without comment is likely something I intend to read later because it strikes me as potentially interesting. These posts often result in comments, which then remind me that I meant to read the thing. It’s a way of outsourcing a reminder to read something […]

The Shocking Truth — Answers and Sources

Here we have the quiz plus answers and sources from last week’s show about The Shocking Truth. Due to out-of-control residential and commercial real estate development, total U. S. forest acreage is the smallest it has been in a century. Driven by economic injustice and environmental deterioration, infant and child mortality rates are surging in […]

Why We Do What We Do

The Human Imperative is the relentless drive to improve the human condition. This is the one commandment obeyed by virtually of all humanity for all of human history: Thou shalt improve thine own circumstances, the circumstances of thy family, the circumstances of thy tribe, or the circumstances of thy species.   This commandment is pervasive; […]

Sensors Detect Danger

Dispatches from a rapidly changing, rapidly improving world Special Dispatch November 28, 2009 We’re running BATT’s every day during Thanksgiving week. There’s an app for that?: Smartphones Could Form Chemical Detection Networks Smartphones already stream YouTube videos and surf Facebook, but they might also double as chemical sensors that can transmit alerts to first responders […]

Days of Miracle and Wonder

Dispatches from a rapidly changing, rapidly improving world Special Dispatch November 27, 2009 We’re running BATT’s every day during Thanksgiving week. Wow: Blind man fitted with ‘bionic’ eye sees for first time in 30 years A blind man who thought he would never be able to read again has had his vision partially restored after […]

The Technology that Will Save the World

Dispatches from a rapidly changing, rapidly improving world Special Dispatch November 26 , 2009 We’re running BATT’s every day during Thanksgiving week. The title is perhaps a bit overstated, even in the more modest form that Esquire used, but the idea the man is supporting is an excellent one: The miracle solution goes by different […]

Clean Plastics

Dispatches from a rapidly changing, rapidly improving world Special Dispatch November 25, 2009 We’ll be running daily BATT’s all Thanksgiving week. We’re seeing a lot of progress in biofuels development, which is good news for the environment, but what about progress with bioplastics? So glad you asked: Bioengineers succeed in producing plastic without the use […]

Using Hydrogen — A Solid Approach

Dispatches from a rapidly changing, rapidly improving world Special Dispatch November 24, 2009 We’ll be running daily BATT’s all Thanksgiving week. We’ve talked a lot over the last couple of months about what (if any) role hydrogen has to play in our energy future. Recognizing that hydrogen is best viewed as an energy transport mechanism […]

Feeling Their Way

Dispatches from a rapidly changing, rapidly improving world Special Dispatch November 23, 2009 We’ll be running daily BATT’s all Thanksgiving week. An excellent development from MIT:  For many people, it has become routine to go online to check out a map before traveling to a new place. But for blind people, Google maps and other […]