It turns out that by simply using your local library you can improve your life – no matter what you read. As long as you make use of what the library provides you can find your well-being increased. What are you waiting for? How do you quantify a public good?
Continue readingAuthor: Adam Clare
Things Are Good: Go Ahead, Get Rid of it
There is just too much stuff in our lives nowadays. Victorian era maximalism got turned up to 11 thanks to globalization and hyper-capaitlaism. Odds are you have useless items around you right now that you thought at one time was a good idea. Well, here’s a better idea: get rid
Continue readingThings Are Good: The 7 Common Points in Self-Help Books
“There’s always room for one more self-help book” said every publisher ever. On the other hand, there are too many books and not enough time to read them all (especially if you read self-help books). Having never read one, I was interested in what all the fuss is about then
Continue readingThings Are Good: Lose Weight by Taking the Bus
Obesity is a health problem in North America and this is due to modern lifestyle choices. One choice is to live far from work and commute using a car (this has led to environmental problems in addition to health problems) which means that people physically move less than before. Some
Continue readingThings Are Good: Ozone Layer is Recovering
Many years ago a bunch of countries decided to take action to stop damaging the ozone layer in the hopes that it will eventually recover. It’s great to see that the efforts of working together to protect the environment of come to fruition and let’s hope we see efforts like
Continue readingThings Are Good: The Country That Does The Most Good
Many countries claim they are making the world a better/safer place, but how which ones are actually making the world better? Simon Anholt asked himself the same question and came to a conclusion that to me was unexpected. I won’t spoil it for you.
Continue readingThings Are Good: A Rebel Architect in Vietnam Creates Green Space
Al Jazeera has a series on rebel architects who are improving the world around them. In the documentary they released today they look at award-winning architect Vo Trong Nghia’s work in reshaping Vietnamese buildings to contain more green space. This film follows Nghia as he tries to find support for
Continue readingThings Are Good: Adding Bike Lanes Reduces Traffic Delays
Bike lanes are wonderful. We’ve already seen that bike lanes create jobs, save lives, and help local economies. Now from New York City there is a transportation report that says adding bike lanes can reduce traffic delays. So what happened here to overcome the traditional idea that bike lanes lead
Continue readingThings Are Good: TreeCanada Maps Its Impact
TreeCanada has planted around 80 million trees! They do this because trees make the world a better, healthier place for everybody. They also plant trees to rejuvenate school yards (ones that got paved over at some point) and to bring back areas damaged by industrial uses to their . This
Continue readingThings Are Good: You Should Replace Should With Could
Some new research hints that you should change how you think about issues and what to do. Often we think about things we should do and what we ought to do is ask what we could do. Asking yourself, for example, “What should I do with my life?” tacitly implies
Continue readingThings Are Good: Using Fashion to Charge Electronics
Battery life on mobiles is never very good and this causes a drain on the electrical system. What if we were able to power our mobiles by just wearing clothes? Well, that’s a new field that is gaining more and more attention. The Guardian looked at a few ways we
Continue readingThings Are Good: Formula E Will Get Power from Algae
I’m looking forward to the start of Formula E next month, and it’s exciting to hear that the racing league has signed on with Aquafuel to power their cars with algae. Formula E is the all-electric alternative to the popular Formula 1 racing league. Algae will be used to power
Continue readingThings Are Good: Vermont Stops Their War on Drugs, Will Help People Instead
The war on drugs is a backwards, destructive, and anti-human campaign that has destroyed lives. It was launched by Nixon and since then it the ‘war’ has negatively impacted everything it touches from people’s lives to the global economy. The USA tries to enforce it’s inflexible approach around the world,
Continue readingThings Are Good: A Checklist for Rational Thinking
There exists a Center for Applied Rationality (as opposed to unapplied rationality?) and they have set out to make the world more rational. Their approach is questionable, as it’s unclear as to what form of rationality they are openly proselytizing. Regardless, they do have a neat checklist to help people
Continue readingThings Are Good: Helsinki Wants to Send Cars to Purgatory
The Helsinki bus station theory will change you life and now the Finnish government wants to change people’s lives by making cars pointless. In the coming decades they will make use of data and various transportations to make owning a car a pointless exercise in futility. In many urban centres
Continue readingThings Are Good: Live in the Now, Plan for Your Future Self
There are many things that make one happy, but what if our fundamental approach is wrong? Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert looks into other ways of thinking about happiness and the overall take we have on our self. “Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.” Dan Gilbert
Continue readingThings Are Good: Lucid Dreamers Demonstrate Better Awareness When Awake
People who can lucid dream are able to transfer skills acquired for lucid dreaming into the waking world. In fact, this skill makes lucid dreamers more aware and cognizant than non-lucid dreamers. Lucid dreaming is essentially the ability to be aware of and in some cases manipulate dreams as they
Continue readingThings Are Good: Even More Evidence That Bike-Friendly Cities Are Better Cities
Bicycles are wonderful contraptions that help people be healthier, have better commutes, and are a wonderful solution to car-based traffic jams. Yet, there are still cities out there that hate cyclists (like Toronto and it’s crack-smoking mayor). In a more civilized place, Aukland, they are embracing bike-friendly infrastructure to make
Continue readingThings Are Good: Help Save The Icelandic Goat
Iceland is a beautiful country filled with beautiful life and sadly one of those lifeforms is threatened: the Icelandic goat. The goats have been on HBO’s Game of Thrones and now they all may die out if a goat farming operation can’t be saved. You can be a part of
Continue readingThings Are Good: A Hippocratic Oath for Bankers
Bankers destroyed the economy and in too many countries those responsible walk free despite the damage they wrought. Iceland jailed bankers at fault in their country, but what can we do to ensure that bankers behave in the future? Doctors take the hippocratic oath in order to practice medicine, now
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