Here’s a challenge from Eran Ben-Joseph: name a great parking lot. Couldn’t do it, could you? Neither could I, and neither could Ben-Joseph. In a new book ReThinking a Lot: The Design and Culture of Parking he explores the horribleness of all that space that car drivers demand. If you
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Things Are Good: Ontario Chooses to Protect Old-Growth Forest
In northern Ontario there is a region called Temagami and it is absolutely stunning as it holds Ontario’s oldest old-growth forest and is the home to a diverse wildlife. In a tradition of profiteering, some people want to destroy the area and plans were set in motion in place to
Continue readingThings Are Good: India to Produce 97% Cheaper Anti-Cancer Drugs
India has announced that they will be using a specialized law to produce generic anti-cancer drugs. This will lower the price of these drugs by 97% and increase the efficiency of health care delivery in the country. It’ll also make the poor better able to survive certain cancers because treatment
Continue readingThings Are Good: Play Tetris to Reduce Traumatic Flashbacks
Playing games is tons of fun and enterprising people are finding ways to better humanity through gameplay. I just found out that Tetris can be used to help people deal with traumatic experiences – cool! Research tells us that there is a period of up to six hours after the
Continue readingThings Are Good: Humans Are Nice!
That’s right – people are good! You might think that the world is a dangerous place or what have you, but, when you get down to it people just hate violence. Indeed, we as a species are measurably opposed and troubled by violence against other people. The implications of this
Continue readingThings Are Good: Green Spaces Can Reduce Gun Violence
Countries and regions with a lot of gun violence may want to note that the simple act of providing more green space in urban areas can reduce gun-related crime. In the USA (ranked ninth globally for gun deaths per capita) researchers have found that converting unused lots into parks has
Continue readingThings Are Good: Pet Therapy For Your Health
Any pet owner can attest that having a cute loving animal around can make you feel better, but did you know that having a pet can make you physically healthier? What’s even better is that animals benefit benefit in a similar way that we do. I wonder what this has
Continue readingThings Are Good: Kids Should Fail
A prevailing attitude in North American schools is that students shouldn’t be able to fail, but really what better place than a school to learn from mistakes? Thankfully people are noticing that letting kids not excel at something is actually a good thing. Interestingly, it’s in the world of games
Continue readingThings Are Good: WeTopia: A Facebook Game that Funds Good Projects
We’ve looked at Facebook games that promote goodness before, and now we can WeTopia to that list. Instead of taking all those in-game purchases as profit WeTopia gives to charities that do real-world good. Thanks Kathryn!
Continue readingThings Are Good: The Nicest Place on the Internet
Need a hug? Feel like the internet isn’t being nice today? Go to the nicest place on the internet.
Continue readingThings Are Good: Diversity is Good for the Economy
The benefits of having a diverse workplace and a diverse community are obvious, but it always helps if some researchers back up these common-sense positions with helpful facts and demonstrated success. For those who champion diversity initiatives you’ll be pleased to know that a diverse workforce can mean $630 more
Continue readingThings Are Good: Economy Down, Happiness Up
It seems like the world has its own life-work balance and thanks to the fact that we’re (on average) working less we are happier! The second conclusion challenges the received notions of mankind’s moods. A tenet of political science is that happiness levels rise with wealth and then plateau, usually
Continue readingThings Are Good: The Reality of the Paperless Office
A PDF- making company (no idea these eve existed) recently sent me something that caught my eye about a survey they conducted: In this survey, three out of every four Americans say they want to reduce paper consumption for the environment, including: · 48.0% – willing to reduce their use of newspapers · 45.9%
Continue readingThings Are Good: More Happiness by Having Fewer Things
Here’s a quick, short, and inspiring TED Talk from the founder of TreeHugger about getting rid of material things can bring happiness to your life.
Continue readingThings Are Good: New Art Project Examines Humanity and Art-as-Experince
ZED.TO is an art project that is examining how people relate to one another while exploring the boundaries of art and theatre. It’s run by a small group called the Mission Business and looks like they’re going to create something downright nifty. ZED.TO – an immersive biotech adventure from Trevor
Continue readingThings Are Good: Hot Invention Cools Down Environment
A seemingly banal industrial component is a heat exchanger and they can be ridiculously inefficient. What a heat exchanger does is regulate the temperature of machines that have to be kept cool like an industrial sized-fridge. At Concordia, a doctoral student has created a new device that can make heat
Continue readingThings Are Good: Life After Death for American Shopping Malls
Malls have lost a lot of their popularity in consumer culture which has caused many malls to close down. This leaves huge swathes of land unoccupied in towns and cities that can be repurposed from something destructive to the environment to something that respects it. Well, if a mall hasn’t
Continue readingThings Are Good: Stop Junk Mail by Taking Photos
Nobody likes getting dead trees in their mailbox – particularly when those dead trees are useless adverts for products nobody wants (or even needs). Luck for us PaperKarma has created an app for your mobile that allows you to unsubscribe from junk mail lists by simply taking a photo! For
Continue readingThings Are Good: Time + Money ≠ Happiness
Trying to make a decision about your life and how to spend the time you have? Well don’t thinking about spending time, in fact don’t let the idea of money- as-time factor into your decision at all. Professor DeVoe and PhD student Julian House based their conclusions on three experiments.
Continue readingThings Are Good: Why You Should Talk to Yourself
Talking to yourself is a good way to reason through problems, so there’s no reason to feel awkward about your big debates you have with yourself while walking down the street. At least according to some new research from a few universities. This new research in questions stems from Talking
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