Airships Might Help Connect Northern Canada
The Canadian government has released a report that says that airships could be the most efficient way to bring needed goods to remote areas of northern Canada. Plus, the airships…
Adam
Skateboarders Help Transform Urban Environments
Skateboarding culture is often (wrongly) lumped together with criminal behaviour amongst youth. To those that still think that way, you should check out a study in the most recent Local…
Canada Can Easily Have a Low Carbon Economy
Even though Canada has the tar sands it is still possible for the Canadian economy to lower it’s carbon output. According to some recent research into the matter by The…
Asphalt That Fixes Its Own Potholes
Asphalt covers a lot of world and is worth billions of dollars and the entire industries rely on this material to make roads to transport goods. The catch is, this…
The Ideal 25 Hour Work Week
The currently popular 40 hour work week is a fairly modern notion and it’s thanks to unions that we don’t have something like an 80 hour work week. Times have…
LED Street Lights Save Los Angeles Millions
Four years ago Los Angeles decided to change its street lighting to LEDs and the results have come in and the savings are phenomenal. They have converted a little over…
Movie Sets Get a Second Life
The film industry needs to custom build sets and costumes for their productions and more often than not the unique objects get tossed away after filming is done. Filming a…
Companies Reward Cyclists For Choosing Bikes Instead of Cars
Despite the fact that Toronto’s politicians want to make the city more dangerous for cyclists (by encouraging more car use and removing bike-focused infrastructure) the people of Toronto are loving…
Earthships Taking Off in the Netherlands
Earthships are a type of house that are built using reused materials to construct a structure that is sustainable. Often the earthships are off the gird and can function autonomously…
France Wants Lights to be Turned Off
France has passed a law that will make it illegal to keep lights turned on over night in non-residental buildings. Starting in July the lights need to be out an…
A Look at Happiness Through Design
The Design Exchange in Toronto has invited Stefan Sagmeister to explore what happiness is all about. The artist has done some great album artwork and is now exploring how to…
Eat Early for Best Calorie Burning Results
If you tend to eat early in the day you are more likely to burn weight than people who eat later on in the day. A study recently looked into…
Open Source Ecology Explained
Way back in 2008 I blogged on Open Source Ecology (OSE) which is an open source project to create tools and knowledge to build a fully sustainable village. The project…
Leave Loved Ones With an Exit Plan
Get Your Shit Together (GYST) is a website dedicated to making it so that other people don’t need to experience what one mother had to go through when her husband…
A Beer for Butterflies
Beer is delicious so it’s exciting to find out that at least one brewery is out there using their delvious suds to help a threatened species. Pelican Pub & Brewery…
Stealth Hoodie Protects Your Privacy
Around the world there is an increase in surveillance of individuals by private and public organizations. Artist Adam Harvey has devised a way to help people get some privacy back…
Peru bans GMO foods
Due to the unknown effects that genetically modified plants can have and the intellectual property issues around them (basically Monsanto sues everyone), Peru has joined other counties in banning GMO…
A Promising Biofuel
UC Berkeley chemical engineers have used an old way to make explosives to make biofuels more efficiently. They are using a technique that can turn sugar-rich plants (like corn and…
On Solving Traffic Jams
Cities around the world have problems with vehicular traffic moving slowly. Slow moving cars negatively impact air quality and the ability for road-based mass transit. So what do we do?…
Toronto Uses Billboard Tax to Fund Arts
many years ago, local Toronto artist and activist Devon Ostrom started Beautiful City to get more funding for the arts in Toronto and since then the project has grown to…