More on How to Make Clear Ice

...tic David Rees (author of a book on sharpening pencils!), and one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, did a whole National Geographic special on ice that includes a segment on making clear ice. And did you know that clear ice sometimes happens naturally? Behold this viral YouTube hit, “Walking on beautiful clean ice in Slovakian Mountains:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WBqX7MSqWw Lastly, I want to leave you with one of the most satisfying vi...

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What You Can Do to Make Our Streets Safer

...ve never seen a road they don’t like and have spent the past hundred years making our cities into dangerous traffic sewers (see this article). Their lobbyists have a seat on municipal traffic commissions and they have the ear of our politicians. Thankfully there’s an alternative. If you want roadside assistance you can sign up for the Better World Club or just use the towing service offered by your insurance company. The tow trucks all come from t...

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The Year We Gave Up Our Smart Phones

...p to Earth. Now all they have to eat is freeze dried Beef Stroganoff in a Martian prison of their own making. We used their stranding as an opportune moment to rid our culture of the things that were holding us back. My own personal smart phone addiction recovery path began back in 2018. I was building the most complex project I’ve ever attempted, a chest of drawers. It required intense concentration and I kept getting interrupted by the ping of t...

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Saturday Tweets: Don’t Fear the Green Reaper

...Root Simple (@rootsimple) January 28, 2019 The Right to Repair movement is making strides around the world https://t.co/PKffl3RWYJ — Root Simple (@rootsimple) January 28, 2019 I’m going to have to start eating actual mice, aren’t I?https://t.co/0cbDh6ipn4 — Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) January 28, 2019 Progress! https://t.co/7wPV20taEb — Michael Pollan (@michaelpollan) January 28, 2019 Play is beginning to look more and more like work. The Complic...

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The Institute of the Present

...ted lanes will quickly fill to capacity and we’ll be right back where we started. The artificial intelligence self driving cars depend on is a just a deceptive term for a branch of predictive statistics which may prove useful but should not be compared to human intelligence. The hoped for future that Eric Garcetti is is betting on will never arrive. Meanwhile the changes we need to make right now won’t happen and the city will continue to be conge...

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