If you look at Sweden’s top imports, you wouldn’t find anything too surprising. Petroleum is at the top. Cars and car parts. Computers. It takes a lot to keep a country going, whether you’re Sweden, or Norway, or the United States. Ideally, of course, you import what you need and export what you hav [...]
Someone once said that civilization is indoor plumbing. It’s a reasonable sentiment. There’s a great deal to modern society of course, and it’s all very complicated. But things like plumbing and plowing are the fundamental blocks that, removed, bring the whole house down in a hurry. If it’s precario [...]
At Paper Water Bottle, we focus very closely on the problem of plastic bottles and the part sustainable materials and improved production technique can play in resolving that problem. But of course, it’s not the only topic in sustainability, and, more than that, all such topics are ultimately interc [...]
Historian David McCullough’s recent book about the Wright Brothers tells an absolutely necessary story for the internet age. I say so despite the fact that its principle characters were all largely gone from history before the 20th century was half over. In recording the lives of these two mild-mann [...]
Does anyone actually doubt that smoking is bad for you? I don’t really think so. I know people who smoke, and, while some have no interest in quitting, I don’t think any would defend it as a healthy lifestyle choice. In fact, if pressed on why they do it, most would likely begin a sentence with “It’ [...]
Automation in is increasingly in the news. In particular, the suggestion that American workers are going to lose out in the coming robot revolution. It’s a genuine concern of course. We’ll have to work hard to help those displaced, as we have always had to. But that doesn’t mean we can or even shoul [...]
I’ve seen a similar joke in more than one movie or TV program. The gist is something like this. Two people are trying to sneak through a door. One replies that they have a master key. They promptly reveal a hammer and break the window. “Fits any lock,” they say. On the one hand, the logic is inescap [...]
We all have that friend or relative with whom eating out is a chore. It starts in the car. “Where would you like to eat?” we say, bracing ourselves for the inevitable reply. “Oh, anywhere is fine,” they assure us. “You choose.” And thus, the game is afoot. If you’re like me, you’ll start in on a lis [...]
Nobody stares at a salad like me. I have gazed into many a plate of lettuce or spinach and wished that I were one of those folks who could eat anything at all and walk away unscathed. But it is not to be. Instead, I stare, and sigh, and wish that chopped iceberg could become chunky ice cream. In fac [...]
We’ve all had the experience. It may be a musician, an out-of-the-way restaurant, or a favorite writer—the hidden gem that only we recognize, at least in our little circle. Then the wind shifts. Maybe a review gets written. And suddenly our diamond in the rough Is as ubiquitous as cubic zirconia. We [...]