Barry b benson pumpkin

Boston

Why setting is important...

Nestle owns the bottled water market

Nestle brands that rank among the top 10 bottled waters: 7

Starbucks locations

Locations in 2007: 11,000 (approx.)
in 1987: 11

Ikan grocery barcode scanner

A recent article in Wired talked about a scientist initially assigning barcodes to moths. Below is a system to organize your shopping list. Barcodes are a quick and standardized way to categorize items, and combining this info with the Web offers many opportunities. What if I scanned the pens I bought at Staples and was given a web page listing the pen, their history (Wiki style), and then was shown prices for it in neighboring stores. The page can also show other similar products. Amazon.com meets Wikipedia meets a barcode scanner. There must be a quicker way to call up info about items I'm holding in my hand. Barcodes seem like an answer, in tandem with a tool like the one I describe above.

David Pogue's article about Ikan can be found here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/technology/personaltech/19pogue.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin

Deforestation accounts for 20% of all carbon emissions

I found this in a Conversation International advertisement: "Deforestation accounts for 20% of all carbon emissions, which is twice the amount that all cars, trucks, and planes in the world emit, combined."

How do we approach that? Drive less, or drive as much and just make people in South America, Russia, and Indonesia not cut down their trees? We tend (unfairly) to do the latter.

Air wear airport code travel bag in national geographic traveler magazine

Santa Fe

Santa Fe Friday Night

It's the Economy, Smarty

Everyone is running around saying the sky is falling. Want to better understand the economic trouble we're in? Check out this informative and funny episode from this American Life (from NPR):

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=365

Snack dragon

Old Nbc building in meatpacking district

New bike racks in new york city