http://www.trulia.com/crime/

This site provides crime statistics for selected cities.

Crime Map - Trulia

http://www.trulia.com/crime/

-Tom.

Road Dust Suppressants.

Road dust - an environmental hazard. To suppress dust, they've tried "water, salts [MgCl2], asphalt, molasses, vegetable oils, synthetic polymers, lignin [the part of wood that's not cellulose fibers]."

http://www.epa.gov/esd/cmb/pdf/dust.pdf

-Tom.

Gravel Road Dust Suppressants

Road dust - an environmental hazard. People have tried suppressing the dust with "water, molasses, lignin [a wood product used in making Saran wrap]."

http://www.epa.gov/esd/cmb/pdf/dust.pdf

-Tom.

NYTimes: A $42 Million Gift Aims at Improving Bedside Manner

A new center is intended to teach medical students how to have a better relationships with their patients. http://nyti.ms/r1UaHw

On Kickstarter Designers Dreams Materialize - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Kickstarter is an ingenious site where reative minds can seek crowdsourcing funds for a project - a new gizmo or widget, an indie film or an artistic endeavor, a book, or a furniture design.  The project needs a clear plan, a start and end date, and if you don't raise the needed funds, everyone's pladge is returned.  What's in it for donators? If they give above a threshold amount set by the instigator, they get a first production run of the new product at a discount. Or an invitation to an advance showing of the artwork. Or a tee-shirt. And the reward of backing a good idea.
The site describes the basic idea and lists the rules of how the site works through paypal funding.

http://m.post-gazette.com/living/garden/on-kickstarter-designers-dreams-materialize-1176718?p=0

http://www.helium.com/items/2028382-entrepreneurs-are-using-kickstarter-to-fund-their-dreams

Kickstarter - a grass roots site for funding ideas

http://www.helium.com/items/2028382-entrepreneurs-are-using-kickstarter-to-fund-their-dreams

-Tom.

Waterproof Breathable Fleece

Unlike most cotton fabric, this sweatshirt won't soak up rain as if it were a sponge. With a water-resistant polymer bonded to its cotton thread, the hoodie repels more than 80% of moisture. And since the polymer is not applied as a coating, the sweatshirt still breathes. Under Armour, around $60 - from Popular Science10/11 p17.

Dry Ice Bubble

NYTimes.com: What if the Secret to Success Is Failure?

Good character traits are maybe more important than grades in grooming someone for success. "...he noticed something curious: the students who persisted in college were not necessarily the ones who had excelled academically at KIPP; they were the ones with exceptional character strengths, like optimism and persistence and social intelligence. They were the ones who were able to recover from a bad grade and resolve to do better next time; to bounce back from a fight with their parents; to resist the urge to go out to the movies and stay home and study instead; to persuade professors to give them extra help after class."..."People who accomplished great things, she noticed, often combined a passion for a single mission with an unswerving dedication to achieve that mission, whatever the obstacles and however long it might take. She decided she needed to name this quality, and she chose the word “grit.” "...he identified a set of strengths that were, according to his research, especially likely to predict life satisfaction and high achievement. After a few small adjustments, they settled on a final list: zest, grit, self-control, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism and curiosity." "they also see many parents who, while pushing their children to excel, also inadvertently shield them from exactly the kind of experience that can lead to character growth." "give them everything they want and need, to protect them from dangers and discomforts both large and small. And yet we all know — on some level, at least — that what kids need more than anything is a little hardship: some challenge, some deprivation that they can overcome, even if just to prove to themselves that they can. "  September 18, 2011 What if the Secret to Success Is Failure? By PAUL TOUGH Why our children's success - and happiness - may depend less on perfect performance than on learning how to deal with failure.  Also - this story of 3 children suddenly dropped into a school where they didn't know a word of the language is a great example of the strengths achieved through initial failure. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/magazine/my-familys-experiment-in-extreme-schooling.html

NYTimes.com: Bicycle Visionary

"So if a city believes that biking is part of a better future, it must sometimes muscle through a reluctant, rocky present. That’s precisely what Bloomberg and Sadik-Khan have done, in a fine example of the way the mayor’s frequent imperiousness and imperviousness to criticism can work to the city’s long-term advantage. " OPINION   | September 11, 2011 Op-Ed Columnist:  Bicycle Visionary By FRANK BRUNI If a city believes that biking is part of a better future, it must sometimes muscle through a reluctant, rocky present. Here's a link to the article if you don't subscribe to the New York TImes, or aren't in a Starbucks. And the video below is a related, funny rant highlighting a biker's frustrations with bike lanes in New York.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3UPKYm5nb

NYTimes.com: The Trouble With Homework

"Spaced repitition" (returning to a suject briefly and repeatedly)and "retrieval practice" testing, and "cognitive disfluency" (if hard to learn signals brain to retain it better) can improve knowledge retention. OPINION   | September 11, 2011 Opinion:  The Trouble With Homework By ANNIE MURPHY PAUL The quality of homework matters more than the quantity.  Here is a link if you don't subscribe to New York Times or you aren't in a Starbucks.

Truck falls over, then rights itself

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaHtccTJQCM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Skilled bike rider

Rides the top of a fence, etc
He's going to feature in the upcoming film "Premium Rush"


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShbC5yVqOdI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Any guesses?

Here is the story of this photo.

Performance Art on a Light Rail Train

iPhone-controlled RC helicopter

RC helicopter that you control with your phone. It started as a project on kickstarter to get the funding going...

Teach in a low-income area for 2 years after college.

http://www.teachforamerica.org/
http://www.teachforamerica.org/our-mission/enlisting-committed-individuals