Just in time for the Oscars, Californians for a Healthy and Green Economy have announced the winners of the Toxies, an actual red carpet event that honored so-called “Bad Actor Chemicals” or toxic compounds found in many everyday products. Some of the winners: Worst Breakthrough Performance and Viewer’s Choice Award for Worst Chemical of 2009: Bisphenol A (BPA), an estrogen … Read More

I’m looking forward to auditioning Dragons’ Den prospects tomorrow. Auditions for next season (being tape this spring) began earlier this week in Saskatoon, and continue ti ll April 17 in Ottawa. This year the producers will hit 40 cities in their search for wacky inventors and doable deals, so click here for the audition schedule . The first of two … Read More

My business is going through lots of growing pains right now, which means that I’m going through lots of growing pains right now. Our businesses mirror our lives, and vice versa. If your business isn’t where you want it to be, then you’ve got to take a hard look at who you’re being and how you’re showing up. The answer … Read More

To hear the sound of wind getting knocked out of millions of chests when The Hurt Locker topples Avatar for best picture, you may want to download tvChatter , a real-time Twitter viewer that’s organized by TV show. The new app developed by frog design has developed a special section for this Sunday’s Academy Awards broadcast where armchair Twitters can … Read More

One of the reasons why Avatar has been such a success (besides the mind-numbingly beautiful scenery) is that it has a simple story. The David versus Goliath plot can–and has already been–applied to situations around the world by activist groups eager to hitch their wagon to the blockbuster film. But the latest campaign by environmental groups including the Sierra Club, … Read More

Have you noticed that a lot of people are talking about celebrity lately? Maybe it’s just my reticular activating system (RAS) sparking up ever since I recently started talking about how to “raise your celebrity profile.” (No, I didn’t make up the “RAS” – it just means that I’m just hyper-aware of this particular language right now.) My use of … Read More

When most people start out with Wordpress, they use a free theme rather than pay for a premium, or “professionally designed”, theme. While this seem like a great solution, it can set you up for trouble down the road. Most people use free themes because, well, they are free. Makes sense, right? Why pay for something you can get for … Read More

So it’s come to this : Unable to provide basic services for all of his constituents, Detroit mayor Dave Bing is drafting plans starve his city down to a manageable size. Using proprietary data and a survey released by Data Driven Detroit , Bing and his staff will pick ” winners and losers ” amongst the city’s neighborhoods and seek … Read More

A website that plots the results from GoogleSuggest maps the internet zeitgeist more elegantly than ever before. GoogleSuggest is a pretty astounding tool for capturing the zeitgeist , but WhatDoYouSuggest.net turns it into interactive art. Here’s how Simon Elvery, the site’s creator, explains it : The suggested words appear in the order in which Google suggests them and are each … Read More

When Steve Ballmer unveiled Windows Phone 7 in Barcelona last month, there was a fair amount of speculation that Microsoft ’s radical (for them) new OS would render unto the company’s existing devices a whole heap of incompatibility. And now they’ve confirmed it. Microsoft Partner Group Program Manager for the Windows Phone Application Platform & Developer Experience, Charlie Kindel, admitted … Read More