Ideal Bite

We get a bunch of magazines into the office that I normally wouldn't read, such as Esquire. On this month's cover: Gerard Butler, the star of what looks like a total waste of celluloid. Inside, an article with a title so provocative you'd think it was plagiarized from an Ideal Bite Daily Tip:

"MR. GORE, YOUR SOLUTION TO GLOBAL WARMING IS WRONG"

It's by a dude with plenty of supporters and (probably more) critics, Bjorn Lomberg. In spite of the OTT title, he raises some interesting points worth spreading to you Biters:

• Thinking about climate change is a luxury for rich countries. If you live on pennies a day, never graduated middle school, and are

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What I learned on this morning's 10-minute BART ride to work (thanks, Economist):

Later this month, some Switzerland-based "adventurers" (God bless rich people with lots of time on their hands, BTW) are unveiling a new solar plane prototype that, assuming it works, will be the model for the first solar plane to fly around the world.

Just a few years ago the solar technology wasn't good enough - it couldn't harness and store enough of the sun's energy to make this kind of attempt. Makes me wonder how efficient solar panels could be if we'd funneled some of the money used to create, oh, I don't know, the new Read the full post... 

My name's Jenifer and I'm a Post-it junkie. One of the best inventions ever, they're made to make life easier - write your (short) note and put it where you need it. If you go digital, though, where you need it isn't always on your computer. For example, what good is my grocery list on my virtual desktop?

That's where the Notes area on my phone comes in - totally indispensable, since it automatically comes with me everywhere. Even better if you can check email on your phone - just type up a list and send it to yourself (or even take a digital photo of, say, a wine bottle you want to match up).

Works for work too - emailing a reminder to yourself (in the sub line) puts it back into your attention queue automatically, and when you're done, I have to say that Read the full post... 

Whispers from the Ideal Bite archives: Even better than printing in Draft Mode is to not print a document at all. If you're just printing something as a record, digitally file it instead. Meaning, make it into a .PDF file and put it in a folder where you'll remember it.

But - and I'm being dead serious here - remember to backup your computer. Otherwise, you're just asking for those all-important tax docs to disappear just prior to April 15.

-Toshio…off to .PDF it…

Daily Tip
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"Studies show people fear public speaking more than death," Mike tells me. I can totally relate - for some reason what's in my head (uh, hello, pure genius) comes out, er, not so much. So I was shocked when I remained cool as a goose when presenting my final project during my last sustainable design class. Maybe 'cuz 20 or so hopeful designers were staring back at me, eager to realize McDonough's vision of redesigning everything so that trash cans are what old ladies (me by then) used to use. Possible or pipe dream? Discuss...

-Senior Editor Theresa...off to speak publicly to anyone who'll listen...

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As a kid I wasn't allowed to watch TV, eat candy, or turn on the heat. Lucky for me, I had one sweet, sweet hour of after-school alone time in the drafty hippie house before my parents came home. Some might view this as sad ("Aww, latchkey kid...") but from my perspective, it was pure freedom. I would do all three activities in tandem until I heard my dad's Volvo roar into the driveway. At that point, I would scurry around at top speed turning off the TV, the heat, and hiding all evidence of junk food consumption. My Dad would walk through the front door, see me poring over my books in concentrated study, and pretend he believed me. This went on for years.

The new (well-insulated, nondrafty) house has a Honeywell programmable thermostat my dad

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Dunno about you, but when I was first learning to write in cursive, I practiced most with my own signature, writing it over and over again in different ways. And if you compare my signature at age 7 and age 22 and age...um, today, they are vastly different. Left slanting, then straight up and down, and now...well, barely legible. You have to wonder about whether handwriting really does reflect aspects of your personality - which would make sense enough, since that changes too.

Anyway, before you perfect your own e-sig, check out this little article. I can't recommend it as the quintessential resource for such things, but hey, it's at least as interesting as some of the forwarded "funny" emails you're bound to get today.

-Jenifer Morgan...off to write it out...

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I am essentially paid to read for a living, but I read at such a devastatingly slow pace that I pretty much can't get through books. Like, at all. People give me novels and say things like, "Oh, I read this in two days, it's an easy read." If I abandon all other free-time activities, they'll take me three weeks minimum to finish up.

So I've turned to the other kind of e-book to ease my pain: the audiobook. I download them from iTunes or borrow them from the library, and listen away. It's great when I'm commuting with my iPod, and though it still takes a little while to get through them (I can't make the guy speak any faster), it's definitely faster than me flipping pages, and I'm still saving resources.

-Senior Editor Read the full post...