Pew Study Finds Video Games Are Not Bad for Kids

Slashdot | Study Finds Video Games Are Not Bad for Kids

a study done by the Pew Internet & American Life Project has found game playing is all but universal among teens, and it provides a “significant amount of social interaction and potential for civic engagement.” 97% of teens responding to the survey said they played games 75% played weekly or more often, and roughly two-thirds of teens use games as a social experience. The full report PDF and the questionnaire with answer data PDF are both available for viewing. From the report: “Youth who take part in social interaction related to the game, such as commenting on websites or contributing to discussion boards, are more engaged civically and politically. Youth who play games where they are part of guilds are not more civically engaged than youth who play games alone.

Can games make your kid a better citizen? - Back to School- msnbc.com has a longer article on this. The Pew Internet & American Life Project is probably one of the better sources for information on Internet stuff.

White roofs fight global warming! ZOMG!

Ecogeek points to this article in the LA Times, saying:

Why the eff did we decide that having all the roofs in the world be black was a good idea? I mean, I know, tar is black, and that’s what most roofs are sealed with, but I really can’t imagine a much dumber decision.

Simply painting roofs white in warm climates could decrease air conditioning bills for those buildings by 20%. That’s one reason why California has required all new buildings to have white roofs for the past few years.

But now there’s even more reason to spend the extra dough. It looks like, if all the roofs in the world were white, enough sunlight would reflect back into the atmosphere to significantly reduce the effects of global warming. WTF?! Such a simple change, such a massive effect!

This new study says that if the 100 biggest cities painted all their roofs white, and switched their road materials to lighter colors (concrete instead of asphalt) it would reflect enough light and heat back into space to entirely offset the warming of the last few decades.

Via TreeHugger

So, we paint the roofs white, and anything else we make that is dark, and bounce that energy back into space… er… just like the melting ice caps. Better than some of the things I’m reading about how to combat global warming… but still let’s try it first in Toronto! It should be easy to measure the decrease in heating costs and local heat island effect to see if it works. And we could do it now.

International Talk Like A Pirate Day - September 19

The Official site for International Talk Like A Pirate Day - September 19… get ready! Get set! Yarrrrr!

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SPORE! can someone point me to the 'facts' showing the Spore owns everything forever?