Stuff YOU Should Know
Smart Shoes? You might already have a chip in your shoes that tracks your distance, pace or duration. What if your shoes could do more . . . say, help tell you where to go? The European airline company EasyJet is working on such a product; it is called, “Sneakairs.” The device is built with open source hardware […]
Stuff YOU Should Know
Survivalist Real Estate Being prepared for wide-spread calamity—nuclear war, social unrest, climate change, disruptions in our utility grids, perceived Constitutional threats—is not a new concept. But changes in our culture tend to trigger recurrent surges of interest and create demand for a kind of “survivalist real estate.” The Cold War, especially the Cuban Missile Crisis, […]
Stuff YOU Should Know
Jonas Hits East Coast Fourteen states around the country got more than a foot of snow this month, with at least six states on the East Coast seeing more than two feet of powder. Much of it came over the weekend of January 22-24 from Winter Storm Jonas. For many of the areas affected, it […]
Stuff YOU Should Know
Was 2015 a Good Year for Jobs? In the years since the Great Recession, our economy has reported many episodes of upturn. But 2015 was the first prolonged stretch of job creation since the late 1990s. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (the government agency that collects economic data and distributes it to the American […]
UN Climate Change Conference
Over the years, btw has brought you stories about Climate Control—what it is, what it does, and measures proposed to slow its effect. Last week, around 25,000 representatives from nearly 200 countries came together in Paris for talks aimed at creating a legally-binding agreement to reduce carbon emissions globally. Key Issues From November 30 to […]
Stuff YOU Should Know
Celebrating Pi (With Pie!) Do you like math? Do you like baked goods? If so, you hopefully celebrated both on International Pi Day on March 14. Pi–symbolically represented as π–is a “special number” (or mathematical constant) that is represented by the Greek letter for the letter P. Its approximate value is 3.14 (although it an […]
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Another Attempt at Peace in Russia For the past year, btw has brought you stories about the conflict in Russia regarding its relationship with the neighboring Ukraine. The most recent effort to halt the ongoing violence is a series of peace talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Francois […]
Stuff YOU Should Know
U.S. and China Agree to Climate Regulations By now, you should be well aware of the many discussions centered around climate change. The big debate, however, continues to be over what steps should be taken to slow or reverse its effects. Earlier this month, President Obama and China’s President Xi Jinping co-announced a climate change […]
Stuff YOU Should Know
25th anniversary of Tiananmen Square Massacre On April 15, 1989 former Chinese Communist Party chief Hu Yaobang died of a heart attack. Although he had been forced to resign by the government, he was popular among the people who wished for more Western-style freedoms. To mourn his death, more than 50,000 students gathered in Beijing’s […]
btw’s Year in Review: World News
Last week, btw took a look at the big stories from around the United States. This week we move on to the rest of the world. With the Internet, social media and other various outlets, the world community feels closer than ever. We saw a shift in leadership with the election of a new pope […]