7/30/12 

Practical People

   People who live in cold climes seem to be more practical.  
You've got the Alaskans and the Russians. It must be the cold 
weather.  When you're cold you don't mess around with fluff.  
You get the job done, in the best way practical.  Two of my 
favorite examples involve firewood and the pencil that writes 
upside down.
   Alaska, like all States, by 2012 had to comply with an EPA 
mandate that demonstrated local enforcement and programs that 
would adhere to new air quality regulations.  Alaska 
initiated the most basic and one of the more important 
methods for reducing smoke from a fire: dry firewood. Burning 
dry firewood puts out less smoke and thus less particulate 
matter the EPA measures for.  Residents were invited to 
exchange wet firewood each year for dry firewood.  The wet 
firewood was stacked in a warehouse where it would be 
exchanged as dry firewood the following year.  Practical, 
yes?
   The Russians, when faced with the problem of writing in 
space without gravity came up with a simpler solution.  Even 
though NASA invented the pump pen, that could write upside 
down, the Russians used a pencil.  NASA spent $80,000, 
developing the pen, the Russians spent nothing, except for 
the cost of the pencils.  And who landed on the Mood first?


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