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DIY Urban Design, from Guerrilla Gardening to Yarn Bombing

Clever citizens are repurposing phone booths, installing public furniture, and painting new bike lanes. It's DIY urban design, and it's taking off.

Gordon Douglas
By Gordon DouglasApr 29, 2011
Gordon Douglas
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All images by Gordon Douglas unless otherwise noted.

bikestransportationcitiestorontoguerrilla gardeningurban repair squaddiy urban designyarn bombingpublic ad campaign

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Video games are a great, fun way for families to bond and develop life skills.

Photo credit: Canva

6 amazing video games that count as quality bonding time with your children

If you’re a parent of a certain age, you probably still play video games and have some kids that enjoy playing them, too. However, you want to be a good parent and bond with your kids while possibly wanting that gaming fix. Well, why not mix both?

Since a study is showing that playing video games for long stretches of time doesn’t impact life satisfaction, and people who grew up on them know how many of them encourage critical thinking, teamwork, and other life skills that could benefit their children. So let’s add gaming time into family time.

But what game should you all play? It can be hard to find a game that your teenager, middle schooler, elementary schooler, and (let’s be honest) you will all enjoy playing together equally. Fortunately, there are some great fun games that won’t alienate anyone in the household regardless of age or gender. In fact, you and your partner might still play them on your own when the kids go to bed. Let’s take a look at some titles that’ll make everyone grab a controller.

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San Francisco libraries reveal genius way to support local musicians getting screwed by Spotify
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Photo by matthew Feeney on Unsplash

San Francisco libraries reveal genius way to support local musicians getting screwed by Spotify

Video may have killed the radio star, but Spotify probably won't bring them back. Not for most musicians, anyway. That's why it's incredibly exciting that the San Francisco Public Library is helping to fill in the gaps for local musicians by actually HIRING them to stream their albums on their own streaming service, Bay Beats.

Bay Beats launched its streaming service site in 2023 and has been expanding its catalogue of musical talent ever since. Any type of music is considered—from folk rock to DIY punk to rap. According to their website, the albums are chosen by "community jurors (Bay Area music influencers) and selected SFPL staff (who) review the submissions and select the albums that will be added to the Bay Beats platform." These jurors include radio DJs, VPs at places like Empire Records, music journalists, fellow musicians, and more.

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Happy people in Finland

Images via Canva

A Scandinavian nation is named the happiest country in the world for 8th year in a row

“Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top,” the World Happiness Report asks people from 140 countries every year. “The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?”

Released every year on or around March 20, the United Nations’ official International Day of Happiness, the World Happiness Report is “is the world’s foremost publication on global wellbeing and how to improve it,” published by “the University of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre in partnership with Gallup, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network,” and the organization’s editorial board. Among the data shared, which includes everything from “how sharing meals supports happiness and social connections” to “how prosocial behaviour reduces deaths of despair” and more, there are also annual rankings of the happiest countries in the world. This number is compiled based on polled residents’ perceptions on their country’s levels of inequality, social support, freedom, and more.

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Andrée Borrel was a nurse, paratrooper, spy, and overall asset for the Allies during World War 2.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

A WWII nurse parachuted into France as a special spy agent for the Allies

Andrée Borrel was a nurse assisting the wounded soldiers fighting for her home country of France during World War II. That enough would have been a valuable service in the fight against the Nazi invasion. However, her service as a nurse would come to an end and she was forced to flee her country. But she would return, parachuting in as a spy for the Allied Forces.

At the start of WWII, Borrel volunteered as a nurse for the Red Cross, working in various hospitals throughout southern France. While working at Hôpital de Beaucaire, she was recruited into the Pat O’Leary Line, an underground movement that helped downed Allied soldiers, Jews, and resistance fighters make their way out of Nazi-occupied France to safer haven in England.

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trans, transgender, sports, soccer, inclusivity, Portland

The Lavender League has been a major success in Portland

Representative images via benjamin lehman on Unsplash and Canva

There's a new soccer league in Portland for trans, nonbinary and queer players and it's thriving

If you don’t find a space for yourself, and you have the chance to make one, why not take it? This is the kind of question that brought Portland’s Lavender League to life. Founded to center the lives of queer women and trans and nonbinary individuals, the Lavender League began in Portland in March 2024. It has since grown to a league of over 200 adults across 12 teams, and they’ve recently begun their second season.

With a mission to “build community, acceptance, and culture through soccer,” the Lavender League “offers safe spaces to move, build, and socialize,” they share. Or as the league also writes on Instagram, “Come play, build community, and have fun on the field!”

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Tesco is reducing food waste by giving away expiring food to customers.

Photo credit: Derek Harper/Wikimedia. Commons/Canva

The UK's largest grocery store chain has a revolutionary new strategy: giving away free food

With 3,700 stores in the U.K. and 750 more in other countries, Tesco is easily Britain’s largest grocery store chain. They’re incredibly successful but have been facing a growing food waste problem as many items grow too old to sell. Their new solution? Give it away to customers for free.

Tesco has been trying to reduce the amount of food waste it produces year after year, hoping to reduce the amount of thrown-away food by 50%. However, with rising food prices due to global inflation and rising cost of living expenses, the prices of several food staples such as meat, eggs, and milk have gone up. The BBC reports that over seven million people in the UK are “food insecure.” So as a means to clear their inventory and reduce food waste, Tesco is trying a new policy of giving away expiring food at the end of each day.

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With 20 gold medals, Iichi Marumo is the oldest speedskater in the world
klapschaatsen | Everyone in speedkating uses these clap skat ...
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With 20 gold medals, Iichi Marumo is the oldest speedskater in the world

Iichi Marumo had been ice skating since he was some 10 years old, but he didn’t compete in his first race until nearly eight decades later, at the age of 86. Now, at 95, he has 20 gold medals to his name as a speedskating champion in his age bracket. There aren’t many like him–as he gets older, the skating categories rise with him; according to The New York Times, the Japan Skating Federation has created three new ones since he started just to keep up–and while he’s briefly retired from the sport to heal from an injury, he hopes to make it to the next bracket soon, for ages 100 and over.

Marumo’s life as a competitive skater began when a friend convinced him to try it, since he’d probably “get a medal just for showing up,” the Times reported. While it seems extraordinary, for Marumo the dedication for the sport is actually one more in a long list of fascinating lifetime feats.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

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Therapy dog eases cadets' worries > U.S. Air Force

www.usafa.af.mil

Turns out dogs love baby talk after all and we've got science to prove it


It's official. If you use that higher-pitched, overly-emphasized voice when speaking to a dog, they usually love it.

Let's back up a second and discuss what "baby talk" actually is. Often known by linguists as "motherese" (or more recently, "parentese") and by child development researchers as "child-directed" speech, this involves talking in a "high pitch and exaggerated intonation." According to psychologist Anna Fernald's article "Four-Month-Olds Prefer to Listen to Motherese" on ScienceDirect, "fourty-eight 4-month-old infants were tested in an operant auditory preference procedure. Infants showed a significant listening preference for the motherese speech register."

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