Wacky Uses

Use the link since they have a really stupid opening page with loud music. But the rest of the site is pretty good: it includes wacky uses for everyday products (who knew Alberto VO5 hair conditioner prevented silver tarnish? And since you used up the bottle, you can use Reddi-wip as a hair conditioner.) There's also a weird facts section ("To this day, the ingredients in Worcestershire Sauce are stirred together and allowed to sit for two years before being bottled.") A fun way to waste an evening. From This is True for 4 November 2007 Suggestions for further reading: Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for Ame... By: Mark Schapiro List Price: $22.95 Amazon Price: $12.57 Editorial Review: New evidence seems to arrive daily—from stories about tainted pet food to toxic toys—of the dangerous consequences that lax environmental policies are having on the consumer products that we, and our children, use every day thanks to lobbying efforts by the U.S. chemical industry. Meanwhile, the European Union is forcing these global corporate giants to chart a new path that, by requiring safe products, is revamping how businesses can create safe products and make money. In Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Power investigative journalist Mark Schapiro takes the reader inside the corridors of global power where tectonic battles are occurring that will impact the health of ourselves and the planet. Schapiro’s expos© shows how laws adopted by the European Union—where stricter consumer-safety standards are in place—have forced multinationals into manufacturing safer products. And, short of such strong government action the United States will lose its claim of economic and environmental supremacy. Increasingly, products developed and sold in the United States are equated with serious health hazards, and many of those products are soon to be banned from Europe and other parts of the world. Schapiro’s revelations in this thought-provoking work will change the way American consumers think about everyday products—from plastic softeners that can contribute to sexual malformations to lipstick additives that are potential toxins to the brain, liver, kidneys, and immune system. And it will stir them into forcing our government to take the lead of others, including the European Union, China, and countries in Central and South America. Exposed is a revealing and fascinating look at global markets, everyday products, and the toxic chemicals that bind them. It will shock, inform, and warn American businesses and government leaders about the risks of being left behind in the international marketplace. Schapiro’s book shines a light on Europe’s evolving search for higher standards that places Brussels, not Washington, at the center of global market innovation.   Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things (New Report, No 4) By: John C. RyanAlan Thein Durning List Price: $14.95 Amazon Price: $14.95   The Design of Future Things: Author of The Design of Everyday Things By: Donald A. Norman List Price: $27.50 Amazon Price: $18.15 Editorial Review: Donald A. Norman, a popular design consultant to car manufacturers, computer companies, and other industrial and design outfits, has seen the future and is worried. In this long-awaited follow-up to The Design of Everyday Things, he points out what’s going wrong with the wave of products just coming on the market and some that are on drawing boards everywhere-from “smart” cars and homes that seek to anticipate a user’s every need, to the latest automatic navigational systems. Norman builds on this critique to offer a consumer-oriented theory of natural human-machine interaction that can be put into practice by the engineers and industrial designers of tomorrow’s thinking machines. This is a consumer-oriented look at the perils and promise of the smart objects of the future, and a cautionary tale for designers of these objects-many of which are already in use or development.   The Evolution of Useful Things: How Everyday Artifacts-From Forks and Pins to... By: Henry Petroski List Price: $14.95 Amazon Price: $10.17 Editorial Review: This surprising book may appear to be about the simple things of life--forks, paper clips, zippers--but in fact it is a far-flung historical adventure on the evolution of common culture. To trace the fork's history, Duke University professor of civil engineering Henry Petroski travels from prehistoric times to Texas barbecue to Cardinal Richelieu to England's Industrial Revolution to the American Civil War--and beyond. Each item described offers a cultural history lesson, plus there's plenty of engineering detail for those so inclined.Petroski tells fascinating stories about the arduous processes that resulted in paper clips, Post-its, Phillips-head screwdrivers, Scotch tape, and fast-food "clamshell" containers. "Petroski . . . an examines the simplest . . . tools in our lives with an appraising eye."--Washington Post Book World. 45 illus.   How Everyday Products Make People Sick: Toxins at Home and in the Workplace By: Paul D. Blanc MD List Price: $19.95 Amazon Price: $13.57 Editorial Review: This book reveals the hidden health dangers in many of the seemingly innocent products we encounter every day--a tube of glue in a kitchen drawer, a bottle of bleach in the laundry room, a rayon scarf on a closet shelf, a brass knob on the front door, a wood plank on an outdoor deck. A compelling exposé, written by a physician with extensive experience in public health and illustrated with disturbing case histories, How Everyday Products Make People Sick is a rich and meticulously documented account of injury and illness across different time periods, places, and technologies. It presents a picture not of one exceptional or corrupt industry but rather of how run-of-the-mill manufacturing processes and consumer marketing expose workers and the general public alike to toxic hazards. More troubling still, even when such hazards are recognized, calls for their control are routinely ignored. Written for a wide audience, it offers a critical and disquieting perspective on the relationship between industrial development and its adverse health consequences. Among the surprisingly common hazards discussed in How Everyday Products Make People Sick: * Glue and rubber cement * Chlorine bleach * Rayon and other synthetic textiles * Welding and other metal fumes * Wood preservatives * Gasoline additives

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