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  International Darwin Day and the Evolution of Playgrounds

  International Darwin Day and the Evolution of Playgrounds International Darwin day is February 12th, so in honor of that, let’s take a look at the evolution of playgrounds. In the grand scheme of things, the late 1800’s wasn’t that long ago.  We had cars, cameras, telephones, record players, electric lighting, and typewriters, but pretty much no playgrounds.  They weren’t a thing.  Very uncommon and if you did find one, it was what the name says; a place (ground) where children played.  The idea was to give kids a place to play that wasn’t in the street. Cars evolved from the three-wheeled Benz, of Mercedes fame, that didn’t even have a proper steering wheel, to the luxurious, practically self-driving, AI machines of today.  Cameras are phones.  Wait … phones are cameras?  Actually, phones are also “record players”, but vinyl is making a huge comeback.  Lighting went from that single brownish incandescent bulb that didn’t really illuminate the far corners of the house to the multi-hued, multi-colored, variable brightness, illumination experience we fully control with our … phones.  Typewriters are now a software program ...
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  About the Whole Flower, Bee, Playground, Child, Community Analogy

  About the Whole Flower, Bee, Playground, Child, Community Analogy “A flower is simply a weed with a good marketing budget.” – Rory Sutherland A weed gets no love, but a colorful flower gets bees.  More bees, more pollination, more flowers.  The landscape is enriched with beautiful weeds; eh … flowers.  But it’s not just flowers.  These bees will pollinate and fertilize other plants that produce seeds, and the entire habitat continues to grow and thrive, supporting other animals.  Life proliferates harmoniously.     Without these flowers, there would be no bee activity, and no pollination or fertilization of more than 70 crop species out of 100 that feed around 90% of the world’s population.  No honey either. Our world and lives would become much harsher, bland, and devoid of many things. Because of these well-marketed weeds, the bees get excited and that communicates joy and excitement to other bees that also visit the flowers and that’s how all of this works.  Everything is positively affected exponentially. To paraphrase Mr. Sutherland, a playground is a park with a good marketing budget.  It makes the landscape ...
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  The Art, Science, and Consequences of Playground Color Schemes

  The Art, Science, and Consequences of Playground Color Schemes If we need a hammer drill, would we go to a furniture store?  How about a suit or a dress?  Would we go to Best Buy?  We wouldn’t go to GameStop for a ping pong table no more than we’d go to an appliance store to buy a watch or a purse or makeup or shoes or … okay, you get the picture.    What if there was a store like that?  Well … there was and it was called Sears.  One of the biggest reasons Sears ceased to exist is that they became everything and nothing at the same time.  Sears lost it’s identity because, according to George Troy, author of the Five Laws of Retail, upper management focused on financial shell games to enrich themselves personally and to appear successful in the short term.  They profited, but at the cost of killing Sears. Back in the 1980’s Pepsi’s marketing department launched the Pepsi Challenge.  Pepsi vs Coca Cola in a blind taste test and guess what; most people picked Pepsi.  Great ...
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  Rust. It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way

  Rust. It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way Fe2O3 • H2O. Hydrated Ferric Oxide. Rust!  Why do things rust so easily?  Steel is made of iron and carbon and iron can’t help but rust, because all it wants to do is go back to its thermodynamically-favored state of being, which is iron ore.  When we mine iron, it looks like rust, because it is rust.  When we make steel, we’re forcing it to be something it doesn’t want to be and rust is iron’s way of defying our efforts.  Here in Florida, that fight is even tougher.  So to counteract that, we clean, treat, coat, paint and so on.  But, that only slows down the process.  On most outdoor fitness equipment or playground products, we first see rust occurring at the welds. Why there? The process.  One of the best ways to fight rust is galvanization, but it’s rust-resistance qualities are compromised during the welding process.     When galvanized steel is welded, it is exposed to extremely high temperatures, typically exceeding the melting point of zinc (419°C or 787°F). During welding, several key ...
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  Burke, NRPA, and the Importance of a Big Purple Party

  Burke, NRPA, and the Importance of a Big Purple Party Fun is only done right for the sake of fun with no peripheral agendas, hints of business, or underlying purposes.  Otherwise, it’s “fake fun”.  When fun isn’t real, we don’t get the full benefits. “We need more moments where we’re simultaneously in the zone and feeling ourselves, but not for work.” – Catherine Price; Author of The Power of Fun Real fun; unadulterated fun, brings us happiness and joy.  We’re enjoying ourselves in the moment, being fully present, without our brains being attached or distracted otherwise.  Experiencing happiness and joy on a regular basis is more powerful than genes, nutrition, and exercise for overall health and longevity.  Add friends or a group of friendly, fun people and the effects are multiplied.  I used the word “unadulterated” because as adults, we tend to do fun things from time to time, but not fully.  We convolute it with thoughts of things we have to get done, “important” stuff (whatever that is), and other obligations.  Children get fun right.  It’s very important that we do ...
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  How Stress Keeps Us from Falling Over

  Stress Keeps Us from Falling Over Inside Arizona’s Biosphere 2, the trees grew very rapidly, more so than they would outside of the dome.  But, before they reached full maturity, they would simply fall over.  They would reach a certain height; and, it’s not that they reached the literal glass ceiling, but at a certain height, they would fall over.  At first, the scientists couldn’t figure out why.  But after some research, they found the answer.  It was a complete lack of stress that made the root system, the bark, and the entire tree weak.  In the real world outside of the dome, trees have to withstand wind and other elements, position themselves in a way to get more sunlight, and grow a deep and wide root system to get enough water.  In Biosphere 2, the trees didn’t have to do any of those things: no wind, plenty of water, no elements like heavy rain, never too hot or cold, and there was always enough UV light.  All that comfort and ease produced weak trees that fell over. Humans are kind ...