In Dark Times, It's Sometimes Necessary To Hear Some Good News

By Petr Navovy | Miscellaneous | October 2, 2015 |

By Petr Navovy | Miscellaneous | October 2, 2015 |

Good morning, Pajiba.

My heart bleeds for those of you across the pond in the US, having been subjected as a nation to another tragic, sickening, and wearying mass shooting.

After the events in Oregon, it would seem somewhat tasteless of me, I think, to provide you with a lengthy screed on dystopian apps, UK/Saudi chicanery, or urban gentrification.

Oregon is also not something I am going to cover here, as I’m sure people far more capable than me will.

Sometimes it’s necessary — if even just for a moment — to focus one’s gaze on the Good out there. Not as a means of sticking one’s head in the sand, but in an effort to see hope in humanity. Because while anger and righteous outrage can be two of the most powerful agents and catalysts of change, hope is the one that trumps them all.

So here’s some Good Stuff that’s happened:

— A London student has invented a smart glove capable of converting sign language into text and speech.

— Since 2005, and following concerted efforts by the Brazilian government, the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest (otherwise known as the ‘Dear God, Please Stop Destroying This, We Need It’ forest) has fallen by almost 90 percent.

— A terminally ill father managed to raise $750,000 for his 6 year old daughter’s cancer treatment before passing away.

— The world’s largest wildlife corridor is to be built in California.

— Sweden acts as a bastion of sanity by switching to a 6-hour workday

— A racist German scientist is stopping any countries that are ‘too lax’ with their immigration controls from using his bioinformatics software. You might be wondering why this is under a ‘good news’ post. Purely because of one scientist’s response to this: ‘I’d say not being able to use [the software] would be no great loss to anyone. I would stop using [the software] just on general principle, even if we had to resort to using pencil and paper’. Suck it, racist German scientist dude.

And then here’s some dogs feeling guilty, because there aren’t many things funnier: