Consider this problem: Every time we put a wooden post or other structure into the ground, or even near soil, some damned microbes start in eating it and in a few years it rots and falls apart. WHAT CAN WE DO???? FIRST GENERATION IDEA: In accord with Western concepts of always dominating every situation, KILL THE LOUSY BUGGERS!!! Fill the wood with pesticides (like green copper chromium arsenate) so that any microbes that get near the wood WILL PERISH! PROBLEM: The poison is a poison for us too, as well as everything else that lives. Some of the treated wood has been used on playgrounds so our children are touching it too. So pull it out and throw it away - excuse me, recycle it. But how do you recycle poisoned wood? All very confusing. (Zero Waste thinking provides simple, commonsense ways to reuse the wood but who wants to listen to that?) There are always a few people who are not impressed with first ideas. One of them came up with a SECOND GENERATION IDEA. Instead of killing the microbes, how about changing the wood, in a non-poisonous way, so that the microbes can't find a place to start chewing? It works with polyethylene, so why not with wood? He found out that microbes start to chew on the tasty HYDROXYL GROUPS that stick out all over the wood molecules. So what happens if we cover up all of those hydroxyl groups by reacting them with ACETYL GROUPS. Thus the Accsys Corporation was born. This company is treating wood with a very concentrated acetic acid, known as acetic anhydride, to tie up the free hydroxyl groups and make them unpalatable. In the process, they claim that the wood becomes so hard that softwoods become hardwoods. > Will there be problems with the second generation idea? Of course it's possible. We may need to go to a third generation idea. But the first generation idea is now lost in the dust.

The Problem I had an aerosol paint can that I lost the nozzle to. My conundrum was that this was an extra large full can of high quality paint that I really wanted to use. FIRST GENERATION IDEA: No problem, I thought, I always save the nozzles when I empty an aerosol can, just for times like this. I'll use one of my reserve nozzles. (Note: this is that tiny plastic nozzle on top of aerosol cans, invented by Robert H. Abplanal in 1953 which made him a multimillionaire). PROBLEM: The new nozzle didn't work. The paint just came out in a dribble. Aha! The paint is somehow thick or has bigger particles than can pass thru the small holes of this nozzle. The original nozzle probably had a larger orifice. So I used a wire to clean out the nozzle. Still no success. So I used a fine drill bit to enlarge the holes. Still no success. I soaked it in lacquer thinner, cleaned it out, blew thru it, no success. This went on for months, with many different approaches. I was sure the nozzle was obstructed. Finally, I demonstrated to myself that my explanation HAD TO BE WRONG! The passage was large enough that there could be no obstruction. SECOND GENERATION IDEA. I realized that the lower tube of the nozzle could be too short to adequately open the valve on top of the can. That would also result in a spritz, instead of a flow. How could I lengthen the tube so that it pushed down effectively on the valve? I cut a short piece of stiff wire and inserted it into the nozzle tube so it extended about a millimeter. The spray worked perfectly. > THE LESSON: Had I not been so focused on my first generation idea for so long, I could have solved the problem a lot faster.

The various colorful designs found on this website are from Paul Palmer's personal collection of Turkish greeting cards. An exception is the Ouroboros, an ancient design for a dragon eating its own tail, which was the logo of Zero Waste Systems Inc., Paul Palmer's company for the reclamation of industrial chemical byproducts.