U.S.

Report: More Employees Visiting Porn Sites At Work

Jenna Jameson now has a 9-to-5 job. Fully one quarter of employees who use the Internet visit porn sites during the workday, according to October figures from Nielsen Online; that's up from 23 percent a year ago. And hits are highest during office hours than at any other time of day, reports M. J. McMahon, publisher of AVN Online magazine, which tracks the adult video industry.What's driving workers to get their kicks on company time? It's one more thing we can pin on the slow economy. "People are looking for an escape," says Steve Hirsch, CEO of Vivid Entertainment Group, an adult online-video provider. And rightly or wrongly, they think their bosses are too busy to notice, says Dawn Adams, CEO of Wisconsin consulting firm HResults. "Managers are dealing with so many issues right now," she says, "that sometimes people are able to hide out and no one knows what they're doing." AVN's McMahon attributes the rise in workplace porn to the proliferation of free Web sites, such as xtube...
U.S.

As Pure As the Driven Snow

Living in Boynton Beach, Fla., Valerie Staggs used to boil her water after hurricanes and other natural disasters. But after her son, Ryan, was born five years ago, she had a filter installed under her kitchen sink. “I just wanted my water safe no matter what,” says Staggs, an ad executive. Not only does the filter screen out microbes and other contaminants that threaten her county’s water system after a major storm, it has also improved the taste of her ice cubes, tea and coffee. “The difference is like night and day,” she says.Americans have one of the safest supplies of tap water in the world. But fewer of us seem to be drinking it. In the past decade, sales of bottled water have tripled to $10.6 billion. Environmental advocates say the bottles waste resources—most are made from a derivative of crude oil and are transported for miles in diesel-guzzling trucks. Water filters seem to offer the best of both worlds: an unlimited supply of purified water with less waste. But do you...
U.S.

Environment: Going Green at Work

Allison Friedman, 34, was running her own restaurant in Brookline, Mass., when she had an epiphany. "For five years, it was enough for me to work hard, make a living and have a good time," she says. "But there was a fourth concept missing, and that was doing some social good." So Friedman sold her restaurant, a Southwestern chili house, went to business school and eventually founded the Web site rateitgreen.com, dedicated to helping consumers and businesses find ecofriendly building materials and services.Like Friedman, many people feel torn between their careers and their inclinations toward public service. But as Americans grow more savvy about helping the environment, organizations and services are popping up to help workers bridge that gap. "We get this question from a lot of people," says Kevin Doyle, coauthor of "The ECO Guide to Careers that Make a Difference" and president of the work-force development firm Green Economy, Inc. "They want to have their daily work make a...
Culture

Good Food, Delivered

Unlike George Jetson, we'll probably never push a button in our kitchens and have a freshly cooked meal spring up from the counter. But the next best thing might be opening the front door to find a week's worth of healthy family dinners waiting for you. That's the idea behind a new crop of meal-delivery services that are popping up online. Some deliver fresh food, others frozen. But they all claim to help you eat more nutritiously, avoid junk food and save hours of time. Do these meals taste any better than what you can find in your frozen-food aisle? And are they worth the extra money? We sampled four services and found that the surprising answer, in most cases, is "yes." A guide: ...
Culture

Food: What's On Your Label?

A decade ago, environmentally conscious consumers had one main label to check if they wanted to make sure the food they were buying was acceptable: organic. Today, supermarket aisles are filled with products that profess to safeguard salmon, preserve rain forests, protect migratory birds and allow cows and chickens to roam free. "There's been a huge proliferation of claims over the last three years," says Mindy Pennybacker, founder and editor of The Green Guide (thegreenguide.com), a newsletter for ecosavvy consumers. How do you know if the products are delivering on their promises? A TIP SHEET guide: ...

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