October 28, 2005 – 5:15 pm
[ via Scottish Assoc. of Big Iron Programmers ] Behold the cutest mammal on Earth: The Japanese Flying Squirrel.
September 14, 2005 – 10:53 pm
The Guardian interviews writer Kim Stanley Robinson. His current books are about a near future America still refusing to deal with climate change. In the climax of Forty Signs of Rain, the tidal surge from a hurricane floods the Nation’s Capital.
It may get a little dire before we pull together, but I think when the [...]
March 17, 2005 – 12:00 am
How does one group of conservative Christians plan to deal with the uncertainties of the modern world?
The authors envision a state designed to protect the “integrity” of the home — autonomous family units composed exclusively of one woman, one man, and as many children as possible. As incentive for the mother to stay home and [...]
March 28, 2004 – 12:00 am
So here’s a story: John Francis, disturbed by an oil spill caused by a tanker collision, stops using cars, buses, trains, and planes. He tires of arguing to justify his decision. So he stops talking, for 17 years.
Now you’d think that a guy who does that would end up, at best, being a colorful crank. [...]
April 12, 2003 – 12:00 am
[ via Eileen Gunn ] Kim Stanley Robinson wrote a vignette describing the evolution of one family’s practice of Adventure Travel, and how they put it to use to live a little more mindfuly.
December 2, 2002 – 12:00 am
[ via Anonymous Clare ] Okay Buffy fans: “So how big does a town have to be to support Sunnydale’s apparently limitless supply of vampires?”
I’m waiting for the paper on ‘branes and hell dimensions.
The US print edition of The Economist did not have the article on Weblogs which Dave mentioned on Scripting News. But the cover editorial is worth a read, I’m glad to see the editors arguing for the phasing out of coal.
It’s a major source of CO2, coal dust and smoke is a health hazard, [...]
Southern Wisconsin’s already overpopulated white tailed deer herd, has a new problem: chronic wasting disease. CWD is related to mad cow. Both are caused by proteins run amuck in the brains of the victim. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources plans to eliminate all deer in a nearly 400 square mile area just west of [...]
April 22, 2002 – 12:00 am
The Chicago Climate Exchange was mentioned on the Earth Day edition of KQED’s Forum program today. It’s an experimental market, focused on the midwestern US, for trading rights to emit carbon. The participants are energy, industrial, and resource companies.
Emissions trading seems straightforward in practice, but, considering that you and I dump carbon into the atmosphere [...]
March 19, 2002 – 12:00 am
April’s Atlantic Monthly has a great article by Jonathan Rauch on work at the Brookings Institution on simulating societies. The work is revealing how simple rules and preferences amoung actors can give rise to behaviors as segregation in housing, corruption in business and government, genocide, and the size distribution of firms.
The Atlantic’s website has a [...]
February 1, 2002 – 12:00 am
May 29th, 2003 is the 50th anniversary of Tensing Norgay and Edmund Hillary’s summiting Everest. The government of Nepal is sponsoring a Jubilee year celebration.
November 21, 2001 – 12:00 am
On the Viridian mailing list, Bruce Sterling reports on the recent Algerian floods. What made them catastrophic was that the ruling junta had sealed off storm sewers to prevent them from being used by Islamic millitants.
(((Now there’s a curiosity for you, ladies and gentlemen: it’s a Mujihadeen-Related Wexelblat Disaster. And it’s rather unlikely to [...]
November 21, 2001 – 12:00 am
A Wexelblat Disaster is a second order effect of natural phenomena (storms, earthquakes, etc.) on human-made systems:
The spectrum of Wexelblat Disasters is as varied as industrialization itself. It’s not the lightning that electrocutes you, it’s the wires it knocks down. It’s not the heavy soggy topsoil that gets you, it’s the fireball from the ruptured [...]
October 8, 2001 – 12:00 am
The Centers for Disease Control have put together a page of info on anthrax.
September 27, 2001 – 12:00 am
Phil Agre collected hundreds of URLs related to the WTC/Pentagon attacks. All the URLs are now archived in one place.
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