The Rise and Fall of the Great Lakes

In honor of World Water Day, I present this post and video from 1968. In this short documentary from conservationist Bill Mason, he illustrates that although the Great Lakes have had their ups and downs, nothing has been harder to take than what humans have done to them lately.

2011 Mustang GT Ahead of Camaro SS

Though driving impressions of the new 5.0-liter 2011 Ford Mustang GT are off limits for now, Popular Hot Rodding notes that Ford made no mention of releasing pure facts. It's all about the numbers anyway, right?

Death in Video Games: Part 1

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the different treatments and functions of death in video games. This started because of a stark disparity I observed between Prey and Bioshock. I'm going to include Halo as well, as a sort of baseline as it uses the traditional and ubiquitous checkpoint death mechanic.

Time Travel in the Movies

The theme of time travel is very appealing. There are mixed beliefs about whether or not time travel is real. Albert Einstein believed it was possible and that we can only travel one direction in time. In the films La Jetee and 12 Monkey's the common theme is time travel. The characters are each traveling through time, either to the future or the past in order to gather information.

Against Reserving Seats for Women

Dr Manmohan Singh is on the money when he identifies discrimination against women as one of the biggest problems that India faces. Unfortunately, his government is not quite on the money as far as the solution goes -- reserving a third of seats at the national and state legislatures does not sufficiently guarantee that India will change its attitude towards women.

A Grandma's Tour of Duty

J.L. (Judy) Smith became the sole caregiver for her three-year old grandson, Marcus, when his mom and dad were both deployed in the U.S. Military. Smith's tour of “doodie” was six months, one week, three days, and seven hours long. Reporting for Doodie is her humorous, honest, poignant, and irreverent account of that period.

Makes Me Think About My Economics Professors…

I'm about to finish reading The Predator State, by James K Galbraith, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in economics, trade, social policy, political economy, economic development or markets at all.

Brawnier 2011 Mercedes-Benz R-Class Leaked

The R-Class has had a rough life. Not only did it suffer from odd, disproportionate styling, but Mercedes-Benz never really marketed the vehicle the way that it should have, choosing to position it as a "sports tourer," rather than the obvious upscale family hauler that it is.

Smart Meters, Again

As a way of improving the efficiency of electric power distribution, many utilities are looking at the deployment of so-called "smart meters" that, in addition to their basic function of measuring the amount of electricity consumed, are also networked computers.

Is Circovirus DNA Infectious?

The US Food and Drug Administration does not want Rotarix, the rotavirus vaccine, to be used because it contains porcine circovirus 1 DNA. If complete copies of the circovirus genome were present, would they constitute a potential threat to recipients? Put another way, is circovirus DNA infectious?