Tag Archives: modern

Bobby Jindal Is Running for President

by LeonardClutter Posted on March 19, 2014

Mother Jones

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I guess it’s the law: The modern way to announce that you’ve thrown your hat in the ring for the Republican presidential nomination has nothing to do with Facebook or Twitter or anything like that. You merely have to ratchet up your wingnut rhetoric to 11. That’s how you let people know.

So I guess this means Bobby Jindal is officially running for president. Dylan Scott runs down his latest crackpottery here.

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Bobby Jindal Is Running for President

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One Man’s True Experience With the Naked Web

by FMRBeatriz Posted on March 16, 2014

Mother Jones

One thing led to another this weekend, and yesterday I found myself playing around with Internet Explorer on Windows 8.1. It had probably been 20 years since I’d last used it. It turned out to be surprisingly nice once I got everything set up, so then I got curious and set up the tile version too. (That’s the Windows RT version, aka the Metro version, aka the Modern UI version, aka whatever Microsoft is calling it this month.) It was actually fairly nice too. I have a few UI quibbles here and there, but that’s true of every app. Generally speaking, it was pretty good.

But. It turns out that the MUI version of IE doesn’t support add-ons. Don’t ask me why. That means I couldn’t install AdBlock. And holy cow: during the hour or so that I spent checking things out I felt like I was under assault. My browser was deluged with gigantic banner ads, flash ads, auto-play video ads, animated GIF ads, ads that danced across my screen, and a relentless series of popup ads that apparently have figured out how to foil the built-in popup blocker.

I’ve spent the last ten years or so browsing with ad blocking of some kind enabled. This was the first time in a long while that I had been forced to spend time on the naked web, so to speak. Have I just lost my tolerance for this kind of thing? Or has advertising on the web really gotten an order of magnitude worse since the early aughts? This is an academic question, since needless to say I won’t be using the MUI version of IE anytime soon, but I’m still curious. What say you, commenters?

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One Man’s True Experience With the Naked Web

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Google Reads My Mind (And My Web Searches) Once Again

by AYZShantell Posted on February 11, 2014

Mother Jones

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I realize this is old news, just part of the modern world, etc. etc., but it still seems sort of creepy to me. A few minutes ago I got the email on the right asking, “Why are the charging cables so short?”

And you know what? That’s a good question! In fact, I was asking myself that just a few days ago. As a result, I spent a bit of time googling around for cheap USB power cables, and of course I clicked on cables of various lengths. Because, you know, those 3-foot cables really are kind of dinky.

Anyway, I know that Google knows all and sees all, but this is just a little too specific for comfort. It’s like it was reading my mind and sending advertisers my way. Which it was. And I suppose some people would consider this pretty cool. I’m getting ads not for the usual junk, but for something I’m actually interested in. And yet, it still seems a little creepy. Maybe I should start using private browsing tabs a little more often.

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Google Reads My Mind (And My Web Searches) Once Again

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Planet-Hunter: We’ll Find An “Earth 2.0” Within “10 or 15 Years”

by MeiAllardyce Posted on January 13, 2014

Mother Jones

Last week, a team of astronomers at the Gemini Planet Imager in Chile released the mysterious blue image above. That small bright dot in the lower right of the image is a planet—not a planet in our solar system like Mars or Neptune, but one 63 light-years away. It’s the planet Beta Pictoris b, which orbits the star Beta Pictoris in the southern constellation Pictor. But what’s most exciting about the picture is the technology used to make it, which represents a dramatic improvement in the speed and quality with which scientists will be able to look for other planets—including “Earth 2.0,” a theorized planet much like our own.

The first confirmation that planets exist beyond our solar system came in 1992, when a team of astronomers monitored changes in radio waves to prove that multiple planets were orbiting a small star about 1000 light-years away. Then, in 2005, astronomers created the first actual image of a planet beyond our solar system (the date is arguable because the observation was made in 2004, but not confirmed until a year later). Since then, hundreds more planets have been discovered, and a few others have even been photographed.

So when Gizmodo reported last week that the blue image above was the “first ever image of a planet, orbiting a star,” they didn’t have it quite right. In fact, the image wasn’t even the first time that planet had been photographed. But the GPI images are still extremely exciting: They could mark the beginning of a new era of planet-hunting, thanks to technology developed by a team of astronomers led by Bruce Macintosh of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Frank Marchis, who works for the SETI Institute, a non-profit organization that seeks to explore, understand, and explain the prevalence of life in the universe, is a key member of Macintosh’s planet-hunting team. I met with him in San Francisco last week to discuss the project and the search for Earth 2.0:

MJ: What exactly are we seeing in this image?

FM: Behind this image is a lot of work. This image is simply a planet orbiting around another star. So we call that an exoplanet – an extrasolar planet – because it doesn’t belong to our solar system. It belongs to another planetary system. So this is the grail of modern astronomy. We’re trying desperately now to image those planets because we know they exist. When you observe a planet with the now defunct telescope Kepler, what you’ve been doing is basically detecting the transit – the attenuation of the star’s light – due to the planet passing between us and the star. Now with GPI, the Gemini Planet Imager, which is mounted at the 8 meter class telescope in Chile we’re going to be able to see the planet itself.

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Planet-Hunter: We’ll Find An “Earth 2.0” Within “10 or 15 Years”

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Chart of the Day: American Cars Are Getting Older

by Anatoleia3 Posted on January 3, 2014

Mother Jones

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Americans are keeping their cars longer than ever before. In 2007, the average age of cars on the road was a little over 10 years. Today it’s a little over 11 years.

The proximate cause of this is the Great Recession. If you don’t have enough money to buy a new car, you’re going to keep your car longer. But I wonder how much is the result of cars being more reliable than in the past? My car is nearly 13 years old, and it basically still runs fine. A couple of decades ago, even a Toyota would have been getting a little long in the tooth at that age.

This mainly matters because it has an impact on what happens over the next few years as the recovery (hopefully) picks up steam. New car sales are a prime driver of economic recoveries, and if the aging of the US fleet is producing pent-up demand for new cars, this will help the economy. But if consumers are keeping their cars a little longer because they still run fine, then there might not be as much pent-up demand as we think.

We’ll have to wait and see, because current data is inconclusive. Automakers had a pretty good year in 2013, but they finished up with a tepid December. And the existing fleet continued to age in 2013 despite those strong sales. Considering the higher reliability of modern cars and the weakness of the recovery, I wouldn’t be surprised if car sales in 2014 are OK but not great, and the fleet continues to age a bit.

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Chart of the Day: American Cars Are Getting Older

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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert M. Pirsig

by Myrna Posted on December 5, 2013

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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Robert M. Pirsig

Genre: Psychology

Price: $2.99

Publish Date: April 21, 2009

Publisher: HarperCollins e-books

Seller: HarperCollins


Acclaimed as one of the most exciting books in the history of American letters, this modern epic became an instant bestseller upon publication in 1974, transforming a generation and continuing to inspire millions. This 25th Anniversary Quill Edition features a new introduction by the author; important typographical changes; and a Reader's Guide that includes discussion topics, an interview with the author, and letters and documents detailing how this extraordinary book came to be. A narration of a summer motorcycle trip undertaken by a father and his son, the book becomes a personal and philosophical odyssey into fundamental questions of how to live. The narrator's relationship with his son leads to a powerful self-reckoning; the craft of motorcycle maintenance leads to an austerely beautiful process for reconciling science, religion, and humanism. Resonant with the confusions of existence, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a touching and transcendent book of life.

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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert M. Pirsig

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Marcel Dzama’s Artwork Is Totally Twisted (and I Totally Dig It)

by Joe Mosh Posted on November 23, 2013

Mother Jones

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The prolific Canadian artist Marcel Dzama is not yet 30, but he’s accumulated a body of paintings, collages, sculpture, dioramas, costumes, and film-design work that would be impressive from someone decades his senior. You can experience the breadth of his talent in a great new collection, Marcel Dzama: Sower of Discord, out recently from Abrams Books.

The coffee-table book, which showcases hundreds of Dzama’s works in various media, also includes a poster, writings from the artist Raymond Pettibon and the art historian Bradley Bailey, and three collaborative short stories by Dave Eggers—which I’ll admit I haven’t quite gotten to yet, even though I loved this and this.

Ah, but the artwork! Great artists are evocative, and Dzama’s work evokes all sorts of emotions: wistfulness, joy, fear, revulsion, wonder, arousal. Drawing inspiration from current events, revolutionary images, his esteemed predecessors (notably Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, Oskar Schlemmer, and William Blake), and his own childhood fears and encounters, Dzama has developed a distinctive-yet-familiar style that’s at once playfully subversive, twisted, childlike, and disturbing.

Recurring themes and characters include anthropomorphic trees, real and fictional animals, flag-bearers, distinctively yonic octopi, hooded men and women with guns (Subcomandante Marcos meets Guantanamo Bay), and sensual dancers in two-tone, polka-dot catsuits. We see superheroes, bats and owls, hanging men, dismembered cowboys, snowmen, rabbits and bears, Pinocchios, surreal multi-species crime scenes, bestiality of a sort, children curled in grave-like underground dens, disembodied heads, and plenty of sex—some of it alluringly primal. The book explores Dzama’s intent with some of these elements, but you may want to simply experience them first, and discover what meanings they bring to the uninitiated.

Bold the beauty of New York City, 2009. Ink and watercolor on paper. Marcel Dzama

The great sacrifice was our only dog, such a tragic gesture, 2011.

Ink and gouache on paper. Marcel Dzama

Circle of Infidels (The 6th revolution), 2008. Ink and watercolor on paper. Marcel Dzama

Dzama grew up in Winnipeg, where he struggled somewhat in school, partly because he’s dyslexic. He was constantly drawing, though, and settled on art school not from any high aspirations, but because “art was the only thing I was good at,” he tells filmmaker Spike Jonze in an included Q&A that, while fun and informative, needed some trimming.

Untitled, 2000. Ink and gouache on paper. Marcel Dzama

In any case, Dzama was discovered by the New York City art aficionado and gallery owner David Zwirner, and he’s been on a tear ever since. His art has traversed the globe, appearing in esteemed spaces such as Manhattan’s Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, Le Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC, and Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. Sought after by celebs and collectors who can afford him, his work has graced album covers by the likes of Beck and They Might Be Giants. (I first encountered it in Bed Bed Bed, a charming TMBG side project consisting of a CD and accompanying lyrics book—which I highly recommend for anyone with kids under seven.)

Welcome to the land of the drone, 2011. Ink and gouache on paper. Marcel Dzama

I’ll leave you with a few more examples from the book, which is worth owning. You might, however, want to keep it where your kids can’t reach until they’re of age. For instance, I wouldn’t want my nine-year-old stumbling across Dzama’s My Weekend in Berlin, which looks like a pretty exciting weekend. I’ve not included it here. Guess you’ll just have to buy the book.

If you can’t bring good news, then don’t bring me any, 2012.

Ink, gouache, graphite, and collage on paper. Marcel Dzama

Turning into puppets (Volviendose marionetas), 2011 (details).

Steel, wood, aluminum, and motor. Marcel Dzama, photos by Sammlung Ottmann

My Ladies Revolution, 2008. Wood, sliding glass, acrylic, collage, and plaster.
Marcel Dzama, courtesy Sies + Höke, Düsseldorf

Goodbye.

Untitled, 2000. Ink and gouache on paper. Marcel Dzama

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Marcel Dzama’s Artwork Is Totally Twisted (and I Totally Dig It)

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Why are there pesticides and GMOs in our national wildlife refuges?

by pofg23dsacv Posted on September 4, 2013

Why are there pesticides and GMOs in our national wildlife refuges?

By

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service – Midwest Region

A bald eagle nesting in Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge in Illinois.

You might think that national wildlife refuges would be places where wildlife could take refuge from the environmental insanity of modern American agriculture.

But you’d be wrong.

Birds, insects, and other wildlife are sharing refuges with genetically engineered crops and being exposed to poisonous pesticides.

A lawsuit [PDF] filed by environmental groups last week argues that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Midwestern division is violating federal law by allowing the use of pesticides and the planting of GMOs at wildlife refuges in four states without conducting thorough site-by-site environmental reviews.

This is just the latest battle in a long-running war between environmentalists and the federal government over agricultural practices used at refuges across the country. From Environmental News Service:

This is the fifth lawsuit filed by Center for Food Safety and [Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility] challenging genetically engineered crops on wildlife refuges in their drive to ban these plantings from all refuges across the country.

A series of lawsuits has succeeded in rolling back approvals for genetically engineered crops on 75 national wildlife refuges across 30 states.

Previously, the two groups successfully challenged approval of genetically engineered plantings on two wildlife refuges in Delaware, which forced the Fish and Wildlife Service to end such plantings in its 12-state Northeastern region.

Another suit from the same groups halted cultivation of genetically engineered [crops] on 25 refuges across eight states in the Southeast in November 2012.

“These chemical companies and their products have no role in maintaining our wildlife refuges,” said Kathryn Douglass of PEER. “The Fish and Wildlife Service needs to look before it leaps to embrace industrial agricultural techniques on what are supposed to be havens for wildlife.”

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Food

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Why are there pesticides and GMOs in our national wildlife refuges?

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Mold responsible for Irish potato famine may be gone for good

by John Graham Posted on May 22, 2013

Mold responsible for Irish potato famine may be gone for good

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Scientists used modern genetic sequencing and rotten old museum samples to peer back in time at the cause of the potato blight that led to more than 1 million deaths in Ireland in the 1840s.

The fungus-like water mold that ravaged the country’s potato crop sent hungry Irish survivors fleeing for far-flung new countries — which is why so many people now justify getting wasted every St. Patrick’s Day, saying they’re sure they have an Irish ancestor somewhere in their family tree.

What the scientists found was a strain of Phytophthora infestans that is different from similar water molds that are still ravaging the world’s crops. From the BBC:

Researchers in the UK, Germany and the US analysed dried leaves kept in collections in museums at Kew Royal Botanical Gardens, UK, and Botanische Staatssammlung Munchen, Germany.

High-tech DNA sequencing techniques allowed them to decode ancient DNA from the pathogen in samples stored as early as 1845.

These were compared with modern-day genetic types from Europe, Africa and the Americas, giving an insight into the evolution of the pathogen.

“This strain was different from all the modern strains that we analysed — most likely it is new to science,” Prof Sophien Kamoun of The Sainsbury Laboratory told BBC News.

“We can’t be sure but most likely it’s gone extinct.”

Thing is, the scientists can’t figure out what made the water mold so devastating. From an article in Nature:

[Plant Geneticist Detlef] Weigel’s team also found nothing in the nuclear genomes of the famine strains to explain their ferocity. In fact, the strains lack a gene found in modern strains of P. infestans that overcomes the plant’s resistance genes. And, surprisingly, the famine strain seems less lethal than the P. infestans strains that now cause US$6 billion in crop damage per year. “It seems rather that the potatoes were unusually susceptible,” he says.

OK, all very interesting. But given that the mold strain responsible for the Irish famine appears to have gone extinct, we have some advice for the scientists who are done analyzing the infected old potato leaves: Burn them.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who

tweets

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Facebook

, and

blogs about ecology

. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants:

johnupton@gmail.com

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Mold responsible for Irish potato famine may be gone for good

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Paleoista – Nell Stephenson

by Myrna Posted on April 23, 2013

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Paleoista

Gain Energy, Get Lean, and Feel Fabulous With the Diet You Were Born to Eat

Nell Stephenson

Genre: Health & Fitness

Price: $11.99

Publish Date: May 1, 2012

Publisher: Touchstone

Seller: Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc.


THE PALEO DIET grows out of the belief that we were intended to eat off the land: what walks on it, grows from it, or swims in its waters. It’s about sticking to the kind of foods that human beings were born to ingest (fresh fruits and vegetables, seafood, lean meats, and natural fats), and excluding those that were developed later (grains, legumes, dairy products, salt, refined sugar, and processed oils). But who, exactly, is a Paleoista? She is the embodiment of the modern day Paleo lifestyle. She’s feminine, fit, and knows that eating Paleo will give her the boundless energy she needs to maintain her insanely busy lifestyle. As the ultimate Paleoista, Nell Stephenson knows exactly how to incorporate the Paleo diet into one’s day-to-day life with ease, efficiency, and style. Paleoista is an easy-to-follow guide for any woman interested in reaching her healthiest potential and includes: A Kitchen Makeover Guide , to get started on the right foot A Healthy Grocery Store Field Trip , to stock a Paleo-friendly kitchen Two Weekly “Hours in the Kitchen,” to prep a week’s worth of meals ahead of time A Move-to-Lose Plan , to show you what to do with all your extra energy Sticking with It Socially , including how to order at restaurants, go to a party, travel, keep your kids Paleo, and get together with friends without compromising your Paleo eating plan And More Than Fifty Simple, Delicious Paleo Recipes!

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Paleoista – Nell Stephenson

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