Posted in Environment, Gourmand, Politics on Jul 30th, 2008
Thanks to The Economist for highlighting data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the prevalence of obesity in America. Makes me happy to live in the little green spot in the middle.
Posted in Environment, Uncategorized on May 26th, 2008
After the interesting bird sightings a few days ago, we started paying more attention to what’s at the feeders (aided by Lily’s screams of “bird, bird, bird!”). In addition to what I posted previously, and the ubiquitous House Finches and House Sparrows, we’ve seen:
Pine Siskin
White Crowned Sparrow
And we’re really pleased because our Bullock’s Orioles, [...]
Posted in Environment, Uncategorized on May 23rd, 2008
We’re thrilled with the amount of bird life in our yard, especially considering how new all of our plantings are.
Here’s what we saw this morning (all of which were new to our yard):
Brown-Headed Cowbird
Lazuli Bunting
Bullock’s Oriole
A female Broad-Tailed Hummingbird
The hummer wasn’t the first. We’ve had a couple coming and going (usually identified by [...]
Posted in Environment, Politics on May 7th, 2008
I like it. Salon’s How the World Works has a nice little post this morning on why we haven’t encountered any intelligent civilizations.
First, the Fermi Paradox. Given the size and age of the universe, there ought to be many technologically advanced civilizations in the universe. So why haven’t we found them?
Second, a [...]
Posted in Environment on Mar 27th, 2008
My CEO (Jonathan Schwartz) has been obsessed with subscription models for quite a while now, and I have to agree that they’re interesting concepts. He posited a number of years ago that we’d eventually see “free cars” with required subscriptions for things like OnStar service, regular maintenance, satellite radio, etc. The Long Tail [...]
Posted in Environment, Gourmand on Feb 22nd, 2008
First, if you haven’t read The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan, do so now.
Either way, take a look at Mark Fiore’s latest animation. (Apologies that it’s not posted inline - I’m still working on how to integrate his flash videos directly with the template we’re using here on ChezArtz.)
Posted in Environment on Feb 4th, 2008
I’ve had this one sitting around in my “to blog” list for some time. Originally written for Earth Day 2007, LiveScience has a very interesting article on the projected decline of the Earth’s environment, taken primarily from government agency reports such as the IPCC and the US Census Bureau.
A few highlights:
By 2030, significant portions of [...]
Posted in Environment on Feb 4th, 2008
Dave Douglas (Sun’s VP of Eco-Responsibility) posted this last summer, but I came across it again and felt it worth posting. Dave has all the explanation, but the highlight is that energy efficiency efforts lower CO2 at a dramatically lower marginal cost than any capture mechanism. Take a look at his explanation for why and [...]
Posted in Environment on Feb 3rd, 2008
Two interesting articles as follow up to my last post on avian flu.
European health officials have made public that they’ve been finding flu variants in Europe this season which are resistant to Tamiflu. For those uninitiated, Tamiflu if the drug government agencies around the world have been stockpiling in preparation for a flu pandemic. While [...]
Posted in Environment on Feb 3rd, 2008
Yes, the “FU” is what you think it is, and the “H2″? The Hummer 2.
Why the fuss? Spending two minutes reading the front page says it all, but here are the highlights:
Due to its weight rating, it’s exempt from federal fuel efficiency standards. It’s optimistically rated at 13mpg, but customers rate it at 10mpg [...]
