Tonight the Lima district of San Borja plans to light an emissions-free Christmas tree in a popular park as part of event called "Magic, Light, and Color: the Energy You Generate." The 11 meter high tree will display LED Christmas lights powered by a combination 10 bicycles, a wind turbine, and two small solar panels [...]
Personal Blog
Jennifer’s Body Tells Us that Being a Nerd is Better than Being Hot
Last night I watched the post-Transformers Megan Fox stardom vehicle known as Jennifer's Body. I had heard some interesting things about this horror-comedy movie wherein Megan Fox becomes a blood-drinking succubus. One of the things I had read about the movie was that Megan Fox proved that she was more than just eye candy. She [...]
Some Cool Photos of Subway Architecture
I'm always impressed by how rarely architecture seeks to inspire or influence us-- it's a shame. For that reason I really enjoyed finding Design Boom's photo article on subway architecture earlier this morning. When I lived in Boston I used to ride the subway (or "the T" as it is called there). Occasionally there were [...]
Is George Clooney Currently the Favorite Actor of Movie Buffs?
I was recently thinking about George Clooney. For the past few years he seems to have been in a movie almost every year that has been hailed by critics as "one of the best movies of the year." I write that facetiously as my wife and I often joke about this type of shameless marketing. [...]
Russell Crowe Upholds Myth that Newspapers have Journalistic Superiority in State of Play
State of Play, a political thriller starring Russell Crowe has a clear message: internet reporting sucks.
Do Ants Count Their Steps? Watch this Great 4 Minute Video to Find Out
On the day after Thanksgiving, NPR decided to strangely dump a fantastic piece of evergreen content on the internet. Why they would choose to do this on a day when more people weren't paying attention I don't know. It's an animated video that humorously illustrates an experiment that was designed to find out if ants have internal pedometers-- basically, if when they go back and forth to the nest they are counting their steps.
Will Paragliding Police Make Beaches Safer in Lima, Peru?
My friends over at the news source Living in Peru posted an interesting story last week about how Peru's police force is planning to conduct regular paragliding patrols over Lima's 90 beaches this year. My first thought-- "this is cool." My second thought-- "is it really going to work?" For those people who have never [...]
District 9 Lives Up to Hype as New Science Fiction Classic
Recently I wrote about how the horror movie Drag Me to Hell didn't entirely live up to the hype surrounding it. People were saying it was a new classic for the genre. Now having seen District 9, a film receiving similar fanfare, I must agree that this is one of the best science fiction films I have seen in years.
The 3rd Largest National Park in the Amazon Rainforest is Patrolled By Only 8 Rangers
This article was originally published on ecopolitology.org-- a website covering the politics of energy and the environment. While it's not news to most of us who work in or follow international conservation, Peru's El Comercio newspaper ran a story today about how only 8 park rangers patrol Alto Purús National Park. Alto Purús is the [...]
Is the United States a Superpower Without a Partner?
Anne Applebaum, who writes for Slate and The Washington Post, has just published an excellent column where she persuasively argues that "no one wants America to be the sole global superpower, but no one wants to share the load." She uses Obama's recent trip to China and Europe's election of a new president and foreign [...]
Levi Novey 