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Author Archives: jlredford
Myth -> Novel -> Theme Park -> Caper -> Movie!
Now here’s a story that by my count involves four different levels of pretense: Hollywood Reporter says that Ben Affleck is in negotiations to direct a movie based on the Canadian Caper, a ripping yarn of the CIA and the … Continue reading
An Engineer in Cairo
Last Friday, Jan 28th, mass protests began in Cairo against the oppressive regime of Hosni Mubarak. They were well covered by Al Jazeera, but the New York Times had nuthin’. The government had shut off cellphones and the Internet in … Continue reading
Electric Cars Are Just Better
Last month I attended the New England Auto Show, and had a chance to see the three mass-market high-electric cars: The Nissan Leaf: 100 mi all-electric range, 24 kWh battery, 80 kW motors, no gas engine, $33K. The Chevy Volt: … Continue reading
Crowd-sourced Ecology – the Picture Post
Near our house in Arlington Massachusetts is a nice little park called Menotomy Rocks. It’s a paradise for dogs, with fields to chase balls in, a pond to splash around, woods for interesting smells, and wide walking paths where you … Continue reading
An Incandescence of Invention – “Edison’s Electric Light”
When a light bulb appears above someone’s head in a cartoon, that’s the visual shorthand for inspiration. How nice, then, to find out that the actual story of its invention is as extraordinary as it appears to be on the … Continue reading
“Are there more animals than people?”
… asks my niece Lane. We’re over at a Christmas party at her house. She’s eight years old, blond, and has huge blue eyes, and so cannot be denied. “Sure,” I say, “There are probably more ants in this town … Continue reading
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Thomas the Tank Corporatist
Last Sunday the Boston Globe ran a piece on the rise of right-wing books for children, “Bedtime for Little Patriots” by Tom Scocca, an author and blogger for Slate. His funniest case is shown to the right, where the National … Continue reading
Russians Throw at the Basket From Mid-Court
Just this week a Russian mogul, Mikhail Prokorhov, showed off the design of an all-Russian gas-electric hybrid car, the Yo. It’s an unfortunate name in English (it’s the letter ‘e’ in Russian), but they’re claiming 67 mpg and $14,500 when … Continue reading
Obsessive Californians and “How I Killed Pluto”
This is a breezy memoir by a Caltech astronomer, Mike Brown, about how he discovered the major new bodies in the outer solar system: Quaoar, Sedna, Haumea, Makemake, and the biggest of all, Eris. The book is available here. Eris … Continue reading
Political Stagnation
One hears little besides politics on the news, of course, but one thing that strikes me is how little the US political system has actually changed in the last several decades. The last new state was Hawaii in 1959. The … Continue reading
A Niche in the Library of Babel 