business-and-politics
Could a Rogue Millionaire Fix Climate Change?
Most of us have seen the alarmist food documentaries that target giant food companies like Monsanto. Soaring over crops, airplanes spray contrails of fertilizer that often spill into smaller neighboring farms; destroying their seeds and ultimately...
The Bayonet Industry Is Not Very Happy with President Obama
President Obama was on top of his game at Monday night's presidential debate. In their last primetime meeting before election day, Obama walked circles around his challenger Mitt Romney on everything from the government's progress in the war on terror...
Patent Trolling Is Draining the Blood from the Idea Economy, and It's Just Getting Worse
US Patent No. 6,599,460 is barely comprehensible and not even the slightest bit sexy. It has to do with preventing irregularities in a certain kind of injection molding; like, if you were making a cheap, thin drinking cup in a mold from liquid plastic...
Will the Pirate Bay Survive in the Cloud?
The Pirate Bay is entering a new era as it moves all of its data from in-house servers in Sweden into the cloud in a move designed, in part, to evade the copyright cops. It all happened very quietly on Tuesday, and except for the five or so minutes of...
The Town Hall Presidential Debate in 10 GIFs
With ample space to prance around and puff their chests out, Obama and Romney got into it last night on Strong Island, where things got hot, quick. It was like Candy Crowley was emcee'ing a rap battle or something. We're talking Libya, gun violence...
It's Dark in Those Woods: Tracing Environmentalism to Eugenics (Part Two)
When we left Madison Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Boone and Crockett Club, they were throwing their considerable heft behind unprecedented regulations on hunting in the United States. Their motive, however, was selfish: the rules would benefit them...
Why Steve Jobs Started the Patent Wars
Steve Jobs loved being first. Throughout his life, he generally had the vision and capacity to make that happen. It’s no surprise then that his fingerprints are all over the brewing patent war, the one that has engulfed tech firms around the world...
Fearless Felix Baumgartner's Helmet Cam Footage Will Make You Puke
One of the most curious aspects of Felix Baumgartner's incredible impressive leap from space is how little of it we saw. Once Baumgartner stepped off his perch, 24.2 miles above Earth's surface, all we saw from the ground was a little, bitty white dot...
In Which Big Game and Eugenics Go To Washington: or, Environmentalism Is Born (Part One)
In the aftermath of a rollicking dinner party in 1887, Teddy Roosevelt and his friends decided to start a club. It would be devoted to their shared passions: the thrill of the chase, pitting nature against human daring and ingenuity – a club for big...
The War of Words Over the Nobel Prize
For the European Union, which won a Nobel Peace Prize today, the award is certainly some consolation from the pains of being in debt, even if the choice seems bizarre and - gasp! - political. Not surprisingly, politicians are making no attempt to hide...
The Entire VP Debate in Seven GIFs
Last night, if you were watching the Vice Presidential debate, which despite its contenders sitting in chairs, was infinitely more captivating than the standing debate between the two Presidential candidates last week in Colorado. If you weren't live...
A Cyber 'Pearl Harbor' Is Coming, Says Leon Panetta
If you didn't already know it, the United States is in terrible trouble of being hit by a horrible, crippling cyberattack. _The New York Times_ calls it a "dire threat." Defense Secretary Leon Panetta calls it the impending "cyber Pearl Harbor." We don...