Grist List
-
![]()
![]()
‘Cabin porn’ fuels your Thoreau fantasies
If you’ve been daydreaming about packing up and moving off-grid, maybe to Walden Pond or the Lake Isle of Innisfree, the Free Cabin Porn Tumblr will help give shape to your fantasies. If you haven’t, well, you just might now.
-
![]()
![]()
Here’s what the inside of a tree sounds like
Installation artist Bartholomäus Traubeck’s new work, “Years,” uses some kind of optical dealie to translate a tree’s age rings into piano music.
-
![]()
![]()
Buckle up for more weather weirdness, America
Last year, the climate phenomenon La Niña messed with everyone’s heads. La Niña conditions mean that the ocean temperature in the Equatorial Pacific Ocean are colder than usual, and this was responsible for (among other things) the uncannily warm winter that the Northeast has been having. Sorry, can’t blame that on climate change! Yet. NASA’s […]
-
![]()
![]()
Microsoft’s ‘avoid ghetto’ app is kind of gross
Microsoft has come up with an app for people traveling by foot that will route them around areas with high crime rates. This function is being called the “avoid ghetto” feature (not by Microsoft, of course, because they’re not that dense), and it’s, uh, controversial. As a person who sometimes walks around in cities at […]
-
![]()
![]()
Obama’s first ad focuses on green jobs
President Obama released the first ad of his reelection campaign, and it’s about clean energy jobs and oil independence — plus, it hits back at a Koch-funded attack ad that fudged the facts. This is unusually green (as in actually mentioning green issues) and unusually brass (as in balls)! Let’s hope it keeps up.
-
![]()
![]()
TransCanada must hate Republicans right now
You know who is probably most peeved at Republicans for trying to score political points over the Keystone XL schedule? TransCanada. Because while Republicans’ huffing over the administration’s decision to 86 the pipeline permit will affect Obama about .00001 percent, TransCanada’s stock took a dive and now has the potential to become what analysts call […]
-
![]()
![]()
The European Union bans battery cages for hens
In the European Union, hens can no longer be kept in tiny battery cages that pack them so tightly they could not walk or flap their wings. The EU voted to ban the cages in 1999 but gave the poultry industry 12 years to implement the switch-over. As of 2012, the use of battery cages […]
-
Critical List: Republicans still want Keystone XL; Obama ad focuses on energy
The State Department denied TransCanada’s permit application for the Keystone XL pipeline. President Obama agreed, saying that he was rejecting the permit because Republicans wouldn’t stop trying to force the pipeline forward. Republicans are responding to this by looking into legislation that would force the pipeline forward. They’re also asking Secretary of State Hillary Clinton […]
-
Keystone XL shot down, Republicans whine about it
The State Department has recommended that the Keystone XL pipeline application be “determined not to serve the national interest,” and President Obama has agreed — not even because it’s a disaster waiting to happen, but because (just as Dave Roberts predicted!) Republicans just could not sit down and shut up for five minutes.
