Nuclear power has been a dormant issue since its expansion stopped in the 1970s. But with the Nuclear Regulatory Committee’s recent decision to allow the construction of two new nuclear power plants the question of nuclear power has returned to the spotlight. Is this comeback of nuclear power a good thing, or should we be concerned? Many groups, including several environmental groups, oppose the use … Continue reading Nuclear power: a healthy glow?

I have a lot of respect for the great medical minds of the past few centuries. Great geniuses have given (first world) humanity the gift of extended, comfortable lives by grace of a careful understanding of the human body, chemistry and fungus. However, like with so many other miracles made possible by modern technology, ignorance mixed with excess has turned a gift into a hazard. The … Continue reading Say “ah” for easy As

Cynicism is, I believe, the default worldview of many Americans. It is also, the laziest and, quite frankly, the most dangerous way to observe humans and human nature. It’s easy to see the actions of a few and extrapolate them across the entirety of mankind. However it’s also remarkably unhelpful. Cynicism probably took off in this country in the mid-1970s as a result of the … Continue reading Cynicism is sexy

Did you watch the Grammy’s this year? Adele kicked ass as predicted, Foo Fighters took home an armful of awards and some band named Bon Iver popped out of nowhere. Whitney Houston was mourned and the red carpet reeled in fashion horror at head-turner Nicki Minaj. And Chris Brown took home the R&B album of the year. I don’t really care about the award itself. … Continue reading The Twitter feed

Of the many painful and exhausting activities I engaged in over that delightfully unproductive interim we call J-term, perhaps none was more excruciating than closely following the Republican presidential primary coverage. A close second was the hour every day I spent laboring in front of the TV with my virtual fitness guru Shaun T. and the workout regimen he has so aptly named the “Insanity” … Continue reading Insanity

We’ve all heard the mantra, “Make the rich pay their fair share!” President Obama and Democrats have picked up on this popular opinion, saying that they want the rich to foot most of the bill for government programs and paying off the debt. However, not everybody agrees with this sentiment, and as an observer it can be hard to tell who is right as neither … Continue reading Do the rich pay their fair share?

Across the United States, thousands, if not millions, of people suffer from a sociopathic behavioral pattern know as the Hipster Complex. Said complex persuades the believer into thinking they are not a hipster when in reality they are. The Hipster Complex is self-perpetuating. One denies one’s hipster-ness, which forces the hipster further down through the rabbit hole into a wonderland complete with Myspace profiles and … Continue reading The hipster complex

Fifty years ago this August, in quiet, cool, Cambridge, Mass., a Mr. L.C.R. Licklider of MIT put pen to paper and, in a memo, recorded a dream. The contents of this memo would one day become computer scientist Licklider’s legacy, and this legacy; our way of life. The little dream that Lick recorded on that night was of an “Intergalactic Computer Network”, a global network … Continue reading The galactic network