Corn syrup industry on the defense.

I just saw a sort of a jaw-dropping commercial run by the Corn Refiners Association to promote corn syrup. One woman is telling another that it’s probably not a good idea to give her child a drink from a gallon jug of one of those “fruit drinks” (that come in such flavors as purple and …

Blue Ridge tour report.

Yesterday’s drive was very nice. The weather was perfect, the views were just great, the towns were interesting, and the food was good. The best part was that it was all so close by. The entire trip was just 150 miles, and though we were visiting places wholly unfamiliar, we were never far from areas …

Experiments with eliminating traffic signs.

The Wilson Quarterly has a very enjoyable article about traffic engineer Hans Monderman, a Dutchman. He’s an advocate for expanding the idea of a woonerf to include much of the road network, eliminating most signage. “Do you really think that no one would perceive there is a bridge over there?” he might ask, about a …

Lazy journalism.

Modern media has adopted the curious practice of reporting claims, rather than facts. (I say “modern” not because I know that it wasn’t always like this, but because I have no idea.) I don’t mean to pick on either this guy or this outlet, but AP writer Anthony McCartney’s story about Jackson Browne’s lawsuit against …

Sir Nils Olav the penguin.

Another sign that Norway is awesome—they just knighted a penguin: The knighthood ceremony began Friday morning with speeches and a fanfare before Nils arrived, under escort with the King’s Guard Color Detachment. Nils then reviewed the troops lined up outside the penguin enclosure at the zoo, waddling down the row of uniformed soldiers, occasionally stopping …

RoofRay solar calculator.

Even with all of the great tools out there, it’s surprisingly difficult to just figure out if it’s worth the money to install solar panels on your home. Between calculations of latitude, historical cloud cover rates, degree days, and PV effectiveness, it’s just plain confusing. Which is why I’m so pleased to see RoofRay, a …

The New Yorker’s fiction is terrible.

The New Yorker’s fiction is terrible.* There, I said it. Every week it’s another story about uninteresting, unhappy people becoming more unhappy still. There is little to no action; virtually nothing happens. Often it’s well-written, in the sense that there are nice turns of phrases, and the characters are explored in a way that gives …

Attu Island, Alaska.

The easternmost inhabited point in the United States is Attu Island Alaska, an 500-square-mile island so far west of the mainland that it actually sits 14 minutes west of the international date line 180°, placing it in the eastern hemisphere. It’s also the location of the Battle of Attu, the only land battle on U.S. …