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The newly-formed supergroup Them Crooked Vultures carries a unique burden of high expectations. The band is composed of Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, Nirvana), and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin; his first earnest foray into music since the band’s breakup nearly 30 years ago). Each member has his own pedigree and interests, but they seem to be united by a nonchalance and aversion to pretense that …
As the United States nears the completion and disclosure of its 2010 census, it will become abundantly clear how public health has responded to a decade of policy change. The writing is on the wall through interstitial studies, however: public health is horrendous on a national scale. Obesity and its associated ailments increasingly characterize the American populace – largely through a failure of government to conduct due diligence. Tobacco usage, in particular, has …
Farmers in the Upper Midwest, and Minnesota in particular, are on the forefront of technology today with widespread implementation of satellite data to allow for better crop management. Far from the satellite images used by Google Maps et al., which may be several years old and out of season, farmers have access to new data continuously throughout the growing season. NASA’s Earth Observatory reports that an ever-increasing proportion of farmers have found themselves …
This November marks the release of 2012, a Roland Emmerich movie seeking to capitalize on our decade’s hysteria du jour and general unease. Originally slated for July release, it was quietly pushed back to a timeslot thought to be more favorable. 2012 seems to embrace all of the cliché cheesiness that has characterized its director’s career. The trailer features a nearly incomprehensible series of calamitous events …
«Planned Obsolescence» refers to several paradigms of product and market design that came to prominence at the end of the twentieth century. On the material side of things, it is a conscious and candid effort by manufacturers to restrict the usable lifespan of consumer products. From a marketing perspective, it refers to the ever-expanding marketing barrage bent on convincing consumers of the premature inadequacy of the products they already use in their daily life. While …
Anyone who self-identifies as a futurist carries a burden: virtually every future prediction made has fallen somewhere on a scale from “wrong” to “very wrong.” Most predictions can be proven patently absurd after the smallest lapse of time. There is an extensive list of technologies that were hyped far beyond their ultimate practicality: virtual reality, flying cars, human space travel, artificial organs, Scramjets, et cetera. It seems that the proliferation of technology never progresses along …
It’s difficult to blame the denizens of the world if they incur mental whiplash on the issue of climate change. The world has long been in uproar over the unsustainable nature of a system overburdened with contradictory demands in the name of ever-expanding productivity and the externalization of costs. Media rhetoric has an astonishing way of coming full-circle through discovery, investigation, popular spin and resolution precisely in sequence with the ebb and flow of sensational …
Sweden can claim yet another act which will baffle listeners and unfairly color outsiders’ perceptions. Fever Ray’s eponymous first release is the very definition of “bizarre,” and comes nearly three years after The Knife’s most recent album, Silent Shout. The new act is comprises of one half of The Knife’s lineup – Karin Elizabeth Dreijer Anderson (the other half is her brother, Olof) and …
The languishly manned spaceflight programs of the world are attracting less and less funding, as well as a rapidly shrinking public presence. Even the most ardent supporters balk at the extravagant launch costs and fragile safety margins endemic to human endeavors in space. However, riding the coattails of these costly missions for decades have been an extensive series of unmanned missions that operate at a fraction of these costs, with vastly …
As students pass through the University of Minnesota, it may be easy to feel insignificant or boxed-in. We have over 50,000 students on the Twin Cities campus—one of the largest student bodies in the country—and countless local functions that may live and die by University-budgeted decisions. It’s easy to feel that the University’s mandate starts at the West Bank and ends on …
Watchmen has been in various stages of conception since the late eighties, and bears a weight of geek scrutiny which is almost unprecedented. Unfortunately, the lauded trailer shown with The Dark Knight was masterful compared to the final product.
Director Zack Snyder (Dawn Of The Dead [2004], 300[2007]) has chosen to remain visually faithful to the source material to the degree that it is a liability against the film. Trimmed segments, which are extensive …
The renewed mandate for sustainable energy in America has forced policymakers to consider an unusual problem. The moratorium on new nuclear power plants in America has been in effect for over thirty years now, and the industry has a strange generational breakdown to show for it. In short, there are concerns that the current nuclear power workforce will not be able to readily assume …
It may have been inconceivable in decades past that the end of Pax Americana would come so soon. Oh, there were movies, of course. Little tongue-in-cheek nods to what we smuggly, privately “knew”: that our age was different. The world had reached a new epoch of development. This time around we would stave off the pitfalls that have dampened economic “progress” in the past. The new, everexpanding network …
The current economic crisis had plenty of airtime in recent news cycles, but a shockingly small portion has been substantive. Measures of our economic voodoo god—consumer spending—have been abysmal, and companies with direct consumer interaction are visibly suffering. The supply-side economists in the media extrapolate this onto the population itself. Our new Federal Administration, contrary to the language of the election, seems to constitute the same kind of …