http://pulltheskydown.com rants, ideas, and photos Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:52:27 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The plight of the gorilla has been well known in biology/conservation circles (and to a lesser extent known to the general public - can someone please tell me how the sea turtle situation became so well publicized?) for decades, and the reports that have been coming out year after year ... http://pulltheskydown.com/news/339 Radiohead's most recent album, In Rainbows, was launched extremely successfully using a pay-what-you-can model, and a new website, Aralie, is banking that this model can work for smaller bands as well. Says the website: Aralie.com was created to support independent artists, by giving them a free market place to sell ... http://pulltheskydown.com/ideas/338 Tensions are rising in the Middle East in the aftermath of Iran's ballistic missile testing. Israel has been undertaking major military exercises in the past months, which some have seen as a lead-up to an air strike on Iran's nuclear facilities (nevermind that they can't actually produce nuclear weapons). The ... http://pulltheskydown.com/rants/337 If your reaction isn't "who the hell is Wayne Leibel?", then I'm pretty impressed, but I fully expect it to be. Don't worry, it's ok. (Besides his mate choice research, he's probably best known for writing regular columns in two of the biggest aquarium hobby magazines, making him ... http://pulltheskydown.com/ideas/335 So I'm in Boston right now , and yesterday evening I walked past an Abercrombie store. Wouldn't you know it - they have topless male models all around the place. Now I don't frequent these stores, so I can't say for sure that these models don't exist in ... http://pulltheskydown.com/images/333 So long Jeb Bush, and good riddance. New(ish) Florida governor Charlie Crist, another, better republican, has just invested a very un-republican amount of money into the Everglades. No, we're not talking the usual $100,000 or $1 million that public parks usually beg for. This is ... http://pulltheskydown.com/ideas/327 Alternative energy is booming. The solar industry in the US grew nearly 100% in 2007 (!), and the industry is expected to see a worldwide compounded growth of 40-50% for the next three years. No longer just the idle dream of environmentalists, solar power has become an immensely lucrative investment ... http://pulltheskydown.com/rants/332 Yeah the old bastard is dead. As you may have heard, George Carlin recently "passed away" effectively stripping me of one of my three living idols. It's hard explaining the significance of a man like Carlin in a culture so saturated with the fruits of his labours that it becomes ... http://pulltheskydown.com/news/331 It has become a bit of a cliché among our posts to point out the pervasive unsustainability of our society. Occasionally there are laudable developments worth mentioning, but even when we write about these, the discourse is too often tinged with cynicism. We know what's wrong now, and what can ... http://pulltheskydown.com/ideas/319 An astounding amount of astronomy is dependent on technological advancement, so it's pretty neat when enough of the little things come together to allow for big breakthroughs. A group of researchers at the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland have recently used an intense Chilean telescope to survey the velocities of ... http://pulltheskydown.com/ideas/323