Oil gathering above the Deepwater Horizon wellhead on May 6, 2010. The oceanographer Ed Levine said, “With all of the skimmers in the world out there, you might as well be using thimbles.” Credit Photograph by Daniel Beltrá I. DEFENDING THE SHORE The boat captain—an elderly man in coveralls who had…

Home Politics Kevin Drum Environment Tom Philpott Media and Culture Subscribe Donate I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave My brief, backbreaking, rage-inducing, low-paying, dildo-packing time inside the online-shipping machine. Illustration by Mark Matcho "Don't take anything that happens to you there…

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was formed to ensure America’s freedom to travel. Instead, they have made air travel the most difficult means of mass transit in the United States, at the same time failing to make air travel any more secure. TSA has never, (and I invite them to prove…

Adrian - I appreciate that you spent time in writing this post. I know I've been up until 2am writing similarly long ones as well. I will take responsibility for having what is likely an irrational response (I blame Twitter for that) to the term "NoOps", but I invite you to investigate why that…

If you’re looking to build your own iPod or iPhone stereo , AirPlay audio system , or desktop audio system, you could buy self-powered speakers, such as computer speakers or studio monitors . But with a small integrated amplifier, which combines a preamplifier ’s volume-control and source-switching…

Dumb Metaphor Friday: “Growing the pie” The conservative criticism of redistribution is a claim that conservatives would rather expand the (economic) pie than ensure that it is divided evenly among everybody. The theory is that everybody then even the guy destined to have a smaller piece comes out…

Among our many cherished verities and assumed assumptions is the widespread belief—nearly universal practice actually—that salespeople are to be paid commissions. It’s the way things are done. Stop signs are red. Salespeople get commissions. But why? This is a practice so deeply ingrained that…

Photograph by California State Government Since 2005, the global production of oil has remained relatively flat, peaking in 2008 and declining since, even as demand for petroleum has continued to increase. The result has been wild fluctuations in the price of oil as small changes in demand set off…

If we could put a man on the Moon, why can’t we put a man on theMoon? Starting with near zero space capability in 1961, the NationalAeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) put men on ourcompanion world in eight years. Yet despite vastly superiortechnology and hundreds of billions of dollars in…

This was originally supposed to be a review of the Xavier Gens film " The Divide ." That will not be happening. Over the course of my life, I'd wager I've seen at least 10,000 movies. Maybe more. I've had years where I've mainlined as many as 500 movies, many of them older catalog titles. I have a…

Are leap seconds about to be abolished? THE phrase “clockwork universe” is more than a pithy tribute to the exactitude of physics. For thousands of years, the movement of the heavens (or rather, as was eventually realised, the movement of the Earth within the heavens) served as exactly that—a clock.…

Attorney Shervin Lalezary gives a brief glimpse into the arrest of the man accused of setting fires across a swath of Los Angeles County. But he declines to reveal much else about himself. After a news conference, L.A. County reserve deputy Shawn Lalezary, second… (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles…) A…

“The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury.” So declared John Maynard Keynes in 1937, even as F.D.R. was about to prove him right by trying to balance the budget too soon, sending the United States economy — which had been steadily recovering up to that point — into a…

TODOS SANTOS, Mexico — Clamshell containers on supermarket shelves in the United States may depict verdant fields, tangles of vines and ruby red tomatoes. But at this time of year, the tomatoes, peppers and basil certified as organic by the Agriculture Department often hail from the Mexican desert,…

The Scandinavian country is an education superpower because it values equality more than excellence. Sergey Ivanov/Flickr Everyone agrees the United States needs to improve its education system dramatically, but how? One of the hottest trends in education reform lately is looking at the stunning…

#defrag 2011 presentation script. I'm the cloud architect for Netflix, but rather than tell you about why we moved Netflix to a cloud architecture or how we built our cloud architecture, I'm going to tell you what we do differently at Netflix to create a culture that supports innovation. What is it…

In Memoriam 1942 – 2013 “Roger Ebert loved movies.” RogerEbert.com Reviews Great Movies Chaz's Blog Blogs Far Flungers Channels Contributors Mother's Day A film so awful that if one were to put up a list of the great movies celebrating motherhood, it would rank considerably lower than… The Man Who…

Emiliano Ponzi This column appears in the Nov. 20 issue of The New York Times Magazine. Like most creatures on earth, humans come equipped with a circadian clock, a roughly 24-hour internal timer that keeps our sleep patterns in sync with our planet. At least until genetics, age and our personal…

When leases expire in 2015, the city says, it won't be obligated to operate the facility as an airport. The FAA disagrees, standing with pilots and passengers. Foes cite noise, pollution and plane crashes. Mar Vista resident Virginia Ernst looks skyward as a jet flies over her home… (Genaro Molina,…

In 2006, Ronald S. Lauder, who is now worth $3.1 billion, paid $135 million for the Klimt painting “Adele Bloch-Bauer I.” Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press As he stood in the opulent marble foyer of a Fifth Avenue mansion late last month, greeting the coterie of prominent guests arriving at his…

Randy Miller, left, of Cleveland, Tenn., examined a Remington shotgun with Bob Cabral, a salesman at the Cabela's store in Scarborough, Me. Gretchen Ertl for The New York Times SCARBOROUGH, Me. LINED up in a gun rack beneath mounted deer heads is a Bushmaster Carbon 15, a matte-black semiautomatic…

I’ve been thinking more about Google’s renewal of their search deal with Mozilla for Firefox. It’s fascinating on a few different levels. Most notably: Google is committing close to a billion dollars to bankroll a browser which is a rival to their own browser. Why? Well, on the surface, they do get…

grudge match Why a Verizon-Yahoo Deal May Hinge on an Old Google Feud Marissa Mayer and Tim Armstrong have a long history that complicates a prospective sale of the Internet portal to the telecom giant. Death March to Cleveland Cruz Taps Carly Fiorina as Potential Veep Ted Cruz takes his strategy of…

Imagine it’s late 2005. Apple’s fiscal year just ended and they reported their performance. You’re an analyst whose job includes forecasting the company’s performance for next year. This is a weighty responsibility. Your forecast will be blended with those of your peers and used as a “consensus”…