For several years, I've conducted an annual Skype session with the students at Arapahoe High School in Colorado, who read my novel Little Brother as a jumping-off point for a wide-ranging, critical discussion of the Internet and politics. Arapahoe has been much in the news lately, for sad reasons: a student brought a gun to school, shot and wounded two of his fellow students, and then killed himself. Kristin Leclaire teaches Language Arts at Arapahoe, who was living in New York on September 11th, 2001, and she has written a sad, smart, important essay on her experience, called Scar Tissue . My thoughts are with my friends at Arapahoe. Read the rest

The Nasal Ranger Field Olfactometer is a gadget for empirically measuring the presence of stink-particles in a given environment. It is being deployed in Denver to measure compliance with a by-law prompted by Colorado's rules for legal marijuana: you're allowed to smoke weed, but you are not permitted to spread the smell of marijuana into your neighbors' spaces. Read the rest

In an amazing coincidence, Colorado lawmakers ended up with license plates that didn't show up on speed cameras, meaning that they got to get away with thousands of dollars' worth of moving violations without ever paying fines. The DPW won't try to collect on the fines, because that would be hard. Read the rest

Deer Trail, a small town near Denver, is contemplating issuing $25/year hunting licenses for Federal drones. No drones are reported to have ever flown over Deer Trail, and it would likely be a federal crime to destroy one, but the mayor clearly views this as a way of sending a message to Washington, and of making some easy money for the town. (via MeFi) Read the rest

YouTube user Dfriel1 and a pal went out for a Sunday bike ride on a road east of Longmont, CO, when a driver in a Ford Explorer (license plate Colorado 893 EKG) pulled up behind them and rode their tails for five minutes*, blaring his horn and holding up the traffic behind them. Despite their having pulled into single file, and despite the ample room for passing, the driver appeared to either want to express a general displeasure for cyclists, or believed that cyclists should actually pull off the road in the presence of cars. They Colorado State Police have received a report, and Dfriel1 says he's located other cyclists who've had run ins with this driver.

As a Founder of TrainingPeaks.com I encourage everyone to get out and ride bikes as part of a healthy lifestyle. Everyone no matter what their age or where they may live should have the right to feel safe when riding whether it be for health, fitness or simply commuting to work.

Insane Driver who obviously doesn't like people on bikes

(Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

*Only two minutes are recorded here; in the narration, Dfriel reports that his camera ran out of memory at that point. Read the rest

An AP story describes a plan to explode a group of frozen cow-carcasses in a remote mountain cabin in Colorado. The cows, which were roaming free in Gunnison National Forest, were caught in a cold snap and sought shelter in the cabin. Now that the thaw is coming, there is no easy way of getting them out of their frozen death-chamber. If the cows are allowed to thaw and decompose, they could contaminate the forest's hot-springs; and bringing in trucks would violate the forest's preservation rules. The plan, then, is to explode the cows while they are still frozen, turning them into manageable frozen chunks that can be more readily removed.

Carroll praised the Forest Service for trying to remove the animals while doing the least damage. He said burning down the cabin or packing out the carcasses are probably the best solutions.

"They need to use the minimal tool to get the job done. They don't want to leave the land scarred," he said.

Segin said the Forest Service occasionally uses explosives to destroy carcasses of animals that can't be retrieved.

"We've used them as a means of disposal to remove dead horses, elk and other animals in areas where it's impossible to get them out," he said.

Forest Service Considers Blowing Up Frozen Cows That Died Inside Of A Colo. Mountain Cabin

(Image: Cold water fountain, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from sbeebe's photostream)

(via JWZ) Read the rest