Science and Technology

Attorney General John Suthers could use some Facebook friends

How the music industry will change in 2011

​In the past decade, the music industry has seen a lot of changes, but it has struggled to keep pace with technology, piracy and consumer demands. Already this year we've started to see a few more changes take shape, from crackdowns on piracy websites, a resurgence of interest in the currently ... More >>

Astrological sign change? Let's just forget this whole thing ever happened

Sorry, Aquarius. You're too late to get me. ​When I was about seventeen years old, a friend of my dad's who was into New Agey kind of stuff took the liberty of compiling an astrological chart for me. It was several pages long and went into great detail about what the day, hour and month of my ... More >>

Over the weekend: 360 MacDev looks forward

​It was not enormous, nor was it filled with flashing lights, giant monitors or masses of people. Instead, 360 MacDev's current incarnation was a smallish gathering of like-minded individuals of all ages (more on that later) interested in getting together, talking shop and discussing theory. W ... More >>

Over $1 million in damages from copper thefts? Michael Evans, others busted for alleged scheme

Large pics below.​The still-bad economy has inspired a number of small-time metal thieves -- like Richard Goodface and Duane Brown, who allegedly swiped Denver storm grates in October. But according to the Colorado Springs Police Department, they're pikers in comparison with several suspects a ... More >>

You are a cave-man: A UCD anthropologist has some unconventional ideas on Neanderthals

Sexy?​Some 400,000 years ago, the earliest ancestors of man as we know him migrated out of Africa and into the land that would later become the snootiest place on earth: Western Europe. But that area was not so fancy then; in fact, it was rugged and cruel, and an ice age came that isolated tha ... More >>

We had a party and tweeted about it: Westword #WebAwards winners!

​If you were there last night, thank you for coming to the first-ever Westword Web Awards party at Casselman's, 2620 Walnut Street. The room swelled (see full slideshow from the Web Awards) to about 400 bloggers, photographers, shameless self-promoters and artists, who tweeted about the thing ... More >>

LimeWire shut down by permanent injunction

​Looking for WMAs of Third Eye Blind? You're going to have to look elsewhere. Effective immediately, LimeWire, the popular peer-to-peer file sharing service, has gone the way of pagers, payphones and the Walkman. In 2006, the music industry filed a suit against the service for a "massive sca ... More >>

The French are fighting piracy in a new and interesting way, but could it work here?

​The French government has revealed a plan to combat piracy that could either be the most brilliant gesture ever or the most monumental waste of government resources of all time (okay, maybe not all time, but close). The proposal: French residents can buy a 50-euro gift card with which they ... More >>

Black out: Lamar gets steamed over a troubled coal plant -- right in the middle of town

​The French government has revealed a plan to combat piracy that could either be the most brilliant gesture ever or the most monumental waste of government resources of all time (okay, maybe not all time, but close). The proposal: French residents can buy a 50-euro gift card with which they ... More >>

Welcome to the Ape House

​The French government has revealed a plan to combat piracy that could either be the most brilliant gesture ever or the most monumental waste of government resources of all time (okay, maybe not all time, but close). The proposal: French residents can buy a 50-euro gift card with which they ... More >>

Home Improvements

​The French government has revealed a plan to combat piracy that could either be the most brilliant gesture ever or the most monumental waste of government resources of all time (okay, maybe not all time, but close). The proposal: French residents can buy a 50-euro gift card with which they ... More >>

King Tut's penis: It's missing from him, and the new DAM exhibit

​The Denver Art Museum's new mega-blockbuster exhibit "Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs," features more than a hundred artifacts associated with the celebrity pharaoh. But one thing you probably won't find anywhere is Tut's penis. That's because it's apparently missing, poss ... More >>

eBay bids for Boulder's RedLaser and wins: Download app for free here

​Occipital is a Boulder startup that just hit the big time. The company's just been acquired by eBay on the strength of its RedLaser app for iPhones, which scans barcodes, allowing users to compare prices on the go. As part of its big push into mobile shopping, eBay has reduced the price of R ... More >>

Boulder's National Center for Atmospheric Research about to get shiny new supercomputers

It'll look like this. Exciting, we know​For 46 years, the National Center for Atmospheric Research has had a supercomputing center at its Mesa Laboratory headquarters in Boulder. This week, NCAR broke ground on a new facility. The center uses supercomputers -- which can process 76 trillion op ... More >>

Star Light, Star Bright

It'll look like this. Exciting, we know​For 46 years, the National Center for Atmospheric Research has had a supercomputing center at its Mesa Laboratory headquarters in Boulder. This week, NCAR broke ground on a new facility. The center uses supercomputers -- which can process 76 trillion op ... More >>

Boulder to host first Beer Bloggers and Social Media Conference

​They know each other by their blogs: The Beer Wench, 2 Beer Guys, Fermentally Challenged, Beer Goggins, and many, many others. Maybe they've run into each other a beer conference or tasting on one side of the country or another. But for the most part, these beer bloggers have never met in pe ... More >>

Five ways to stave off an iTunes store monopoly

​ With the disintegration of Lala coming May 31st, we've been left with one less choice for downloading. Lala was one of the best digital music distributors in town, offering full album streaming and low prices for downloading. After the website was gobbled up by Apple in December of last ... More >>

Ken Salazar taps "recovery czar" Chris Henderson to fix MMS

The New RepublicDrill, baby, drill: Just what does additional offshore drilling add to the mix?​In the wake of the worst American offshore oil disaster in decades, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is scrambling on several fronts to address the perception that his administration has been m ... More >>

Denver has high hopes for a new social-media policy.

The New RepublicDrill, baby, drill: Just what does additional offshore drilling add to the mix?​In the wake of the worst American offshore oil disaster in decades, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is scrambling on several fronts to address the perception that his administration has been m ... More >>

Spaced Out

The New RepublicDrill, baby, drill: Just what does additional offshore drilling add to the mix?​In the wake of the worst American offshore oil disaster in decades, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is scrambling on several fronts to address the perception that his administration has been m ... More >>

Cybercrime in Denver: We're number eight

"I have a feeling there's something phishy in Denver."​In the not exactly thrilling 1995 cyber-thriller The Net, Sandra Bullock's character, Angela Bennett, reveals that she was raised in La Junta -- a community whose name she pronounces as if she were Hugo Chavez. Little did Bennett know, how ... More >>

And now, presenting thirty craptastic minutes with thirty different iPhone band apps

​ Sometimes we have to wonder if folks that program for Apple's App Store are hell-bent on wasting people's time. We spent an evening with as many artist-specific iPhone apps we could get our hands on and found a few amazing things, a few interesting things and a plethora of pure and total cr ... More >>

Top ten five blogs by bands

Photo courtesy of Kanyewest.com​ Last week, Kanye christened his new web site with the above photo of his girlfriend, Amber Rose. Then, Thom Yorke announced the name of his latest band on the Radiohead blog. Which got us thinking about the other band blogs we have bookmarked. In our bitchin' ... More >>

Internet Explorer 6 is dead -- and the funeral is in Denver

May it rest in pieces.​Mention Internet Explorer to most knowledgeable computer types and you're likely to prompt a flood of profanities that would even embarrass the cast of Jersey Shore. So don't expect such folks to mourn at the funeral for Internet Explorer 6, which takes place next week u ... More >>

DISH Network rips proposed Comcast-NBC Universal merger

​Englewood's own DISH Network has launched a passionate, if long-shot, effort to stop the blockbuster merger of Comcast and NBC Universal. This morning, in letters addressed to U.S. reps Rick Boucher and Cliff Stearns, as well as to senators Herb Kohl and Orrin Hatch, DISH executive vice pres ... More >>

Colorado tribes looking to ramp up renewable energy, too

A photo of Ignacio, Colorado, home base of the Southern Ute tribe.​In recent days, the New Mexico-based Jemez Pueblo tribe has gotten plenty of ink for its plan to build "the first utility-scale solar plant on tribal land." Turns out two Colorado tribes -- the Southern Utes and Ute Mountain Ut ... More >>

LEGO Universe — colorful plastic's answer to World of Warcraft — is the brainchild of Colorado-based NetDevil

A photo of Ignacio, Colorado, home base of the Southern Ute tribe.​In recent days, the New Mexico-based Jemez Pueblo tribe has gotten plenty of ink for its plan to build "the first utility-scale solar plant on tribal land." Turns out two Colorado tribes -- the Southern Utes and Ute Mountain Ut ... More >>

Managing 3OH!3 apparently requires an Office with, uh, Windows. Who knew?

Ever wonder what it takes to manage the day-to-day affairs of 3OH!3? Wonder no more. Evidently, all it takes is a cellphone, a laptop outfitted with the latest Microsoft Office suite and an insatiable desire to work 362 days a year (hanging out with your parents, of course, on the three remaining ... More >>

Sexting taken to a super-creepy extreme by Geovany Alarcon

"You want me to do WHAT?"​Sexting: the latest teenage pastime designed to make adults lose their shit. But before you write off the response to the phenomenon as more middlebrow hysteria, grok the particulars of Geovany Alarcon, twenty, who earned a four-year prison jolt in Weld County Court t ... More >>

Texting while driving: a passionate defense of the new ban

A Flickr photo"Look, ma! I'm breakin' the law!"​Today, a ban against texting while driving takes effect in Colorado -- not that Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle expects it to have an enormous impact. In widely quoted comments, he called the measure a "feel good" law that would be tough to enfo ... More >>

SMA Solar to convert Denver into Sunny Island

Sunny Island isn't much of a vacation spot.​You know the decision of a business to relocate is a big deal when the state's governor offers to serve as a de facto publicist, as Bill Ritter did yesterday during the announcement that the German firm SMA Solar Technology AG will be opening a plant ... More >>

Larkburger now using 100 percent all-natural wind power

Larkburgers, fries and shake made with renewable energy​ Larkburger is making a name for itself with such menu items as hand-cut fries seasoned with parmesan and truffle oil -- but Larkburger president Adam Baker hopes that with the switch to wind power for 100 percent of its energy use, the c ... More >>

OMG! Douglas County teens face horrors of sexting

​I am back from the front lines of the kiddie porn wars with some shocking news: The prosperous, sprawling suburbs of Douglas County conceal a steamy underbelly of underage sexual exhibitionism. Youth are being exploited right and left. Usually by each other. Sexting -- the insidious, techno ... More >>

George H.W. Bush's speech to schoolchildren: There's no room for drugs in space

George H.W. Bush.​As noted in our blog about a Douglas County school allowing parents to opt out of letting their kids watch President Barack Obama's speech to children on Tuesday, we pointed out that other Commanders-in-Chief have directly addressed younglings -- among them President George W ... More >>

Coathangr goes mobile with release of iPhone app

​Denver-based Coathangr, a social media service aimed at the fashion conscious (read about it here), has just made it easier than ever to collect your friends' opinions about that pair of pumps on sale -- or to let them giggle at a distance when you spot a fashion disaster out and about -- wit ... More >>

Geek in the Galley: The toaster of tomorrow

​See that picture above? Yeah, that's exactly what you think it is: a toaster with a pre-determined Pop Tart setting. And that is just about the coolest thing in the world. Or in the world of toasters, at least. The toaster pictured is the one that came with my room in Beaver Creek -- a virtua ... More >>

A sunny day for Secretary Solarczar, but a slog ahead?

​Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar was back in Colorado today, August 4, touring a Longmont solar panel company as a way of pushing the Obama administration's vision of a clean energy economy. But that vision, which involves collecting abundant solar power from a procession of solar farms ... More >>

Colorado podcasters, unite and take over

If you're a Denver-area podcaster -- or someone looking to start a podcast or even just interested in the medium -- head down to the Wynkoop tomorrow night and meet some of your fellow 'casters. There's no real agenda beyond the group's general purpose of "lively discussion, hands on practice and sh ... More >>

Tonight at Forest Room Five: See behind the blog with Mizel Museum's "Blogging as Self-Portraiture" discussion

John Common will break down blogging for you. As someone who's been blogging since before that was a word -- I created and maintained a personal journal-type site back in 1998, using HTML hand-coded in Notepad and uploaded to my server via FTP -- I've been there for most every change the medium has ... More >>

Blog, Blog, Blog

Creating a self-portrait in cyberspace.

CU scientists identify Mars fishin' hole

Image by Gaetano Di Achille/University of ColoradoWhat Mars' Shalbatana lake might have looked like 3.4 billion years ago. Even as an Atlas V rocket built by Centennial's United Launch Alliance blasted off yesterday on a mission that may lead to man's return to the moon, University of Colorado at B ... More >>

From the week of April 23, 2009

Image by Gaetano Di Achille/University of ColoradoWhat Mars' Shalbatana lake might have looked like 3.4 billion years ago. Even as an Atlas V rocket built by Centennial's United Launch Alliance blasted off yesterday on a mission that may lead to man's return to the moon, University of Colorado at B ... More >>

For Colorado's largest power co-op, going green will mean taking down the King of Coal

Image by Gaetano Di Achille/University of ColoradoWhat Mars' Shalbatana lake might have looked like 3.4 billion years ago. Even as an Atlas V rocket built by Centennial's United Launch Alliance blasted off yesterday on a mission that may lead to man's return to the moon, University of Colorado at B ... More >>

Channels 7, 9 and 20 won't wait until June for digital-TV conversion

"The Digital Conversion Will Leave Some Coloradans in the Dark," and blogs like this one note that a percentage of locals who've been receiving free, over-the-air TV during the analog era will lose this service once stations switch to all-digital broadcasting. Concerns about problems like these co ... More >>

Finally, proof that Boulderites weren't always vegetarians

Glenn Asakawa, University of Colorado.The last steak knives ever to be used in Boulder. And you thought those arrowhead-like rocks you found in your flowerbed were cool. As several media outlets have been reporting, a cache of ancient tools, including knives and axes, has been discovered in a Bould ... More >>

Holding on by letting go, part one

Bands in Denver are lucky. Getting gigs and building a fanbase locally are actually pretty easy. There's no shortage of small and midsized venues where a nascent group can cut its teeth, build the buzz and start to plot its graduation to theaters. But how do you get your music into th ... More >>

Revelations in new Facebook and MySpace study: no duh

The Pew Internet & American Life Project released a study last week that found young people are more likely to use social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace than old people. In other breaking news, milk mostly comes from cows and water is mostly wet.

Jonathan Coulton is what happens when a computer geek starts making music

The Pew Internet & American Life Project released a study last week that found young people are more likely to use social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace than old people. In other breaking news, milk mostly comes from cows and water is mostly wet.

Hear from the man behind KBFR, Boulder's pirate radio station

Yesterday's blog "Pirate Radio Station KBFR Back in Boulder" provided info about an unlicensed radio signal using call letters that date back for the better part of a decade. In that piece, the main commentator was Rob Smoke, a former Boulder City Council candidate who's producing a regular talk s ... More >>