Articles by Christopher Mims

FAA gets confused, tries to ground cranes

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has decided to allow a whooping crane migration to continue, after initially trying to halt it. PLANES, guys. You are in charge of PLANES.

Actually, the FAA was only grounding the cranes as a byproduct of grounding planes -- specifically, the ultralight craft that guide the endangered birds on their migration route. Whooping crane chicks raised in captivity, which many of them are since the birds are so threatened, don't have parents to demonstrate migration to them. So conservationists from Operation Migration have the babies imprint on pilots dressed as birds. Then the chicks follow the ultralights on the 1,200-mile flight.

Evidently the FAA doesn't find this as adorable as I do, because they're now quibbling over whether the pilots are allowed to keep training their flocks of babies.

The sharing economy doesn’t always work: Luxury car theft edition

Peer to peer sharing of everything from apartments to cars is taking off, except when it comes to luxury cars, because they are valuable and people will steal them.

Operators fined $140k for surfing web instead of running nuke plant

Nine operators of the River Bend nuclear power plant near Baton Rouge, La., just landed their employer a $140,000 fine for surfing the web from the plant's control room, reports Mark Halper at SmartPlanet.

Weird new all-electric cars debut at Detroit Auto Show

Volkswagen E-Bugster

Hitting the "on" button on this car (because in the future, all cars will be started the same way you start up a laptop) makes the interior flash blue like you've just stepped into a light cycle from TRON. Check the video, below, for the full effect.