Feb 27, 2008

Masdar

So why is the United States not the country to try to conduct the largest urban green experiment? Seriously, even Abu Dhabi is more adventurous and leading edge than us? What the hell is going on?

According to the BBC, Masdar City will take eight years and $22B, and is planned to house 50,000 people. Solar, electromagnetic 'travel pods,' large-scale desalination, and a hydrogen plant are all in the works. Sure, it could end up being a Muslim Arcosanti, but even if it's only half as successful as its very optimistic plan, they stand to learn more about the practical matters of implementation and livability than practically anyone else in the world. Of course, we could always go to Disneyland's World of Tomorrow to see how we'll be living in 2016...

Feb 25, 2008

information economy

The total value of everything produced in the U.S. (GDP) tripled from 1950 to 2000 while the gross tonnage stayed the same (according to Al Gore's book, The Assault on Reason).

In 1950, there were 152 million people in the U.S. In 2000, 281 million.

stoopid politicians!

You'll find that this post's title really has little to do with its content, aside from the fact that it's the implication every time someone complains about runaway gov't spending, earmarks, pork, or whatever you want to call the programs you don't like. A few days ago I tried to inject a little reason into one of those rants, and was met with a slack-jawed stare.

So this morning while listening to a report about the Administration's efforts to silence government scientific reports being extended as far as producing conflicting reports, it dawned on me: don't bring reason to the table, bring aggression. I can't wait for someone to gripe about federal spending of $800k on turtle migration patterns so I can commisserate with my outrage that we're spending three quarters of a trillion dollars cooling our heels in Iraq.

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Feb 24, 2008

Levi takes it!

Levi Leipheimer just won his second Amgen Tour of California in a row. I haven't been able to follow the whole race, but it looks like online coverage was pretty cool this year: picture in picture streaming video with the ability to switch between cameras in real time, course overviews, chat, and current standings. This race, given its coverage, course, and participants, isn't just world class, it's easily one of the best 'new' events in professional cycling.

The image is a screenshot of the race site - the cyclist is George Hincapie winning the final stage, stage 7, after a hard fight to overcome a really impressive breakaway by a guy I hadn't heard of before, Tom Zirbel.

Feb 17, 2008

The Green Team!



"Just cuz I'm an environmentalist doesn't mean I'm a sissy, mother f___er!"

Feb 14, 2008

I have seen the glory

Not many people can say they've sat in the presence of Ron Burgundy without a screen between them, but we caught the Funny or Die tour the other night at MSU (after seeing the video, I hate to admit Ohio State's audience questions were better) and have been all a-twitter ever since . That is one sexy, sexy man. Zach and Demetri were hysterical; Nick was pretty funny but would've been a hell of a lot funnier if he'd been standing in my garage tapping a keg. He's funny like your funniest friend, not like someone who gets paid to tell jokes is funny. Lotsa videos of the show on the FoD site. Definitely see Zach or Demetri if you ever get the chance, though.

Our seats were nowhere near this good - our friends took a pic of him that I thought I'd use, but it was actually a picture of Ron on the jumbotron.

Feb 13, 2008

There is hope

Not at all smart:

Very smart:

Intellipedia


Feb 8, 2008

Hmmm... good point, part 2

As a fitting bookend to my post about Defective Yeti's questioning of Christianity's understanding of the beginning of life, Angry Chad asks a good question about the end of it:

I mean what's a few years, or even decades, wait compared to spending eternity together? Shouldn't religious people instead be happy for those who have moved on and are now literally in heaven?

fotD20

Feb 7, 2008

speared, drugged, and left to die on a curb

The last three books I've listened to during my driving, in order of most recent:

The Road, Cormac McCarthy
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Thermopylae, Paul Cartledge

All have been engrossing, stirring, and well written. They've also all been depressing in a way that I don't think fully dawned on me until just the last couple of days; The Road especially. I haven't finished it yet, but will tomorrow, and am dreading it because I know the story has to end badly. I could tell ten minutes into it that not only was I listening to words better written than any I'd heard in a very long time, but that this was going to be brutal. It's a loving and warm arm around the shoulders followed by repeated blows to the gut, but McCarthy's skill in telling the story has kept me enthusiastically going back, a battered girlfriend hoping against hope that things will turn out alright, even as she cries and spits up blood.

I highly recommend all three books, just not in a row. Maybe not even in the same year.

UPDATE: Finished The Road. I had limited time to grab a new audiobook the other night at the library, with one kid happily yelling his head off in my arm and the other pulling every book she wanted off the shelves in the kids' section (meaning, pretty much, every book). So... my next choice, the one that was going to be lighthearted and fun? The Assault on Reason, by Mr. Lighthearted, Al Gore.

When is Santa Monica like Detroit?

When it builds a LEED-certified parking structure.

Picture by John Edward Linden from Archnewsnow via Treehugger.

Both the city of Santa Monica and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Detroit are claiming that theirs is first, but the fact that this is being done at all indicates the huge shift in thinking throughout the building industry. Some highlights:
  • The BCBN structure boasts Detroit's only vegetative roof, the second largest in the state, and a 55,000-gallon storm water holding system underneath it that will supply water for the sedum on the roof and clean the structure.
  • The structure sits on a plot of land that once held 125 parking spaces — and now has 1,808 spaces.
  • The structure has a fitness room complete with showers. It also has a one-tenth-mile walking track on the roof made from recycled materials. Steel and concrete building supplies used for the structure were recycled.
  • The building in Santa Monica is more oriented to the pedestrian traffic around it, and features retail space, a coffee shop, and a Zen garden.
  • It uses photovoltaic panels on the roof and laminated to three facades to provide much of the building's energy needs.
  • All facades allow natural ventilation and illumination to enter all parking floors.
  • The ceilings are painted white to maximize the quality of light and airiness.
  • It also incorporates a storm drain water treatment system and recycled construction materials as well as low volatile organic compound paints and coatings, low-e glazing for heating and cooling efficiency and energy efficient mechanical systems.

Finally...

...we're going to have an election where I can look forward to voting for someone without cringing at the possibility that they lose.

It's so nice to not fear one of the candidates and to not feel pressured to vote between lame and horrible, but just between three fairly good people each with their own minority of flaws.

YES!!

Romney's out.

To quote my grandfather, "Don't let the door bang you on the ass."

Feb 2, 2008

candidate blind taste test

Weekend America has cobbled together some scripts based on the remaining candidates' stances on some of the bigger issues, and then given them all fake names. While it's not all apples to apples and a couple of the statements are fairly clear giveaways, it's still cool to read them without the baggage that lurks with every name. And, aside from one issue, I was surprised to learn I like one less than another.