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It's too cold. Roof my cities, damn it!
* Nate Silver on Rasmussen polling bias.
* Willpower as limited muscle and why your New Year's resolutions will fail -- especially the one to lose weight. Starved brains don't have good willpower.
* Economists are cheapskates
* Fixing California -- oh, please let it pass!
* Divisions in the parties. GOP as uneasy alliance of neocons, libertarians, and the religious right (itself with divisons, e.g. Mormon vs. evangelical), having expelled the Rockefeller (or Roosevelt) Republicans; Democrats as uneasy alliance of neoliberals, New Dealers, and Greens, with different opinions about means if not goals.
* Democrats likely to drop superdelegates, continuing their trend of being, ahem, more democratic. (Previous major item is state delegates being allocates proportionally, in something like proxy or asset voting, whereas the GOP primaries are still winner-take-all.)
* Same author of the previous two, Michael Lind, rants about the failure of government, or what are we paying them for anyway?
* Movie of Pre-Columbian America, Kings of the Sun. Probably flawed but notable for subject matter. Haven't seen it, just heard about it.
* Iowa and New Hampshire both have gay marriage; will this affect the next presidential campaign?
* Horrible chemistry blog. ClF3 burns sand and produces HF in reaction with water. *Produces* HF, WTF. Dimethyl mercury is horrible.
* Blasphemy law inIslam Ireland.
* Religiosity by state.
* Pink science for girls
* Nate Silver on Rasmussen polling bias.
* Willpower as limited muscle and why your New Year's resolutions will fail -- especially the one to lose weight. Starved brains don't have good willpower.
* Economists are cheapskates
* Fixing California -- oh, please let it pass!
* Divisions in the parties. GOP as uneasy alliance of neocons, libertarians, and the religious right (itself with divisons, e.g. Mormon vs. evangelical), having expelled the Rockefeller (or Roosevelt) Republicans; Democrats as uneasy alliance of neoliberals, New Dealers, and Greens, with different opinions about means if not goals.
* Democrats likely to drop superdelegates, continuing their trend of being, ahem, more democratic. (Previous major item is state delegates being allocates proportionally, in something like proxy or asset voting, whereas the GOP primaries are still winner-take-all.)
* Same author of the previous two, Michael Lind, rants about the failure of government, or what are we paying them for anyway?
* Movie of Pre-Columbian America, Kings of the Sun. Probably flawed but notable for subject matter. Haven't seen it, just heard about it.
* Iowa and New Hampshire both have gay marriage; will this affect the next presidential campaign?
* Horrible chemistry blog. ClF3 burns sand and produces HF in reaction with water. *Produces* HF, WTF. Dimethyl mercury is horrible.
* Blasphemy law in
* Religiosity by state.
* Pink science for girls
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-04 19:13 (UTC)From:I just have a hard time visualizing "enclosed" as equaling "better." I have a hard enough time spending a week in Texas with my mother every year, running from AC to AC. And, yes, domes would extend the AC exponentially. But the cost alone sort of boggles my mind, and it's still not the same thing. Don't know how to explain why, but it just isn't.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-04 19:18 (UTC)From:The A/C... I suspect thermal mass, combined with a smart roof that can change albedo or open to let hot air out, would make keeping a target of "livable temperature" fairly cheap. You're maintaining a large volume, but have better tools to do it, vs. a whole bunch of random buildings with high surface area and exposure to the wind or sun.
Of course, then there's air circulation, and whether you can afford cars or even BBQs.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-04 19:54 (UTC)From:That said, considering the rain pouring down outside, I wouldn't mind a nice covered outdoor walk right now [g].