I find the combinatorics of language simply staggering. In today’s Zippy the Pinhead, Bill Griffith has a character say: “When Mark Twain is picture smoking a pipe, he certainly looks contented.” A Google search shows that not only has that sentence never been committed to the Googleverse, but that a simple five word subset has …
My modest attempts to understand energy economics have left me unprepared for today’s hundred-dollar-a-barrel milestone. With the U.S. economy teetering on the brink of recession, future demand is expected to be low, which the smarty-pants economists tell me should mean lower oil prices. Yet… Thankfully for my ego, the folks at the Daily Diary of …
Matthew Nisbet has an interesting post up today about the future of science journalism. He sees it in things like Andy Revkin’s Dot Earth, or the excellent Yale Forum on Science and the Media. Nisbet wonders whether these sorts of non-traditional approaches are the future of my business: With fewer and fewer outlets for science …
Nora needs some help from some of you sciencey types. Head on over….
The water wonks have been all over the story about Tucson’s problems with low-flow toilets: not enough water to get the, umm, solids to the sewage treatment plant. I’ll go with Shaun McKinnon: Tucson’s sewer pipes may have a case of the feeble flushes, suffering from cramps brought on by too little water in the …
Michael Tobis had a post today about Lance Armstrong’s plans for an 18,000-square-foot bike shop in Austin that seems, at least in part, to be marketed at the bike commuter: “This city is exploding downtown. Are all these people in high rises going to drive everywhere? We have to promote (bike) commuting…” The thing is, …
John Mashey, in the bowels of an old thread, had this to say on the incentives and disincentives to rational transit economics: Think about the logical effects of local statutes that a certain amount of parking spaces be provided per resident, worker, or customer. In effect, parking spaces are required, thus spreading buildings further apart, …
A reader raises an interesting question about the Easy-Do Parties lady: Why is she alone in the kitchen, and why do the party guests in the background appear to be on fire? Nora, an expert in electricity and people being on fire (or, perhaps, the magical arts) suggests that the Easy-Do Parties lady (her name …
Pat Mulroy is one of the most interesting people in Western Water right now. As the General Manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, she’s the one responsible for getting Las Vegas the water it needs. Or, more precisely, the water it says it thinks it needs. Michael Campana had an interesting comment recently, though, …
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From Danger Room: “Weather modification was used successfully in Viet Nam to (among other things) hinder and impede the movement of personnel and material from North Viet Nam to South Viet Nam,” notes a Naval Air Warfare Weapons Division – China Lake research proposal, released last month through the Freedom of Information Act. But “since …
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