Would you help an alcoholic by giving him $100 to buy liquor? The US is adicted to oil, according to the president. The proposed solution… to subsidize gas. CNN.com – Senators to push for $100 gas rebate checks – Apr 27, 2006
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The Spanish Architecture exhibition at Moma reveals the startling fact that, despite its relatively small size, there are more innovative new buildings being built in Spain than in the whole of the US. A few years ago, this was not the case. America was the architectural capital of the world in the 20th century, with Chicago its leader in academic terms, but New York, winner of the people’s choice award. Every day as I walk around New York I marvel not just at the buildings but the people that had both the balls and, simultaneously, the sensibility to build them. Yet New York is becoming a living museum of the 20th Century, if a design as radical as the Chrysler Building was submitted today, it would likely not get built. Perhaps this is innevitable and not all bad. When Duchamps’ Large Glass was broken in transport – he claimed that…
Treehugger founder, Graham Hill also chooses Wists as one of his favorite sites.link » tags: [news] posted via Wists: permamark
The Republican religious base is crawling out of its primordial slime to promote its main priorities for the mid-term elections: banning some people from using a particular word to describe their relationship when it is closer to their own ideal of a monogamous family unit and making it illegal to destroy graven idols representing a line on a map. These are important issues after all, when the alternatives are global unrest dues to energy crises and the death of the planet due to environmental catastrophe. The fascinating thing about the social conservative disease is that it requires a view of the world which is not based upon traditional morals or any concept of progress. To demonstrate this, let’s use the example for gay rights. Most social conservatives, who aren’t criminals, probably agree that someone like Elton John should not be dragged into the street and pelted to a bloody death…
The Oil We Eat (Harpers.org) Richard Manning proposes that staples such as wheat, corn and rice are plants that thrive in the type of barren flooded landscape the were the result of the catastrophic melting following the last ice age. Farming, he proposes, is the ‘nuking’ of the landscape, the clearing of the forest. “Farming is the process of ripping that niche open again and again. It is an annual artificial catastrophe, and it requires the equivalent of three or four tons of TNT per acre for a modern American farm. Iowa’s fields require the energy of 4,000 Nagasaki bombs every year.” Interesting article, however, the opening points which state that all our energy comes from plants capturing solar energy, ignore geothermal, gravitational and atmosperic energy. As can be demonstrated by the fact that we could theoretically grow plants underground under electric lights powered by the tidal energy from the…
The guys behind Blox were the Oddpost guys, and they pretty much created ajax. Blox was an online spreadsheet app and it was great but before its time. With the release of Google Calendar, Excel is the only reason I have to go near a PC or any Microsoft products. I’ve got nothing against Microsoft as a big corp, I just think their products are like badly made, vintage toys So please, I want Blox back. Google Calendar
Interesting trends – the split between Catholic and Protestant looks like Northern Ireland. Jewish and Muslim populations are largely co-incident. Money and religion are somewhat mutually exclusive. Oregon is nice and godless.link » tags: [religion] posted via Wists: permamark
Valleywag: Gizmodo talks to YouTube: “Q: Facebook just turned down a $750 million offer, saying they were seeking $2 billion. Do consider yourself a million-dollar-kind-of guy or a billion-dollar-kind-of guy? A: What we’re really committed to is providing the best experience, and we’re not really thinking about what we’re worth. We’re just viewing this as solving a really hard problem and that’s how to distribute video in an entertaining way. So as we move forward, we’re just going to stay committed to that” or… ‘Look we’re a one show (America’s Best Home Videos) product with clips we didn’t secure the rights for. We can’t talk money till we make sure we’re not just a free version of Akamai.’ But hey, users are everything, right? Yes if you are Google, and Overture’s business model rains greenbacks out of the sky like an endless ticker parade. No if you are Napster and…
Apparently Starbucks is suing because someone is using their trademark ‘double shot’. From now on I will refuse to use Starbucks trademarked terminology when ordering coffee just to mess with them (I could always just not buy Starbucks coffee, but that would be adult and mature and inconvenient): I will ask for Small, Medium or Large instead of the stupid: Tall; Grande; Venti, Party Bucket and Swimming Pool or whatever. I will ask for Skimmed milk in California and Non- Fat milk in New York (this apparently seems to confuse them). I will remind them I wasn’t invited every time I am referred to as a “guest”. When asked for my name, it will be: “freecoffeeforeveryone” or “Hugh Janus” or something equally hilarious. And I will ask for a “doubleshoto (sic) expresso” from now on. I’m sure Starbucks are trembling at the thought, but its probably just too much coffee.
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Saturn’s moon ‘best bet for life’ “If the magma were to cool, he said, it would become more viscous, increasing friction from tidal churning and so producing more heat. But if temperatures veered higher, the magma would flow more easily, and tidal heat production would reduce accordingly.”