Can't get that damn spot out???

Cleaning tips from an expert.

Uff-da

The pipe make this a perfect 10 [via I don't remember where, sorry!]

Planning for a million-year nap

Yucca Mountain

BLDGBLOG: A Million Years of Isolation: An Interview with Abraham Van Luik

Abraham Van Luik is a geoscientist with the U.S. Department of Energy; he is currently based at the nuclear waste-entombment site proposed for Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Yucca Mountain, a massive landform created by an extinct supervolcano inside what is now Nellis Air Force Base’s Nevada Test and Training Range, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the controversial site chosen by Congress for the storage of nuclear waste. Its political fate remains uncertain. Although the Obama Administration has stated that Yucca Mountain is “no longer… an option for storing nuclear waste,” Congress has since voted to continue funding the project—albeit only with enough funds to allow the licensing process to continue.

On Utopia

"I'm interested in keeping other people from building Utopia, because the more you believe you can create heaven on earth, the more likely you are to set up guillotines in the public square to hasten the process."
James Lileks

So I woke up in a bathtub filled with ice with a note to get immediate medical attention

Virginia Postrel wrote a great essay about the long kidney donor list, where many people die while waiting, and proposes paying donors to alleviate this. Which is a classic repugnant transaction, as you're only supposed to give organs to your loved ones for free or if you crash your motorcycle, etc. But (A), our current system is worse in practice, and (B) it already exists for medical tourists, who can go to the right clinic abroad to meet up with some third-world donor. So it seems inevitable. However, if you're going to advocate such a practice, I couldn't help but ask myself how much it would take to get me to donate.

My informal poll at work suggested no one there wanted to, although it's not quite fair to spring that question on someone over the water cooler. I think it's different if there's a real offer - both ways. Someone showing up with a suitcase full of money is a bit tangible than a number pulled out of thin air, but sitting down for the anesthesia is just as serious. Myself - I'd have to look into the long-term risks, but if the procedure really is as low-risk as she makes out, I would be tempted for a much lower number than infinity - somewhere in the range of "capital".

Finally, it'd be a lot different for me if the need was less critical and the donation more debilitating - having someone volunteer to give up a cornea, for instance, would be too far. Or so I think.

like the moon in your eye

It's hard to imagine throwing more bombs than this guy does when talking about pizza. Bombs away!

Roots and cranks, again

On umps and strike zones...

2) humans shouldn’t be calling balls and strikes. A guy squatting behind a plate can’t adequately determine if a 90mph pitch crossed a three-dimensional strike zone. The sooner the swap’s made, the better for the game.

This is correct, and yet it feels so wrong.

Department of Peace

Thomas Barnett: The Pentagon's new map for war and peace

Things are amazing

You kinda hope that at some point in the next few years, we will suck it up a bit and stop acting like not buying a new luxury car, or a new plasma screen, this year, represents 40 years in the wilderness. The especially galling part is that much of the fallout from our stupid bank tricks is going to land on the developing world. My condolences if your situation becomes difficult, but would anyone in Detroit trade places with their counterparts in India or China right now?

By the way, this article speculates, somewhat interestingly, that if a depression were to happen, the major consequence would be that unemployed people would buy second-hand clothes and watch a lot more TV, because it's cheap. Comparing this to real hardship is obscene.

That bit of righteous indignation aside, putting up with obnoxious rich people is a small price to pay if it allows the poor majority of the world to be lifted out of real poverty. So no, unlike C.K., I don't think we need some reversion to poverty to regain our perspective. That would be cutting off their noses to spite our faces.

I can't drive 55, or even 65, for that matter

No Respect for Speed Limits

When it comes to speeding, many American motorists don’t worry about safety. They just worry about getting caught.

Those are the findings by researchers from Purdue University who surveyed nearly 1,000 motorists about speed limits and driving habits. They found that many drivers are cynical about the safety benefits of driving within speed limits, and many think they can drive safely while speeding as long as they won’t get caught, according to the report in Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour.

I often speed on the George Washington Parkway and I-270, where no one, meaning ZERO people, drives the speed limit. The speed limit on the GW Parkway between Alexandria and DC is 40 mph, but the traffic speed is around 50-55 mph, with the higher speed during the commuting hours when it is certain that there will be no speed traps. On 270, the speed limit is a 55 mph, and average traffic speeds during non-gridlock are around 70 mph, with 80 mph common enough. I tend to go with the flow, as driving at the speed limit would be dangerous due the speed differential between you and everyone else.

That said, I drive much slower at night, in strange places, or in bad weather, and I have not had a ticket in I can't recall how long. I think it was in 2002, when I was buzzing up 15 to get back to school, and I hit a speed trap along a lonely highway. That's the last one in 15 years.

There is, like our drug laws, a huge disconnect between what legislation can be passed, and what many people actually do. I suspect counter-intuitive road engineering to make roads seem much more difficult to drive would be better at reducing accidents, e.g., Roads Gone Wild.