Art Decoesque Gherkin Sold (Reblog)

Swiss Re has sold their Gherkin, the most impressive skyline element of London which I have never seen. Ever since it was built in 2003 I've wanted to see this thing, which I find vaguely evocative of Gaudi's turn-of-the century hotel plans which were submitted for rebuilding the World Trade Center site. Lord, I was so excited to think we might actually build something worth looking at and being in... Alas, we're getting some Libeskind crapola -- a design cut from the same cloth as his anti-humanist Jüdisches Museum Berlin, perhaps the least utilitarian museum ever built.

Lying Cures All Ills (Reblog)

Apparently Republicans are running out of willing "scientist" shills, and are now offering direct bribes for lying about global climate change in the face of the new IPCC report. Honestly, the only thing that surprises me is the insultingly low dollar amount ($10,000), given the many millions that the AEI has rolling around for this kind of dirty-business-as-usual, thanks to its powerful and frequently evil donors.

No Wonder (Reblog)

Well, after the untimely demise of Firefly, I was really looking forward to Whedon's next project, a Wonder Woman film that he was going to write and direct. Alas, it is not to be. When not mired in angst (copious amount of BTVS) or concentrating more on serialization issues than tight episodic stories, I've really enjoy his television writing and directing.

Worldmapper (Recommendation)

Worldmapper was recalled to my mind today by a ScienceDaily item. It gives very visceral depictions of income disparity, prevalence of diseases, other many other topics.

I Want A Monotech Game Unit (Reblog)

Best video game trailer I've seen in a long time...

Walker, Texas Pundit (Reblog)

Last week Chuck Norris sat in for Sean Hannity as a co-host of Hannity & Colmes, which Wikipedia mistakenly describes as a "debate television program". While he clearly has at least as much political acumen as the regular co-hosts, I think his general intelligence and integrity might be overboard for the Fox "News" Channel's show. This is, after all, the man who repeatedly co-starred with Psychic Friends Network mouthpiece Dionne Warwick for most of a season of Walker, Texas Ranger!

Did you catch this, CMD?

Hair Donation

The wife wanted information on how to donate her hair, so I poked around a little. It looks like Locks of Love is a good place to donate. It isn't listed by the American Institute of Philanthropy, but some web-searching didn't turn up anything negative. Does NLC have any alternate places she favors?

The How Many Legislators Does It Take To Change A Lightbulb Act (Reblog)

EJB brought this to my attention. California Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-LA) is planning on introducing a bill to ban incandescent lights in favor of compact fluorescents as an energy-saving measure. The number being thrown around is a 75% reduction in energy usage, which maps to the industry-standard tables of incandescent wattage (i.e. 60W) to compact fluorescent wattage (i.e. 15W).

While EJB might be sickened by fluorescent light, I don't have as much of a problem with the light from the compacts, which tends not to have human-noticeable cycling to make you nauseous. However, the printed equivalencies certainly don't make sense to me; a "150W equivalent" compact fluorescent is just beginning to get into the ballpark of my perceived brightness for a standard 100W incandescent bulb. Even so, there is still clearly a savings there, and in fact I'm using compact fluorescents for about a quarter of my household's bulbs right now.

Many people have complained about fluorescent light. Headache, eyestrain, fatigue, inability to concentrate, irritability (or as we know it, EJB syndrome), cutaneous light sensitivity... There is a discussion on fluorescent light at the James Randi Educational Foundation. In general, I think it all boils down to incomplete spectrum and flickering -- neither of which are significant issues with modern compact fluorescents.

EJB -- are your problems worse in Germany than with the CFLs we get in the States? You've never complained about my kitchen lighting, but your exposure could be too limited or you may just be too polite :-) Perhaps there is a different standard manufacturing process for CFL in Europe with more efficient but less stable ballasts.