- It’s Free Cone Day
- I respect Zimmern, but the swirl is too much for me. I’m a chunk man, not a swirl man. And when I do indulge in a swirl, I prefer it to be chunk-free.
- Rancho Gordo moving into a perm spot inside the Ferry Building? Cool beans.
- This is a big fucking deal
- Omg I just got a subpoena
- the future location of the Pelosi House Office Building (amended by Atrios)
- iFSU, media works for party
- DeLongasm:
Over in that alternative branch of the quantum-mechanical multiverse in which Mitt Romney was elected President in November 2008, this health care bill–with much smaller subsidies and no tax increases on the rich, and with other tweaks and modifications–passed the House of Representatives 352-83 and passed the Senate 79-20, with near-solid Republican support. Left-wing Democrats whined that it was not real reform. The David Broders and David Brookses of the world trumpeted it as an extraordinary victory for American bipartisanship.
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Re 1: Where the time value of money ceases to exist.
I find their lack of SF coverage disturbing.
A’s are on tv tomorrow night.
I find their lack of SF coverage disturbing
2: Americone Dream is probably my favorite, followed by the Karamel Sutra.
4: It’s all silly (although the cheering disruptive behavior one is less so). That said, no need to reflexively defend/attack f-bombs.
Fuck that.
I think we should probably stop pretending politicians don’t curse. Maybe right after that, we can stop pretending athletes spend their spare time saving kittens and fighting cancer.
except for Craig Breslow.
Yeah, pro athletes are generally overprivileged profligates — it’s far more likely they spend all their kittens.
A kitten saved is a torment earned.
I’ll take dropping an f-bomb over impregnating a slave or humping a starlet or mafia moll while hopped up on goofballs.
I was getting tired of randomly shouting “You lie!” at people, so I’ll now switch to “Baby killer!”
6A: The “PELOSI BUILDING SELLS FANCY LETTUCE AND MUSTARD” freak out would be the best part of street level retail.
ARUGULA!
There would also be the nice irony of one of John Mackey’s stores being housed there.
5. Even Jose’s clocks are on steroids.
Re 1: Closest Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop to me is 7000 Coliseum Way.
Hmmph.
Free Cohn.
TWELVE DAYS!?!!?!
praise the maker.
I can’t wait that long.
That’s right — not much time left to do your birthday shopping for me.
“Monkeyball does not mean what you think he means.”
So you want Sal to pick the gift you’re buying him?
SFGate adds to the positive press for “The Big Short” with a profile of Michael Lewis.
Apparently the Moneyball sequel is still going to happen.
I didn’t know he lived on Rose Walk. Ms. andeux lived around the corner from there before we got into our current pad. (batgirl and **** are also both in that neighborhood.)
Just up the block in fact.
You could be neighbors.
What. The. Fuck.
Smart.
Awesome
sal-bait
Thermoresponsive polymer, pretty standard stuff. I’m guessing this is a Lower Critical Solution Temperature effect. Basically, there are intermolecular bonds between individual polymer chains. At a certain temperature, the bonds break and the prperties of the material change dramatically.
poly(NIPAAM) is the most common example. Above 33 C, the molecules collapse on themselves and it is water-repellent. Lower the temperature, and all of a sudden the molecules expand and become water-absorbent.
The trick here is that they made their polymer thermochromic (changes color in response to temperature). I am not sure how to do that, but it’s a pretty cool idea. Lots of people make electrochromic (changes color in response to electric stimulus) polymers; a clever embodiment of electrochromic nanoparticles is actually how the Kindle and E-reader work. I’m having a hard time drawing the analogy of the electrochromic mechanism to a thermochromic mechanism.
The other cool thing is that they are using waste as a feedstock, which makes the economics (and ecologics) far friendlier. Well done.
Unlikely this ever makes it to market, though. The major problem with any environmental film application, especially with polymers, is that they aren’t very durable or robust. Nobody ever discusses this, for good reason: nobody has really figured it out. How long does a roof last, 20-30 years? Slapping this stuff on with even a five year warranty is going to be near-impossible. If they could crack the durability problem, well, more power to ’em.
I don’t know that the durability problem is as dire as you surmise (though it surely does present some problems). I think any conventional tar or tile covering on a roof requires regular maintenance/resurfacing. And any really big building is probably going to realize HVAC cost savings massive enough to offset regular repair/replacement (depending on cost), while smaller buildings could probably be enticed to adopt via tax credits.
From my entrepreneurial venture, I submit that the durability concern is paramount in the mind of any financial backer. Regular repair and replacement is both painful and expensive. The price point for materials would have to be really low to make it work. Even still, it would take a lot of convincing to a customer that the HVAC savings would be worth locking yourself into an exclusive service contract for regular repair and maintenance.
One of the problems with durability is that it has to be able to withstand all of the following:
1. abrasion from debris
2. small but constant wind shear
3. rain, hail, and snow
4. ultraviolet exposure (which I would guess is a major problem for anything with color)
I’m probably missing some. The point is that there are multiple mechanisms by which the coating could fail. This makes durability a tough nut to crack.
Not to mention ammonia.
Good points.
The most common roofing material (at least for houses), composition shingle, lasts 20 years or so and doesn’t really require any regular maintenance in between.
And the issue with many of these eco-friendly technologies isn’t just whether they save money in the long-term (which as you note can be changed by offering incentives, as appropriate), it’s whether they even save energy in the long-term, when manufacturing costs are taken into account.
Should I go and pour Wesson on my roof now?
thermochromic: it’s a mood roof!
1.
Poppy-bait
Can’t take bait yet. Too busy enjoying the tweetwreck that is Jose Canseco. Most awesome so far:
Apple… tree… not falling far from…
That bait’s also awesome.
And this comment… I can’t decide if I like the comment itself best, or the user name:
TWSS
The Wonkette commentariat has some great usernames.
Have I told you guys my story about Bob Jones University? I decided to apply to Bob Jones as a lark (and it was free!), so I filled out/sent in their application. One of the questions asked the name/address/phone# of my pastor, which I made up. Several months later, I got a call from them saying they were unable to get in touch with my pastor, at which point I hung up like the coward that I am…
wow.
seven months?!
You should have said he converted to satanism.
“Nah, he got nabbed in a transvestite prostitution sting operation in town here a couple months back…”
They actually probably don’t like Catholics much at Bob Jones.
Anyone else wants to do this, email me and I’ll give you my contact info to act as your pastor when they call.
I’ll do it, but you’ve got to provide some sort of transcript for the call.
Seriously, just get ordained. You can do it online for free. I did it a few years ago just for shits and giggles. Then they can call you and you can tell them all about your religion in which sign making is a sin, etc.
Obama vs Clinton, McCain, Palin, Beck, et al:
Interesting note about cloning advocate John Donaldson: he participated in a sham wedding for purposes of defection for the bride at a tournament in Greece in the ’80s.
I think that was the black-market Czech translation of that Van Halen album.
fuck
OU812?
Some myths about the current health care bill explained (h/t DeLong)
Look Out! Octopus! is a great name for a blog.
“Kone” Figgins
“Kone” O’Brien
“Kone”head MaoBama
Elections matter.
Biden’s dropping f-bombs, Obama’s dripping sarcasm … ahh, catharsis. I think I will probably not resume being cynical until Friday at the earliest.
So, does it make me a bad person that since I didn’t want her to win for that PoS movie and she did, that I’m glad her white trash husband is fucking around on her?
And what fucking fucked up place do you have to be in life to care what Keanu Reeves thinks about Sandra Bullock’s marital problems?
I’m hung up on how the hell someone makes a living being a “
tattoo modelfront page writer for **.”A Bit Like This
who’s that?
the tattoo model causing the SB issues.
More or less fucked up than having/getting to be the person who scans
celebrity twitter feeds to write that article?Andrew Sullivan’s blog.I would take the celebrity twitter feed scanner job or the Sullivan minion job in a heartbeat. And I’d do either one for half of what Slate pays Mickey Kaus to write run-on sentences a couple times a week.
WANT:
I read that as ‘sperm pot’
My new favorite internet
pasttimewastetime: reading the discussion page on random wikipedia articles.Whoo hoo, Tar Heels are going to the Final Four! Of the NIT.
I’m thinking we’ll just wait and see who wins the pool…one of the 44% who didn’t pick Kansas, presumably…and then
mail him our $5 each directlyterrify him by showing up at his front door en masse.Oooh, can we mail $5 worth of threatening items a la RedState?
Saw Avatar yesterday (still in theaters out here).
If you’re going to hire a linguist to create a language and hire a dialect coach to train your actors to speak English with a made-up foreign accent, you’d think you’d take the time to hire someone who could check the script for linguistic consistency.
A review of the script shows that the heroine’s harsh, jarring English is intentional. Why, then, is she able to speak full segments of impeccable English?
I understand that it’s more difficult to speak a foreign language fluently when you’re angry (it seems to me that your own language’s curse/anger words are the quickest to come to mind), but Saldana’s occasional choppy lines are incongruous with her character’s demonstrated English proficiency.
Also, to all of Hollywood: I can read subtitles. It’s not necessary to make the characters speak English at crucial times during which they’d likely speak their native language.
Cheese galore. I turned to my dad at one point and said, “My chest isn’t swelling with emotion like James Cameron wants.” I’ve seen enough troop rallying in movies to be emotionally affected by such a scene, especially since I don’t have any real reason to care for the characters, except that they’re morally superior because they don’t kill (oh wait–they do) and can have tail-sex with their pets and the environment.
The visuals were fantastic–great color contrast, smooth motion capture. Strangely, while I find myself critical of so many individual components (I won’t even start on the politics), I ultimately have to say that I enjoyed the movie.
Pros: visuals, Horner score
Cons: derivative script, cheesily inconsistent dialogue
Best. LOST. Ever.
I’m just sad he isn’t a Pirate after all.
But I loved that *SPOILER ALERT* they actually got me to wonder which team is evil.
I don’t think I’d go that far, but it was a good one. My thoughts:
1. The continuous narrative, with no jumping around in space or time except at the very beginning and end, really allowed me to get sucked into the story.
2. Very heavy on the christian symbolism. The baptism/waterboarding was a nice touch.
3. There is a Pascal’s Wager aspect in Richard’s decision to follow Jacob rather than Smokey: If Jacob is telling the truth, then it’s important to help him contain the evil. But if Smokey’s telling the truth (they’re in hell, and Jacob is the devil), then would it be helpful (or even possible) to kill Jacob?
4. On the other hand, if we take Jacob’s version of things at face value, how does all the army/Hanso/Dharma/others stuff fit into it? The Dharma people were going to let out the evil with their drilling or nuclear or explosion, so it was necessary to slaughter them all to prevent that? But Ben sure seemed to be the evil one when all that was happening.
5. What exactly is going on in the present day? Jacob is really dead, so Smokey has a window of opportunity to get off the island before a successor is chosen?
6. Why would someone have to enter the same numbers in a computer every 15 minutes? Couldn’t the computer just enter those numbers into itself. That has nothing to do with this episode, but it’s still bugging me.
2: Sort of, but not really. My wife got into this one a fair bit and if Jacob is christ he’s an awfully weak version (for example, can’t give Richard redemption). Also, him being killed is a bad thing (lets smoky escape) rather than a good thing (pays for humanity’s sins).
3: The weakness there is that Jacob is dead when he decides, so the impossibility of killing him has been ruled on.
6: Even better, why hasn’t it mattered that that no longer happens.
3. I was talking about when he first came to the island.
I misread that.
I’ve read #3 several times and still have no idea what you’re saying.
1. Agree 100%…as much as I like the idea of the alternative realities, the linear story telling approach is much more engaging to the viewer.
2. I’m not a big fan of Christian symbolism…it’s kinda been done to death, then resurrected…but the baptism/waterboarding bit was quite clever.
C. I do enjoy the mutability of good and evil, and hope it credibly continues, but in the end I want to know who are the cowboys and who are the injuns.
C. Mutable analogy?
#5 Yes. That’s basically what I took from it. Smokey is basically evil incarnate and it’s Jacob’s job to keep him from leaving.
#6 My best explanation is that in the 70s and automated system on the island wasn’t possible when they started entering the numbers and then they sort of abandoned what was left of the project so someone had to stay behind and enter them. This is a result of them drilling into that polarized rift thing that they blew up in the alternate universe they blew.
Did the numbers actually do anything, or was that just superstitions piled on coincidences?
Not sure why those specific numbers did what they did, but it turns out when Desmond tried not punching the numbers in it caused the Oceanic flight to crash so there was definitely a need to enter them. The numbers themselves refer to Jacob’s candidate numbering system for Sayid, Sawyer, Jack, Hurley and the Kwans.
I know, but maybe the plane was going to crash anyway.
Considering what happened to it when they chose to stop punching in the numbers, whatever it was venting was probably very important.
I know I’m coming in late on this, but I have to completely disagree, I hated the episode. First, I don’t care about Richard, and having to watch an hour of his hammy acting (probably the worst ever on the show except Faraday’s mom, but we only got her in bits) was excruciating. But more problematic is that if we take Jacob’s version at face value, wha
Crap, the smoke monster got sslinger.
Darned smoke, in the form of bad hotel internet. I’ll try to finish briefly – just what evil is Jacob supposed to be keeping in? It’s not like the world outside the island is free from all bad things – we’ve seen Sayid torture, Kate & Sawyer kill, Sun cheat. Only things on the island that could be worse if let loose are smokey himself, and the women can’t have babies thing, which they never talk about anymore.
Also as you mentioned above, if Ben is working for good, are we supposed to believe any end justifies the means?
He’s keeping the evil ON the island. Can you imagine if Smokey was let loose on the world? Think Pandora’s Box, only worse. Jacob basically explained why people are able to do bad things on the island. He brings them there to test their free will. If they do stupid bad shit, Smokey wins. If they are able to keep the peace, Jacob wins (hence the significance of their rocks). And I suspect despite Smokey’s ability to trash the place being pretty major, we haven’t seen the worst of what he can do.
I think you really missed my point (which was more explicit before
I was attacked by smokeythe wi-fi cut out.) Pandora’s Box has already been opened on the world, it’s not like it’s some kind of innocent paradise. If there’s already war, murder, torture, greed, theft, infidelity, gluttony, sloth, etc. in the world outside the island, what is keeping smokey on the island really accomplishing? You say *only worse* – what have we seen on the island that’s actually worse than anything that already happens in the outside world, other than as I said, smokey itself and the no-babies thing?As for the testing, there’s been an incredible amount of stupid bad shit done on the island by all manner of people – the Others, the Dharma folks, and yes by the Oceanic cast. Has smokey won?
The one thing that speaks to Jacob’s story being true is that the only thing smokey seems to really want is to get off the island. If there was a twist and Jacob was really supposed to be the bad guy, then you would think simply defeating him would suffice. Neither case is looking satisfying to me right now.
Something that can’t be killed and can turn into a black cloud of smoke and kill people at a whim is basically god-like. That alone is worse than all the war, murder, torture, etc. in the world today. And that’s only what we know he could do and we still don’t know his overall motivation for getting off the island. Don’t get me wrong, part of problem right now is a matter of who’s telling the truth and how much of their truth is accurate. And that’s definitely far from decided at this point. But for the most part, all actions being taken on the island that are inherently “evil” suggest that for the most part, Smokey is winning and may be what weakened Jacob enough to allow him to be killed (or maybe had absolutely nothing to do with anything). There are definitely a lot of unanswered questions. The real problem is we’ve yet to actually see Jacob & Smokey’s back story and without it we really don’t know what’s at stake.
I think you are overestimating the threat to the material world represented by Bobby Crosby.
Um… Smokey IS Bobby Crosby. Hence the need to keep him on that island.
Come to think of it, have we ever seen the man in black’s socks?
is this like the smoking man on the X-Files and IIRC, there was also some sort of weirdo mystery guy like this in Twin Peaks, too, no?
More like Louis Cyphre.
he had creepy fingernails.
I hear what you’re saying about not wanting to have smokey himself loose on the world – that would be a bad thing. What I’m having a hard time with is the implication of larger import with a general evil being set free on the world a la Pandora’s Box.
I totally agree with your comment regarding the back stories of Jacob & Smokey – I think that’s where they’re headed for the big reveals. I suspect it will tie some things together but still leave an awful lot of holes.
I think a lot is riding on that reveal. And a lot of holes will be there regardless, no good ending ties up everything. It’s good to have a little left in the bag for the imagination. And I definitely see what you’re seeing. As it stands, it really does feel kind like “so what” if he gets off the island, but I’m pretty hopeful that there’s a realllly good reason for it.
As for the Pandora’s Box scenario. What if the reason everyone on the island, from the Others, the Dharma’s to the Losties, is so quick to do their evil deeds is a result of Smokey’s influence? That it’s not just that he pushes people towards it evil or that he could smoke the world, but that his very being creates more evil in evil people and causes good people to act evil. And part of the test Jacob has set up is to find people with the moral “good” strength to withstand that influence and that, based on how many candidates have failed the test, is very rare. That would seem to be something that needs to be Locke’d away on the island or in a box.
I’ve been thinking about the issues raised in your second point, and trying to remember cases in which the main characters seem to have turned toward/away from evil. And while there are instances of such choices – whether Jack would operate to save Ben, should Sayid torture Ben to get info, etc., it seems to me that the main group of characters that we care about have primarily acted in good faith. More to the point, they’ve pretty much been reactive to the circumstances they’ve been thrust into with the prime drive of a) survival b) staying together and c) getting off the island. While there have been moral dilemmas, it doesn’t seem like it’s been set up as a series of tests. In other words, the past seasons don’t seem to have been constructed with the end game in mind. It’s entirely possible that I’ve missed out on all of this as I’ve been largely one to enjoy but not obsess over the meaning over the years, but now that it’s coming down to the finale it matters more.
Well, keep in mind the main players are all candidates so maybe they’re less likely to be influenced. But look at Boone, Michael, the couple that showed up out of nowhere and buried alive. Even Locke himself to a degree. All went overboard stupid, yet when we see them pre-island they’re less weird/stupid. That being said, coming down to the finale, it all definitely matters a lot more.
In case anyone else will admit to watching Idol: is it my imagination, or is Andrew Garcia a dead ringer for Kim Jong-Il.
It’s true. The Idol in 60 Seconds guy agrees: around 0:59 there’s a side-by-side comparison. It’s creepy.