botwerks

tyler brule has a great writeup in the FT regarding the hassle that’s associated with IAD as part of a larger gripe about travel hassle within the US and a need to invest in .  while things have improved pretty dramatically over the past year or so at dulles, with the advent of the trains between a few of the terminals, if you’re flying united you still need to deal with the incredibly afterthought-ish mobile lounges.

i took an acela train from DC to penn station a couple of months back.  i couldn’t agree more.  high-speed trains with quiet cars (oh. my. god. what a great development) and wifi makes for a phenomenal travel experience.  i don’t share the misgivings that tyler does regarding lighting.  though, i suspect i’m not as picky on that front.  as someone who spends far too much time in airports dealing with a host of travel hassles, i would love to see some development on this front in the US.

it’s just a back of the envelope type of calculation, but if i were to look at the driving distance between minneapolis and san francisco (a pretty common travel destination for me) and round it up to 2000 miles (about 25% overage) and factor in an improvement over TGV speeds (bump it up ~ 25% to 250mph) you can make it to san francisco easily overnight including stops in other cities.  given that a trip to SFO typically takes me about 6 hours flight + airport hass, this would definitely make me think 2x about flying vs. taking a train.  as it sits now, to take amtrak is pretty inefficient.

this book was a birthday present from my folks this year and i’ve finally got around to sinking my teeth into it.  i really should have prioritized it in the reading queue since it’s proven to be a most illuminating read.  over the past few years i’ve been doing a surprising amount of reading on the topic of climate change, sustainability and energy economics.  the majority of this reading has been polemics on either side of the topic or pretty academic in nature.  this book is a nerds approach to the personal application of various energy technologies and their mapping to ones personal energy consumption.  if you’re at all interested on the topic of the viability of a wide range of sustainable energy mechanisms this is probably the definitive source.  if you’re inclined there’s plenty of technical detail in here for the folks that really want to get into an analysis of the relative performance or applicability one energy technology vs. another.

the narrative throughout the book is a look at what your personal energy utilization is (skewed towards the behaviors of a UK reader) and then layers a range of sustainable energy technologies against this energy use and shows how much of each technology would be required to address your energy use.  the scenarios are readily digestible and if you’re genuinely interested in the viability of living a sustainable lifestyle or getting an understanding where you should be pushing for technological development in either the market or regulatory space i can’t recommend this book enough.

increasingly i’m of the opinion that folks who want to wax poetic from one end of the spectrum or another without having done some personal research on the topic should really just STFU.  if you’re really concerned about global warming / climate change and you think we need to take dramatic steps to halt our carbon consumption and exhalation, then you need to be prepared to think long and hard about where you stand on topics like nuclear energy (classic or novel new designs) and how to make some serious modifications in your lifestyle.  if you don’t think that global warming / climate change is human influenced, well, you’re suffering from other problems and i suspect you don’t do a whole lot of thinking for yourself so this is kind of pointless.

if you’re interested in the tl;dr summary…

this stuff is hard.  really, really hard, there are no easy answers and ones ability to make effective personal changes in their lifestyle has limited impact.  sure, you can put a turbine on your roof, but the impact is negligible.  PV on the roof top is a good thing if you’re in the right area, etc..  still, there’s a lot of retooling that needs to be done, and that’s going to chew up carbon.  in a stroke of, go check my math, brilliance, all the content is online. (http://www.withouthotair.com) go check the facts, go check out the analysis, run the numbers for yourself.  more books should do this.  particularly those on contentious topics.

p229 – has a rather handy chart that outlines individual actions which can have a rather profound impact on your personal energy footprint.  going vegetarian has some notable bonus points other than the health benefits.

i sometimes wonder if the guy that curates the crime report for the southwest journal has a little fun with the incidents that he opts for publication.  these were culled from the latest southwest journal, (issue: 28-nov, 11-dec, 2011) a little bundle of local fun that magically arrives on my doorstep on the weekends.

lowry hill east – nov 13, 2011 – between 10:30p and 11:30p - a 40 -year-old man said his ex-girlfriend used keys he did not give her to enter his apartment. she gained access to his Facebook account and changed the settings on his match.com account so that she would receive the same email notifications as he would. she admitted to doing this in an email to the man.

whittier – nov 14, 2011 – 11:30a - a 25- to 33-year-old man said he intentionally left his car keys in his parked car. when he returned to the car his keys were gone. he demanded that police file a report.

about a year ago we were in new zealand and we were surprised by how much emphasis they placed on environmental protections and labor management.  it’s an impressively progressive country on an amazing array of topics, from civil liberties, environmentalism and nuclear non-proliferation (i suppose having U.S. atomic testing fallout impacting you will tend to color your perspective on a number of these topics.)  that said, for all of their regulation they’re apparently outranking the U.S. when it comes to ease of doing business.

here’s a remarkably detailed breakdown of the elements contributing to this ranking.  i suspect that rick perry for all of his regulation hatin’ might do well to rip a page or two from the kiwis.

as an aside – on the international economic statistics front, you would do well to download the OECD’s iPhone Fact Book app.  there’s a crapload of interesting stuff in there and the next time you’re wondering where a country sits economically or in the development curve you can do so from the comfort of your couch.