Jul 16 2010
Week’s end links
C’mon all you non-capitalists, let’s hear your rants on this one!
Coral snake antivenin about to disappear
And capitalists who want to play, take a moment and explain how the above situation is a good or necessary part of said system, since it certainly affronts my inner scientist at the least…
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How to reduce dependence on air-conditioning
I have some friends who have chosen a non-A/C life here in Central TX, and while I’m not against the concept I do think the article writer was a bit idealistic on some parts and glossed over important other parts. (The toss-off line in there about how some homes designed with A/C in mind might be hard to modify safely to a non-A/C lifestyle — oh, you mean like every home in the last 50 years? — is a perfect example. My friends succeed at their lifestyle in large part because their home was built in the 1940s and catches breezes MUCH better than our two-story model-realtor-home rental monstrosity.)
And yet, next week we’ll be working around here on ways to make our use of A/C more efficient (one of those serendipitous timing things where I made the chore decision and then half-a-day later found this article), thanks to a hideous electric bill last month. Not surprising, since adding a new person to a household always causes hiccups and shifts during the transition period.
What do you do to keep the heat down — especially you poor non-A/Ced Northern folk dealing with a dangerous heat wave this year? (Oh by the way, Texas has had one of the most mild summers in the past decade — mid-80s in July, what madness!)
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(from Jay Lake’s blog)
Foreign bank re-thinks lending strategies while squashing stereotypes
As far as I’m concerned, they can’t expand fast enough. Go, Grameen!