the duchy of hetkettle trophish

whew! good thing all we had to do was say it! ugh.

the dirty trio: cars, coal, buildings. one of these is harder than the oth-ers. 100+ million homes and more buildings besides. how, how, how.

obviously you got your discounts and costs, you got your subsidies and your fees, you got your up-to-date building codes, your only-green materials, all that.

me, what i’d do, is send people around to every house in every neighborhood with a survey — a combination, actually, of a home amenities census and a conversation about the future. train somebody in every neighborhood to do this. emphasizing that while we’re a little beyond your usual green tips stuff, the objective is still to save people money while saving the planet.

“oh, now’s not a good time? when’s a good time.”

have meetings beforehand, to tell about the project.

then when the surveys start coming back, start in with the certified inspections and recommendations for the energy-thrifty house. then coordinating, scheduling, supplying, building, re-inspecting.

do whole areas at once, to encourage community planning, beyond the basics. maybe it costs too much for somebody to fix — where would that person or family go? would you unbuild the houses that were truly nasty, to supply infill development? (i would.)

what are we supposed to do, turn our backs on all the entrepreneurial possibilities? business is a uniquely human response to a moral or cosmic crisis. whether it’s a tsunami or a sustained aerial bombardment, there’s the same urgent call for urban renewal.

— war, inc., 2008

vzz vzz vzz vzzzz

“there’s the same urgent call for urban renewal.”

heaven has a special place for the cusacks now, for this movie.

at the trade show they’re selling an electric kitchen appliance called the interrogation grille. no doubt it’s the best way to roast nuts.

via.

out, about, yesterday. car repairs, from the break-in, led to greasy breakfast and iphone prose by the bay, the dirty side where only working boats and baseball fans go. then again to return the car to regular service, dinner with good people, short beckett plays with good people, walking on dark wet grass near the cool midnight waters with good people, with jokes, and, i have no idea why, the rest of the night re-watching the spider-man movies. being bored from one o’clock to dawn seemed like right. and drinking beer.

and where are we again? still with the question marks?

and the hurrying downhill?

as a carbon tax rises toward superfluous, the installation process for large wind turbines may change, the carbon footprint of portland cement slowly jacking up the price of standard concrete, right? and that’s ok.

peak me.

if it turns out i’m the critical resource gap between prosperity and devastation, the world is in huge trouble from which it can’t escape.

the only way i can think for you to soften this risk is to — no. there is no way.

Clearly, there are many important issues to reflect on as South–South research collaboration matures. In some instances, collaboration, however attractive, may not be appropriate. In other circumstances major hurdles may significantly reduce its chances of success.

appropriate managerial technology transfer is common shelter from the storm.

ps. it’s my duty as an american to take cheap shots at china.

pps. but seriously, i don’t like zero-sustainability for them, why would i like it for everybody.

to build a fission electrical plant in the basement. it should be enough to power this part of town and maybe also the bus line on fulton. for cooling i’ll use the hose on the back of the building, we’ll work out some schedule so people can water their gardens and wash their electric cars off-peak so there’s no meltdown. so really all i need now is nuclear fuel and maybe a hundred million bucks? two hundred? five, tops. anyway i’ll get the neighborhood business association to float a bond, we’ll get investors later. once they hear how much it’ll cost and that it’ll only take ten years to bring online, and how downstairs’s locked most of the time and built of solid cement, they’ll spring for it. they’re sensible people.