FOT Forum
FOT Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: TL on November 15, 2007, 09:38:18 PM
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Wolf Blitzer: Congressman Kucinich - you're the only person on this stage who voted against the PATRIOT Act...
Rep.Dennis Kucinich: That's because I READ it!
Sorry - I had to share that with somebody...
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I love that little elf, and I also love his foxy wife. And I want to vote for him in the primaries, but I hear that little voice in my head that says he'll never win, and I'm throwing my vote away, and someone truly heinous will win the primaries. And millions of people are probably thinking the same thing, so they'll vote for Obama instead, and Kucinich never wins. Self-fulfilling prophecy, eh?
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Well, look - if you're a registered Democrat, then please, Laurie - vote for Denny K., because though I (sad to say) think you're right in assuming he's not going to win the primary, I think it's an important time to show the eventual nominee just how many people actually do support him and his policies. I'm not in any way, shape, or form, suggesting that there are no differences between Clinton, Obama, and Edwards, but I'll gladly take ANY of them over Romney or Giuliani, so maybe the primaries actualy ARE the time to vote with your heart, and the actual elections are the time to "vote smart" ?? It's a theory that's full of holes, I know, but while we're actually having a political discussion here, I figure we might as well have one...
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What exactly has happened that I stumbled into a group of people whose likes and dislikes are almost wholly identical to mine? I mean, OK, it's pretty likely that we'd all agree on WFMU and comedy. And everyone likes The Wire. But the rest: Dennis Kucinich (including the mixed feelings), comic books, the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky, the 33 1/3 books, our constitutional rights, grammar, the countless things I am forgetting at the moment - these are not normally things that one finds grouped together. Uncanny.
Good points, TL. I do sort of like Obama a lot, but you know, it's that charisma thing. He's got a great record in Illinois but his foreign policy proposals are right out of the Council on Foreign Relations playbook, which I'm not crazy about.
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I particularly liked when Kucinich was referring to how Edwards should have known better about Chinese trade, being a trial lawyer. Edwards was like "I don't see what being a trial lawyer has to do about it" and barely caught on the mic, Kucinich says "Product liability" but everybody caught it and busted into applause.
Then Edwards is all like "cute, very cute".
Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurn.
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Kucinich/ Gravel '08!
Give 'em hell, Dennis.
[youtube=425,350]yJYbgouqlMw[/youtube]
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Word up!
And Jasongrote - is it really so strange?
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you guys know there is a football game on right now, right?
(see, we're not all the same)
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Word up!
And Jasongrote - is it really so strange?
Well, no, but it's rare and really pretty special. Kind of like finding a four-leaf clover! (Sorry.) I mean, even when I disagree with the people on the boards I agree with them. I'd say that guy on the AST boards was right, but I swear I liked all of this stuff before I was a FOT. There seems to be some kind of really uninteresting Borges story in all of this - my liking all things FOTish led to my becoming a FOT, rather than the other way around.
Well, I said it was uninteresting.
you guys know there is a football game on right now, right?
(see, we're not all the same)
Thanks for the reality check, Andy. That's like the only thread I never read.
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you guys know there is a football game on right now, right?
(see, we're not all the same)
I did have a moment when I considered leaving the debate early to see the beginning of the "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" season finale, which kinda sucked (fyi), and is arguably jockier than a football game, so maybe we're not that different after all?
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What do you all think about Ron Paul?
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I didn't even realize the debate was on, but I wouldn't have watched it anyway. I have a semifirm policy of trying like hell not to know anything about current events because everything I do learn is so damn depressing (for example, the last tidbit that registered with me had to do with the U.S. bridge team's being called traitors because they held up a little handmade sign saying "We didn't vote for Bush" at some international competition). I find that an amazing amount seeps in despite all my best efforts, and that's more than enough. Right now, in fact, I'm terrified because for the first time in years I get all the network television stations, so the chances of my bumping into ads, news stories, debates, and the like are much greater. If I appear to be getting more and more glum over the coming year, you now know why.
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I hate to get all serious on ya'lls, but until a Presidential election is won by a single vote, every vote ever cast has been a throwaway vote, in the sense that the outcome of the election would not have been changed if you had chosen not to vote. Now GROUPS of voters, there's something there, but your individual vote? About as much value as a "YOU'VE been JAMESED".
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Word up!
And Jasongrote - is it really so strange?
I say no, you say yes - but you will change your mind.
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Personally, I'm voting for Kucinich because I really want his hot wife to be first lady:
(http://www.offrampbums.com/kucinich.jpg)
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Is that seriously his wife? She looks like she could be his daughter.
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The first hottie!
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"She's a New Age, Tongue-Pierced Brit . . ." (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,274035,00.html) Thirty-one years younger than he.
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What do you all think about Ron Paul?
I admire him like a person, and even though I don't truck much with Libertarianism as an actionable philosophy, I have to admit that I admire his ideological coherence. The modern-day GOP seems to have combined all of the worst aspects of modern governments - the patronage and corruption of the old Democratic machines, the stinginess and cruelty of the old GOP, the 2+2 = 5 illogic of communism and plain old race-baiting and religious fundamentalism (I have no illusions about the Democrats, either, but that's another story). I appreciate the fact that Paul possesses the courage of his convictions and generally seems like an honest and ethical guy. But he's also emblematic of the delusional nature of the internets - from the dot-com casino mania to the blogger egotism of Web 2.0 to long, melodramatic, narcissistic AST posts, the whole enterprise seems marked by an inflated sense of importance. Not that the web, or Ron Paul, aren't legitimate or important, but they're important in a sort of aggregate way, which brings me to:
I hate to get all serious on ya'lls, but until a Presidential election is won by a single vote, every vote ever cast has been a throwaway vote, in the sense that the outcome of the election would not have been changed if you had chosen not to vote. Now GROUPS of voters, there's something there, but your individual vote? About as much value as a "YOU'VE been JAMESED".
I think getting Jamesed is pretty important, Dave. Actually, though, this connects with the above because voting, like the web, or any other democratic system, is all about tiny bits and bites and how they affect the larger picture. I don't entirely buy Malcolm Gladwell's concept of The Tipping Point or Chris Anderson's The Long Tail - they both strike me as business-seminar, high-concept buzz-phrases - but there is something to those concepts. These tiny niches and individual actions matter. Isn't there some kind of cool chaos-theory mathematical model that explains how little unrelated events and actions lead up to larger, incredibly complex phenomena? Come on Dave, let's team up and bore the rest of the board into a coma.
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Get a room, boys. This is making me blush.
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I don't really get how you can associate Ron Paul with that group. He's a legitimate politician using the internet to gain support. Lumping him into a group that consists of bloggers and forum users isn't right. I guess I can understand the delusional part...but it's a different kind of delusional that just happened to bring technology along for the ride. It will be interesting to see if the media and the public give him a fighting chance.
Also, Kucinich doesn't stand a chance and although I agree with Dave (that one vote doesn't really matter) it would kind of be a waste to vote for him. Some people run just to shape the ideas of the eventual front runners and Kucinich is one of those guys. I'm sure he'd love to be president but I'd be shocked if he actually thought he had a shot. He's just an idea maker and he's needed in the debates to shape the eventual Democratic candidate's views on Iraq.
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In Shirley MacLaine's new book, she recalls the time Dennis Kucinich saw a UFO. Kucinich does not deny seeing a UFO. ???
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Um, Kucinich was mayor of Cleveland. NUFF SAID!
(Go Steelers)
(http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/3939/fulljgetty75557823jm023zm8.jpg)
(http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/9403/brownscb7pm3vt1.jpg)
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In Shirley MacLaine's new book, she recalls the time Dennis Kucinich saw a UFO. Kucinich does not deny seeing a UFO. ???
He should call himself a "ghost hunter." People seem to eat that shit up.
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I'm just saying, campaign your hearts out and you can have a huge impact on political races, but when it comes time to cast your own vote, it's insignificant. Far too many people are too hyped up about their own vote, but if you don't bother to enter into the politcal process, you're deluding yourself if you think the act of casting a vote matters.
Another important aspect in dealing with systems is that systems can be modeled. In other words, systems can be created which will theoretically replicate the behavior of the original system. Following the pile of stones example, one could take a second group of stones which are identical to the first group, pile them in exactly the same way as the first group, and predict that they will fall down into the exact same configuration as the first group. Similiarly, a mathematical model, based upon Newton's law of gravity, could be used to predict how piles of same and different types will interact. Generally speaking, mathematical modeleing is the key to modeling systems, although it is not the only way.
The second term, nonlinear, has to do with the type of mathematical model used to describe a system. Until the recent growth of interest in chaos theory, hence nonlinear systems, most models were analyzed as though they were linear systems. In other words, when the mathematical models were draw in a graph format, the results appeared as a straight line. Calculus was Netwon's mathematical method for showing change in systems within the context of a straigt line and statistics, regression analysis in particular, is a process of converting nonlinear data into a linear format for further analysis and prediction.
Linear systems are easy to generate and simple to work with. That is because they are very predictable. For example, you could think of a factory as a linear system. We could predict that if we add a certain number of people, or a certain amount of inventory to the factory, that we will increase the number of pieces produced by the factory by a comparable amount. As most managers know, factories don't operate this way. Changing the number of people, inventory, or any other variable in the factory and you receive widely differing results on a day to day basis from what would be predicted from a linear model. This is true because a factory is actually a nonlinear system, as are most systems found in life. When systems in nature are modeled mathematically, we find that their graphical representations are not straight lines and that the system's behavior is not so easy to predict.
Did I pass the audition?
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I'm just saying, campaign your hearts out and you can have a huge impact on political races, but when it comes time to cast your own vote, it's insignificant. Far too many people are too hyped up about their own vote, but if you don't bother to enter into the politcal process, you're deluding yourself if you think the act of casting a vote matters.
Another important aspect in dealing with systems is that systems can be modeled. In other words, systems can be created which will theoretically replicate the behavior of the original system. Following the pile of stones example, one could take a second group of stones which are identical to the first group, pile them in exactly the same way as the first group, and predict that they will fall down into the exact same configuration as the first group. Similiarly, a mathematical model, based upon Newton's law of gravity, could be used to predict how piles of same and different types will interact. Generally speaking, mathematical modeleing is the key to modeling systems, although it is not the only way.
The second term, nonlinear, has to do with the type of mathematical model used to describe a system. Until the recent growth of interest in chaos theory, hence nonlinear systems, most models were analyzed as though they were linear systems. In other words, when the mathematical models were draw in a graph format, the results appeared as a straight line. Calculus was Netwon's mathematical method for showing change in systems within the context of a straigt line and statistics, regression analysis in particular, is a process of converting nonlinear data into a linear format for further analysis and prediction.
Linear systems are easy to generate and simple to work with. That is because they are very predictable. For example, you could think of a factory as a linear system. We could predict that if we add a certain number of people, or a certain amount of inventory to the factory, that we will increase the number of pieces produced by the factory by a comparable amount. As most managers know, factories don't operate this way. Changing the number of people, inventory, or any other variable in the factory and you receive widely differing results on a day to day basis from what would be predicted from a linear model. This is true because a factory is actually a nonlinear system, as are most systems found in life. When systems in nature are modeled mathematically, we find that their graphical representations are not straight lines and that the system's behavior is not so easy to predict.
Did I pass the audition?
Dave, are you Pudge's tutor?
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I don't really get how you can associate Ron Paul with that group. He's a legitimate politician using the internet to gain support. Lumping him into a group that consists of bloggers and forum users isn't right. I guess I can understand the delusional part...but it's a different kind of delusional that just happened to bring technology along for the ride. It will be interesting to see if the media and the public give him a fighting chance.
Also, Kucinich doesn't stand a chance and although I agree with Dave (that one vote doesn't really matter) it would kind of be a waste to vote for him. Some people run just to shape the ideas of the eventual front runners and Kucinich is one of those guys. I'm sure he'd love to be president but I'd be shocked if he actually thought he had a shot. He's just an idea maker and he's needed in the debates to shape the eventual Democratic candidate's views on Iraq.
I don't think Paul is delusional, but many of his supporters seem to be. Check out the comments section of pretty much any open-comment web article mentioning Ron Paul and you'd come away with the impression that he had a massive, fanatical following (and I believe that Paul's supporters believe this themselves), but there's no indication that it translates into actual votes. A similar thing happened with Howard Dean, though Dean will probably wind up as a sort of Goldwater figure - a losing candidate who shapes the future of the party.
You could switch the names Kucinich and Paul in your post (well, at least the "media and the public give him a fighting chance" part of paragraph #1) and it would pretty much be equally true. From one point of view, both are being excluded by the corporate media, the political party establishment, and "conventional wisdom," and from the other, they're outsider candidates by design, with no chance of winning but the possibility of shaping the debate. I think it's probably both.
Did I pass the audition?
Zzzz.
(wakes up, applauds)
Just kidding, Dave - I not only made it though, but I learned something about math, which is a big deal for me (my math GRE score was dismal, but to my surprise, my strongest suit was not verbal, but logic). But - wouldn't you say that the notion that a single vote is statistically insignificant is based on a linear model, and the idea that little things matter a non-linear one? For example, all of the voting skullduggery in 2000, 02, and 04 - tiny margins (admittedly larger than single votes) made huge differences.
Get a room, boys. This is making me blush.
?
Is conspiracy with intent to bore a fetish of some kind?
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I understand you now. Yeah, his supporters should be lumped into that group. It's really tough to tell if talk equals action with the Web 2.0 crowd.
However, I think Paul is more than an ideas guy in this election. It really depends if a 3rd party candidate emerges but at this time it doesn't seem like there will be one. There are a lot of people who are really ticked off at the democrats for not taking the wheel when it was handed to them and Paul is a guy those people would vote for. The only problem is, that group probably won't vote in the primaries. But, if he could gain some steam, he's a guy both conservative and liberals can embrace.
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Kucinich is also the only candidate who supports gay marriage, and I think that's really important. But yeah, I'm torn on whether or not to vote for him. Although, I guess Obama and Clinton are pretty much the same in my mind. But who knows? There could be an upset. Remember when everyone was so certain that Dean would clean up the primaries?
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Have I mentioned that last week I saw a "Republicans for Mussolini '08" bumper sticker?
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Beth, I don't think you were saying that you were "only" going to vote for Kucinich because he supports gay marriage but I have a feeling a lot of people will not vote for Ron Paul because he is pro-life and a lot of people will vote for Kucinich because he supports gay marriage without looking at any of the other issues. I think that's wrong and in my opinion it's worse than not voting at all. It's seems selfish to place one issue above every other issue facing our nation and it's the reason we have terrible leaders. If abortion were removed from the political landscape people wouldn't be voting for the ones they are.
I don't know, they are both very important issues that affect a lot of people in different ways, both dealing with basic human rights. But, it's frustrating to me when people vote on one issue. A good chunk of voters do it.
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Beth, I don't think you were saying that you were "only" going to vote for Kucinich because he supports gay marriage but I have a feeling a lot of people will not vote for Ron Paul because he is pro-life and a lot of people will vote for Kucinich because he supports gay marriage without looking at any of the other issues. I think that's wrong and in my opinion it's worse than not voting at all. It's seems selfish to place one issue above every other issue facing our nation and it's the reason we have terrible leaders. If abortion were removed from the political landscape people wouldn't be voting for the ones they are.
I don't know, they are both very important issues that affect a lot of people in different ways, both dealing with basic human rights. But, it's frustrating to me when people vote on one issue. A good chunk of voters do it.
Oh I have a lot of issues that I look at (death penalty, health care, international policy, reproductive rights, etc.) I just think it's important when a candidate has balls enough to speak out on an issue like gay marriage, instead playing it safe by hemming and hawing their way around it (for example, Clinton and Obama both support the idea of domestic partnership, but won't take the plunge and say that they support gay marriage--which in my opinion belittles the gay community). I understand that religiously they may be against it, but inflicting your religious views on the entire country---especially if it seriously affects the life decision-making ability of 10 percent of that country--is severely counterproductive to the growth of tolerance and understanding in America.
Your point is well taken however, and I heartily agree.
Also, I still don't know if I'm voting for Kucinich, I was just pointing out that he was the only semi-front running candidate who is actually stepping up in favor of gay marriage, and I think that's pretty cool.
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[(for example, Clinton and Obama both support the idea of domestic partnership, but won't take the plunge and say that they support gay marriage--which in my opinion belittles the gay community). I understand that religiously they may be against it, but inflicting your religious views on the entire country---especially if it seriously affects the life decision-making ability of 10 percent of that country--is severely counterproductive to the growth of tolerance and understanding in America.
The question is, would Obama and Clinton gain voters if they said that? It's sad to think, but I think they'd lose more than they'd gain. Like I said before, Kucinich is an idea guy who is in the debates to get other candidates talking about issues that would never have been brought up. He has nothing to lose by saying he supports gay marriage.
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What do you all think about Ron Paul?
I admire him like a person, and even though I don't truck much with Libertarianism as an actionable philosophy, I have to admit that I admire his ideological coherence. The modern-day GOP seems to have combined all of the worst aspects of modern governments - the patronage and corruption of the old Democratic machines, the stinginess and cruelty of the old GOP, the 2+2 = 5 illogic of communism and plain old race-baiting and religious fundamentalism (I have no illusions about the Democrats, either, but that's another story). I appreciate the fact that Paul possesses the courage of his convictions and generally seems like an honest and ethical guy. But he's also emblematic of the delusional nature of the internets - from the dot-com casino mania to the blogger egotism of Web 2.0 to long, melodramatic, narcissistic AST posts, the whole enterprise seems marked by an inflated sense of importance. Not that the web, or Ron Paul, aren't legitimate or important, but they're important in a sort of aggregate way, which brings me to:
I hate to get all serious on ya'lls, but until a Presidential election is won by a single vote, every vote ever cast has been a throwaway vote, in the sense that the outcome of the election would not have been changed if you had chosen not to vote. Now GROUPS of voters, there's something there, but your individual vote? About as much value as a "YOU'VE been JAMESED".
I think getting Jamesed is pretty important, Dave. Actually, though, this connects with the above because voting, like the web, or any other democratic system, is all about tiny bits and bites and how they affect the larger picture. I don't entirely buy Malcolm Gladwell's concept of The Tipping Point or Chris Anderson's The Long Tail - they both strike me as business-seminar, high-concept buzz-phrases - but there is something to those concepts. These tiny niches and individual actions matter. Isn't there some kind of cool chaos-theory mathematical model that explains how little unrelated events and actions lead up to larger, incredibly complex phenomena? Come on Dave, let's team up and bore the rest of the board into a coma.
Dear Jasongrote:
I think you are smart guy and I agree with and appreciate all of your views.
Your friend,
No Underbites
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Andy,
What do you think about this? The graphs are too small to read, but it looks pretty interesting.
In an effort to achieve low first costs, low lifecycle costs, and an accelerated building schedule for a college residence hall project in Vermont, KieranTimberlake Associates LLP (http://www.kierantimberlake.com/research/exterior_wall_1.html#) explored the use of metal stud framing in the construction of the project's exterior wall system. In so doing, the firm hoped to identify a cost-effective means to achieve a wall system appropriate for a building project with an expected 100+ year lifespan.
(http://www.kierantimberlake.com/art_research/midb_fig01_1a.gif)
(http://www.kierantimberlake.com/art_research/midb_figA_02_6.jpg)
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[(for example, Clinton and Obama both support the idea of domestic partnership, but won't take the plunge and say that they support gay marriage--which in my opinion belittles the gay community). I understand that religiously they may be against it, but inflicting your religious views on the entire country---especially if it seriously affects the life decision-making ability of 10 percent of that country--is severely counterproductive to the growth of tolerance and understanding in America.
The question is, would Obama and Clinton gain voters if they said that? It's sad to think, but I think they'd lose more than they'd gain. Like I said before, Kucinich is an idea guy who is in the debates to get other candidates talking about issues that would never have been brought up. He has nothing to lose by saying he supports gay marriage.
I'm sure they would lose votes. But it's good to have those idea guys around to keep the candidates on their toes. In that way, I'm grateful for candidates like Kucinich.
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[(for example, Clinton and Obama both support the idea of domestic partnership, but won't take the plunge and say that they support gay marriage--which in my opinion belittles the gay community). I understand that religiously they may be against it, but inflicting your religious views on the entire country---especially if it seriously affects the life decision-making ability of 10 percent of that country--is severely counterproductive to the growth of tolerance and understanding in America.
The question is, would Obama and Clinton gain voters if they said that? It's sad to think, but I think they'd lose more than they'd gain. Like I said before, Kucinich is an idea guy who is in the debates to get other candidates talking about issues that would never have been brought up. He has nothing to lose by saying he supports gay marriage.
I'm sure they would lose votes. But it's good to have those idea guys around to keep the candidates on their toes. In that way, I'm grateful for candidates like Kucinich.
Those anti-gay people aren't gonna vote for Clinton or Obama anyway.
That's the big lie the republicans have pulled off
making dems posture to the right for votes.
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Andy,
What do you think about this? The graphs are too small to read, but it looks pretty interesting.
In an effort to achieve low first costs, low lifecycle costs, and an accelerated building schedule for a college residence hall project in Vermont, KieranTimberlake Associates LLP (http://www.kierantimberlake.com/research/exterior_wall_1.html#) explored the use of metal stud framing in the construction of the project's exterior wall system. In so doing, the firm hoped to identify a cost-effective means to achieve a wall system appropriate for a building project with an expected 100+ year lifespan.
(http://www.kierantimberlake.com/art_research/midb_fig01_1a.gif)
(http://www.kierantimberlake.com/art_research/midb_figA_02_6.jpg)
I had given up on this thread until I saw this.
I proposed a job once to the Corps of Engineers (the construction wing of the armed forces) that was a housing project. It was about twice the price of normal housing, but was 50 year construction. 50 year roof, r50 (!) spray on roof insulation and..... wall panels built similar to those that would be built off-site and erected as panels.
I'll let you guess whether they jumped on the proposal or not. I thought it was awesome.
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Those anti-gay people aren't gonna vote for Clinton or Obama anyway.
That's the big lie the republicans have pulled off
making dems posture to the right for votes.
That's not true. You'd be surprised how many democrats are against gay marriage.
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I proposed a job once to the Corps of Engineers (the construction wing of the armed forces) that was a housing project. It was about twice the price of normal housing, but was 50 year construction. 50 year roof, r50 (!) spray on roof insulation and..... wall panels built similar to those that would be built off-site and erected as panels.
I'll let you guess whether they jumped on the proposal or not. I thought it was awesome.
It's a shame that "building for posterity" isn't even an actual thing anymore. The ego's still there, but it's about the immediate splash of a starchitect's name instead of a monument to immortality. Considering how much of a building's lifetime total energy use is in construction and building materials (using a compact fluorescent instead of incandescent is a drop in a bucket compared to, for example, using local materials), it's a shame no presidential candidate gives this much attention.
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Dear Jasongrote:
I think you are smart guy and I agree with and appreciate all of your views.
Your friend,
No Underbites
Aw, thanks No Underbites. You are a nice guy or gal.