Ecotect Example Output

This is my last semester at Penn, and in the architecture department, that usually means it will be the most difficult and time-intensive semester of your undergraduate career. So while my Econ-major friends are taking 3 credits and having fun on the weekends, I’m spending free time working in teams and learning how to use a new piece of software: Autodesk’s somewhat unknown Ecotect Analysis.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bitter about the dichotomy of work vs. play; most of us architecture students would much prefer learning a new piece of software or discussing the latest smart building material over a night of drinking, so this is pretty exciting stuff. I had never heard of Ecotect prior to about a month and a half ago, and what I knew was very limited.   Read more…

Album: Hot, Cool & Vicious (Next Plateau Records)
Year: 1987
Written by: Hurby “Luv Bug” Azor
Billboard Hot 100: #19

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Year: 1957
Written by: Clarence E. Quick
Billboard Hot 100: #5

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Yesterday, we talked about John Coleman and his sorry excuse for a climate change lesson. As a reader pointed out to me, one piece of evidence in particular has generated another climate news scandal recently. As a refresher:

…according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, global glacier thickness has declined every year for the past 4+ decades. The most recent academic research I’ve seen was published 2 months ago, and it concluded that Antarctic ice loss has been vaster and faster than the IPCC predicted. Another paper published around the same time found that, based on historical evidence, Antarctica is more sensitive to greenhouse gases than previously thought.

When many people hear “glaciers,” they think of the Himalayas. One of the most startling predictions of the 2007 IPCC report was that this gorgeous region in South and East Asia will lose all its glaciers by 2035. If you trace that claim back to its original source, you find quotes in New Scientist and Indian magazine Down to Earth by Syed Hasnain, who studied the Himalayan glaciers for the International Commission on Snow and Ice. Hasnain, it turns out, made the prediction based on “speculation,” not evidence.

Let’s be clear about what this means: Nothing.   Read more…

Year: 1957
Written by: Richard Penniman
Billboard Hot 100: #8

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John Coleman is a TV weathercaster, best known for being one of the founders of The Weather Channel. Nowadays he hangs out at KUSI-TV in San Diego, where he has recently taped a segment on the great hoax of global warming. Coleman’s credentials make him a hero of global warming skeptics, but don’t confuse him with The Weather Channel itself. The Weather Channel’s official position is that greenhouse gas emissions are causing a “significant warming trend”:

The potential exists for the climate to reach a “tipping point,” if it hasn’t already done so, beyond which radical and irreversible changes occur.

They are very careful about not predicting too much, but their statement is 180 degrees different from Coleman’s video clip.

Coleman’s disagreement with the scientific consensus on climate change has been known for some time. As a result, he has said many things that are flat wrong. (Click here for examples.)   Read more…

There is an email flying across the Internet listing famous people who denounced God and shortly thereafter met an “untimely death.” The implication, in case you didn’t catch it, is that they met said death because of their atheist declaration. Three problems:   Read more…

Album: Burnin’ (Tuff Gong Records)
Year: 1973
Written by: Bob Marley

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10. Listening to Afghanistan — Ann Friedman
9. Why Federal Regulators Closed Washington Mutual — Kirsten Grind
8. Somalia Is Greatest Victim of President Bush’s War on Terror — Martin Fletcher
7. The Silent Cleric Who Holds the Key to Iran’s Future — Robert Fisk
6. Myth vs. Reality on the Copenhagen Climate Summit — Andrew Light, Rebecca Lefton, & Daniel J. Weiss
5. Health-Reform Legislation Would Accomplish More Than Critics Admit — Henry J. Aaron and The Congressional Budget Office Scores the Amended Senate Bill — Ezra Klein and The 150,000-Life Health-Care Plan — Ezra Klein
4. Coverage and Costs — Paul Krugman and The Senate Bill Saves Families Money — Jonathan Cohn and Improve the Bill, Yes. Kill the Bill, No. — Jonathan Cohn
3. How the Senate Bill Would Contain the Cost of Health Care — Atul Gawande
2. Lessons Learned But Not Applied — Simon Johnson and Avoiding a Japanese Decade — New York Times
1. Something from Nothing — Nir Rosen and Pentagon’s War Pitch Belied by Taliban-Qaeda Conflict — Gareth Porter and A Plan in Need of Clarity — Sen. Jim Webb and Obama’s Surge: Has the President Been Misled by the Iraq Analogy? — Juan Cole
BONUS: Banks Too Big? Government Has Failed To Do Its Job — Anthony W. Orlando and Nuclear Armament: Iran Acting Like a Cornered Animal — Anthony W. Orlando

If you tried to access Trading 8s in the past few days, you noticed it was offline. We had some technical difficulties, but we’re back to business now. Sorry for any inconvenience or confusion. — AWO

10. Getting Away with Torture — David Cole
9. The Great Leap — Christopher Hayes
8. John Mackey and Whole Foods — Nick Paumgarten
7. The Battle for Tora Bora — Peter Bergen
6. Why the Health Care Bill Is Worth Passing — James Surowiecki and What Health Care Reform Will Mean for You — Mary Carmichael
5. Threats to Yemen Prove America Hasn’t Learned the Lesson of History — Patrick Cockburn and The Next Afghanistan? — Bay Fang
4. “Cadillac Tax” Isn’t a Tax: It’s a Plan to Finance Health Care Reform — Jonathan Gruber and In Richmond, Va., Health Cuts with Little Effect on Care — David Leonhardt
3. Cause and Effect in the “Terror War” — Glenn Greenwald and Top Republican Myths about the Crotch Bomber Affair — Juan Cole
2.  The Silent Cleric Who Holds the Key to Iran’s Future — Robert Fisk
1. Lessons Learned But Not Applied — Simon Johnson and Avoiding a Japanese Decade — New York Times
BONUS: Night — Tony Judt