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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Will Warner's LiveJournal:

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    Thursday, July 9th, 2009
    10:03 am
    Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
    10:13 pm
    Gypsum drywall in Florida appears to be outgassing volatile sulfuric acids, and people are also scared it may be radioactive, although that looks less likely. No, volatile sulfuric acids are not any less bad for you than you'd expect. The drywall is from China, but making your houses out of gypsum made from sulfur scrubbed out of industrial waste gases such as American coal power plant fumes sure does seem like a pretty bad idea, now. In fact, as impressive as it is how the natives used all parts of the buffalo and all that, building houses out of industrial waste never seemed like a great idea to me. Heck, maybe it's the whole fluoridation screw up all over again; fluoride was a waste product produced by the refinement of aluminum ore, especially by Alcoa, the Aluminum Corporation of America, and when fluoridation started, suddenly a very toxic waste product, of which it was very expensive to dispose safely, became a valuable commodity bought by local governments with nice steady flows of tax money so it could be added to the water. But the benefits of fluoridation were always questioned, especially by the political right, and I believe that most new suburbs, cities, and towns setting up water systems today don't fluoridate.
    Monday, July 6th, 2009
    9:07 pm
    I just read a story New York Magazine ran back in March where Michael Osinski explained how he wrote a lot of the securitization software in use on Wall Street and what it all meant. He ends by wondering exactly what could have prevented this mess and what we should do now.

    My thesis: America's patterns of borrowing and saving are fundamentally broken.

    Borrowing will take three big changes. First, we should be a society that rents rooms in co-ops owned collectively by their renters, and not by banks or landlords, and we certainly shouldn't be buying houses on credit. It'll be a huge change, I know, but I believe it will be a good one. Second, trains, not cars. Third, debit cards, not credit cards.

    Saving is trickier. We should save our extra money in much more straightforward and transparent investments, but what? I guess we could just buy futures on actual physical assets as our savings, which should be reasonably inflation resistant and even resistant to downturns and government defaults. Are there any people whose retirement savings are in diversified commodities futures? Would it work if everyone did that?
    Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
    11:08 pm
    12:52 pm
    Depressing blog post of the day: The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and other major US media companies regularly host parties with reporters, White House "administration officials", and the businesspeople who pay for the parties. Apparently this has been going on for years, and this is the first I've ever heard of it. No wonder everyone despises the mainstream media, the gutless whores.
    Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
    8:36 pm
    As I moved from the middle bedroom to the side one last summer, I decided to take pictures of each new place I live, just in case any of my friends are curious or I get curious myself someday. So here are the first ones, including the middle bedroom before and after I lived in it, and the side bedroom and bathroom now that I live there. Apologies for the quick and dirty, user unfriendly Apache interface to the pics!
    Monday, June 29th, 2009
    8:31 pm


    Fort Worth police inspected a week-old gay bar Saturday night and arrested seven patrons, throwing two to the ground and giving one of those a brain injury with which he is still in the hospital, and eyewitnesses are alleging that those patrons were not publicly intoxicated or violating any other laws. The police have published a statement, and the Dallas Voice has published an eyewitness account, hurriedly snapped photos, and interviews from multiple sources who tell consistent stories and do not know each other. An early protest this afternoon attracted between 150 and 200 people.
    Sunday, June 28th, 2009
    11:58 pm
    Have any of you had a gravel crater on a car windshield fixed here in Austin and been pleased with the results?
    Friday, June 26th, 2009
    2:44 am
    Fascinating and informative AlterNet post about tradeoffs involving solar power and water usage.
    Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
    10:57 pm
    Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
    10:49 am
    New Mexico breaks ground on commercial spaceport - "Spaceport America" - "$198 million" - "funded by the New Mexico state government" - "British tycoon Richard Branson's space tours firm, Virgin Galactic, will use the facility to propel tourists into suborbital space at a cost of $200,000 a ride." "Virgin Galactic is investing more than $300 million in developing a new space launch system that will operate from the site after it opens." - "begin flights from the spaceport within two years"
    Monday, June 22nd, 2009
    5:55 pm
    An interesting set of ideas for health care reform, including addressing the tricky problem of malpractice and the defensive medical culture our current malpractice system has created. However, the brief comment by a doctor at the end may be even better: instead of proposing reforms that sound good, why not just look at four countries that have better health care than the US, say England, France, Spain, and Italy, pick one, and copy it here?
    Sunday, June 21st, 2009
    2:44 pm
    Obama got remarkably edgy at a correspondents' dinner, especially when telling jokes about the AMA that I bet a whole lot of doctors aren't laughing at:

    "I have gained the support of the American Medical Association. It proves true the old expression that it's easier to catch flies with honey. And if honey doesn't work, feel free to use an open palm and a swift, downward wrist motion."

    He told the audience he had been working to get the financial institutions and auto companies back on their feet. "But you probably wouldn't understand the concept of troubled industries, working as you do in radio and television."

    Obama also said he had a plan to jump-start the auto industry from his close friend, Oprah Winfrey. The President said, "If each of you will look under your seat you will find that you get a car company." He added, "and Fox, you get AIG!"
    Thursday, June 18th, 2009
    4:37 pm
    Friday, June 12th, 2009
    7:38 pm
    Yet again, our government has used its power to classify "dangerous information" to keep secret how it has endangered its own citizens. On Dec. 22, 2008, the dike at a coal ash slurry containment pond near the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant in Harriman, Tenn. broke, unleashing a billion gallon flood of toxic sludge into the Emory River. The EPA says 44 similar sites are potential hazards to nearby communities, but the ACE says admitting where they are "would compromise national security" and they wish you would all just forget about the whole thing. The public has a need and a right to know this information, and a few phone calls and letters could get it released. That White House number again, folks, is 202-456-1111.
    Wednesday, June 10th, 2009
    3:41 pm
    As William Jelani Cobb points out at cnn.com, ENDA, adoption rights, and especially don't ask, don't tell are all things Obama could and should be doing more about. He ends by noting that civil rights leaders eventually learned they'd have to pressure their allies into acting, not just ask nicely, and predicts gay rights leaders will learn the same. As FDR said, "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it."
    Sunday, June 7th, 2009
    10:19 pm
    Thursday, June 4th, 2009
    12:32 am
    Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009
    11:18 pm
    In the 1950s New Zealander Bill Phillips built a machine to model the dynamic feedback of the economy with a machine dubbed "Moniac", consisting of a pump and a series of tanks, tubes, and valves moving water around!
    Wednesday, May 27th, 2009
    12:46 am
    From a NYT article on what Management Potential means:

    "Traits like being a good listener, a good team builder, an enthusiastic colleague, a great communicator do not seem to be very important when it comes to leading successful companies. What mattered, it turned out, were execution and organizational skills. The traits that correlated most powerfully with success were attention to detail, persistence, efficiency, analytic thoroughness and the ability to work long hours.

    ...Murray Barrick, Michael Mount and Timothy Judge surveyed a century’s worth of research into business leadership. They, too, found that extroversion, agreeableness and openness to new experience did not correlate well with C.E.O. success. Instead, what mattered was emotional stability and, most of all, conscientiousness — which means being dependable, making plans and following through on them."
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