Links

The average compensation of architects, from the AIA. (ht: Jason).

Facebook and Twitter attract narcissists. Study.

The death of trees has been linked to increased cardiovascular and lower respiratory deaths.

Buy/rent calculator from the NYT. Very well done.

The tricorder is here. A small relatively inexpensive device called the Scanadu can now read your vitals.

A Studio Gang project, the Clark Park Boathouse, that I worked on the mechanical drawings for (geo-thermal exchange system, ventilation, cooling, etc.) is nearing completion.

Affordable Healthcare Act Explained

I hesitated to watch this since it ran about 9 minutes long but it was actually very good and informative.

Backlog of Readings

Now every time I post one of these obnoxious lists I'll point out the best article, or at least the one's that you can't skip.

Required Reading - This is a great (and lengthy) article by Malcolm Gladwell on brain damage and football. Kind of glad I never played.

Google says they overpaid when they purchased YouTube to the tune of 1 billion (they paid 1.65 billion for the site). Best part, they knew they were doing it.

According to Krugman the Fed, even under really rosy circumstances, won't raise rates for at least 2 years.

Ever hear of Conservapedia? They're hilarious, but now they've outdone themselves. They're going to rewrite the Bible to "remove the liberal bias."

New York City made a law requiring restaurants to show calorie counts on menu items. Oddly, the new law doesn't seem to be changing the amount of calories that people purchase in any given transaction.

New theories on altruism vis a vie termites.

A Nobel in medicine this year went to three scientists who discovered telomerase, an enzyme that allows a cell to divide perpetually without dying. It has implications for future cancer research.

Krugman says healthcare reform will happen.

Google's Android OS is about to tip. By the end of the year it'll be available on 12 phones.

Ugh, this wasn't even half of my list... more later.

Obama's Health Care Speech

Part one, two, three (where at 2:05 a Republican screams "you lie"), four, five, and six.

Paul Krugman's commentary on the speech complete with many links to key points he's talked about previously.

Monday Reading

Beautiful compact fluorescent light fixtures that open like a flower as they become warm.

Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 3D... again.

A great Q&A with Sam Adams Brewery founder Jim Koch.

The nine nations of North America. I've been saying this for years, but apparently someone realized it far before I did.

Just days from entering grad school for a profession that clearly doesn't need more people (architecture) I find that my other calling (statistics) is actually worth while... hmmm?

I don't know why I found this short article by Paul Krugman so interesting. It's just a comparative line graph between the US and Germany showing what the current recession has done to both countries' GDP. I guess it's just shocking to see what a 4% drop in GDP can do to our whole country.

I forgot to put in my "life update" below that I visited the more respectable part of my family; a neurosurgeon, a physicians assistant, a retired three star general, and between their three kids they have like... a doctor and three more masters degrees... it's sick; in Lafayette, IN. They, being part of the medical profession, are way more attune to the problems of socialized medicine than I. I learned some really interesting things and am of course a bit more skeptical now of the whole thing, but I just can't drop it. Why can't everyone in our country get decent health care? Why not? I get to have F-18's fly over my head every year, my whole city is power washed every week, we can land men on the moon, but I can't get affordable health care? There has to be a compromise. Here's an article from GOOD Magazine that highlights one of the many key issues to health care. That is, that we're willing to pay exorbant amounts of money on unneccesary or ineffective parts of health care (yes we all know this but their spin is interesting).

Oh, and one more. I was ready to tear this article to shreds, but it turns out I agree with the author. Want an affordable well built home? Make it smaller.

Health Care - Canada's Story

I thought this would be an appropriate time for this article from the Bathroom Reader (Curiously Compelling, 19th Edition which oddly enough is listed as humor/reference, ha). I've learned more from this series of books, per dollar I've spent, than probably any other learning activity - including my library fees.

Tommy Douglas's Wikipedia entry can be found here. Aside from setting up Canada's universal health care system he was also prime minister, lightweight boxing champion of Manitoba for two years, a Scotsman (psh, obviously), minister, and studied at University of Chicago but dropped out after he rejected his own thesis of eugenics based sterilization of the "unfit"... yikes, but good save?