Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Tuesday Links

Batteries "fall pathetically short of our customary fossil fuel energy storage medium. When we wake up to a declining global availability of petroleum, we won’t just switch over to electric cars. We may not be able to collectively afford such a transition, given the huge up-front costs in both money and energy..."

Accounting for leases: "Company management often use leases to access capital. Despite this source of capital being senior to equity holders, its effect on liquidity, solvency and valuation is often ignored by investors."

More QSR: "Last year, QSR Magazine named Transparency one of the biggest quick service restaurant trends, anticipating that more restaurants will follow the trend of open kitchens as a sign to customers that they have nothing to hide.'"

Transparency in architecture: "The clearest case of see-throughiness is in architecture. In both the mid-20th century and over the past 20 years, buildings with ceiling-to-floor glass walls exploded in popularity. You see this in down-to-earth places like the drive-in restaurant or the Googie-styled coffee shop, as well as the Apple Store; the Mid-Century Modern house, as well as the Zen Minimalist house; and public libraries and office skyscrapers from both periods. There was also the Crystal Palace of the Victorian era."

VP on the loathsome slate columnist: "Only a moronic douche would unapologetically write the kind of stuff Matt Yglesias writes, day after day after day, carelessly arguing against himself with every letter he traces out, barking viciously at his own reflection, blissfully unaware of what a hypocritical disaster he is."

Two Californias: "Driving across California is like going from Mississippi to Massachusetts without ever crossing a state line. [...] A postmodern narrow coastal corridor runs from San Diego to Berkeley; there the weather is ideal, the gentrified affluent make good money, and values are green and left-wing. This Shangri-La is juxtaposed to a vast impoverished interior, from the southern desert to the northern Central Valley, where life is becoming premodern."

Firearms sales: "Sturm, Ruger & Company is on pace to beat its own record of 1,114,700 firearms produced in one year, set in 2011. On August 15, 2012 Ruger produced its one millionth firearm of the year..."

ARCS: "This global region is the Arctic Rim, and its adjoining ARCS: Alaska, Russia, Canada, and Scandinavia..."

Introverts: "At the university level, introversion predicts academic performance better than cognitive ability."

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