TheVat

Ha, yes, FAG (forced air gas) is most common here. In places like Oregon, where hydro on the Columbia R used to crank out the watts very cheaply, some places had forced air with electric furnaces. (FAEF?) Some areas, with mild West Coast weather, there wouldn't even be residential gas lines, just electric heat. The worst was baseboard heat, which occupied so much of the room margins that it was awkward placing furniture. It occurs to me now that a better acronym than FAG would be FANG, but I still see only the former used.

Are boiler/radiator systems easily convertible from gas-fired to a heat pump? I know upfront costs are daunting when it's necessary to tear out an existing system entirely. In the US, sometimes the FAG ductwork all has to be replaced with larger bore when a HP goes in, because the old ducts can't move the volume of air required by a HP. So you need new larger registers, plenum, everything. (Boiler systems less common here in homes, but I've heard they can be quite efficient) One reason minisplit HPs are popular is they skip around the whole duct system nightmare.

Also mystified by $1800/month for light/heat. (and does New York allow utility companies to shut off heat in the winter - it's illegal to do that here) We have a 1900 era house, two story, 4 BR, keep temps around 65-67, and not heating rooms not in use so much, and our winter bills (Nov. 15 - March 31) for gas plus electric space heat averages around $200/month. 1800/month conjures images of pampered sybarites keeping every room at orchid-raising warmth so that family members can frolic around in swimsuits, with large-screen tvs blaring in every room, and a hot tub always bubbling away on the back deck, easily accessed through the perpetually open kitchen door. TBH, it makes me want to tell them, "you idiots get whatever you deserve." I know I must be missing something here. Northern tier states of the US are generally acquainted with sweaters, turning heat down in unused rooms or bedrooms where one is under a heavy quilt, and most attics in older homes have either batts or blown-in cellulosic insulation with at least an R-30 rating. Loosefill insulation can also be blown into wall cavities without a huge fuss, and that's been standard for retrofitting older homes for at least fifty years. So, yes, more information needed. I am generally not enchanted with the sense of entitlement and square-footage greed that has been so common in my country. Builders have catered to this palatial concept of personal space requirement for too long. I think the tide is finally starting to turn here (locally, I have noticed a new wave of contractors building 700-800 SF starter homes, which seems like a return to sanity.)

I think there is some market pressure (let's hope it keeps up) on tech companies to build their own power systems for server farms, e.g. wind turbines or solar or geo, with storage batteries. (Grids aren't trustworthy, so they want onsite power) I live in a public power state with 85% of its power from wind and hydro, so our rates are below the national average. (10¢/kwh, iirc) Means EVs driven here are lower carbon than in some places.

I read Chariots of the Gods when I was around 13, and then had the pleasure of hearing Isaac Asimov (who lived not far from us, and occasionally spoke or did readings at local venues) poke some fun at VonD. I guess those Egyptians did build their own pyramids after all. And the Nazca Lines weren't really an extraterrestrial airstrip. And the sarcophagus of Palenque isn't really depicting an alien sitting atop a rocket. In recent years I had read that VonD had gotten the basic idea for CotG from HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. Enough said.

Yes, we use the word "analogy" with the understanding that it is an imperfect and simplified model of what occurs at a cell membrane. Hopefully, the discussion has underscored that. Relevant to this also is what @KJW mentioned, that there are partial and full agonists, and their effects can differ.

Good explanations all around. Perhaps the OP can look up something like cancer chemotherapy which is a fairly dramatic example of side effects which tend to affect most patients and in a miserable way. Plus side: maybe you get to live some more years. And it's another example of therapy where you want to do something mean to the cancer cells but it's going to be in the bloodstream and also affect normal tissues.

Seems like an attractive approach for the frozen North cities (like mine), where a blizzard sweeps in and you forgot to stock up on groceries/supplies. (Same goes for the sunbelt and its killer heatwaves) Not that we're the frozen North this winter - it has been surreally mild so far and looks to be for the next week. There's also pollution and traffic reduction, if people need fewer or zero car trips with such a living arrangement.

That's a great intro, with clear helpful illustrations to explain receptors and agonists. I haven't delved into the cannabinoid receptors much, but that seems like an interesting topic, especially as to what are the natural agonists for that receptor. They are called endocannabinoids.

Is that the correct term, Eric? What is modern grammar cumin to? Sometimes it is just beyond bay leaf.

Well I don't. Put up with people who are annoying, that is. If you ever become annoying, you will be dead to me. You and all your descendants unto the tenth generation. 😁

The body is complex. Think of it as like the global weather system. Organ systems interacting, complex metabolic pathways, complex biochemistry, our cells interacting with bacterial symbionts in the gut, immune system interacting with invaders and with our own tissues, etc. Tinkering with all that is somewhat like tinkering with weather - all kinds of unforseen consequences emerge. It would be weird if there weren't side effects. Even a drug like acetaminophen (paracetamol, Br.) which seems gentle and harmless can adversely affect liver function in some people. Ibuprofen can be hard on the kidneys. Dosing many drugs is based on the good outweighing the harm.

It relates a Ben Franklin attributed quote to the thud with which the unionize joke landed. Had I hyphenated unionize (after, in parentheses), the "charge less" double entendre would have been clearer.

Emily Lime has been keeping up with the news in South America. Tin Maduro boss a Caracas SOB or u damn it.

This Gordian knot, of when intervention is a police action against an oppressive tyrant and when it's war, goes back a long time. I generally see the important criterion as: do most citizens want regime change and can they, with assistance, implement a transition to democracy and rule of law. The problem, as with say the Sandanistas in Nicaragua, is that what people want and what they get often diverge. Our (US) interference probably made the Sandanistas turn more authoritarian and brutal, and ultimately our ham-handed effort to further stable democracy failed. The CIA training and funding of the Contras led to a horrible civil war and brutalized both sides. We should really stick to humanitarian aid and economic soft power.

Correction: No lava, a Toyota's top sedan (a despot's) - a Toyota Avalon. Thanks.

No lava, a Toyota stops sedan (a despot's) - a Toyota Avalon.

Yep. At this point, a reasonably alert six year old could play the MAGAnistas. The central argument, the sources said, was that the Rodríguez siblings represent a “more palatable” version of so-called chavismo — the socialist ideology named for deceased leader Hugo Chávez — for Washington, since neither has been indicted on narcotrafficking charges by U.S. courts. However, former regime officials— whose accounts have been used by U.S. prosecutors in cases linked to the so-called Cartel of the Suns—have implicated both siblings in logistical support and money laundering operations. The maintenance of chavismo also suggests that companies like Conoco and Exxon aren't really going to be all that interested in getting back into the game, given how the original chavismo guy treated them. This whole theater of the absurd will prove about as geopolitically effective as was Turnip's "protecting Christians" in Nigeria. If I were writing political satire I couldn't hope to come up with anything sillier than the Donroe Doctrine. The administration is a parody of itself.

I was amused that Delcy seems to have pulled the pistol away long enough to condemn Turnip's action. (From NPR): ....speaking to Venezuelans in a televised address, Rodríguez pushed back against Trump, saying what the U.S. had done to her homeland was "a barbarity." This was after Trump had said, "She's essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again." Heh.

Venezuela is a very minor player in the US illegal drug market. Mexico, Colombia and China (for the precursor chemicals of fentanyl) are the primary sources. So the drug angle is pretty bogus. Don't forget the oil vice. In the sprawling cities and countryside of America, with EVs unaffordable to most of the population and mass transit unavailable or unworkable, we become hopeless petro addicts. Working people have to get to work, and often have no choice but a fossil fuel burner. The people who can make bicycles and buses work for them have already done so. It's as if, to use a drug analogy, you suffered migraines and the only remedy available at the pharmacy was oxycontin.

If I thought Turnip were capable of forming longterm geopolitical goals, or hiring people capable, I would guess it's about forming an array of MAGA satellites in Latin America and eventually expelling the wicked Commies from Cuba. (52nd state, anyone?) And us becoming the World's Biggest Most Beautiful Petro State. If I didn't know that Turnip's wank-fantasies usually shift every few weeks, and how horribly this goat rodeo is pollling, I might almost believe that could be the dominant MAGA administration theme. Remember Greenland? A month of obsession last winter, then forgotten for six months, then a rather lame attempt to rekindle the land lust. Now again sliding out from the Teflon coated interior of Turnip's head. It's all tv, bread and circus of the week, shiny objects to dangle in front of maga-babies. Venezuela meanwhile turns into a bloodbath, as various factions rush into power vacuums. Fresh sectors of the economy also ravaged by the loss of tourism. Somewhere in MAGAland, a few synapses may be firing and some realization that this idiocy is killing them in the November Congressional race. ETA: the charging document hilariously wants to indict Maduro on a 1930s statute banning machine guns. Tell me this administration is anything but a clown car.

For want of a nail, the war was lost. For want of a hyphen, the joke was lost.

It's like the Dupont thing at Parkersburg WV with C8 (aka PFOA) - bullshit studies relying solely on Dupont/Chemours data and industry contributors. We really need those editor gatekeepers. As a sometimes renovator, I'm aware of how JM sought to scrub their public image by starting a line of itch-free roll insulation, stressing how safe it was for workers. IIRC, it's called encapsulated - no fiberglass bits will touch your skin or get breathed in. That reboot probably helped save their asses.

A spoon, probably. 😁 I would say as a topping for rice or a side dish with something like curry. Non Hindu Westerners also use it with meat dishes, as a sweet/piquant topping.

AP NewsTesla loses title as world's biggest electric vehicle mak...Tesla lost its crown as the world’s bestselling electric vehicle maker on Friday as a customer revolt over Elon Musk’s right-wing politics, expiring U.S. tax breaks to buyers and stiff overseas compet And industry leadership in EVs requires constant technical innovation (e.g. SS batteries), along with having at least one line producing simple bare bones sedans affordable to Millennials in the middle class. Fancy sporty cars are fun, help reduce testicular shrinkage in midlife males, and help establish brand visibility, but you can't depend on them or on dumpster-trucks, or on theatrical drug induced looniness from a CEO, to maintain your market share. When I heard that BYD was selling a subcompact for around 9K (USD) in China, I sorta knew Tesla's days as the reigning EV monarch were ending.