In the news

There's an omnious vibe of low key racism embedded in all the news reports, even those critical of Trump, that tend to discuss the sovereignty of Greenland as a matter between Copenhagen and Washington – as opposed to a discussion that needs to be had with Nuuk.

Exactly this. Any old bollocks to mask what they're actually up to

Maybe he's not going to be able to do many of the 59 things he has promised for day one. So he needs a strongman distraction. https://www.axios.com/2024/12/26/trump-first-day-executive-orders

The next tv interview Keir does. I want him to take a long look into the camera and say

“Liz… you crashed the economy”

lol

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I don’t think Liz Truss is aware of the Streisand effect.

I don’t think Liz Truss is aware

is about as far as you needed to go.

lol - very true

I just can't stop being amazed at the incredible talent vacuum appearing over recent years in the various halls of power around the Anglosphere...

I guess corruption and talent are sort of mutually exclusive, if you don't count the sort of talent possessed by the radge orange bampot

Brick chimneys are all that remain in LA houses. Seems like a good reason for building the whole house out of brick. But plywood is the norm. Is that the best idea when you live somewhere with a "fire season" and insurance is tricky? It costs a few bob extra but lots of the houses which have just burned down were worth $2 or $3 million.

Bricks supposedly not so great with the lateral forces of earthquakes.

You could of course choose not to build in a flammable earthquake zone, but there's such a convenient port right there and the land is so cheap for some reason.

How strong would the mortar etc. be after fires of that magnitude. The whole place would need rebuilding anyway

It's the land that's worth the money and plywood houses are quicker to rebuild. There's less landfill too.

Pretty sure brick buildings would still be gutted in the circumstances. You'd just be left with some structurally unsound walls.

They interviewed a real valley girl on the radio last night who'd just lost her house. When they asked what she'd been able to save, she drawled, 'I just took my crystals'. I mean, that shouldn't take away all empathy from a human tragedy, but y'know...

Maybe build the houses out of wet clay and let the next fire turn them into brick

Reporting in from the land of wooden houses here. The general consensus is that there isn't much difference in flammability, or ease of firefighting, between wood, concrete, brick etc. At the temperature where a home would ignite there is always plenty of material available, i.e. furniture, cladding, misc fixtures, that the fire can feed on. The temperatures involved means the fire will destroy the whole thing anyway. The difference in insurance premiums here is mostly down to the age of the building, whether you have proper fire cells, sprinklers etc, not the material it's made from. The latter would favour modern apparment buildings of steel and concrete I suppose, but for self contained villas it's a toss up as far as I understand.

For anyone in London the Black & White Building in Shoreditch is worth seeing and is a great example of a timber building done well.

I can’t remember the exact details but its carbon footprint is well below what you would expect for a similar office block constructed with steel frame and concrete floors. On the flipside, the rate charged for fire insurance is about x20.

That is a lovely building!

Shame about the fire insurance, as I read that actually the building has the same/better fire rating than a steel/concrete one.

is that a meth euphemism?

I think actual crystals. Important to have them as they protect you from bad things happening.

james woods ... karma

For those who don't know, the structures of the Thames Flood Barrier aren't steel - what you see is very thin sheet steel attached to what is a hefty wooden structure inside.
Why? Because in the event of fire, with a wooden structure you get some warning before catastrophic failure occurs. With concrete and steel, you do not.

The core of the Empire State building is a very fine meringue which, although it needs replacing every month, has a greater tensile strength than steel, iron or even fruitcake which forms the foundations of many of Europe's great cathedrals.

Meringue is what the landing gear of commercial aircraft is made from as this is the only material capable of withstanding several hundred tons of aircraft being thrown at the tarmac at speed.

It’s nearly true, except it’s simnel cake, as most cathedral projects were timed to kick off at Easter, with project managers always scheduling-in sufficient baking time - which is why there’s always at least a two week delay before anything starts on site.