Things that have interested me lately

[undyingking]

• Acceptosaurus -- this, and the comments underneath, are very funny whether or not you're involved in submitting papers, evolutionary biology, etc.
• Lady GaGa is an Illuminati puppet -- does this surprise anyone at all? And the Bad Romance song and video are all about Baphomet, as they would be.
• George Monbiot slams the feed-in tariff -- my own feeling is that micro does have some place, eg. solar hot water. But he does a good job here of exposing the skewed financing behind the current plans. I'd be interested to hear your critiques, if you disagree.
• Flip Flop Fly -- an excellent collection of sport-related infographics. Mostly to do with baseball, but toward teh foot of the page there are a load to do with other sports. Not all of the data is especially interesting, but it's a great showcase of different diagramming / design techniques.
  

[Poll #1533213]

Comments

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

I suspect the main reason for feed-in tariffs is the symbolic value, i.e. getting people bought into the idea of renewable energy, and tapping into good will generally.

Regarding the issue around the electricity being generated at the wrong time of day; there may actually be an answer to this. I believe the proposals are intimately linked to those around smart grids, which are meant to solve this sort of problem, and parallel problems around things like charging electric cars (which would cause a surge in demand at certain times of day). I don't know enough about them to be sure whether this would form a convincing rebuttal, but worth looking into.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, I don't attach much weight to the time-of-day thing, as there are always ways of storing electricity, some of them fairly eficient.