The limitations of technology in architecture

A "pencil" style building in New York City appears, in my view, to be a great picture of the limitations of technology in architecture.  How so?

Well, the residents are noticing cracks in the concrete already, indicating that the engineers' work to support the nearly 1400' tall building is insufficient.  What strikes me is that the building is only 100 feet wide, whereas the similar-height Sears Tower (*) in Chicago is over twice that width.  The key issue here, structure-wise, is that the lateral strength/rigidity is proportional to the square of the outer dimensions.  This means that, all else the same, the Sears Tower is four times as robust as 432 Park Avenue, and the stresses on the lateral support beams that much greater on 432 Park Avenue.  It makes a difference.

A side note here is that since this is not an office building, but a residential building, what we have is a building where the inner hallway/atrium around the elevators is going to be up to 35 feet from the windows.  In contrast, at a truly big mansion, Buckingham Palace in London, the windows are only about--except for the great hall--about twenty feet from the inner hallways, I'd guess.

In other words, when you try to go too tall--I'd guess a ratio of height vs. width of 10:1 or greater--you get to a point where a wonderful apartment becomes, due to a lack of proximity to windows, an unlivable closet.  So if we're talking the "Buckingham Palace Rule", we are talking an approximate upper limit of about 500 feet tall or about 40 stories. You could get some additional room for height by using the old World Trade Center's center zone for elevators and utilities--probably up to about 700 feet or fifty stories--but all in all, you're limited if your goal is to provide liveable space.

It is worth noting as well that there are additional economic/engineering and practical reasons not to build too high.  Building 100 stories high costs about five times as much per square foot as building five stories or less, and how many people really want to be looking out from their 50th story window at....someone else's 50th story window?

* Yes, I know it's called the Willis Tower now, but like any Chicagoland native who values the past, my view is that it keeps its original name, no matter what the corporate types say.

A confession by Nike

In mid April, the news came out that Nike was sponsoring studies aiming to analyze the effects of things like puberty blockers on children and teens with gender dysphoria--more or less seeking to answer questions about whether it is fair for "trans women" (i.e. men, XY) to compete as women at various levels in sport.  So far, Nike has not answered questions about the study, and in my mind, what this does is to assure me that yes, Nike did initially sponsor the study, and they're either hoping that the storm blows over, or they're considering truncating or ending the sponsorship.  

(Thankfully, they do not appear to have provided enough money to actually fund the transition procedures, so the subjects of the study victims of the new Dr. Mengele will need to find other sources.  This should at least cut down on sample sizes and statistical power.)

Well, in that light, I encourage my "legion of readers" (ha) to help Nike to see that it is unethical to do experiments on children with permanent side effects.   How so?  Well, if you're buying Nike shoes and apparel--and this would include not just Nike, but also Converse, Cole Haan, Bauer, and Jordan--just stop, and send Nike a nice note explaining why.  Then, you can go further, and stop wearing Nike shoes and apparel.

Yes, if you have a lot of Nike shoes and apparel--I have precisely one pair of Nike shorts in my wardrobe, so it's easier for me--it means a certain amount of adjustment, but the consequence of not doing so is that young people will be hurt, and Nike will continue to think they have carte blanche to do this sort of thing.

A strange decision in Michigan

 Well, at least it's strange if you forget that Democrats have been appointing judges there for a long time.  A Michigan judge has ruled not only that a 24 hour waiting period is unconstitutional, but also that regulations preventing nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, and physician's assistants from performing prenatal infanticide is unconstitutional.

Now call me weird, but given that a surgical abortion is, after all, a surgical procedure, maybe it's important that those doing these, for the sake of the mother's safety if not the baby's, be....like....surgeons, or at least have a medical degree that qualifies them to do simple surgeries, like....an "MD" or such?

What we have here, really, is yet another admission by the pro-abortion lobby that in order to keep prenatal infanticide available, they need to either subsidize it, or reduce the cost structure so that the clinics can stay open.  

Yet another example

 ....of where Putin is trying to take Russia; his forces have put up a monument to Stalin in Melitopol, Ukraine.  His sycophants are laying flowers, but I think Hezekiah had a better idea what to do with such shrines.  I'd be glad to help venerate it that way, preferably during colonoscopy prep.

Update: and another statue of Stalin erected in a Moscow metro station.  Again, if I were Russian, I'd be very, very nervous.  For that matter, Putin's promotion of Stalin makes me very nervous as an American.  I've read enough Solzhenitsyn to know what Stalinism was about--and is, under Putin.

Also in the "how much are you consuming" category

People are looking carefully into the flavenol profile of red wine to determine why, in some cases, red wine leads to debilitating headaches.  Perhaps we might do well to look to Proverbs 23 and ask "Just how much of the stuff did you drink before you got those headaches?".  I've been enjoying red wine for many years, and in the "dosage" I favor--a glass or two at the most--I've never had a problem.  

Maybe time to rephrase RFK Jr.'s phrase again; "Make America Less Gluttonous". Even apart from questions like flavenols, alcohol, and the like, the "wine-bibber" is going to have a serious problem with the number of calories taken in--or if he's smart enough to restrict other eating, he'll have some nutritional deficiencies.

OK, this is wild

    Apparently Tyson Foods is eliminating synthetic dyes from its meat and poultry products.   Writing as an avid cook, this is weird to me, because the most appealing colors inherent in meat and poultry products are the same ones that God gave them.  Can one improve on the golden brown exterior and creamy white interior of a properly crafted Wiener Backhendl or Chicken Kyiv, or even basic chicken nuggets?  I think not!

So what's being said here, really, is that they've been using synthetic dyes to cover up for either a lack of skill, or a compromise on ingredients, that would impair the wonderful Maillard reaction in frying.  We can have huge arguments over whether synthetic dyes are a problem--my response is a firm "maybe a little one"--but it strikes me that the big problem we've got is that many food manufacturers are using them to cover up for a lack of quality ingredients and skill making the product.

I might rephrase RFK Jr.'s slogan as "make America cook again".  When you know how to cook, and know the difference the right ingredients and techniques make, your health will follow.

On those dangerous food dyes?

Apparently the studies that "linked" red dye #3 to some cancers were done at a dosage of about 200 times tha maximum likely dosage of .25mg/kG of body weight.  OK, let's parse this out.  At my body weight of close to 100kG, we are talking about a maximum dose of 25mG.  In terms of what they were feeding the lab rats, we're talking about 5 grams per day, suggesting a scene of Democrats chugging bottles of food dyes because Trump wanted to ban them.  

It really suggests that we need a revival of instruction about hormesis, the tendency of many chemicals to be harmless or even slightly beneficial at low doses, despite being poisons in high doses.  I am again no fan of foods with a lot of red dye, but the comparison here is basically getting all of one's nutrition from foods with this dye, and then ignoring the fact that what's really dangerous is all the sugar in them.

Make incarceration great again?

Regarding President Trump's proposal to re-open Alcatraz as a supermax prison, supplanting the current supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, the question that comes to mind is "Why?".  Yes, "why?", and that's because Alcatraz is built in an earthquake zone with intensive exposure to salt air--which means that it's far more expensive to keep buildings operational there than it is elsewhere.  At the time it was closed in 1963, it was over three times as expensive to operate as similar prisons, and proximity to San Francisco makes it especially problematic if people escape.  In contrast, Florence is about 40 miles from the nearest good sized city, Colorado Springs.

I get that "The Rock" holds an outsized image in our country due to the former residency of Al Capone and other gangsters, but re-opening it would open a large gash in budgets that is simply not necessary.