If you find that the NY Times hates your freedom, here's a link to the building's site and here's the thing about the elevator:
Another signature feature, a glass-enclosed stairwell that Mr. Hayes has named the "irresistible stairway," rewards climbers with panoramic views of downtown and Puget Sound. The behavioral carrot, aimed at promoting both health and energy conservation, has been juxtaposed with the stick of a slow and less conveniently sited elevator that requires key card access.
I object to calling the composters the "business end" of the toilet. Where I take care of my business is the business end.
Especially in climates where heating isn't too much of an issue, a lot of new "green" buildings are in fact overall less green than existing housing stock, just by virtue of being new. So, yes, agreed that these kind of things always just underline the need for systematic regulation of carbon.
Where I take care of my business is the business end.
That's not the business end, that's the user interface.
Yeah, I didn't mean to imply that the world isn't irrevocably headed for complete environmental disaster. I do wish that people would figure out that it's not that effing hard to use less water along the way though. [/broken record]
people are going to use up resources in an inefficient manner for so long as access to resources is tied with access to sex.
The 'soft used irresistible stairways, and the elevators didn't need keycards. Seattlites will put up with a lot for daylight (cf annoying Koolhaas library).
Will there be an inaugural car chase through downtown Seattle to mark the occasion?
After Lloyd Kahn realized how fucked up domes were, he worked on evolving a theory of buildings such that the less molecular manipulation the materials had to undergo, the better and more environmentally friendly the building would be. When I see these new buildings and everything is anodized aluminium or multi-layer glass with decorative frosting or whatever, I can't help but compare them to the old buildings with stone and steel and wood that have been performing admirably for a century or more. Shit, just doing a minor re-sheetrocking project wipes out a huge amount of energy efficiency gains.
I'm too culturally illiterate to understand 8. Googling "car chase" "Seattle" doesn't seem to bring up significantly more hits than "car chase" "other mid-sized U.S. city."
Try a "Seattle Car Chase" in the urban dictionary. If there's nothing there, thing of something.
Cool, wish I had plans to be in Seattle to see it fiorsthand.
regarding collective action, I just don't see change happening until effective technology is very cheap. I'm pretty optimistic that sufficiently cheap technology will become widespread in the next couple of decades.
Grist had a nice description of solar power in rural India recently.
All west coast cities are basically the same.
A building that is difficult to get to and which has an inconvenient elevator. I guess that is one way to discriminate against older workers and disabled workers.
What, how's it difficult to get to? It's practically in the middle of the within-lake urban area, near such buslines as the city maintains, and near a lot of the decent subsidized housing.
I think he's talking about the lack of parking spaces.
I guess "in a city" is synonymous with "difficult to get to" by that standard, so yeah.
I think he's talking about the lack of parking spaces.
Huh. Really?
There's literally nothing else in the story that could be read as saying the building was hard to get to.
.... Also, there are a bunch of disabilities that make it impossible to drive but don't restrict walking, and this site should be better for those. Hey! Natilo! At the least, don't let the _impossible_ perfect be the enemy of the good!
Per google maps there are like five bus stops within a two-block radius.
Slap me . . .
Google has a surprising number of autocompletes for "slap me and call me . . ."
I am happy to be in will's company on this issue. It infuriates me that so many well-intentioned projects wind up screwing up one or more major components. I understand that developers have a lot of hoops to jump through, but if we can put a man on the moon, surely we can design energy-efficient buildings that are also fully accessible to people with disabilities. That just doesn't seem like the hardest thing in the world.
I don't think we've been able to put a man on the moon for forty years.
I am not infuriated over the green building's imperfections. I think HG's larger point is that even as technology improves, people continue to horde resources. Cheap technology certainly hasn't reduced that impulse thus far.
If we can put a man on the moon it does follow that any given project should be completed to my own satisfaction though.
energy-efficient buildings that are also fully accessible to people with disabilities
Is this just about the elevators? Or is lack of parking also an accessibility issue?
If people continue to horde resources, we'll have to find some Cossacks or something to fight the resources off.
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Remember that one post about the pace of change or whatever? If you had told me 10 years ago that one of the oddments of flotsam and jetsam in my desk drawer at work would be a functional 6.1 megapixel digital camera that just appeared out of nowhere one day, and which no one has claimed in over a year, I would have been somewhat surprised.
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five bus stops within a two-block radius.
I do not live in a big city, so my standard expectation is being able to park at the buildings location. I understand that is not the case in many big cities.
My quick read of the article was that they intentionally made it difficult to get to the building except through your physical effort and that, once inside the building, they intentionally made it difficult to take the elevator.
Encouraging people to take the stairs is great. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw)
Making it more difficult for people who need to use an elevator is not great.
...but if we can put a man on the moon, surely we can design energy-efficient buildings that are also fully accessible to people with disabilities.
Yes, if the US spends nearly half a percent of its GDP for 13 years on this problem, a solution will almost certainly be found.
Perhaps it was not readily apparent that when I use a curmudgeonly phrase like "if we can put a man on the moon, then..." I am trying to intervene in the discourse in a jocular manner.
Be that as it may, if we spent .5% of the GDP (extra) on ensuring that large construction projects were both environmentally sound and otherwise promoted positive social values, that would seem like a pretty reasonable deal to me, assuming that the outcomes were commensurate with the success of the Apollo program.
Sending people from Ohio as far away as possible is a great idea.
"Although Mr. Sands admires the decision to forgo a traditional garage, he said the lack of on-site parking, coupled with Seattle's inadequate mass transit, could create commuting headaches for employees who live in the city's eastern suburbs and who may "have to figure out other methods or places to park nearby because they will have to drive.""
So Seattle has inadequate mass transit and you cannot park there? How is this not causing difficulties for an older worker or a disabled worker?
36: I'm taking that personally, Moby!
Although, I'm not actually from Ohio.
Old people have to live in the suburbs?
Also, what is it about Seattle's public transit that you and Mr. Sands find inadequate?
Awesome beavers:
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Beaver+helps+contain+fuel+spill+beavers+burned+spill+make/8161584/story.html
For any elderly people who live at the Skyline First Hill nursing home it's a ten minute bus ride down East Madison. That's super fucking handy! How lucky for those elderly people.
From Cabrini Senior Housing it's only seven minutes. Dynamite!
I mean, seriously, if the problem is inadequate public transportation maybe the problem is inadequate public transportation, not insufficient fucking parking at your allegedly green building.
The anger-powered bus is a might thing.
Exactly how fast and conveniently located does the elevator have to be to qualify as accessible?
cf annoying Koolhaas library
Man, that reading room on the top floor is a sweet place to be on an overcast day. There actually is some light out there!
46: ideally there would be an individual car elevator for each employee.
That building is pretty fucking easy to reach by public transportation. If you live in the eastern suburbs and are somehow commuting to Capitol Hill, then they have this exciting invention called the "Park and Ride Lot". You can drive the mile to the nearest park and ride lot, and take a bus from there.
I think the new SPL is a fine public square, but only a usable library in despite of Koolhaas & his designers.
ideally there would be an individual car elevator
I was genuinely kind of surprised to learn that fancy high rises outside of Los Angeles (or, even, my particular part of Los Angeles) don't have in-building car washes, mechanics, and auto detailing services. How else does your car get clean for Friday night when you're working all the time?
Cars in other cities don't have to be cleaned as often because there's not as much particulate pollution in the air.
(Well, and it rains more often. And actually there certainly are fancy high rises that have detailing services, at least, here.)
I was 25 before I realized that detailing was just a fancy was of saying washing. I thought it involved adding racing stripes or other detailed decorations.
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Last time someone brought their recentborn to the office I was informed I should wash my hands before touching him. Now someone else is bringing another. Is this a common proviso? And just for curiosity's sake, does it actually make medical sense and/or have evidence backing it up?
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2 things:
First of all, implementation of the ADA has, in fact, constituted an enormous investment of GDP over the past 30 years. All those ramps you see? Not free. Those giant bathrooms? Not free. In fact, the ADA requires that 20% of any renovation project go towards ADA improvements until the building is fully compliant. Moving office partitions? Rebuild the bathrooms. It's the third floor of an elevatorless building? Build wheelchair-accessible bathrooms anyway, because someone might build an elevator in the future. Seriously. There is no shortage of investment in accessibility in the US.
Second of all, design is compromise. There's no objective standard of a building that prizes the experiences of the able and less able equally. Carpets are bad for those in wheelchairs, good for those on their feet - you can't make your flooring equally awesome for both groups. Good daylighting is a huge boon for those with normal sight, but blinding for those with photosensitivity. Can't we just make it perfect for everyone?
No. No we can't. Not even with an infinite budget.
53: Me too.
54: It's certainly true that dirty hands are germy, and germs make babies sick. What's less clear is that this represents a significant problem. My feeling was always that, if you're not actively sick, and you're not planning on putting your fingers in the kid's mouth, then handwashing is a culturally-driven decision, not a health-driven one.
I'd still wash my hands if the parent asks. It's not really the time for evidence-based arguments.
It is certainly common for people to ask you to wash your hands before holding the baby, and sometimes people will volunteer.
Threadjack:
For the record, I came over to see if there was discussion about this, and Coates' discussion of it. The relevant quote is
Sometimes people delay marriage because they are searching for the perfect soul mate. But that view has it backward. Your spouse becomes your soul mate after you've made those vows to each other in front of God and the people who matter to you. You don't marry someone because he's your soul mate; he becomes your soul mate because you married him.Which I have a certain sympathy for, but I also think is kind of stupid. BOGF would have become my soulmate if we'd just tried harder? Really? All those people divorcing the knuckleheads they met and married in their teens should have just taken their vows more seriously? It's a premise that doesn't survive a moment's contact with the real world, like utopian notions of economics or international relations.
For the record, I think I could have had a successful marriage with my HS GF, but I thought she was my soulmate at the time, so that doesn't prove much. I've known other women I could probably have made a decent go with, but I wouldn't put money on longevity (15+ years) with any of them. And AB felt instantly like a soulmate (I was 27, she 30).
57, 58: Absolutely. It's a modern courtesy, and we should all be courteous, but I don't think it goes much beyond that.
There's two different threads where that wouldn't have been a thread jack if they hadn't been thread jacked already.
Anyway, I'm assuming Coates means that even if someone has soul-mate potential, you still have to work to become an actual soul mate. I don't think he's trying to say that just any two people can make themselves into each other's soul mates.
But I'm not going to read it to check.
62: That quote's from the original piece in Slate, by Julia Shaw. And, reading her piece, I'm not sure what else she means by those words. She's pretty emphatic on "marry first, let God sort 'em out."
61: I didn't see any obviously suitable OPs, so hell with it.
Despite the obvious evidence that I'm avoiding work, I'm not going to avoid work in that way. Maybe I'll go wash my hands in case somebody brings in a baby.
64.1: Oops. I won't assume she makes sense.
64.2: Technically, they apply only if you want to marry somebody from Princeton or of the same sex.
59: Yes, I saw that. I basically think TNC's post was good, the commenters were for the most part good, and the Slate woman is nuts. Perfectly true as far as it goes (=sometimes marrying young can work out), perfectly nuts when applied as a general rule.
There should be a word for the peculiar kind of blind spot created when a person has every opportunity to revise their beliefs based on reality, and yet does not. Impervious?
Frankly the whole concept of a "soul mate" is outrageously pagan. That's not how the soul works!
Scary child-raising moment of the day: A detailed series of well-rehearsed, ernest questions as to what would happen if various things were stuck into electric outlets.
Those pagans were romantic.
OK, I need three giant wicker men -- shut up, Larry, no one cares what Melissa said about "representation" and "equality"; if she wants to be in charge of this stuff she can start at the bottom and clean up the human sacrifices for a few years like I did -- and a couple of groves' worth of pitch. What? How the hell should I know? I thought you were watching the baby. Look, honey, I'm working right now. Where was I? Did I say pitch? Right, pitch. Chester and Clifford, you're on pitch duty. Because I'm the chief druid and I said so is why! [Sigh] Yes, dear? Yes, I borrowed your golden sickle. I have to cut some mistletoe later. I know. OK, honey. Will do. Yes, dear. You got it. [Sigh.] What? Don't you two have something to do? The next thing on my list is "Drown somebody in peat bog," if you don't have anywhere to be. Like my dad said, Time to lean, time to drown in peat. Anyway. Jennifer! How are we on those menstrual-blood-stained unleavened cakes? A gross, yes. Ha. Ha. Ha. You say that every time, Sol. Hey! Put that down! No! That's Daddy's special go-to-solstice mead. Bad! Not for babies! Thatcher, can you take these jokers through the rest of this list? I gotta see if my wife can watch the kid for a while before we wicker up. The rest of you, pay attention to Thatcher and oh for the love of our non-specifically natural pantheon of deities and godheads what the hell do you want, Mark? No, we're fresh out of mistletoe in these parts. Got plenty of peat. Need some peat?
Intriguing growing-up moment of the day: Father's answers to my well-rehearsed series of questions about electrical socket insertions were evasive and brusque. What exactly are he and Mother hiding about electrical sockets? Clearly, more research will be required, to be scheduled when both parents are indisposed.
I have this vague feeling normal person germs are probably good for (otherwise healthy, strong) babies to encounter, but this is entirely unfounded in any real science.
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Gah, I really thought that part of becoming a Real Scientist would be a lessening of the misery of reading things like NSF grant denials, and the associated reviews from anonymous colleagues. No such luck! Delurking to vent.
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73: "Dad: (laughing) There are actual monsters in the world, but when my kids ask I pretend like there aren't."
One of my favorites of all time.
Oh, Counterfly, I feel you. I hate reading all peer review comments, always.
The elevator thing strikes me as overwrought symbolism - good for fighting obesity, but not so critical for sustainability, inasmuch as elevators are one of the most energy-efficient means of conveying people on a joules per passenger kilometer basis.
Handwashing is supposed to be good to prevent the spread of disease generally, isn't it? Babies' immune systems are less mature. So why would this just be courtesy instead of common sense?
76: I recently got a grant (well, fellowship) review that sniffed that I should have had plenty of time to publish on my project already, even if I didn't have any data.
The discussion needs to support the hatred with reference to some of the results.
Oh, hey, speaking of threadjacking--although I guess not entirely?--do you have an email address I can reach you at, Sifu? I seem to recall you dissing Public bikes awhile back. If one wanted to spend $400-1000 on an upright-posture city bike, what's the right thing to get, then? Is Civia good? I did a test-ride of a Civia Twin Cities, and it was wonderful, but that's partly just a reflection of how everything about my current bike is slightly bad. Sorry if you already answered this earlier...
I just hear that public bikes are cheap and get creaky and fall apart-y quickly. Blume probably knows more about city bikes than I do at this point; I will hail her telepathically. For a grand you should be able to get something totally sweet, I'd think.
Civia bikes have a great reputation. You could check out the Green line from KHS bicycles, too. I don't know much about the Public bikes, but the Linus ones have the reputation of not wearing very well.
I have a belief that breast-fed babies are getting so many immunities from their mother that no one needs to worry about washing their hands. So I wonder if the courtesy of hand-washing is more than a courtesy insofar as you may not know if the baby is breastfed or not.
83: I think you'd be hard-pressed to spend more than a grand on a city bike, unless you're going for a Dutch bike.
This looks pretty dope. Disc brakes! Pretty nice tubing! 8 speed internal hub! Fenders and chainguard included!
Yeah, for $750 I could get a Civia 7-speed internal hub model; that's the one I test-rode, assuming it hasn't been taken yet. But after I mentioned this to my father, he bombarded me with links about SRAM i9 vs Shimano Alfine hubs, and belt-driven vs chains, and various slightly different geometries and gaaahh choices I can't deal with choices.
The other thing is that the whole point of a nice city bike would be to no longer have to worry about things going wrong--but if it's nice, I suddenly would have to start worrying about it being stolen.
The KHS seems like it might be a bit lighter, but that's not the biggest deal with a city bike (although y'all do have those hills). Shimano Alfine works fine. I'm sure the SRAM works fine, too. Geometry... well, did you like how it rode? Then that geometry seems fine.
I might not be the best person to ask about this, since my commuter bike is from 1972.
But that said, that KHS looks nifty to me.
Belt drives seem like a PITA to me. Also, if I were going for the KHS I'd probably go for the one a step down from the one Tweety linked, unless you're just really into disc brakes.
I guess it does rain a decent amount in SF, and there are big hills. Maybe you do want disc brakes.
Jammies is part of a daddy band. At rehearsal, people try to be helpful and help him set up his drums. This drives him nuts because they don't do it precisely right but he's too polite to say anything.
So he has taken 6 photos of the drums, set up correctly. Now he's laminating the photos. Next he's going to punch a hole in them, and attach them to a key ring to stay right in some drum-specific spot.
He's awesome, but seriously WTF.
Sifu:
I don't know anything about Seattle. I was just going by the article and that one of the goals of the building design was to demand physical exertion. Not every building in a city is going to be able to meet every need. But this one seems to go out of the way to make people walk more.
Oh, I didn't realize that the next step down KHS also had the nice steel. Yeah, that one is fine unless you're fired up about disc brakes.
Yes, I didn't have any intention of caviling at hand-washing whatever the medical opinion might be.
80 makes sense too.
Get the Worksman Urban Commuter Cruiser in safety orange. Comfortable riding posture, heavy duty frame, high visibility for safety. No rack, and it's only three speed, but you can retrofit a rack and more gears if needed. It's what I'd get if I was in the market for a bike and wasn't buying a recumbent.
I'd be okay with a social norm that we wash our hands before touching *anyone*. I am a nurses' kid, though, so would be OK with gloves and light veils for all.
I love my Townie many-speed, which is so upright it's actually a crypto-recumbent. (And therefore not super going up hills, although I've made it to MSRI above Berkeley.) Bike people do mock, though. Justly, I'm sure.
I am curious how much that bike in 101 weighs. I'm not obsessed with bike weight, but pretty much everything they mention in its description is something about how heavy it is.
Not every building in a city is going to be able to meet every need. But this one seems to go out of the way to make people walk more.
Yes. Unlike everything else built since about 1960, including gyms, which are designed to make us walk less. Do you believe that mean USian health and happiness wouldn't be improved by the occasional alternative?
But this one seems to go out of the way to make people walk more.
Well... yeah. Lots of things would be better if everybody (yes, okay, almost everybody) walked more.
Pwned, but I wanted to reiterate.
18
I think he's talking about the lack of parking spaces.
Hope you are feeling better.
105:
Do you think a building should be designed to make it more difficult for those who cannot walk as far and as easily?
106:
Sure. We can agree that the vast majority of people should walk more. Absolutely. Including taking the stairs.
We should spend money to make bike lanes everywhere. I agree with that as well. Biking to work should be encouraged.
79
The elevator thing strikes me as overwrought symbolism - ...
Like the theory that medicine is more effective if it tastes bad?
Turn the question around: do you think a building should be designed to make walking the default option? To that, I would say yes. Can that be done without making alternative options at least somewhat more difficult?
109: right! And, if the cost of making a building that encourages that is that people who can't take the stairs have to go twenty or so feet out of their way or whatever and use a keycard... what's the problem here?
I don't think that's what it was *designed for*. (One could do a much better job of that.) I think the building was designed *for* lower energy use and better employee health and happiness, that (As JRoth pointed out) that will involve compromises, and that they have adequate facilities for almost everyone who could possibly work there and can adapt for the rest.
I also know that that particular dense, hospital-rich, bus-served, mixed-economic neighborhood is full of people with impaired faculties of one kind or another who move there *because* pre-automobile cities allow them more independence than the auto-dependent suburbs do. The hundred-year-old pre-car buildings are wearing out (earthquakes, mostly). We need some new ones.
So like, the building that I work in has three elevators in banks at the front of the lobby, and then two stairwells, one accessible from the lobby, and one accessible from an outside door around back. I often take the stairs, but if I'm in a hurry I will generally default to just hitting the elevator button, because it's right there in front of me. If you were to reverse this pattern -- so the stairs were right there in front of you upon entry, and the elevator was down a short hallway off to the side, far more people would take the stairs (I would take them more often, I'm sure) and people who were unable to take the stairs would, in fact, be mildly inconvenienced. Would that be worth the cost?
The fact that were even allowed to build an office building without any onsite parking at all strongly suggests that the city considers the location an appropriate place to discourage automobile use. There are very few places in the US where you could get away with this.
111:
It is obviously a question of degree. How much more difficult are you willing to make it on those who cannot walk as well or as far? (I was going to point out pregnant women, but then I remembered a 8 month pregnant woman who ran past be in a 10k.)
I have an electric bicycle now. It makes biking much less of a chore, while still giving you some exercise (it doesn't boost unless you're pedaling) - so far thanks to it I've been biking to work every day possible, including in the rain. Especially recommended for SF living.
115: yep. Somebody tried to built an apartment building without on-site parking in our city (which is way over on the side of the curve where that might be possible) by offering to make lack of a car ownership a condition of sale of units, but they still couldn't get approval without adding an underground parking garage.
112, 114:
I agree completely with those examples.
Anyway, this building seems cool overall. To heebie's concern, obviously this one building isn't going to make much of a difference to global climate change or any other large-scale issues, but they seem to be explicitly trying to make it a model for other development, and if it catches on that could very well make a big difference. Building energy use is a huge portion of overall energy use, and raising standards for efficiency and conservation has a lot of potential as a way to reduce the energy intensity of modern industrial societies.
but then I remembered a 8 month pregnant woman who ran past be in a 10k
I passed a guy on the sidewalk tonight as I was on my way home from yoga, and he was not pleased! Dude was already muttering to himself before I passed him, but he got louder and somewhat indignant when he noticed he'd been passed by a pregnant lady.
Well I mean where do you think the elevator is? Across a spiked pit filled with pythons? It's just going to be around a corner or something.
I do wonder about heating, though, which wasn't mentioned in the article at all. Seattle's climate is pretty mild, but surely a building like this would need some sort of heating system, right?
123: maybe electric heat? On the website they mention that all the windows will open, which is rad.
I also wonder if those solar panels are actually going to produce enough electricity to offset what it pulls from the grid. On the other hand, the grid electricity is going to be pretty much all hydro-generated anyway, so in climate terms it doesn't really matter.
124: Maybe, but that only intensifies the concerns in 125.
The building photos say something about a geowell; seattle is a mild enough climate that they could potentially have geothermal that was sufficient, in which case they'd only need electricity to run the pumps.
They might get waste heat off the composting, for that matter, that they could redirect through the building when it's cold.
They will indeed have geothermal.
To open the front door you have to do 10 minutes on a bicycle powered generator.
Geothermal will be the building's only heat source.
129: Ah, okay, heat pumps make sense, and had crossed my mind as a possibility (as had heat from the composting).
It is apparently designed to a be a 250 year building. Neat!
The concrete is locally sourced and the rebar is recycled (and, since it's from Portland, presumably artisanal). That building's kinda rad!
134: And they're using radiant floor heating to distribute the heat, too.
Check out the radiant floor heating loops!
Wow, that's a shitload of photovoltaic.
It seems like they're doing that thing where you can dramatically reduce heating/cooling cost with an ultra-tight building envelope.
They aren't even hooking up to city water!
5% of the generated energy will go to heating.
Yeah, it's pretty amazing how much thought they've put into every aspect of it.
Did you read the thing about the building envelope? In order to keep to their local sourcing mandate they convinced the german manufacturer to license their technology to a US partner so now the US partner can supple the hyper-efficient envelope technology to other buildings in the US. Clever!
Did you read the thing about the building envelope? In order to keep to their local sourcing mandate they convinced the german manufacturer to license their technology to a US partner so now the US partner can supple the hyper-efficient envelope technology to other buildings in the US. Clever!
No, I hadn't read that part. That's a pretty creative way to take advantage of how far ahead Germany is with these sorts of techniques.
The green building I know best is this one, which in all honesty is pretty cool. It survived the most frustrating aspects of Quakerism (eg really slow decisionmaking) and wound up being a pretty widely recognized model. Plus, it's just a generally nice space to have meetings in.*
*And they supported Occupy, so there's that.
The other thing is that the whole point of a nice city bike would be to no longer have to worry about things going wrong--but if it's nice, I suddenly would have to start worrying about it being stolen.
Obviously the solution is to get a really nice fixie.
Why is that a solution? Still expensive, still targets for theft, no?
Tangentially related: This Request for Proposals from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation really walks a fine line between wise creativity and a paranoid person's worst nightmare. I admit to being curious about how it winds up being executed.
Relevant excerpt:
[The RWJ Foundation seeks proposals that] apply the principles and frameworks of behavioral economics to persistent and perplexing health and healthcare problems....
Through its Pioneer Portfolio program, RWJF expects to make approximately five awards of up to $200,000 each for two-year projects that test innovative solutions to the challenge of reducing the use of low-value services in health care -- those that provide more harm than benefit or which provide only marginal health benefits.
Projects that could fall under this category include experiments that vary the frame or structure of information or messaging to patients or providers in a way that might reduce the use of clinical services of low or questionable value; experiments that reflect or modify social connections or norms that might reduce the use of these services; or experiments that use choice architecture or financial incentives informed by techniques of behavioral economics to reduce the use of these services.
I actually have no idea what "choice architecture" means.
I actually have no idea what "choice architecture" means.
It means framing things carefully to influence decisions. (Like, do you require people to opt in or opt out of something, etc.)
141: Is that really saving much, what with economies of scale for municipal water?
Originally 152 read "Let me Cass Sunstein that for you", but I realized that doesn't actually make any sense.
155: Depends on what sort of treatment they have to do to it, I guess.
155: well, if the rainwater were being captured downstream it wouldn't be, but the points they make are that it's not -- it just gets polluted and runs into the sound -- and that Seattle has snowpack-fed water, which may be abundant at the moment but likely won't stay that way.
156: I sort of think of it as being Laibson's thing originally, but I couldn't figure out who coined the term.
158: Right. I suspect their main concern was with preventing stormwater runoff by keeping the water on-site and using it, and they figured out they would get enough water that way to not have to hook up to city water so they made that a marketing point.
I guess it does rain a decent amount in SF,
Maybe compared to Boston (the La Jolla of the east coast), but not enough to decisively influence brake choice.
Oh, right, Laibson. The guy I've actually heard talk about this stuff. Well, Sunstein should at least get credit for marketing, since his name is lodged in my brain in association with this and I had to remind myself who Laibson is.
152,154: Thanks. I should have been more clear. All I meant was "Please don't ask me to explain this concept or defend it; I don't even know what it is."
But it's interesting to know that it's apparently NOT about physical stuff at all. I thought it might have to do with colors/design elements that cue people to look at information in a certain way, but it sounds like not.
Sunstein's newest discovery. Heehee.
151: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is the good guys, and this area of research is hugely important. Every insurer and every provider at risk is all agog about "consumer engagement", but know one knows what works, so they try what they think works, and then when that fails, they say "We'll just have to crack the whip harder / make patients bear more financial penalties etc." The idea of this kind of research is to apply real scientific insights into human behavior to build better engagement programs. It is a generally a good thing and not to be feared, especially not when conducted under the aegis of the RWJF.
165: Thanks, that's helpful. The only part I know well of RWJ is their Clinical Scholars Program, but all of the people I have met through that have been outstanding (n=6 or so, I think).
The foundation of a wood johnson involves a great deal of careful sanding.
It's a shame the name wasn't Richard Wood Johnson.
and that Seattle has snowpack-fed water, which may be abundant at the moment but likely won't stay that way.
Actually that's not apparent at all. Last year and this year haven't been good snowpack years in the west but Seattle seems to doing fine.
Yeah, actually, I found their explanation that they weren't hooking up to city water because climate change might make Seattle run out of water kind of dubious. I mean, it could happen, but it's hardly obvious.
Which is why I think 160 is more likely their actual reasoning.
Once you start worrying about "Seattle runs out of water" scenarios you run into the "Seattle will probably be destroyed by an earthquake or volcano" issue.
Right. Can this building withstand an earthquake? I guess everything in Seattle must be required to, these days.
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I just booked my travel to DC. Arriving Friday morning, leaving midday Monday.
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So he has taken 6 photos of the drums, set up correctly
That's pretty anal, but I've seen worse. We opened for a band whose drummer sets up by first putting down a huge sheet of plywood, into which he has drilled screws that designate exactly where each separate piece goes. And, because the screws protrude by about an inch and a half all over the place on this sheet of plywood, it's basically impossible to move any one piece out of its designated spot (which is really annoying if you're the opening band's drummer and you want to move things around a bit, per the usual custom when sitting down at someone else's drumkit).
He also used roto-toms instead of normal toms, which I thought was...a choice consistent with his other weird-to-me choices.
I was very disappointed to read that roto-toms aren't a series of drums on a motorized belt that circles the drummer.
It was decided that National is the best choice to fly to, right?
I really thought Opinionated Pagan would get more traction. A sad case of overestimating the comedic potential of peat and human sacrifice. Again.
You've failed Opinionated, Flippanter. You have dishonored your family.
173: they talk about that some on the blog. Short form: sure, they think so, yes.
Seattle can get really big earthquakes. I'm kind of skeptical that they're building to Japan standards instead of California standards
Why are you skeptical about that?
There's nothing to be skeptical about: the people have spoken and they want more peat comedy! It's about time.
I thought the pagan thing was great. I just got interrupted and before I got back, things had moved on.
Seattle gets all its rain in winter, so can run out in late summer. Not as in `dry cracking earth', yet, but as in `prices have gone way way up because we need the rest of it for the fish'. Someday we'll get the `five hundred year fire' drought and that will be terrible.
And I expect the building standards are more Californian than Japanese, but earthquake mitigation is required, yes. My favorite story about that is at the University; they were afraid the original, lovely* reading room couldn't be reinforced without digging up other buildings or covering the windows. However, the original builders had planned a ludicrously huge tower addition; they didn't have the money to build it but they had put in the foundation. The library is, IIRC, now tied to this forgotten foundation and passes code again.
*Concrete cod-Gothic but it plays well in the provinces.
Local artisanal disaster o'choice might be Mount Rainier blowing and sending a boiling mud lahar over South Seattle, with earthquakes and a small tsunami to take down all the steep hills.
clew beats me to it on both points, but a) the PNW is really dry in the summer. Like, last summer in Portland we had a quarter inch of rain between the beginning of July and the end of September. And b) pyroclastic flows would be the top disaster scenario up there. They even have a lahar warning system. (Look at that map! Sucks to be you if you live in Tacoma, but if you live in Tacoma, it already sucks to be you.)
Lahars are pretty unlikely to hit Seattle, though Tacoma is screwed. It would take the mother of all eruptions to get to Seattle.
Strangely, it looks like global warming will lead to increased rainfall and is actually good for Seattle's water supply, though maybe not the residents.
The real danger is the earthquake. A subduction zone earthquake (magnitude > 8.5) is nearly guaranteed sometime in the next 2 centuries, but of course, no one can predict when.
178: Yes, National is easiest but BWI isn't too bad. Dulles is a PITA for the most part.
We're coming in Thursday night and leaving Tuesday in order to fit in some other D.C. socializing.
Dulles is a PITA for the most part.
And, of course, I'm flying in and out of Dulles -- but there weren't many options and that was the only flight that was at a decent time of day.
189 et al -- history shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men.
191: It's not really that bad; there's a bus to the Metro. Maybe folks who are using BWI and Dulles want to post their approximate arrival times on the board to see if it makes sense to coordinate ground transportation?
Oh damn, I'm flying in and out of Dulles, too.
I get in 11:30ish am, Friday morning, and fly out 8:30 am, Monday morning.
