patrick.net

skibum,

You mentioned your (and your generation's) disinterest in McMansions. I should think developers, architects, general contractors would be interested to know what you and your peers want in the way of living arrangements.

Certainly I am curious.

I like this:

http://www.mkd-arc.com/whatwedo/breezehouse/index.cfm

But I don't know if this aesthetic is very mainstream.

skibum,

That aesthetic is certainly very popular on this blog. I like shipping contain conversions myself, they're probably quite safe during an earthquake and no termite issues.

I don’t want in any way to steer the conversation back towards politics but it’s important for me to challenge DS’s article about the British deserter (b/c that’s what he is) Ben Griffin.

Ben is a “boot camp” ok? He’d been in Her Majesty’s Army for every bit of two years. He’d been “in country” for all of 3 months! So accounting for “in-processing”, immunizations, outfitting and indoctrination this kids seen what? A week at the front?

Not to thrash this, but it's very clear from the article and the post that Ben Griffin is a member of the most elite arm of the British Army, and has done 8 years sevice. The SAS is roughly equivalent to the Seals. I know some Australian SAS, and they are always going at 150% -- able to survive anywhere, etc. They are selected as the creme de la creme of fitness and aptitude, and are invested in very heavily. The Australian SAS is the only regiment to serve in combat Iraq at present.

I have a lot more comments to make about ethics, morality, blindly 'obeying orders' and the trigger-happy reports that I pasted into the Iraq thread on patrick.net quite some time ago, where the British commanders in Iraq (6% of presence) were very alarmed at the trigger-happy nature of US troops (92%), who were killing many innocent families and individuals over time, e.g. just shooting individuals in cars, shooting people walking after curfew, air strikes wiping out family homes, and so on. One Iraqi royal family who were actually friendly to the US were wiped out in one particular 'mistaken' airstrike. You are making enemies for life and sowing the seeds of even more terrorism, where it didn't even exist before. The last thing you do is piss off a Middle Easterner. Winning hearts and minds in the interests of democracy, not the bidding of an administration top-heavy with oil executives and neocons and similar vested interests. I see how it works...

I would point out that the British fared a lot better in the south of Iraq as an occupying force than the US troops in the north regarding 'insurgency' attacks, due to at least pretending to be interested in their welfare, and being a more decent professional bunch overall, unlike the US army comprised mostly of mercenearies and virtual conscripts drawn from an impoverished working class and underclass from smalltown America.

@SP,

Indeed, if you walk around the town graveyards in some of the older towns in VT, NH, Mass, etc., there are piles and piles of gravestones with the same surname with dates from the 18th century to the present.

Charleston families tend to stay for generations as well. A member of one of them told me, "It's not as if we don't travel, but this is home."

As a side note, that article reads like it was written by a ninth grader: too many grammatical and spelling errors to even count

There are a lot of grocer's apostrophes, missing quote marks and commas, and even missing words. maybe it's the new approximate 'phonetic spelling' they are teaching. what next, people will stop capitalising properly before long...

It's 2 years till the next federal election.

That's 2 years that they'll ratchet up the misery index to make us think that we will want the Republicans to return to power.

I noticed that the day after the election ended, the Rotten Robbie by my house increased 87 octane back from $2.34 to $2.39, and then today it was increased again to $2.49. On election eve Monday, it was $2.29.

Fed policy, gasoline prices, etc., to increase the Misery Index for the next two years portend two more years of bad news in the housing market.

skibum,

I took an in-depth look of MK designs before, I have to say that aesthetics aside, you don't get much cost savings, if any, from such a prefab. Her materials sound "environmental" but in reality, they are just inexpensive, slate counter top (not that I care for granite), bamboo floor, IKEAish cabinets... Nothing wrong with that, I am all for being environmental, as long as the price tag is friendly enough to my pocket as well. MK uses this Canadian prefab factory called Maple homes, you can go take a look of their website, and since they have a higher volume with their traditional styles, the quotes are more reasonable than prefab modern homes like MK's design.

Currently her design for such a house on a flat piece of land is around 210/sf, but if you have a challenging topography, then the cost escalates pretty fast. I was told that for a house of 1700 sft with a bit upgrade, you are pretty much looking at $450K in the Bay Area, land and permit aside. I believe that you can get a custom built home for around $200/sf nowadays if you are not going nuts with upgrade. That's why I question her price point for a non-custom, prefab home.

However, she definitely represents a healthy force to make modern homes more affordable to the mass. I guess she will need a few more early adopters to bring the price down to meet the mass.

OO,
Do you recommend any other prefab modernist architects?

Different Sean, here is where I agree with you. Your assessment of our troops are consistent with our behavior in WW1,2, Korea, Viet Nam. In WW2 in particular we had untrained, unprofessional troops (ie cooks in the frontlines), summary executions, prisoner executions, highest awol rate of all major armies, highest rate of STD's, mass rapings, targeting civilian populations with atomic and incendiary bombs, pillaging of villagers food and valuables. Yet not a single death sentence carried out post WW2. Why would our behavior be different in Iraq?