Michigan, The New American Capital of… Weed?
Rollin’ down the Lodge, smokin’ indo, sippin’ that duly-regulated cannabis beverage. Laid back, with our minds on our excise tax revenue and our excise tax revenue on our minds.
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Author: Nat M. Zorach
A Smart Speaker With ChatGPT, or, The Alexa We Were Promised
The introduction of the Amazon Echo in 2014 promised to transform the domestic experience forever. It’s barely usable. Where is ChatGPT?
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DeSantis, 1: Florida Law Enforcement: $200 Million In The Hole
Ron DeSantis’ ill-advised effort to purge the state of Chinese-made drone technology has had an unexpected effect on law enforcement and state agencies, who own hundreds of millions of dollars worth of technology that is now prohibited by state law.
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MI Healthy Climate Conference: Is It A New Day In Michigan?
I wrapped up a couple of days at the MI Healthy Climate conference. We talked about decarbonization, public health, and innovation. We even got to see some eBikes!
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Radiators Vs. Forced Air: Who Will Triumph In Efficiency?
A recent Twitter debate prompted me to think about whether we can’t come up with a better metric to compare the efficiencies of heating systems using radically different methods of thermal transfer. As you can probably guess, there is a better way– but it’s not easy to figure out.
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Why Regulating Methane, Not CO2, Is Key to Climate Policy
Carbon dioxide is often the bad guy in the climate change debate. But methane– mostly from anthropogenic sources- is a far more potent greenhouse gas. And, unlike carbon dioxide, methane emissions are virtually all a product of waste (rather than the product of combustion from, say, burning a gas like methane). Reduce waste = reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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What IS An Ozone Action Day, Anyway?! I Thought We Fixed The Ozone!
Summer has arrived early in Michigan (woo hoo, climate change!) and we’ve already braved not one, but two– count ’em- ozone action days. A little bit more about what these are and why we should pay attention.
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I asked Midjourney To Imagine The Ideal City. It Was… Weird.
Shortly after beginning my foray into the world of Midjourney AI, I came to a not terribly surprising revelation: A
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Disposable Vape Pens, The Next E-Waste Nightmare
Once upon a time, you bought weed in a back alley and would smoke cigarettes only to carry the stench with you for days. These days, pot is legally sold in what looks like the Apple Stores, and tobacco comes in a quick-dissipating haze that tastes like popsicles and fits in your pocket as a disposable vape pen. What could go wrong, right? Well, a couple of things, it turns out.
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Fake News, Faux Progress: The Last Time The Mainstream Media Fought Progress and Civil Rights
The media has been responsible for perpetuating a lot of regressive ideas by giving even passing mention of them, in a lot of cases. Even before the present day of Trump and Alternative Facts, in the 1950s and 1960s, there was plenty of complaining about the Civil Rights movement by mainstream news media.
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