Down Time
Posted: December 30, 2011 Filed under: Site maintenance Leave a comment »Regular blogging will resume next week.
#Phish: Declining Gross Revenues but a Good 2011
Posted: December 29, 2011 Filed under: Artists Leave a comment »Pollstar is out with their year-end ranking of the top grossing music acts. On the North American list, Phish was 21st, with $28.5 million. That’s down 23 percent from Pollstar’s tally of $37.2 million for Phish in 2009, although still a pretty good haul.
Last year, Billboard assumed artists net 34 percent of total box office. So, assuming that those margins are the same this year–and that Pollstar’s numbers are in the right ballpark–Phish would have netted around $9.7 million from live performances in 2011.
UPDATE, 12/30: Post revised substantially this morning. Sorry, sloppy blogging.
Five Times Higher
Posted: December 28, 2011 Filed under: Environment, Technology Leave a comment »Governments play an important role in fostering innovation and supporting the scaling up of deployment of existing and emerging technologies in the energy sector, since many low-carbon technologies currently are more costly than fossil fuels, although their costs are declining. In fact, to achieve a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions, government funding for research and development in low-carbon technology needs to be two to five times higher than current levels.
Around the U.S. in Seven Minutes, with a Phish Soundtrack
Posted: December 27, 2011 Filed under: Listening, Transportation, Videos Leave a comment »H/T to YEMBlog for this one.
Down Time
Posted: December 23, 2011 Filed under: Site maintenance Leave a comment »Regular blogging will resume next week.
Long Way to Go
Posted: December 22, 2011 Filed under: Transportation Leave a comment »From a nice item at Next American City:
By 2020, China is projected to have spent $300 billion on high-speed rail and to have a 16,000-mile network. By then, Spain is projected to have spent $100 billion and to have a 6,200-mile network. In the United States, comparable figures are harder to determine because the fate of high-speed rail is more uncertain, but projections are that by 2014, we might have spent over $12 billion and have one 800-mile north-south line in California. We have a long way to go to catch up.
This is a Good Day
Posted: December 21, 2011 Filed under: Environment, Videos, Washington Leave a comment »
How Times Have Changed
Posted: December 20, 2011 Filed under: Books, Environment, Washington Leave a comment »The End of Energy, page 220:
The Clean Air Act passed the Senate in September 1970 by a vote of 73 to 0.
Here’s to Classy Cabs for D.C.
Posted: December 19, 2011 Filed under: Transportation, Washington 1 Comment »I was just grumbling about D.C.’s taxi hodgepodge. It turns out this is a bigger issue in the city than I had realized. The Washington Post reports on a bill unveiled today:
The mayor, not the Taxicab Commission, would be charged with deciding whether cabs should be a single color and which color that should be. All cabs will also have “an emblem symbolizing the flag of the District of Columbia”; taxi companies would be allowed to have an unique insignia on their cabs. The deadline would be one year from enactment.
We’re not just talking about credit-card readers and GPS here. The law would digitize record keeping within a year, mandating devices that send trip data to the commission in real time and “can record and report all fares and earnings for tax purposes.” Expect big time pushback from the cab industry on this; it means real financial accountability for the first time.
I’m a Sucker for Chorus, Part XVII
Posted: December 18, 2011 Filed under: Recording Leave a comment »GarageBand noodling:
camerabag photo 1000
