Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

After roe, women are no longer free.

T R E 4 5 O N

Republicans do not pay their debts.

White supremacy is terrorism.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

I really should read my own blog.

… among the most cringeworthy communications in the history of the alphabet!

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

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63Comments

  5. 5.

    catclub

    They contain multitudes.

    Re: Sauna.
    There was a demo of insulating ceramic paint on a container home. That stuff seems to work awfully well.

  7. 7.

    Steve from Antioch

    They’re a terrible idea. Most have interiors that are treated with chemicals to prevent rust/rot and those chemicals off-gas. They’re hot in summer and cold in winter. It’s much easier to construct similar size dwellings from conventional materials.

  8. 8.

    Gimlet

    Dave Barry (open thread)

    In sports, the New England Patriots defeat the Seattle Seahawks 28-24 to win a Super Bowl marked by surprises

    The most surprising play comes at the end of the game, when the Seahawks, on second and goal with 26 seconds left and Marshawn Lynch, who is basically a UPS truck only harder to tackle, in the backfield, elect to throw a pass, which is intercepted. After the game Seattle Coach Pete Carroll defends his decision to pass. He is immediately hired as a strategic consultant by the Jeb Bush campaign.

  9. 9.

    joel hanes

    container homes

    Vitaly Chernobyl and Hiro Protagonist live in one, in meat space.

    Good EMP protection; lousy cell phone reception.

    Probably only a good choice in a dystopia.

  12. 12.

    PurpleGirl

    It’s an interesting concept, they can go minimal or fancy, less expensive or very expensive. The cost of the land is also a variable in the total price. Having lived on the third floor of three story building, there are ways to handle the heat issue and there are heat issues even in conventional building materials/construction.

  14. 14.

    Bill

    The plywood floors have to come out, as they are soaked in insecticides. The strength is in the corner posts, everything else is basically there to keep stuff from falling out. Don’t bury them, even partially. They can make excellent homes, with a lot of work, for fairly short money, if you don’t mind tight quarters. Stacking them up three high and cantilevered out from each other is fun, and can make for some interesting patio and balcony spaces, with all sorts of possibilities for stairs and railings.

    That said, I’d be going timber frame and structural insulated panels on slab if I was building tomorrow. Mini-split ductless heat pumps for heat/AC, with a wood stove for supplemental heat.

    Check out greenbuildingadvisor.com for some ideas.

  16. 16.

    geg6

    Been watching HGTV again?

    Seen some cute ones on there and what I know of them is that, with some investment, can work quite well if you can stand the lack of space and the fact that it will always look like a container, no matter how you paint it or add on a deck or whatever. I wouldn’t want a container home, but I am intrigued by the notion of a tiny home, should I find myself suddenly alone for the duration. I’d probably go more for the cottage or cabin style though. And no loft, except for storage or guests. I’m too fucking old to climb a ladder to bed every night.

  20. 20.

    NotMax

    Also less costly are straw bale houses. The gallery at that link includes some darn good-looking examples.

    Article about one such amateur, rather rustic house built as a class project, and a .pdf file with more detail and pictures covering the construction and demolition of the structure.

  21. 21.

    PurpleGirl

    @NotMax: I know someone who had one built. Haven’t corresponded with the person for many years but I remember him sending out a letter about the project. I’ve tried to look it up on the web and haven’t found it. I’ll look at your with the hope that he is mentioned. (It would be nice to know how the project worked out for him.)

  24. 24.

    geg6

    @efgoldman:

    Make the best holiday you can with the Mrs. You’re like my Jewish friend, Jo, who loves the girlfriend Christmas luncheon we have at my sister’s place every year (yes, my sisters are also some of my girlfriends). She enjoys all of it, the food, the music, the decorations, the presents. All the girlfriends get small gifts for each person, this year it was ornaments. She said she loved buying the ornaments, something she’d never done before. And she also loved getting ornaments and was touched that we all were diligent about getting her an ornament she could hang anywhere in her house at any time of year because they were very nondenominational and not in-your-face Chrisrmas-y. For instance, I got her a metal heart that had a “Peace” cut out hanging from a white ribbon. She said this year’s party was her favorite.

  26. 26.

    redshirt

    @efgoldman: Not enough time, actually. I still have to go into the world on a weekly basis.

    Chickadees are the best birds. So friendly, so brave, so accommodating. Did you know other birds follow chickadee flocks around? Makes sense, since they are so awesome.

  27. 27.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @efgoldman:

    @efgoldman:

    oh, the music

    I don’t know whether you listened to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge earlier today (I think most NPR stations aired it live, and many are doing a rebroadcast tomorrow), but there was one carol that absolutely chilled me to the marrow of my bones.

    It was commissioned this year and plays on the parallel of Syrian refugees and the holy family. The order of service gives the text, by Hungarian poet George Szirtes, set to music by a composer I don’t know at all, named Richard Causton. Go to the link and scroll to page 37 for the words. I will be listening closely tomorrow, and following along. This song gave me goosebumps and brought me to tears. Chilling and beautiful. And challenging — which is perhaps not something we expect from Christmas carols.

  30. 30.

    Jay Noble

    A container would be narrower than a standard mobile home (8ft. vs 10ft.) and limited to 40 ft. in length. BUT it would be immensely stronger than a trailer! Insulation? Many mobile homes don’t have any either – think Texas. If you have the land to plunk one down, and the time and skills to do the conversion, it could be a darn inexpensive option!

  31. 31.

    debbie

    @efgoldman:

    That being said, for a Jewish atheist I really like Xmas a lot:

    Me too. I have a tabletop tree festooned in blue and white lights and a strand of holly lights draped over a doorway. One of my favorite things for the holidays is listening to this each Christmas Eve Day.

    I had to postpone Christmas cookie baking, but I still intend to do the baking at some point in the bleak winter.

  35. 35.

    catclub

    @efgoldman: I was listening to Bach’s Christmas oratorio. I was somewhat disturbed by all the parts that it shares with the St Matthew Passion, also much of the mood.

    This makes sense with Bach, after a bit of thought, but was still jarring for me.

  37. 37.

    redshirt

    @Elmo: Love it. It does sound like Cheeseburger.

    I’m not sure my chickadees make the same song. I’m going to check.

    They make so many noises. When grouped in a few trees they make a very quiet “bur-ble-bur-ble” kind of chirp, very deep pitched compared to their other noises. They’re clearly talking to each other, and I wish I knew what they were saying.

    I hope it’s “Wow this is the good life. Endless sunflower seeds. “

  39. 39.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    Disneyworld’s early “resort hotels” were kinda-sorta built using containers. Wikiville.

    There are various regulations regarding using containers as housing, of course. E.g. HUD:

    I would like to convert shipping containers into homes. Can they be listed or sold as manufactured housing?

    All manufactured homes are built to the Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards, 24 CFR Part 3280. Manufactured homes are transported in one or more sections on a permanent chassis and display a red certification label on the exterior of each transportable section.

    Shipping containers that are converted into housing units are subject to state and local building codes like modular and site-built homes. Converted shipping containers cannot be accepted as a HUD-code manufactured home unless they are provided with a permanent chassis and are transported to the site on their own running gear and otherwise comply with all HUD Standards and Regulations for manufactured homes.

    You might get better answers if you tell us more about why you’re asking. ;-)

    HTH.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  40. 40.

    PurpleGirl

    For several years a friend and I went to two different churches for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services. We picked the churches by the music we thought we would hear. Many times we went to St. Peter’s Lutheran and St. Thomas Episcopal. St. Thomas Church has a choir school of long standing and does some great choral music during Advent and for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Their service of Lessons and Carols is beautiful and they do a full high Episcopal service.

  41. 41.

    SiubhanDuinne

    We seem to have gone astray from the Container Homes topic and more into Christmas music, but that’s fine because it gives me the excuse to post (or repost) one of my favorite amusements this time of year: Sing the words to any one of the following Christmas carols to the music of any of the others:

    While shepherds watched their flocks by night
    It came upon the midnight clear
    O little town of Bethlehem
    Joy to the world, the lord has come
    God rest ye merry, gentlemen

    …or any other hymn tunes/carols listed under 8.6.8.6 in the metrical index.

    My personal favorite is singing the words of “O little town of Bethlehem” to the tune of “Joy to the World.” But you may find other good combinations.

  42. 42.

    PurpleGirl

    @SiubhanDuinne: Imagine singing The First Noel to the tune of Honky Tonk Women. In college, one of the groups I hung out with was the Newman Club at the Catholic Center. One year the Newman Club was asked to sing at Christ Eve midnight mass. John Messi was a music major and he worked on the menu of songs we would sing. When we had our first rehearsal and Billy B began the intro cords for Noel a bunch of us realized what John had done and we fell on the floor. But it worked. Christmas Eve after service I was the Ladies’ Room and I overheard some women talking about the singing. They thought we had used a Beatles tune!

  44. 44.

    PurpleGirl

    @Pogonip: What is recommended the4se days is to paint the roof white instead of black or dark green. White will reflect the sunlight while the dark colors will soak up the sun and heat. In the winter you’re running heat anyway so the roof color doesn’t matter quite so much. When I lived at home my inclination was to run the air conditioners most of the day, which my father saw as too expensive power wise. You could also keep the window shades or blinds drawn so as to let in much sunlight.

  46. 46.

    srv

    All the alternatives presume you have unlimited time and have skills. I’ve helped with straw bale and all that. Not any faster than conventional building.

    If you want quality, and fast, then any decent prefab/alternative is still going to cost you $100-150/sqft excluding land, permits, foundation, plumbing/septic, electrical and all that. That market is all still boutique and they charge for it.

    Container-scale makes sense if you’re 10 or a small person. Walls are the cheapest part of any house, so you aren’t saving any money going with Chinese steel.

  47. 47.

    Ruckus

    @Elmo:
    Good HS friend’s dad lived in Mammoth and we’d go up and stay, say over xmas holidays or a couple of weeks in the summer. That was around 50 yrs ago so I’m pretty sure his dad is long gone and my friend ODed on heroin 20+ yrs back. But it was lots of fun before it started to be built up a bit.

  48. 48.

    Adam L Silverman

    I live in one in Iraq for about a month when working out of COP Carver. I don’t recommend it. I had a regular CHU at FOB Hammer that was my assigned quarters.

  50. 50.

    Ruckus

    JC
    Looked into building one for a friend 3 yrs ago and found that as he already does construction as a general contractor there really is not a lot of cost savings and as others have said you really are limited to sizes. That said if you aren’t a general contractor you’ll most likely have to pay someone to do much of anything anyway so the material is/can be cheaper. But there are issues, as others have mentioned, heat/cooling/insulation, inside needs to be finished and that loses space. Ideal for a small house is two 40 ft high cubes. Enough floor space for a small family, and if plan a roof with say solar panels you can space them apart or even have a setback on one unit for a bit of pzazz.

  51. 51.

    J R in WV

    I have helped build a straw-bale home, and actually trucked half the straw bales onto the site. I mixed most of the stucco that was sprayed on the straw walls to waterproof the straw inside and out. Others worked to build a timber frame to support the roof and stiffen the walls. It’s a two story home about 24×48 feet. It replaced a friend’s log cabin that was destroyed in a chimney fire some years earlier.

    I also have friends in Arizona who have a very similar home – theirs is more formal looking, with flatter walls and steel frame with structural insulated panels used for the roof. The stucco on this home is hand troweled rather than sprayed on, and seems thicker and stronger.

    Both are way totally insulated, important in WV for the winter cold and summer heat. In Arizona the summer heat is more important, and the straw-bale house stays pretty tolerable all year, with wood stove heat in the winter. The WV home has gas heat, as well as lots of solar warming.

    I decided to go with structural insulated panels on a poured pad in AZ. The walls are 6″ styrofoam with Oriented-strand boards on both sides, and R-value around 38, while the roof panels are polyurethane foam inside OSB top and bottom, for R-42 insulation. We use a tiny wood stove at bedtime to warm things up for the night. Sometimes I put extra sticks in at 3 or 4 am if its a colder than usual night at 5500 feet in the foothills of the Dragoon Mountains.

    I’ve built with all kinds of technologies, and SIPs are the best. We started with bare dirt and were under roof in less than 3 months with 4 guys. Now, it took two more 3 month winter building seasons to get the interior walls up, wiring and plumbing done, and a pretty traditional kitchen installed, but that’s not a lot of time. A tiny propane heater will keep the building warm, if you don’t care to cut and burn wood.

    Containers are appealing, as you have a weatherproof structure nearly instantly. You do need to be careful about picking a good container, and there’s a lot of work after getting the containers placed. But it is quick, if you can deal with regulatory stuff OK. Where I’ve built, the regulatory issues are pretty minor but for septic service, which needs to be well done anyway.

    I hope everyone has a nice Xmas Eve this evening, and that the tornadoes are over for the duration. When was the last time we had tornado Xmas, anyway? Year before last I guess, since weather doesn’t change!

    We aren’t doing anything fancy, just going to stir fry left over rice with onions and peppers cherry tomatoes and shrimp. Then tomorrow I have pork chops, and the left over pot roast I did yesterday. Maybe visit with neighbors a little, or not. As neighbors, they’re there mostly any time, and life is better for that.

    Ho, Ho, Ho.

    Years ago a coworker and I went to lunch in mid December. Stan was really blonde as a young man, and by now, he was white haired with a good white beard. For some reason he wore a darker pink sports coat that day. After we ate, while he was at the cash register, a tiny girl asked me if I would tell Santa what she wanted for Xmas! I asked her “Why do you think I can help with that, honey?” and she looked over at Stan and looked back at me as if to say “DO you think I’m STUPID?! He’s right over there, in a red coat with his white hair and beard!!! And you have a beard too!”

    So I looked back at her, and her Mom, and said “Oh, my! You caught us! That’s a first this year! What do you want for Christmas? I’ll be sure to tell him exactly what you need!” And I was sure to see that her Mom heard her short list. It was all I could do to not roll on the floor laughing. Stan wasn’t as amused as I was, maybe because he didn’t think of himself as fat and jolly? Mom was having a time controlling her holiday humor too~!!

    Merry Christmas all!

  52. 52.

    RAM

    Employees at my daughter’s company donate to fill shipping containers with bicycles, and then send them over to Africa. The containers also include a complete suite of bicycle repair and maintenance tools so that when the containers reach their destinations, they can be turned into bicycle repair shops after training locals to be the repair staff. So maybe you could open a bike repair shop in one? Thurston looks like a bike-chasing maniac.

  55. 55.

    The Sailor

    I lived in container home off shore when I worked on helicopters in the Gulf of Mexico. It was OK, but we had unlimited power.

    I recommend a sailboat.

  62. 62.

    Nancy

    @joel hanes: I’ve read that book bunches of times, but never made the connection when I think about container homes. Snowcrash is a great book as are all Neal Stephenson.

  63. 63.

    ribber

    Seems like a great idea but not a good reality. Think about all the services you need to have going through a hole in the structure: Heating, cooling, windows, ventilation, plumbing, electrical conduits. Getting those holes through corrugated steel plate vs. getting those holes through plywood, studs, siding, etc. The great benefit of shipping containers is the complete seal and the overbuilt structure for dynamic (moving) loads, and both of those advantages are gone as soon as you’re putting holes in it (the latter with the windows). Steel is the worst material for thermal losses and gains. Dead flat roof structure that needs to be built up to pitch for drain. Where do you run the pipes and cables? Still need concrete footings. The only other big advantage is that you start with instant space on-site instead of the multi-step process of floor-sheathing-wall framing- roof framing-sheathing to get to the same point, but basically you can get the same time benefit with pre-fab conventional construction materials. There’s a reason they are really only get utilized for the high-end expensive concept folks or the bottom end gotta-do-something utilitarian storage needs.

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