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☆ Why Blackouts, Power Outages Are Becoming More Common
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Taylor Dorrell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +14 min

Power outages have increased 64% from the early 2000s, and weather-related outages — many driven by the worsening climate crisis — have increased 78%. A record-breaking blizzard in Buffalo, New York, this winter caused power outages throughout the city, resulting in the deaths of 47 residents. In 2021, a heat wave led to power outages and the deaths of hundreds in the Pacific Northwest. While regional organizations might use fees to penalize companies for power outages, it's now much harder to pinpoint and hold a person or entity responsible. In the meantime, the climate crisis will continue to wreak havoc on an aging grid system that puts profits over reliability.

☆ Companies that mine copper are making plans to go green so they can help the rest of the world do the same
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Catherine Boudreau | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The plans call for using renewable electricity sources to reduce the industry's carbon footprint. Broader use of these technologies could also help shrink the copper industry's carbon footprint. "A lot of these technologies do exist," Anthony Lea, the president of the International Copper Association, told Insider. "There are prototype vehicles out there, so it's going to take a dialogue between mining companies and equipment manufacturers. Lea said the climate strategy can help show the public, policymakers, and investors that copper mining can expand in a responsible way, which can help attract investment.

☆ The 10 Best Wayfair Deals to Shop This Presidents Day
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( ) www.wsj.com time to read: +5 min

By Madeline DiamondPlenty of Presidents Day deals are live right now at Wayfair. Keep reading for our top picks from Wayfair‘s Presidents Day sale; we’ll be updating throughout the week to help you stay on top of the latest deals. They’re all on sale right now, but the best deal is on the rose gold version, which is currently discounted to just $80. A comfortable desk chair (that isn’t an eyesore) is a great place to start, especially while standout options are on sale for Presidents Day. Plus see our guide for more tips on shopping for an ergonomic desk chair.

☆ A Theoretical Physicist Wanted His Seattle Home Devoid of Curves. ‘It’s The Influence of Linear Algebra on Me.’
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Nancy Keates | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

On the surface, the some $1.8 million renovation of Dave Bacon and Cindy Wood Bacon’s Midcentury Modern home in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle was pretty straightforward: updating the kitchen, opening up the main living space and changing finishes. A closer look reveals a much more unusual project, dictated primarily by the character of its owner.

☆ The gravity-defying space-age 'Garcia House' in Los Angeles just hit the market for $16 million. The home is suspended more than 60 feet above a cliff and has an outdoor pool. Take a look inside.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Robert Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Architecture firm Marmol Radziner, which specializes in restoring midcentury modern homes, renovated the home in 2003. The preservation project included adding stained walnut cabinetry and a sliding glass door that opens up the living room. Roger DaviesThe home was originally designed for composer Russell Garcia and his wife Gina, according to Vogue Australia. It took the firm about 12 months to fully preserve the home. "Our goal was never to do a slavish restoration, but to create something that maintained the spirit of Lautner's work and also made sense for the 21st century," Radziner told the magazine.

☆ See how a millennial transformed a dull 1960s bungalow into a lavish Georgian mansion dripping in one-of-a-kind antiques that hosts boudoir photo shoots for $200 an hour
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Zoe Rosenberg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Emmanuel Hébert grew up in a tiny Montreal bungalow that he has transformed into a Georgian mansion. See the renovation step-by-step, and why people rent the finished home for titillating photo shoots. Hébert is an online antiques dealer who decided to forgo a traditional storefront and transform his home into a staging ground for his business. He said he's had a handful of rap music videos filmed there, as well as many boudoir-style photo shoots. See how the home went from its drab beginnings to being a showpiece mansion with a one-of-a-kind style.

☆ Is This the ‘It’ Chair of 2023? Interior Designers Think So
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Antonia Van Der Meer | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

AN UNFUSSY and downright brutish, midcentury vintage chair design has been muscling its way into even the most traditional of homes lately. Some look like little more than two pieces of wood attached to legs, but keyhole details or sculpted backs can make them sweeter. Designers and dealers are calling the increasingly in-demand seats, which hail primarily from Scandinavia and Europe, brutalist. At online marketplace 1stDibs , searches for “brutalist chair” are up 115% year over year. “I used it as a decorative accent, as though it were a piece of art,” she said.

☆ They Wanted a Versatile One-Bedroom in Chicago for About $200,000. Which Option Did They Choose?
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Carisa Crawford Chappell | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

After their son was accepted into Columbia College in Chicago last year, Brian McCutcheon and Donna Sink started looking for ways to cut down on expenses and make everyone’s life easier. A campus housing policy had kept Angus McCutcheon, now 19, in a dorm as a freshman, but the couple hoped they could find him a new living arrangement for his sophomore year. Angus was excited to be able to choose his home and wanted to be close to campus, restaurants and shops. “I’m a fan of natural light.”The family connected with Daniel Eirinberg of eXp Realty, who agreed that Printers Row would be ideal. “You’ve got good train access and a bunch of great little cheap and delicious food choices that cater to the college students,” he said.

☆ How a millennial transformed his childhood home into a maximalist Georgian mansion that he rents out for nearly $200 an hour for photo and video shoots
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-24 | by ( Zoe Rosenberg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Emmanuel Hébert grew up in a small Montréal house that he has transformed into a Georgian mansion. He also rents it out for $184 an hour and uses the funds to further renovate the mansion. The living room of Manoir Blackswan in its full glory, dripping in antique chandeliers Hébert sells through his antiques business. Emmanuel HébertThe mansion is Hébert's home, where he's raising his 5-year-old son, Romeo, as well as a showroom for his antiques business. On Instagram, nearly 10,000 people follow Manoir Blackswan — what he calls the mansion — and 13,700 people follow his antiques business.

Insider's experts choose the best products and services to help make smart decisions with your money (here’s how). I'm not worried about the recession because it feels like I've been practicing for years. Neither of us have family to depend on financially; in fact, we support my partner's family abroad. Ever since, I've bought the vast majority of our kid's clothes secondhand, and this child is never lacking in style. The night we were too broke for a hotel and lucked into a camping spot on a Big Sur riverbank.

As of Friday morning, Erie County, home to Buffalo, has seen three feet of snow in areas like Orchard Park, 33 inches of snow in Hamburg and about 19.5 inches in southeast Buffalo. The "historic" winter storm is bringing what is known as lake-effect snow, which occurs when arctic air races across the relatively milder waters of the Great Lakes. Kathy Hochul did the same for 11 counties in the western and the northwestern parts of the state near Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Erie County issued a driving ban, including the southern part of Buffalo, according to a tweet from Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz. A recent study used a regional climate model to investigate these changes in lake-effect snow if the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions continues.

☆ The Day the Sun Rose Twice: A Tour of Atomic New Mexico
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Nina Burleigh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

About an hour southeast of the Trinity Site, I reached Three Rivers Petroglyph site, the largest rock art site in the Southwest. Around 600 years ago, the Jornada Mogollon people etched 21,000 images of flora and fauna, people and crypto-beasts into the basaltic rubble along the foothills of the Sacramento. Alamogordo is 15 minutes east of the White Sands National Park, 275 square miles of gypsum dunes that form one of the world’s most breathtaking natural wonders. The park is open to camping and hiking for a $25 fee. After a breakfast of Hatch green chile eggs (a word to the wise: pack the Pepcid), I drove an hour west on U.S. 70 to the White Sands Missile Range Museum, just inside the gate to White Sands Missile Range.

Organizations: White, cumulus, Trinity, White Sands, Missile, Museum Locations: Alamogordo, New Mexico, Sacramento, Rivers, Mexico, U.S

☆ Seeking a Manhattan Studio With Design Potential for $600,000. Which Option Did He Choose?
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( Stefanos Chen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Nothing excites Eric Wong like the thrill of the hunt — usually in the clearance section of a West Elm outlet store. “I get high as hell on a deal,” Mr. Wong, 42, said of his best finds at the interior-design chain. “He’s basically furnished his whole apartment with West Elm stuff,” said his sister, Elke Wong. “I still love them, so hard,” Mr. Wong said of his erstwhile coworkers. Mr. Wong wanted something centrally located, but also fun for a bachelor.

☆ New England Cozy Meets L.A. Chic in a Charming California Home
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( Antonia Van Der Meer | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

When Jack Donaldson and Julia Bredrup bought a 1920s house in the Mar Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles, it came with a lot of sunlight but not much warmth. In searching for an emotional back story to inform its new décor, Mr. Donaldson, a screenwriter, and his wife couldn’t help but draw from their meet-cute at Middlebury College in Vermont. When they hired local interior designer Stefani Stein, the shared goal was to inject understated New England style into the more refined L.A. life they live now. “It was a great fit,” said Ms. Stein, who happily brought this mashup-design script to life: “I love the juxtaposition of raw and relaxed with elegance.”“Home to me is midcentury Vermont, but I recognize that is not what a Southern California house should be,” said Mr. Donaldson, whose wife grew up in Chicago. He knew not to ask for mudrooms and green plaid, but Ms. Stein indulged his craving for New England by suggesting organic materials, woods that would show use and unique crafted touches designed to remind the couple of being back East.

☆ Alaska cancels snow crab season, threatening key economic driver
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Evan Bush | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

For the first time, crews in Alaska won't be braving ice and sea spray to pluck snow crab from the Bering Sea. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game canceled the snow crab season earlier this week after a catastrophic population crash of the sizable crustaceans. "It's going to be life-changing, if not career-ending, for people," said Dean Gribble Sr., a 63-year-old crab boat captain who has fished for "opies" — snow crab — since the late 1970s. In summer, many small snow crab make their habitat in a cold pool that forms on the Bering seafloor. The newspaper was the first to report the snow crab season closure.

☆ Home cheat home: How real-estate agents are ripping off homebuyers
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Mattathias Schwartz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +20 min

The other day, Linda, the real-estate agent whom my wife and I used to buy our home, called me out of the blue. Real-estate agents, like doctors, are the friendly, knowledgeable face of a bewildering, price-gouging system. If Americans paid the same rate as the British, they would save more than $72 billion a year in real-estate commissions. The potential for big money, in turn, has led more and more Americans to become real-estate agents. Every dollar that is paid out in a real-estate transaction — to sellers, agents, inspectors, insurers, and the IRS — comes from you, the buyer.

☆ Duke Energy is one of the top leakers of a gas that is 25,000 times more polluting than carbon dioxide, EPA records show
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Phil Mckenna | Inside Climate News | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +22 min

The emissions were equal to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of more than 59,000 automobiles, according to the EPA’s greenhouse gas equivalency calculator. Under such a scenario Duke Energy would likely have years of low emissions punctuated by a single year of high emissions. While other utilities have participated for decades in a voluntary program with the EPA to reduce SF6 emissions to next to nothing, Duke Energy has not. Brooks said Duke Energy is also targeting its most leaky equipment for faster replacement. The figure is roughly half of 1% of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, far smaller than yearly emissions of carbon dioxide, the primary driver of climate change.

☆ How to Shop for an Ergonomic Office Chair
▼ + stars: | 2022-06-05 | by ( ) www.wsj.com time to read: +11 min

Not only does it come in three sizes, but it is also exceptionally adjustable (think seat height, seat tilt, lumbar support and armrests). It’s an especially chic white ergonomic office chair option, but if you’re not loving the leatherette, spring for Italian leather instead (about $200 more). So Via, a Las Vegas-based manufacturer of commercial office furniture, introduced a handful of their made-in-the-U.S. ergonomic chairs to the home market. “It has been the greatest decision,” the designer says of her Herman Miller ergonomic chair. In a perfect world, you’ll find an ergonomic chair with adjustable armrests, but your desk can provide that arm support too.

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