08:03 – Barbara’s dad may go home from the hospital today. Barbara and her sister were surprised yesterday when the doctors said her dad might be released, but he is doing a lot better. Barbara and her sister laid down the law to the doctors, and told them that they’d take Dutch home if and only if he didn’t have any tubes remaining in him. This has been going on in one form or another since May, and they simply can’t deal any more with almost daily (or nightly) trips to the doctor or hospital for tests and treatments.
So we’re going to try to have an almost normal weekend. Unless there’s some kind of emergency, Barbara plans to spend the weekend at home doing regular stuff. I wanted her to take a couple of days off so she could just relax, but she insists she wants to work on kit stuff. So this morning I’ll do laundry and we’ll do final assembly on the current batch of 30 chemistry kits. Which is good, because with overnight orders our current inventory of chemistry kits stands at minus two. Once we complete final assembly on that batch and ship the outstanding orders today, we’ll get started assembling another new batch of 30 chemistry kits and building subassemblies for the first batch of 30 forensic science kits.
Good news, indeed, albeit temporary, I’m sure. Looks like I have a giant pile of laundry here to fold and put away, plus now ramping up on getting ready to move; after three months of incredible hassle and stonewalling from the VA and mortgage company, we will be closing on a new house this coming Tuesday, 65 miles northwest of here on the shores of Lake Champlain. Brick, from ballast in the holds of the old cargo and freight ships that once plied the lake, and built in 1830, solid and dry.
Old picture from a couple of years ago:
http://www.picketfencepreview.com/buy-a-home/view-property/id/3760
Thanks. Yeah, when you’re 90 years old, everything is temporary.
Very nice house. Good for you.
Glad to hear he is doing much better. Hope it sticks.
It has rained enough here in the last couple weeks, that I am going to have to mow the lawn this weekend, for the first time since June. The brown is actually disappearing, although what is coming back is not grass, it is weeds. I think the grass is truly dead.
Whoa, only 1 bathroom in that house. I hope Tiny House is the last one I have to deal with that only has 1 bathroom.
My best wishes for Dutch. After taking my Mom in two months ago, she’s been to the emergency room three times and admitted to the hospital twice. Fortunately nothing serious and she is home comfortable, happy and sharp. She was telling me a story of when she was seven years old and living on her grandparents farm. Talk about detail from the fields, house, even the coat on the family dogs. It’s amazing how a bowl made from bone filled with organic mush can remember something like that for 80 years. Simply amazing.
Hi OFD, nice! Love the water views. First thing you need to do is add an outhouse for you as the ladies will monopolize that single bathroom. My house has 4 bathrooms and I love it. Nobody banging on the door while I am taking a siesta.
The next thing that you need to do is switch that oil burning heater for a natural gas heater. If no gas is available then propane ? High density refined liquids like heating oil (otherwise known as jet fuel and diesel) are going to swing real high in price again. Natural gas is the way to go IF you can get it.
Back around 2000 when we were considering moving to New Hampshire, we found that natural gas was generally unavailable because much of New England has bedrock not far beneath the surface. They simply can’t run natural gas pipes. We were stunned to see how high a percentage of homes were heated with electricity.
Still, gas is going to be very cheap for a long, long time. There’s no reason that bottled gas couldn’t become much bigger than it currently is. The infrastructure isn’t that difficult to expand, and there’s no reason why much of New England shouldn’t be using bottled gas. It doesn’t cost that much to liquefy gas and transport it in tankers to homes.
Both points well taken, and thus the wizardry of me posting that link here; I knew the guys here would have valuable suggestions.
The plan for the bathroom situation is to expand the kitchen a bit into the back yard and put a second one in there with the existing plumbing.
We will look into the natural gas option for that site accordingly and I know already we could do the propane thing. We would like to also replace the pellet stove in the living room with a fireplace/insert type of deal and would at some point look into a wood-burning cookstove as well. There is a woodstove already out in the nice solid Man Cave shed in the back of the site, with nice shelving, windows, and ventilation.
About half the back yard will be taken up this next season with raised-bed veggie gardens and I will attempt to get raspberry and blackberry growth started along the fencing. We will also be transplanting rhubarb there. Meanwhile there is a regular farmers’ market in town and several CSA operations in the area for veggies, flowers and meat.
The sellers are leaving their chest freezer in the basement and I will probably add a second, plus utilize part of that area for root cellar storage and a corner for my gunsmithing and reloading ops. An attic will be used for additional storage and seasonal space for clothing, etc.
One bedroom will remain as a guest room and for the kids when they visit, and the second one will be an office/computer room/library.
Thanks for any and all suggestions, whether for the house itself or our current moving ops.
Utilize? Tim O’Reilly would give you a hard time about using that word. I had a discussion with him about it once, years ago. He thinks “use” is just fine for anywhere that one would use “utilize”. My argument to him was that “use” implies consumption, while “utilize” does not. One utilizes a hammer and uses nails.
And, yes, I realize that my second sentence should have read “one would utilize “utilize”.” I guess words are used up when one utilizes them.
Without looking at a dictionary or an etymology text on that word, I’d say that it would be interchangeable mostly in the context I provided. But I would also say that “use” means, to me, any basic activity, whereas “utilize” strongly implies that something is being done that is carefully planned and perhaps something technical is also implied.
“I will use some tools to expand and organize part of the basement space so that I may utilize it for root cellar storage and also as a gunsmithing and reloading area.”
In other words, I’ll be messing around with gunpowder next to fifty-pound bags of spuds and carrots.
From one of my FB pals, and an online and email friend for years now:
“Billy Beck
I was asked to explain why I should not vote. I keep trying.
An essential reason is that these matters are at their root about moral principles, and I say it’s immoral to subject those to popular opinion.
The basic political/economic problems of this country stem from the fact that whole generations on-end have decided that it is acceptable to use force to violate principles of individual authority and private property. It is not a condition of “freedom” when a government can force people to do things that they would not otherwise choose to do. (Please note that even if they *would* choose to do certain things on their own — like charity, for instance — this does not render the use of force or its immediate threat morally probative. Note also that I interject the word “freedom” in order to highlight what was an original American political principle, which has fallen to a mere buzzword: a vague notion — not an idea or a concept — without a referent in our reality.)
This brutish way of living — to force others to do what we think is right — is not anything that we were raised to believe in. We didn’t get away with it as children, and for good reason. *Nothing* in the morality of this mysteriously or magically changes when we grow up and the matter is put to us in a ballot booth when we turn eighteen years old. Yet whole generations on-end have lined up to do it. They gather in gangs (known as “political parties”) for the explicit purpose of using force to violate each others’ consciences and property. They do this at polite remove: periodically hiring professional gangsters to do their dirty-work for them, so that they can nicely go about their ways, as if none of this were then done in their names.
I don’t put moral principles to a ballot. Things don’t have to get to a point where I’m asked whether to — for a handy and horrible example — gas and burn Jews, before I understand how evil this all is, *in principle*.
When the State of New York forces you under threat to pay annually for the permission to live in your own home (property taxes), in order to pay for what others think is good, even that is far too much evil for me, and that happened through the submission of moral values to popular votes.
They call it “democracy”, and I say that it is, at root, immoral and outright evil.
Jeffrey Falk: In a republic, I probably would have gladly voted. That ship sailed a long time ago.
Billy Beck: No republic can stand the realizations of evil men that democracy is a natural market for lies.
2 minutes ago ·
Clete Purcell: Pefect, Billy. I was looking for a good summation of that. You and I and Jeffrey, at least, have been watching that ship sail away distantly to the horizon for many years now.
a few seconds ago ·
Obama’s bagman walks away
No one really thought Mr Connected would go to jail, right?
This is a logical consequence of what I wrote the other day about the federal government being illegitimate and illegal and it ruling only by naked force. There is one law for the “us” and another for the “them”.
OFD, “extending the kitchen into the back yard” is called a barbecue.
Which would be good if, hypothetically, the cats were to catch something really big in the lake outside your door, because it would be too big to cook in the kitchen.
Adding another bathroom sounds awesome. I tried to do that to a house 8 years ago and when the cost hit $30k, sold it and bought another. I’m not sure that I did a good thing there.
Watch out for the little old ladies of the historical society. They tend to treat anything older than themselves as inviolate and never to be changed, updated or monkeyed with in any fashion.
We will use some tools and also some contractor-type people, probably guys, because, you know, that’s just the way it is, folks, guys do these gigs, same-same at work at my IT shop; we have one middle-aged very rotund and gray-haired granny; all the rest are guys; white guys, too. I know how awful this is. Anyway, once we’ve used some contractor guys to enlarge our kitchen and put in a ground-floor can, we will then be able to utilize a further barbecue area and fire pit in the back yard next to the raised-bed gardens.
We will then utilize the cats, who have been used to this old farmhouse and the seven acres of fields and woods, to catch stuff in the lake, except for one problem: cats mostly tend to avoid water. Our idiot mutt, though, will immediately jump in and swim for O Kanada. If Mrs. OFD isn’t looking, I’ll try out my new scope on my 10-22.
Nah, they’re no problem. Little old ladies are so fragile. Why, they could break a hip just walking out to their car if they aren’t careful…
“…when the cost hit $30k…”
Yikes! We just wanna throw in a toilet, a sink, a shower stall and put a frigging door on it! With the already existing kitchen area plumbing!
“…the little old ladies of the historical society…”
Oh, I plan to schmooze them; we are big history nuts. We will also become members anyway and volunteer for stuff. Once the deed is done, we’ll have them over for crumpets and croissants or something. I’ll have some nice classical stuff on the box and flowers all over the place. It’s in the bag, dude.
I am in complete agreement with Bob on “use”. Use and utilize are not at all equivalent words. I am all for simplification, but one of the truly outstanding things about English is that we have so many words with shades of different meanings. It is surprising that Tim wants to dumb down the language—utilizing simplification to use up the language.
“Use” was one of the hardest words to explain to my students in Germany. If you look at it in LEO
http://dict.leo.org/?lp=ende&lang=de&searchLoc=0&cmpType=relaxed&relink=on§Hdr=on&spellToler=std&search=use
it is clear that they utilize different words for different situations. “Use” is one of those words that one cannot translate, because there is no exact equivalent that covers all the same bases.
Until one lives somewhere with a different native language, it is hard to explain, but some concepts are thought about differently due solely to the difference in language. We imagine that there is a word in every language to describe exactly some thought expressed in English, but many times (more often than you would think) there is not.
Then, there was the one that was very difficult to get across: used to. I used to go to the gym on Mondays, but my work schedule changed and now I go on Thursdays. OR I am used to going to the gym on Mondays, and I don’t want to change.
They see “used to” all over the place in English, but it conflicts with their overuse of the present tense. They would say, “Previously I go the the gym on Mondays, but now I go on Thursdays.” The fact that we use the past tense correctly for things of the past, is totally confusing to them. I would be rich if I had just a little bit of money for every time they asked me why “used” in “used to” was past tense.
And they really do not have an exact translation for being used to something. Their ideas are “being comfortable/pleased with something” or “being suitable for a use”.
I had brilliant teachers in Volkshochschule. One thing one of the best ones repeatedly told us, was to focus on phrases and sentences. We communicate with phrases, not words. When someone asks us a question, we respond in phrases. Learn the phrases first, and you learn a language much more quickly. And it helps in getting used to the differences between languages.
But I don’t need to know any of the differences between languages; we have American English and that is the language of the Universe. Everyone else should just get used to it, as it is utilized for everything now. Things used to be different, where French was the language of diplomacy (and look how that turned out) and German was the language of science, medicine and technology (and look how THAT turned out!). Latin, of course, still extant, was and is the language of Holy Mother Church and scholars of European languages, history and cultures.
But by jeezum American lingo is the way it’s gonna be and that’s that.
Hey, I have one of those. But mine must be an older model. On the receiver, it says “Mini-14”.
David,
Congratulations on your new home. Definitely need a room for your reloading equipment and supplies, I’d suggest a good Dillon Progressive reloader.
Next start planning on where you want and can stash handguns, shotguns and home defense rifles throughout the home to repel home invaders.
Steve in Colorado
I think people think we’re kidding about English. I’m completely serious. All other languages are not just inferior but grossly inferior.
Back when I was in college, I knew a guy who could pick up languages in nothing flat. He was fluent in some huge number, 30 or more IIRC, and by “fluent” I mean that a native speaker of the language would assume that he was also a native speaker. And he almost unconsciously adapted his speaking of a language to the accent. If he was in Bavaria, he spoke Bavarian German; in Berlin, he spoke Berlinese. In Atlanta, he spoke with an Atlanta accent, and in Boston a Boston accent.
And one thing he said has always stuck with me. He said that he preferred using English because no other language even began to compare in terms of ability to express nuances. I think that’s because English is a bastard language that doesn’t hesitate to steal words from other languages when they express a particular nuance better than any current word.
When I was (briefly) watching Heartland in French, all I could think of was “why are all these people speaking French when they could instead be speaking English?” I really don’t understand why people continue to speak other languages. Not only are they inferior in terms of expression, but they hamper people in a global economy.
“I think people think we’re kidding about English. I’m completely serious. All other languages are not just inferior but grossly inferior.”
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
OFD wrote:
“Old picture from a couple of years ago:”
Nice looking place, looks larger than the claimed number of square feet. Would you happen to have a pic of the current place?
Thank you, Steve in Colorado: I have a basic Lee press right now and have been lusting for a Dillon progressive for some time. Stash sites around and inside the house are plentiful and short of a multiple-fire-team assault with crew-served weapons at O-Dark-Thirty we should be OK; the plan is also to hook up with like-minded neighbors in the ‘hood and there is a very nice gun range within a twenty-minute walk and a much larger heavy weapons range within an hour’s drive, and a third CMP range within about a ninety-minute drive. The Second Amendment and firearms are very big in this state and our neighbors NH and ME.
“I think people think we’re kidding about English. I’m completely serious. All other languages are not just inferior but grossly inferior.”
There it is. I’m not kidding, either, though I utilize hyperbole a little bit. Damn, now I’m using that word all the time now. Or should it be the other way around? Chuck?????
“Nice looking place, looks larger than the claimed number of square feet. Would you happen to have a pic of the current place?”
It does seem larger inside and we will try to maximize that sense of space once we’re in there and settled. By current place you mean where we’re living right now? For just a couple more weeks? Yeah, I do, but they’re on my pooter here and unless there’s a way of uploading pics, vids, what-have-you to this blog like our host does, I don’t have another method at present. I could email them, of course, or whatever else, including full nude shots of Sandra Bullock to anyone interested.
Nah. As I’ve said, I’m one of his descendants. He’s my 97-times-great-grandfather. Or is it 98?
Chuck’s comments on “used to” reminded me of something that confused me about Spanish when I was getting nowhere with it in high school. The word tener means have, and the phrase tener que means have to. In English I consider have to to be one of those oddities that we accept because That Is The Way It We Talk, even though the concept of possession (having) and obligation (have to) seem unrelated to me. I was amazed to see this apparent confusion replicated in Spanish.
Roy Harvey, you hit the etymology of “have to=must” in your complaint about its lack of obvious derivation. It comes from old English (that is, Middle English) in the usage of “to have an obligation to X”. Doubtless OFD could discourse at length. (I almost always refer to commenters here by screen name rather than real name, else I’d have said Doubtless Dave’d discourse. Ah, well, doubtless an apropos opportunity will arise anon.)
I am in perfect agreement about the superiority of English, and research bears it out. It is the easiest language to learn (Esperanto was an utter failure on that score); it is the most cost-effective language to teach; it accommodates new words effortlessly; and it is far more descriptive with its larger vocabulary. I wrote a screed about it here a good half-dozen years ago while actively teaching English as a second language, and it is buried somewhere in the archives.
The bit about not respecting gender and not conjugating differently for gender is probably one of the most important things making English easy to use. English is an intelligently-constructed language, and with Internet, I do not believe there is now any contender that can take over. All the talk about needing to learn Chinese is particularly not cost-effective. Non-native speakers can spend decades in devoted study of one of the many dialects there, and still not reach native-level proficiency or be able to converse with Chinese across the country. The solution to multiple languages everywhere in the world is to use English as the intermediary. That is the case throughout Europe’s many languages, and now is becoming common in China, of all places.
I could discourse at length partly because English etymology fascinates me, and partly because it may be the only field on here where I have a minuscule advantage once in a blue moon. But I will not utilize this advantage because I fear it would bore most people to tears. One of the great things about The Master Language of the Universe is that it has a few perverse rules but once a person gets the hang of it they can rock and roll pretty fast. Folks from non-Germanic and non-Romance backgrounds seem to have the greatest difficulties but even they, with some practice and a LOT of reading, can master it. I hate to say it, but way too many native speakers of English have the barest possible grasp of it and simply do not read at all.
That said; if I was to go live in another country for a while, say, more than a few months, I would mos def make a sincere attempt to learn at least the basics of their language, as I did repeatedly in southeast Asia during my undergraduate and graduate studies there long ago, and was treated like a prince thereby. Chuck did the same thing in Germany and I’m sure got over like a big dog there and they showed him their best side, ha, ha.
But I am just a poor old piker compared to our daughter here; she is literally gifted; can pick up any damn language in weeks and be fluent in it. Crazy. Wanted to major in Chinese at McGill this year but the course was full or something so she is taking German and Russian AT THE SAME TIME and will no doubt master them both by next summuh.
Crazy.
Germans are–like Americans–very patient with non-native speakers. The French, on the other hand, will hurl epithets at anybody who dares to speak their language incorrectly. I have never witnessed such disdain anywhere else. Tourist spots seem exempt, but go into the city by yourself and try to make it,—unless you chance on someone who has lived in an English-speaking country,—prepare to get beat up verbally. I quit trying to speak French on my several trips there. I just start out speaking English, and if they refused to communicate, I IMMEDIATELY turned around and walked straight out without looking back. They are worse than opening the door to a Jehovah’s Witness.
One of the big problems between most European languages and English, has to do with how we describe actually doing activity. In German, one “makes” a lot of things, instead of doing them. We “do” homework, but in Germany, one “makes” their homework. They also “make” work. Geez, I did not realize until just now, how appropriate that is in Germany. Oddly, we “make” a bed, but “do” people on the bed. However, we do “make out”.
The Germans have this phrase “ich meine”, which means in English, “I think” (or “I believe”), as in “I think I will vote Libertarian.” But the word is so close to sounding like “mean” that many people say, “I mean” when their intended meaning is “I think”. Here’s one from another forum today, written by a guy from East Germany: “First i mean, on my older Pentium4 Systems the selfcompiled software is e little bit faster.” He must have been writing in a big hurry, because usually his English is almost faultless. He does NOT mean “mean” where he put it; he means he “thinks” self-compiled software is faster on his P4. This confusion of “meinen” with “to mean” was one of the most common mistakes my students made. Some dictionaries even translate it incorrectly.
One of their common phrases is “Das heist…” or “That means…” and then they have no hesitation in telling you what they think about something, as if it were categorically undeniable truth. Very common phrase “das heist”.
Another is pronouncing “clothes” as KLO-zuz. Oxford says clothes can be pronounced as KLO-thz or “close” as in “close the door”. I have never heard Americans drop the “th”, however. German-native English teachers are taught somewhere that “clothes” is KLO-zuz. It is impossible to change them on this. It is the reason Jeri quit teaching in the after-school tutoring places that are similar to Sylvan and Kumon here; she taught them correct English defined by Oxford, but when the students gave those correct answers, they were marked wrong by ignorant teachers. She even let the kids take her book to the teacher, but that only made the teacher angry and more determined to mark it wrong. It pays to learn a foreign language from a native, not from someone who has only studied the subject and not lived it. Native speakers are the most knowledgeable, although there are some truly bonafide bilingual speakers, like Steffi Graf.
Funny you should mention that.
Much the same can be said for learning anything. For all the talk about the merits of studying pedagogy and of different learning modalities and of a focus on English Education being better than a focus on English Literature, I’m convinced that learning math from a working mathematician and medicine from a doctor in a clinic and English composition from someone who writes for a living. At the least, bring in people who used to do those things, competently, for a living. Yes, we’re likely to leave behind some of the less capable, but that’s better than dragging down the rest of the class and in particular the top two percent. We’ve had variations on this conversation before.
” Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris
Nah. As I’ve said, I’m one of his descendants. He’s my 97-times-great-grandfather. Or is it 98?”
Yeah, well the cat-loving genes must have been lost along the way. You know he worshiped cats? Bonked them for all I know. He had a dream in which a cat priestess told him to sacrifice harmless puppies, so that’s what he did.
Long live Cicero! Long live Cincinnatus!
OFD wrote:
“Yeah, I do, but they’re on my pooter here and unless there’s a way of uploading pics, vids, what-have-you to this blog like our host does, I don’t have another method at present.”
Do what I do, upload pix to my ISP and post a link.
“I could email them, of course, or whatever else, including full nude shots of Sandra Bullock to anyone interested.”
It’s okay, last time she was here she gave ma an album full of them… 🙂
*me
Maybe it doesn’t translate to Australian, but in the US, “ma” is a casual form of “mother”. So your uncorrected sentence works perfectly well, though you should have capitalized the M. You might also need to explain why your mother might want an album of Sandra Bullock nudes, but that’s a separate issue. (I were you, I’d go for the explanation that your mother used to be your father, before the operation, and that he kept his habit of eying younger women after he became a she.)
OFD, re putting up pictures, why don’t you use one of the bazillion free image/file hosting services? (That’s an interrogative, not a suggestion. Despite the beliefs of many, English is not the be-all-end-all of languages, largely because of its great semantic ambiguity compounded by common usage which is counter-grammatical or counter-definitional. Lojban for the win!)
If for some reason you want to make the pix available to this audience but not put them on tinypic or the like, you can send them to me and I’ll put them on my home server and send you the link.
But yet, universities are these days populated only by education folks. Anybody with practical experience in a particular field is most definitely not welcome. Only people who have worked their whole life in schools and universities, and have had no practical experience in a field whatsoever are teaching kids today.
Here’s just 2 examples of interns who have spent at least 3 years studying ‘recording arts’. Both interning in a radio setting. In one place, the right channel suddenly went out. There are a few of us alumni who have kept the student radio station going and upgraded it along the way. Nobody on campus noticed the lack of right channel. One of the alums was listening to the stream and caught it. Students informed. Could not figure it out, so they strapped the left channel across to the right. It was not even true mono, but the left channel going to both left and right. Several weeks later, an alum flew in from LA where he works, and fixed it. A few months later, I was in town there, and noticed the right channel was out again. I called him. “Not again!”
Second situation. I was called in urgently to help on a recording session where the intern—after 4 years of a ‘recording arts’ major—was supposed to be in charge of the session. He could not get the microphones to work. He had been plugging and replugging stuff around, but no sound. The way the studio was wired, phantom-powered mics went into a submixer, then on to a line input on the main mixing board (no phantom power available from the main board). Problem? Submixer was turned off at the switch.
Us old guy alumns (that is correct English—short for Those of us old guy alumns) just shake our heads at what is being sent out there to the real world, as we could have successfully trouble-shot either problem while we were still in high school. How are these kids ever going to find a job? It’s scary out there.
I have a kinda related whinge about programming nowadays. I’ve been working as a computer programmer in various fields for 32 years, after three years at uni. I used to love my job, now I hate it. From 1985-90 I had the sought of job I’d have done for free if I didn’t need the dough. Now I detest it. We outsourced our infrastructure and vendor software to Evil Doers in Suits in 1999. If that wasn’t disastrous enough we recently slit our contracts, so we have two outsourcers on site, along with all the demarcation disputes that go with that.
To get *anything* done you need to fill out endless forms, get endless ticks-of-approval from various people, wait a few days if you’re lucky, etc. Prior to 1999 I could fix most problems myself, or knew who could. Not usually allowed to do that any more. And we’re really top heavy with “managers” and “executives”, some of whom know what they’re doing.
I can retire next year and I think I will. Life’s too short to do a job you hate. I might go back to uni and get the science degree in physics I always wanted.
Boy, I really need to proof my posts…
*sort
*split (no comments please, SteveF.)
James Nicoll on rec.arts.sf-lovers, 15 May 1990:
“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
You can even get that on a shirt:
http://www.cafepress.ca/jdnicoll
I never said the language was pure and I would be the very last to do so. Of *course* we robbed everything from everywhere, that is what the English do. A nation of rogues, pirates and deceitful homicidal maniacs. Where they started to screw up was when they tried to dictate shit over here and had to be sent packing, twice.
Thanks for that Cafe Press link, though; I will be ordering some shirts accordingly.
Will look into sites to post pics and vids for the delectation of the Members of the Board here. A noob at this sorta thing.
Was the second time the War of 1812? When the the Yanks invaded Canada and the Poms burned Washington?
Oh, I just enjoy what James Nicoll said so much that I posted it for grins.
I have often found in life that the lower classes of groups are usually much more appropriate for general case. English is definitely in the lower group of languages as it steals from everyone and does not have weird rules for everything. Much like I prefer C++ for programming as I can go as high as I want or as low as I need.
BTW, I cannot imagine heating a home with bottled natural gas. In a deep winter spell, you might need a bottle a day unless you use a very high pressure bottle. Of course, when I use to work in the plants we kept nitrogen, CO2 and hydrogen gas bottle racks at up to 3,000 psig with 20 to 40 bottles hooked together. We used to purge the air out of our steam turbine generators with CO2 and then replace with H2 for actual running. More modern day generators now can use air for cooling instead of H2 for up to 250 MW in size.
At that point, I would probably consider a 100 gallon or 200 gallon propane tank. Of course the new natural gas cars are using 3500 psig to 7500 psig bottles. I guess that a natural gas delivery truck could have a bunch of very large bottles to refill your home bottle system with.
There’s a difference between LNG (liquefied natural gas) and LPG (liquefied petroleum gas). The former is mostly methane with some ethane and must be kept under high pressure to remain liquid. The latter is anything from 100% propane to 100% butane. Those have higher molecular weight and lower vapor pressure. IIRC, butane liquefies at room temperature at only about 30 PSI. I think it depends on your climate and time of year what the mix of propane and butane is when you buy LPG. In summer or a hot climate, you get a mixed skewed toward butane; in winter or a cold climate, it’s skewed toward propane, with its higher vapor pressure.
We are probably limited to wood, pellets, oil and propane where we are up here. At the new place we have the first three already.
Propane has been one of the biggest sources of heat and cooking here in farmland over my lifetime. Not without accidents that have blown farmers my family has known to smithereens. I’ll take city life in a place where there is natural gas, please.
I’m not going to be an apologist for English. However it acquired its clear superiority is fine with me. It is the best language for communication on the planet. Boy, screw something up in German, like reversing the direct and indirect objects, and they have no idea whatsoever what you are trying to say. Scramble an English sentence horribly, and it is usually quite easy to make out what the speaker was trying to communicate.
From all standpoints, it is THE most superior language ever to exist. Thanks to the Internet, everyone, everywhere will eventually speak it. German is interesting and quaint, but it cannot hold a candle to English. Now, if I could just make the people around me who say, “I seen it,” disappear, all would be wonderful. It’s not THAT hard to learn the proper tenses, but people are more and more saying, “He should have went to the store before it closed,” and “If I was rich,” instead of the correct forms found here:
http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.txt
Dave, just put Princess on an exercise bike that drives a generator. Power for heating in winter, cooling in summer… 🙂
Yes, LNG is liquified natural gas, usually about 95% methane. The pressure is nominal but the temperature must be -259 F or cooler. If the temperature rises above -259 F then the LNG starts to vaporize. Methane converting from liquid to vapor has an expansion coefficient of 3600 to 1. So, if you had 1 ft3 of LNG at 10 psig (25 psia) and -259 F, then at -258 F, you will have 1 ft3 of natural gas at 90,000 psia.
Since very few pressure vessels (tanks) can contain 90,000 psia, your relief valve for your tank will start blowing natural gas, usually at 100 psia to 150 psia. Not good for anyone downwind of you. Or, you must have a re-liquefaction process, consisting of a couple of compressors and several cryogenic heat exchangers. Not cheap.
However, LNG tanks are usually vacuum tanks and highly insulated. Most LNG tanks can keep LNG liquid for a week to a month. Some even longer. But then you’ve got to do something with the vapor as the LNG starts to vaporize.
So, LNG is only good when you are using a lot of natural gas like an over the road 18 wheeler. LPG or CNG (compressed natural gas) is good when your natural gas usage is random and has high usage periods followed by low or no usage periods.
The safest ? Diesel or heating oil. The cheapest? CNG not counting the cost of the tank.
The easiest to transport? Diesel or heating oil. However, LNG is easy to transport also due to its high energy volume (60% of diesel, 2/3rds of gasoline). BTW, LNG is selling for less than $2/gallon here on the gulf coast. It was $1.50/gal earlier.