Cool and windy, clear with sun. Like yesterday.
Although it wasn’t dry. I had water on the driveway that never dried. I’m not sure what the humidity level was, but it was high.
I spent the afternoon cleaning up stuff and scrapping out stuff in the driveway. I’ve got about half a pickup truck load of mostly aluminum and wire, so I need to run that to the scrap yard today. I’ve also got to return the RugDoctor cleaner that my wife put to good use yesterday.
We only have carpet in the room we call the toy room/library/kid’s room, but was originally the formal living room. We’ve got no need for formals, but we left the carpet in that room as a place for the babies to play. White carpet. More than 13 year old white carpet. With two kids and a dog.
I cleaned it a couple of years ago but it was LONG overdue. Looks much better now, but it’s still 13 year old white carpet. We had planned to eventually put the same glue-down engineered hardwood in there as the rest of the house. We even have the flooring already. But. Moving the bookcases out would be a BIG job, and there’s no reason to create more projects at this point.
I didn’t do any garden work, possibly today I’ll get the beds ready and move stuff around. I’m home in the afternoon to pick up child two anyway. I’ve got plenty to do around the house and I was making progress yesterday that I’d like to build on today.
Part of the work in the driveway is getting the shelves I put up moved into the garage (or some others). I’d like to get the stored food out of the driveway under tarps and into the garage. It will be a lot cooler in the garage this summer, with the A/C unit running, than under a tarp. I made progress by scrapping out stuff that was on one shelf, and moving some of the canned soup to the other shelves and the can rack on the patio. I’ve still got to reorg the patio shelves to add the two new can racks. It was all a bit hurried when I shifted from stacking food to getting ready to USE the stored food. It needs to be tweaked a bit.
I really need to do a bunch of ebay listings too. I’ve got stuff that is best sold to a worldwide market, and it isn’t going to list itself.
As long as people are still buying, I need to be selling.
The political and economic insanity continues. Looks like the dems will try the former President of the United States in absentia for stuff he clearly didn’t do. If you think otherwise, go to the primary source and watch the video in question. I’ve linked to it before.
The stock market looks more rigged and more casino-like every day.
The left is screeching for blood from the right. The deplatforming continues, and shows no sign of slowing. People who have been plainspoken in expressing their views are taking steps and spending money to preserve their ability to use their public voice. There’s no way to scrub your online persona, so you might as well own it, and continue speaking your mind.
You may want to take some steps to cushion any blowback you get if you come to the wrong sort of attention. Other people are.
And I’ll say plainly, as long as we are ONE NATION, we have ONE National Anthem, and anyone promoting anything else is an agent of subversion. You want apartheid, you’ll get it. I don’t think you’ll like it much.
It will get worse. Keep stacking.
nick
55F and 95%RH at 6am.
Chilly and damp.
n
“And will it get worse ? Or is this just a temporary settling of feuds ”
–since it seems to be people primarily of african descent, at least in the big cities, look to africa for your answer. Embrace the power of ‘and’.
It will get worse, and it is the settling of feuds.
The point of immigration to America from Europe was to get away from the never ending settling of feuds that go back more than a millennium in some cases. It took us a while, but we’ve cultivated a fresh crop of grudges now.
My nomination for the key grudge right now is government worker pensions. Everything else is manipulation by those in power to distract that they can’t pay what they promised without causing serious pain to those who pay the taxes, and while most wouldn’t begrudge a cop or a firefighter a decent retirement, should a Midwest cop with a history of questionable actions on the job leading to one of the defining power abuse incidents in the last decade still have fully-funded plans to enjoy exclusive golf courses in gated communities in FL with Tiger Woods in his Golden Years?
True enough, there are plenty of problems with publishers.
I have a colleague who just wrote a textbook – we used it for the first time this past Fall. The production was outsourced to India. I don’t know what the cultural difference with India is, but his experience was the same as we regularly see in IT: Lots of mediocre employees, with zero self-motivation, doing only what they are explicitly told to do. If he wasn’t hanging off the phone, instructing them step-by-step on what needed done, nothing happened. It was an insane waste of time, and led to the book being published an entire year late.
Of course, being an IT textbook, it needs updated every year or two. Given the publishing process, as described above, the book is already due for an update. I’m not sure my colleague is masochistic enough to bother.
Our older son has a strange history with spelling. He learned to read very early, and apparently (I’m guessing here) must have somehow learned to recognize whole words, even though we taught phonics. Anyway, he reads incredibly fast, but he couldn’t spell even the simplest words. We had him tested for dyslexia and other things – nope, he was fine.
Sometime around the age of 12 or so, almost from one day to the next, he could spell just fine. Even he has no idea what changed. Very strange. He still reads ridiculously fast.
This. Now that we have solar on the roof, I’ve been watching its performance. Even though we are in the sunniest region in Switzerland, it was nearly useless for the months of December and January. Short days, sun low in the sky, lots of cloud cover, and snow sitting on the cells, sometimes for days, until it was warm enough to melt and slide off. Given that our heating is with an electrical heat pump, those were the two months that we most needed the power.
While it does get pretty windy here, that is also seasonal. During December and January there were only a few really windy days. We have lots of hydro, but guess what: not in the Winter, because there’s very little snow melt to drive it.
Closing down the nuclear plants is just about the most idiotic idea ever. They would be perfect for compensating for solar, because it’s pretty predictable how much sun you’re going to get on any given day. Even wind is reasonably predictable. You probably can’t get away without some natural gas plants, to cover short-term changes in supply and demand, but nuclear for baseload generation? What can they possibly use to replace that? Imported coal generation from Eastern Europe?
“Imported coal generation from Eastern Europe
-you mean exporting coal generation pollution to Eastern Europe….
n
Weird goings on in the military:
The new SecDef ordered a 60 day stand-down to review *extremism* in the branches. I guess he means to expunge anybody who supports tRump. I went through a couple of these while active. A big waste of time. The military already has annual ethics/morality classes. Maybe he thinks a couple of more hours of it will *fix* everything. Plus, another retired general waived to hold SecDef. We need to stop doing that. To many perfumed princes out there. 100% civilian only.
Females (I know, anybody can be female now) in the Army are allowed to wear makeup, lipstick, painted nails in their duty uniform. What about males!? Can they do the same? Trannys? Homosexuals? Can everybody wear skirts now? All members should be stripped down and given crewcuts. Pants only uniforms. One of the biggest advantages of the military is everyone is the same. Now we have to have racial, gender, religious individuality. The wussification of our military is going to cost us. Can you imagine the repercussions that will happen with discrimination complaints? The CO didn’t address me as he/she/it! Welcome to the circus.
Good thing there was no conspiracy…. just a secret coordinated campaign.
–Time magazine, by the way. Not a right wing blogger in his basement.
n
Plus, another retired general waived to hold SecDef. We need to stop doing that. To many perfumed princes out there. 100% civilian only.
At least someone who has seen meaningful combat or held a real job in the military — driving a tank, flying a plane, steering a ship.
The new SecDef went through MacDill. Raytheon board member after retirement.
Swamp critter.
Raytheon has greatly expanded their presence and leech-like existence in Tampa Bay since 9/11, taking over the old Eckerd Drugs HQ in Clearwater, just across the bridge from MacDill, when that chain was carved up and sold off in pieces.
Disclaimer: My sister has a quota-fill job at Raytheon.
https://wilderwealthywise.com/civil-war-2-0-weather-report-a-bridge-too-far/
n
Remember. “How do things change?” “Slowly. Then all at once.”
n
Some of that is due to states with poor economies getting lots of transfer payments. Some is the concentration of large military bases in Southern states.
–Time magazine, by the way. Not a right wing blogger in his basement.
I saw quotes from *Perkins Coie partner* and Dem election lawyer Marc Elias over the weekend commenting on the last contested House race, in NY, which was finally settled in the Republican’s favor by ~ 100 votes.
Elias argued that the voting machines were unreliable, but just in that case.
No, it’s a one day stand down in the next 60 days. Friends in the military that have been through these before on other subjects say it will be a bad PowerPoint presentation, poorly delivered.
Yes, my fingers typing too fast. My experience is these classes are movies or video presentations of some sort. They fail because they accuse people. My guess is canned video everybody gets to watch. Believe me, PP to the masses don’t work. I got to watch the movie “Glory” during Command & Staff school because a black student didn’t like the white generals on the walls of the school, even though there were no black war generals or 4-stars at the time. One person complained. Imagine what’s going to happen with discrimination accusations coming up? Rooting out extremism is the perfumed princes’ payback to plugs.
Always. Been there done that. Stuck in a auditorium getting another sensitivity briefing while half listening and wishing you had a buddy that would have signed you in. Meanwhile, an oddly disproportionate number of minorities will make the next round of promotions.
Always. Been there done that. Stuck in a auditorium getting another sensitivity briefing while half listening and wishing you had a buddy that would have signed you in. Meanwhile, an oddly disproportionate number of minorities will make the next round of promotions.
Such as the new SecDef. Read his bio.
Have you ever had it professionally cleaned? Should see better results vs the DIY route for not a lot more money if you politely decline the typical up-sells. If you do want to try it go for someone offering the ‘dry’ process vs the yellow truck ‘steamer’ method. The latter, and the DIY machines make the carpet and padding much wetter and have a longer dry time. With the dry method your carpet should be (95%) dry in 2 to 4 hours (except of course in Houston’s RH where YMMV).
Trig Identities: Oh Heck Another Hour Of Algebra! Sine=Opposite over Hypotenuse, Cosine=Adjacent over Hypotenuse, Tangent=Opposite over Adjacent. Learned that in the 9th grade and never forgot. Add in Sin^2 + Cos^2 = 1. Do you need anything else?
Trig Identities: Oh Heck Another Hour Of Algebra! Sine=Opposite over Hypotenuse, Cosine=Adjacent over Hypotenuse, Tangent=Opposite over Adjacent. Learned that in the 9th grade and never forgot. Add in Sin^2 + Cos^2 = 1. Do you need anything else?
All the fun with the roots of -1 which will seem very out of place in a high school Trig class but will be revisited in Calc II to allow integration of sin(x) and cos(x).
exp(sqrt(-1)*x) = sin(x) + sqrt(-1)*cos(x)
Back of the envelope numbers for charging all of our cars:
The US has about 110,000 gas stations and it takes about 5 minutes to fuel a car for about 250+ miles. Pick a number for the average number of pumps. 8?
A Tesla Supercharger station will charge a car to 50% in about 20 minutes at 150 KW. So we will need 2×4=8x as many supercharger stations to replicate the existing infrastructure. Some of that will be replaced by charging at home, but I can’t guess how much very accurately. Half? Each station can charge 2 cars by sharing that 150 KW, but of course the charging time would go up. 8 charging stations would be 600 KW.
So, 110,000 stations, x4, x600KW, would be an additional 264,000MW of additional load.
Call is another 250 power plants? And the wire plant to move it around.
While I do agree, also note that the Highlanders, or Caledonians to the Roman army, were fierce fighters. They wore the kilt, or battle uniform. There is a similar kilt for women, called the Arisaid (SP?) Kilts are probably not suitable for modern times, but could make everybody look alike.
Maybe wearing the kilt in that famously cold, windy highlands weather was why they were so fierce. Too bad our former host can’t chime in; I am not very familiar with Scots lore.
As we get closer to April, it will be one year of the face diaper mandate by Gov. Abbott in Tejas. Will it be permanent? Why not? COVID is never going away. The mandate says any county with 20+ deaths must diaper. The flu meets that every year. If one county is diapered, you might as well diaper all of them to prevent the spread.
BTW, where is the flu? Anybody care? Never wore a diaper during flu *season* in my life. If you die of the flu, but have COVID in your system, is it automatically a COVID death.
I’m sure Abbott doesn’t want to be known as the COVID killer. It will take a new Gov running on lifting the diaper mandate to get rid of it.
Also, if the diaper mandate is lifted, will businesses follow? I read an article implying it will be Amazon, Walmart, HEB, etc., that will keep diapers in effect. I wonder how the dynamics will play out? Will a store push “NO MASK REQUIRED” to get business from HEB?
I nominated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Defense for the MVP of the game. They kept Mahomes, the $500 million man over 10 years, running for his life constantly. And the TB defense scored a pick 6 as all good defenses do.
Hall of Fame ballot stories from this weekend brought up John Lynch, part of the best Defense ever seen in Tampa, from around 20 years ago. Sadly, due to a variety of circumstances, only one Super Bowl win came out of a 7-8 year push before ownership lost interest and geared up to buy Manchester United, mortgaging the Yucs to purchase the soccer team.
-6°F (-21°F wind chill) and 83%RH at 6AM here. We’re in the middle of that “arctic air mass” sitting over the central US.
I’m sure Abbott doesn’t want to be known as the COVID killer. It will take a new Gov running on lifting the diaper mandate to get rid of it.
Nothing is going to change in Texas until the Legislature adjourns in … June (?).
The local Faux News station’s Fear Porn Burlesque act will give the Dem legislators a platform for nightly propoganda if everyone is still in town when the mask order gets lifted.
-6°F (-21°F wind chill) and 83%RH at 6AM here. We’re in the middle of that “arctic air mass” sitting over the central US.
The NWS is predicting teens for Austin on Sunday and Monday, with possible highs of 25 and 19, respectively. I haven’t seen temps like that since we left Vantucky.
When places too far south drop too low you have to worry about freezing pipes. The dead space between the drop ceiling and exterior roof in retail spaces is a major culprit. Heat doesn’t get up there and the water lines for the fire suppression system will freeze and burst. Though, you’re probably safe in the upper teens. Especially, if it doesn’t stick around long.
Heat doesn’t get up there and the water lines for the fire suppression system will freeze and burst.
Except for the systems that use compressed air in the pipes. I thought that was done in all colder climates, but I don’t know. I know of a couple of air systems here in our little town, and the temperatures seldom fall much below freezing, although our record is nothing (zero degrees F.)
We have had residential pipes freeze, because some houses were built with the plumbing in the attic. That practice is no longer done. Reason, we are well inland of the Pacific Coast, but some houses were built using coastal practices. That, of course, didn’t work very well.
Moving water doesn’t freeze. The way to make sure your fire suppression pipes don’t burst is to keep the water flowing. Hold a cigarette lighter under one of the sensors before you leave in the evening and let the water run all night. Sure, it’s wasteful, but less wasteful than having to hire a plumber. #FollowMeForMoreTips
University textbooks are a freaking quagmire. Have been for decades and are getting worse.
True enough, there are plenty of problems with publishers.
I have a colleague who just wrote a textbook – we used it for the first time this past Fall. The production was outsourced to India. I don’t know what the cultural difference with India is, but his experience was the same as we regularly see in IT: Lots of mediocre employees, with zero self-motivation, doing only what they are explicitly told to do. If he wasn’t hanging off the phone, instructing them step-by-step on what needed done, nothing happened. It was an insane waste of time, and led to the book being published an entire year late.
Of course, being an IT textbook, it needs updated every year or two. Given the publishing process, as described above, the book is already due for an update. I’m not sure my colleague is masochistic enough to bother.
Huh. I get my five software manuals published at http://www.lulu.com. My office manager uploads the PDFs for the body of each manual and and the PDFs for the front cover, spine, and back cover. Not a big deal and we get paper 8.5 inch by 11.0 inch with perfect binding in less than a week. I wonder what they screwed up ? Our only problems with Lulu have been not enough toner in the laser printer and the color covers being off and needing reprinting.
As most of the country suffers under unprecedented cold, the US President is blaming everything from racism to economic devastation on global warming. His solution is to give billions of taxpayers dollars to foriegn dictators and end American energy independence destroying thousands of Americans jobs and making them dependent on government hand outs. What looks like incredible stupidity actually serves a purpose.
The NWS is predicting teens for Austin on Sunday and Monday, with possible highs of 25 and 19, respectively. I haven’t seen temps like that since we left Vantucky.
Wow, that IS cccold for Texas. Seems as if you guys have been having a colder than normal winter. We have had a much warmer than normal winter, with only a few freezing days and very little precipitation.
We get most of our rain from November through April, and sometimes that is snow. Most of the time, the mountains to our west stop weak storms, and remove the moisture, so it snows in the mountains where it is needed for our water supply. By the time the air flow goes over the mountains, it is dried out, and we just have windy weather for a few days. Only the strong storms make it to us, with rain and winds. We have had a couple of 10-12″ snows in the valley, in the almost fifty years I have been here. We have had several 1-4″ snows. Snow on our warm roads usually melts, but sometimes it melts and refreezes, giving us some really bad driving conditions. Most people just stay put, because it only takes a few hours for conditions to improve. Nobody does anything to the roads; there are some big plows, but they stay in the mountain passes. They couldn’t do much here anyway. I have heard different stories about the Dallas area, where apparently people like to take silly chances during snow and sleet. Not me. I grew up in snow and slush country, and have had enough for a lifetime.
So, 110,000 stations, x4, x600KW, would be an additional 264,000MW of additional load.
Call is another 250 power plants? And the wire plant to move it around.
We don’t build 1,000 MW power plants any more. We build 250 MW gas turbines, 150 MW solar fields, and 6 MW windmills. Sometimes we tie a 300+ MW steam turbine to 2 or 3 gas turbines to boost the efficiency from 35% to 65%. The efficiency boost is totally cool but the steam side startup is 6 to 12 hours depending on how warm the system is.
The infrastructure costs as much as power plants. Sometimes more. The long range transmission lines are aluminum but all of the bus bar and circuit breakers are pure copper. Don’t forget the transmission line towers as they are over million dollars of steel each at five or six to a mile The corner leg towers had 3 or 4 times as much steel and guy wires for when the tornadoes ripped through the high lines. I watched a tornado rip through 20+ miles of high lines and towers one night from Mineral Wells to Breckenridge, Texas. Took us 18 months to get that dual circuit 345,000 volt line back into service with all the canyons.
Don’t even get me started on the cost of a 500 MVar auto transformer. We owned 30 ? 40 ? of these in the 1980s and had ONE 100+ ??? ton spare mounted on a lowboy. Wait, we had THREE spares, each mounted on a 120 wheel lowboy, after the five electric company merger in 1984. Plus two 8,000 gallon tankers full of transformer oil for each auto transformer (moved them dry) due to the weight.
The WH Press Sec was arguing with Peter Doocy at todays briefing. He asked when can the 1,000’s who have/will lose their energy jobs via EO be able to get a *green* job. She snarkily asked him to bring evidence of lost jobs to the next briefing. Huh. I’m sure she will be heralded as “brave”. Doocey quotes from the AFL-CIO turd Trumka meeting with plugs saying such. She then throws at him “what about the rest of the meeting where plugs says millions of good *union* jobs will be created”. Yes, millions. Why didn’t she just reply with that. Oh, yeah, Fox News reporter. Trumka is back-peddling big time on support of plugs.
She should just quote Lurch and say “let them build solar panels (and eat cake)”. Are any solar panels made in the US of A?
If you die of anything, but have COVID in your system, is it automatically a COVID death.
Fixed it for you.
DIY carpet cleaning vs pro- the pros won’t come out for just one 10×12 room. And we can do all the couches with the upholstery attachment at the same time for free. The result was a huge improvemnt and will be enough to get us to the next milestone.
Took 76 pounds of cast aluminum, and 50 pounds of wire to the scrap yard. $86 and change…
n
The market is crazy. My IRA has almost tripled in a year. My money manager says he has plans to *double* that in another year. He manages conservatively, too. He’s already planning for the crash and burn, which is how more money is made. I’m tempted to just convert it all to gold and build a panic room out of sheets of gold.
The NWS is predicting teens for Austin on Sunday and Monday, with possible highs of 25 and 19, respectively. I haven’t seen temps like that since we left Vantucky.
12 F predicted in north Dallas Saturday night. Looks like we are going to test the natural gas delivery system in Texas. You don’t want to know my opinion.
https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/tx/carrollton/33.02,-96.88
One or more of old 24 inch natural gas pipelines from west Texas to Dallas was converted to crude oil ago several years for Eagle Ford. There is a new 42 inch being built for natural gas from Stockton to Dallas but I do not think that it is finished yet. And nobody stockpiles diesel for cold weather for all of these 200 new gas turbines in Texas. We used to keep six million barrels of diesel and number six fuel oil in stock for days like this as we could burn 350,000 barrels per day in extreme weather events. Very expensive to do that on your books, those brilliant young MBAs with their awesome spreadsheets will tell you to sell those reserves immediately.
I don’t want to be at http://www.ercot.org this weekend. Gonna be bad. Dadgum, I wish I had my new generator installed already. Gonna be blackouts in north Texas. Maybe. Blackouts have a way of spreading.
One of the problem of winter electrical usage is that under 25 F, the electrical load never drops since all of the electric heaters in Texas (apartments !) are running wide open already and never catch up. So usually the generating units get to back off at 10 pm, that don’t happen under 25 F. Instead, we would roll back all 120+ units we had online at 5am so that we could catch everyone waking up at 6 am and turning the lights on. Our load would be at 30,000 MW at 5 am and run to 35,000 (or more) MW by 7 am. We had to be careful otherwise several of the units would automatically kick their steam governors open on frequency drop and then trip on low forced air, low fuel, or a myriad of other problems after you drive down the road at 120 mph for hours on end.
Are any solar panels made in the US of A?
–not any more, that I’m aware of. Nasty business making them, iirc.
Japanese panels were the best, and the china junk is everywhere. I’ve got kyocera panels in my ‘to do’ pile.
n
As most of the country suffers under unprecedented cold, the US President is blaming everything from racism to economic devastation on global warming. His solution is to give billions of taxpayers dollars to foriegn dictators and end American energy independence destroying thousands of Americans jobs and making them dependent on government hand outs. What looks like incredible stupidity actually serves a purpose.
Gonna be colder next winter. Get ready now.
I’ve seen it -4 F in Dallas (Christmas 1989) and 6 F in Houston (Christmas 1989). Now that was cold ! I was living in my parents house in Sugar Land at the time and drained the pipes since the attic was about 20 F with uninsulated pipes.
So, I imagine after the countless EPA studies, building plants, setting up hazmat sites, importing rare earth minerals, those *green* jobs should start in 2050 or so? I can just see union workers used to $40-$70/hr signing up for $15/hr shovel ready jobs. The green job industry subsidies are going to be astronomical. Obola Part Deaux.
It was -26 January 21, 1985 where I am located. Coldest spot in the US including Alaska. Many houses had ceiling heat which was running non-stop, others on heat pumps, all running strip heat to the max, those with natural gas running wide open; all of them for a couple of days. Even then there were many frozen pipes in the exterior walls to kitchen sinks. Even pipes from the meter to the house were frozen. Main lines did not suffer as they had constant movement. Fortunately I did not live here but heard many stories from individuals who endured the cold.
“I’ll gladly hire you Tuesday for an oil field layoff today”
https://gunfreezone.net/ill-gladly-hire-you-tuesday-for-an-oil-field-layoff-today/
“There was no plan. There was never any plan. Biden and his handlers never intended to put oilfield workers back to work in the green energy economy.”
“Guys who drive trucks, work with their hands, and work and live in flyover country are hated by Biden and the Democrat elite.”
“The plan was always to take the near six-figure jobs away from those Deplorables and leave them with nothing.”
Yup, punishing the Deplorables is very high on Beijing Biden’s list.
One of the problem of winter electrical usage is that under 25 F, the electrical load never drops since all of the electric heaters in Texas (apartments !) are running wide open already and never catch up.
Texans are almost as bad as Floridians in believing that it is their God-given right to wear shorts all year round regardless of the outside temperature.
Are any solar panels made in the US of A?
–not any more, that I’m aware of. Nasty business making them, iirc.
Japanese panels were the best, and the china junk is everywhere. I’ve got kyocera panels in my ‘to do’ pile.
Oregon had a Solyndra-style boondoggle plant called Solarworld which took over the old BP manufacturing facility outside Portland, but the scheme never made money since they were unable to compete with the Chinese price.
They paid some huge salaries and relocation bonuses 10 years ago, however. Ultimately the place closed due to some funny bookkeeping by the German parent company hiding things like the CEO’s purchase of a castle. No, really, a castle.
The only other US plant I’m aware of was in Arizona. That’s where the only Solarworld employee I knew moved from to run one of the panel lines in Oregon.
Manufacturing solar cells is still semiconductor work involving a lot of nasty chemicals.
I think our water pipes from the main to the house are 42+ inches deep. Frost line here is 36″ and code requires they be at least 6″ below frost line. The upside to that, aside from them not freezing in winter, is that you get really cool tap water in the summer. Like 50-some degree tap water. I can remember being in Phoenix in August and running the “cold” tap for a while and kept getting what I’d consider lukewarm tap water. Add that to the really off taste Phoenix’s tap water has anyway and it was purely disgusting. They must sell a lot of bottled water there.
I’d love to get one of those wood pellet stoves that auto dispenses the pellets. They’re supposed to be very efficient and extremely cheap to run.
I’d love to get one of those wood pellet stoves that auto dispenses the pellets. They’re supposed to be very efficient and extremely cheap to run.
Calling Paul in central Texas to the White Phone. Calling Paul in central Texas to the White Phone.
“This Solar Plant Accidentally Incinerates Up to 6,000 Birds a Year”
https://www.sciencealert.com/this-solar-plant-accidentally-incinerates-up-to-6-000-birds-a-year
Oops.
One of the problem of winter electrical usage is that under 25 F, the electrical load never drops since all of the electric heaters in Texas (apartments !) are running wide open already and never catch up.
Texans are almost as bad as Floridians in believing that it is their God-given right to wear shorts all year round regardless of the outside temperature.
Not in my house. She who must be obeyed has the kitchen thermostat at 67 for heat. I sneak it up to 68 F and then get a lecture about women going through the change.
And she has our bedroom thermostat set to 63 F for heating. I don’t dare touch that one.
How soon we forget: https://www.noaa.gov/news/summer-2020-ranked-as-one-of-hottest-on-record-for-us
One or two days of cold does not a cold winter make.
Remember when we had 2 weeks below freezing? That was the year I lost my lime tree…
n
Here’s the obligatory “Disney World” spot someone mentioned.
As Scott Adams pointed out today, the best story won.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBpjN6S7nF8
Of course Gronkowski didn’t kneel, but I didn’t see it on either sideline during the anthem performance.
Perhaps the NFL is learning that for high visibility games like the Super Bowl to have the National Anthem sung by a black person. The white guys only kneel if the black guys do and the black guys don’t want to disrespect a black singer.
-cough-
Weird that suddenly sex toys are showing up in my returns and shelf pulls auctions. Funny chinese dildos, box labeled “simulation of the penis”…
n
Can you imagine working that assembly line 60 hours a week in China?
There was a much weirder one than that, but I didn’t bookmark it.
1/2 size torso, with male and female parts.
n
“A Harvard student/CNN expert and tech CEO prove just how stupid they really are”
https://gunfreezone.net/a-harvard-student-cnn-expert-and-tech-ceo-prove-just-how-stupid-they-really-are/
“It’s been fun watching David Hogg’s Twitter feed.”
“David Hogg @davidhogg111 · Feb 7
This whole process of trying to find US based Unionized manufactures has been a crash course in a lot of the harm NAFTA has done.”
https://twitter.com/davidhogg111/status/1358385517218435072
I would be laughing if I wasn’t crying already. Ross Perot’s giant sucking sound description of NAFTA was an understatement.
YUUUP, and the electrical generating windmills do the same. And yes, if a Ranger or game warden sees you shoot a golden eagle, you will be arrested and prosecuted, but the windmill company is protected.
Weird that suddenly sex toys are showing up in my returns and shelf pulls auctions. Funny chinese dildos, box labeled “simulation of the penis”…
Just don’t leave the toys in the dishwasher for your family to find after the cleaning cycle finishes.
Was it a human simulation or animal? Any tentacles?
I would be laughing if I wasn’t crying already. Ross Perot’s giant sucking sound description of NAFTA was an understatement.
Before Ross Perot, there was Rodney Dangerfield in “Back To School”.
“First of all, you’re going to have to grease the local politicians …”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSLscJ2cY04
Sort of out of left field but won’t be surprised if someone here can chime in…so if the USN can stuff a working nuclear reactor into a submersible steel tube, can any of that technology be adapted to create ‘neighborhood power plants’?
I have driven by that plant. Extremely bright where the light is concentrated. Almost blinding in daylight. I commented to my wife that must really be a sight at night. Then there was stunned silence from both of us.
My pellet stove seems efficient. A 40# bag of pellets is (mumble) about $6.
Take that times 40.
Compare to pulling the trailer to Lampasas a couple of times, in August, unloading the trailer and stacking a couple of cords, and then hauling it into the house a garden cart at a time. Ah, a 4 or 5 feet wide stack of wood a bit over knee high in the living room.
Plus bark chips all over. Kind of a pain in the you know where, but it was all fun 15 years ago.
Money-wise, for fuel, about the same.
Plus for the pellet stove is it has a t-stat. And is pretty much a turn on for heat and turn off when done. Ash cleaning isn’t much as most of it (I guess) is blown out the exhaust.
Negative for the pellet stove is that yer kinda F’d if the power goes out.
Negative for the Earth Stove, beyond toting wood to the house in the rain, was maintenance. You have to get up on the roof to clean the chimney. A lot more ash to clean out. Hauling wood. Oh, and burning of forearms on the edge of the opening…. talk about an instant blister. (slop on some emu oil and all good).
I’m torn. I miss the Earth Stove, I miss the whole process. But the pellet stove is nice and so far “just works”.
The pellet stove is lacking on the “back up and warm your butt” feature of the Earth Stove.
Oh. The house is L shaped. It took me years to figure out all I need is a 12 inch fan sitting on the floor blowing cold air from the hallway across the living room and into the dining room. “Convection” is a thing.
Anyway. The pellet stove has heat settings from 1 to 9. Blower setting from 1 to 9. I run the heat at 1 and blower at 5, sometimes 4. (It’s a “watch the window soot up” thing. If it soots, stove is running cool.) Seems to work to heat the house (with my 12″ fan running) and it’s 30F and cloudy.
I use a bag of pellets a day.
It’s always an experiment.
It’s a big bird-killing club, and you ain’t in it.
Some prominent Dem politician, maybe around 1970, started a restaurant after he got out of politics. He was astounded by the impossibility of complying with all of the laws and regulations, including many that he himself had pushed.
I had a pellet stove in a previous house. All-electric house, and an old heat pump for heat and air. We used the pellet stove for heat.
Worked nicely. Fire it up and forget it; just keep the pellet box full. Clean it out with a vacuum once a week (after full cool down, of course). Not much ash, as they are very efficient. Pellet bags were about $3.00 then (this was in the late 1980’s-early 1990′). A supply of 40 bags was enough for the CA winter (outside Sacramento).
No heat during power outages, of course, but some models now have battery backup. The only power needed is for the fan and auger feed motor.
The put out a lot of heat. And no smoke/wood fire odor. Was great! Recommended, even at the $5-6/bag pellet prices now.
“This Solar Plant Accidentally Incinerates Up to 6,000 Birds a Year”
YUUUP, and the electrical generating windmills do the same. And yes, if a Ranger or game warden sees you shoot a golden eagle, you will be arrested and prosecuted, but the windmill company is protected.
“Government Proposes First Take Permit for Condor Deaths at a Wind Farm”
https://www.audubon.org/news/government-proposes-first-take-permit-condor-deaths-wind-farm
“As endangered California Condors recover, they are veering toward wind turbines. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is preparing for the inevitable.”
I had a bald eagle hanging around my 14 acre property for a while. My buddy saw it in the tree and said, “as soon as it goes, I will chainsaw the tree”. I said “no way, I’ve only got a couple of dozen trees”. He said, “do you want Fish and Wildlife here”. But the eagle got his fill of fish out of my ponds and left the next day so we did not cut down the 70 ft cypress tree.
Nuclear for power generation…
Sort of out of left field but won’t be surprised if someone here can chime in…so if the USN can stuff a working nuclear reactor into a submersible steel tube, can any of that technology be adapted to create ‘neighborhood power plants’?
Warship nuclear power plants 90% uranium rods good for 30 years. Commercial nuclear power plants use 5% uranium rods good for 18 months. Way different beasties.
“Smaller, safer, cheaper: One company aims to reinvent the nuclear reactor and save a warming planet”
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/02/smaller-safer-cheaper-one-company-aims-reinvent-nuclear-reactor-and-save-warming-planet
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_modular_reactor
A lot of people are working on neighborhood nuclear power plant. They are trying for a remote town in Alaska to be the demo project. But has not happened yet.
The SMR needs to be totally idiot proof. Including Joe Redneck proof which is a whole ‘nother level of safety.
Plus for the pellet stove is it has a t-stat. And is pretty much a turn on for heat and turn off when done. Ash cleaning isn’t much as most of it (I guess) is blown out the exhaust.
How does the pellet stove start the wood pellets on fire ?
Is there a powered blower for the combustion side ?
So, the wood pellets ash is mostly fly ash (unburned carbon and silicon dioxide (sand)). I am guessing that there is very little bottom ash (silicon dioxide (sand) and other stuff like metals).
I’d guess some portion of the population (seniors, healthcare workers, germophobes, etc.) will make mask wearing in public the norm to reduce (somewhat?) the transmission of the common cold, seasonal flu, etc. Nothing like being in line at the Quikee Mart with your half-gallon Slurpee dripping on the floor and the guy behind you is sneezing up a fit right into your personal space.
As for this year’s seasonal flu…
Flu numbers are down this year due to higher vaccination rates amid COVID pandemic. Experts say mask use and social distancing have also helped keep numbers low.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/flu-numbers-year-due-higher-vaccination-rates-amid/story?id=74783195
I and none of my family or close friends got a flu shot this season. Mask and social distancing *may* have… That is a brown number ABC pulled out of it’s butt.
Perhaps the real reason is: you got the flu really means you got COVID and that is reported. I can come up with my own brown number.
I’d guess some portion of the population (seniors, healthcare workers, germophobes, etc.) will make mask wearing in public the norm to reduce (somewhat?) the transmission of the common cold, seasonal flu, etc. Nothing like being in line at the Quikee Mart with your half-gallon Slurpee dripping on the floor and the guy behind you is sneezing up a fit right into your personal space.
And the food preparers are wearing masks and gloves. I like that and think that it should continue.
–hmmmm
n
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9238323/Hackers-broke-Florida-towns-water-treatment-plant-attempted-poisoning-sheriff-says.html
=–so net net, half a million MORE people out of work and in poverty.
Friends like that, who needs enemies?
n
also — unless he wants to end up in a 55 gallon drum, or breathing thru a new hole in his head, these are NOT the guys to p!ss off….
–hmmmm
n
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9238323/Hackers-broke-Florida-towns-water-treatment-plant-attempted-poisoning-sheriff-says.html
TeamViewer is a known huge security hole. A lot of people use the convention “q1w2e3r4” or a variation for their password which I’ve never really understood. I have a theory, related to the popularity of the app on Wall Street where the suits use it to televist their dominatrix on their lunch hours, but the explanation probably isn’t family friendly.
Officially, TeamViewer was banned at my last job, but it was often the only way to get certain work done.
Ironically, Oldsmar is classified as a “slum” by the Federal Government which gives the city certain tax breaks to attract high tech businesses. One of those was a VPN developer with ties to the Church of Scientology, but the tech was pretty sound IMHO, much better than AnyConnect or Microsoft’s SSTP. Maybe Oldsmar should knock on the door and ask for a discount.
My money manager says he has plans to *double* that in another year.
Is he taking new customers? Serious question. Also, does he have a web site or newsletter? I would like to see how he does it.
https://thefederalist.com/2021/02/08/how-socio-emotional-learning-became-another-vehicle-for-anti-white-racism-in-schools/
-paging mr atoz
n
And I’ll say plainly, as long as we are ONE NATION, we have ONE National Anthem, and anyone promoting anything else is an agent of subversion. You want apartheid, you’ll get it. I don’t think you’ll like it much.
I have not seen apartheid work anywhere in the last 70+ years. And we will not like it at all. The difference here is that the whites are still 60% of the population. The Latinos are 19% and the Blacks are 13%. My experience is that the Latinos do not like the Blacks and vice versa. But the Latinos like the Whites. Mostly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States
“Iranians are being told that the COVID vaccine turns you gay”
The guy’s boss at Langley probably took the credit.
@Lynn
“For the purpose of the census, Latino is not a race.”
American Indians are a race, Mexican Indians are an ethnicity.
Well, plugs can’t raise the minimum wage to $15/hr. He can use an EO on Federal employees, but that’s it. That could be challenged. I wonder how he’s gonna pay for that, even. And the CBO is full of brown numbers. It always has been.
Viva La Raza!
“viva la raza!”
The slogan of one of our radio stations. On bumper stickers and signs. and the slogan of the Reconquista movement. Imagine a country radio station with the same slogan in english, and using a catch phrase of the KK K …
Hmmm.
n
tRump’s lawyers bitch slapped Congress today. The best part was “The House investigates impeachment crimes, where was the investigation…” Exactly, and why is a Dumbocrat, who already said tRump is guilty, the head of the Senate trial?
SEL keeps me in ribeyes.
Viva La Raza!
https://www.customincomesolutions.com
Exactly, and why is a Dumbocrat, who already said tRump is guilty, the head of the Senate trial?
I am just hoping that particular dumbrocrat has a fresh set of Depends for each session.
Re: pellet ignition in pellet stove:
They use a bit of forced air against the pile of pellets to keep the fire going. To get it started, you use a wax-impregnated cube (‘fire starter’). Fire starter in the bottom of the burn pot, a few pellets on top, light the starter, which lights the pellets. Give the feed switch a little bump to get a good burn, and you are done.
The temp control feeds pellets at a faster or slower rate to increase/decrease heat output. The forced air jet into the burn pot keeps the fire going. The result is heat to go across the heat exchanger tubes which have room air cycled through them to provide the heat output, and the forced air helps burn almost all of the pellets, leaving very little ash.
Very efficient process. And no smoky air in the room like a conventional wood stove or fireplace.
Impartiality?
I just found out that the feds will provide $7K for funeral expenses to the family of the person that died of COVID-19. Retroactive to March 2020. Expect the COVID death count to spike.
=–so net net, half a million MORE people out of work and in poverty.
Friends like that, who needs enemies?
Well, plugs can’t raise the minimum wage to $15/hr. He can use an EO on Federal employees, but that’s it. That could be challenged. I wonder how he’s gonna pay for that, even. And the CBO is full of brown numbers. It always has been.
If Beijing Biden gives out any more Executive Orders, he is going to need to give all federales a binder to go with them ! And tabbed dividers: Climate Change, Climate Disruption, Global Warming, Payroll, etc.
why is a Dumbocrat, who already said tRump is guilty, the head of the Senate trial?
Impartiality?
I just found out that the feds will provide $7K for funeral expenses to the family of the person that died of COVID-19. Retroactive to March 2020. Expect the COVID death count to spike.
Are you sure that this is not an internet rumor ?
Of course, it would not surprise me if this was provided to the funeral home.
My father-in-law paid for his funeral in 1998 or so we had very little funeral expenses for him back in September.
We are minus one more WWII vet today. My wife’s 97 year old uncle passed away yesterday while visiting his granddaughter in Lubbock. He sat down in the recliner after lunch to take a quick nap and passed away in his sleep. A good way to go.
My wife talked to him on the phone just a week or two ago. She is trying to decide if she will drive up to Tulia, TX (halfway between Lubbock and Amarillo) for his funeral Saturday but I think that the weather just killed that.
Not many WWII vets left. I still know one more, he is 96.
Because…Georgia.
What about Homer Simpson proof?
Hmm, haven’t run into someone refusing a small job. Guess it depends in part on how not busy they are. Good point though about making use of the upholstery attachment.
“He sat down in the recliner after lunch to take a quick nap and passed away in his sleep.”
–it’s a little bit disconcerting to be so very very close to the edge and to be going on with normal routine. But you are right, it’s a good way to go.
n
+1…”snarky” is exactly how she comes off to me. Plus grating with all the umm’s and uhh’s. You’d think someone is her role would have dealt with that affliction already.
If there’s no mandate then it becomes a corporate business decision…No Shirt, No Shoes, No Mask – No Service.
@nick; those Bitcoin lookin’ good now…
Bitcoin Tops $47,000 for First Time After Tesla Purchase
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-surges-past-47-000-012426395.html
What’s $1.5B to Elon anyway?
“The SMR needs to be totally idiot proof. Including Joe Redneck proof which is a whole ‘nother level of safety.”
–I was going to mention earlier, watching the show Flying Wild Alaska, there is an episode where they bring parts and a tech to a community power station somewhere in the boonies. He laments that there isn’t anyone at all to do even the simplest maintenance, and in fact the gear usually breaks from the intervention of the guy tagged with ‘doing something’. IIRC he even mumbles something about the ravages of alcohol on the effectiveness/responsibility/intelligence of the local help.
Any neighborhood power unit outside of civilization, needs to be a Shipstone, completely sealed and even negatively accessible. NO TOUCHING!
n
(and they have to be resistant to intentional misuse or terrorism attack.)
“@nick; those Bitcoin lookin’ good now…”
–yep, and I added $50 each of bitcoin cash and litecoin not too long after the BTC.
BTC is up 3x, BCH is up 1.5x, and LTC is up 2.3x from when I bought. Makes me feel RICH! to see those percentage gains. Of course if it was more than beer money I wouldn’t have done it at all, so I can’t quit working anytime soon. Nor can I afford a trip to the range…
n
added- my wife never fails to mention that she said we should mine bitcoin back in 2003 or 2004… about the time someone bought a pizza, iirc. But we didn’t.
“He sat down in the recliner after lunch to take a quick nap and passed away in his sleep.”
–it’s a little bit disconcerting to be so very very close to the edge and to be going on with normal routine. But you are right, it’s a good way to go.
n
Can I state that anyone over 75 is close to the edge ?
He was very big on family. My wife spent the summers of 1972 and 1973 with him and his wife in Tulia. His eight grandkids all lived with them on and off. His wife passed away two ??? years ago and he missed her very much.
@MrAtoz, thanks for the link to your money guy. I will look as soon as I can.
In our old house, we had an antique masonry stove. For an evening’s fire, I would go through at least six meter-long pieces of beech. In the new house, we have a modern wood stove. It uses less than 1/3 as much wood, typically 5 pieces of 33cm pine. I suppose the difference is all in the carefully controlled airflow: just enough oxygen to burn cleanly, not any extra to blow all the heat out the chimney.
The disadvantage of a modern house: The house is so airtight that turning on the kitchen vent sucks smoke *down* the chimney. *cough* *cough* We didn’t pay for a fresh air conduit to the stove – that may have been a mistake. If I light a fire while my wife is cooking dinner, my solution is to prop open the cat door.
“in the process of building a governing Board of Directors which will be largely composed of biz leaders in under-represented groups – women, people of color, sexual orientation, etc. “
Sounds like a recipe for success. Get woke, go broke.
Unfortunately, being at Harvard, he probably won’t be allowed to fail. Someone will always bail him out.
I get a flu shot every year, except this year it was impossible. They were sold out. OTOH, it doesn’t much matter: all the anti-COVID measures have reduce flu transmission to almost nothing. I saw figures somewhere, can’t find them just now, but it was a small fraction of the usual numbers.
The UK has come out and said that there will need to be a annual COVID shot, just like there is an annual flu shot. IMHO, vaccination should be mandatory for people working in the health sector. Here, at least, there has always been a huge resistance among carers in retirement homes, and nurses in general. Very few get the flu shot, and then they wonder that their patients get the flu, and often die of it. Maybe COVID will change this.
It has a glow plug.
My stove has two blowers. One exhausts the smoke. Fresh air comes through a tube through the wall.
The other blower circulates the heat.
Very little ash, maybe a cup per bag of pellets.