Continued cool and overcast with high humidity here at the BOL. Well, probably. It was humid enough yesterday for three days… We had the windows open all day but ran the A/C at night. Really glad for A/C to knock down the humidity. The A/C here blows cold and strong.
See yesterday’s comments for some of what I got done. Today’s plan is trim and carpet removal, cleaning and new lights and fan in another bedroom. I have some garden stuff to do in between. I might do some plumbing. There is always more on the list.
At some point we’ll head home to prep for Easter.
It’s all prepping.
Take a moment this weekend and look at what you’ve got. Add to the stacks.
n
Amateurs compared to the quant from DE Shaw … and MacKenzie drove the Bronco.
Amazon physical bookstores were creepy, however, like an indy store’s take on old B. Dalton except most of the books were picked for agenda and not sales.
(Please, Mayor Pete’s Husband’s gimmie book. Need I say more.)
Ironically, Barnes & Noble bought B. Dalton from Target in the 80s as part of the initiative to create their current store concept, but Target understood mass marketing better.
We are at Peak Brown Truck Mall and Food Court now. A lot of retailing will have to be relearned the hard way when the decline begins, and the more brick-n-mortar that survives The Legend of Jeff, the less the US will look like Russia during the cold war.
Nick, it sounds like ya’ll are making really good progress on the BOL. It won’t be long before it is liveable. Your plumbing strategy is wise… even with a new septic system, you will still want to control the amount of water that goes into it. So the low-flow options will be a lasting improvement.
Agreed.
I will go pick up our month’s prescriptions today. That little pharmacy is just wonderful in the customer service they offer. They call me for the ok when it’s time, then they get in touch with our doctors, get any renewals, fill them all, and call when it’s all ready. They would mail it to us if we wanted, but I prefer to pick them up.
While I am down in Goldthwaite, I’ll shop at the little independent grocery store, and on the way out of town will stop at the garden center and buy some plants for the new beds I put in last year. There’s also a wonderful hardware store… one of that that carries a host of household goods, old-time stuff (they had old-fashioned screen wire fly swatters last time I was there), along with hardware and supplies…. all in the old storefront with wooden floors that creak. So now that I only go down there once a month, it’s a fun shopping trip.
I promised Paul that next week I will call the phone company and make the leap from my old-fashioned flip phone to a smart phone. We have an old phone of his that I hope I can use and not have to buy a new one. Motorola Android.
The main obstacle has been the lack of keyboard and need to “swipe”. I bought a tablet some time ago to try to learn how, but I haven’t yet gotten a handle on it. I figure to start, I’ll only use it as a telephone, to receive texts, and a camera. I will stick to my computer for internet until I get real comfortable with answering the phone and making voice calls.
My children have been lobbying to be able to text me for a long time. For some reason they think email is too much work. I’m still not promising to reply to their texts, but at least I would be able to read them.
Another mask analysis. They don’t prevent the spread of COVID:
Masks fail their latest test
My latest trip to HEB found almost all masked peeps were using cloth masks . Bizarrely, couples were around, one masked, one not. Why even bother. I don’t think I saw one person with a N95 level mask.
Two weeks, two weeks, two weeks…
As long as the Android version is fairly current, you should be fine. Check the security patch level/date buried in the Settings menu and make sure it is something from the last couple of years.
Apple, Google, and the Android manufacturers have been really irresponsible about keeping the smart phones patched, forcing upgrades every few years, but the customer base has accepted being on the treadmill for over a decade. Baby Yoda on the go!
After my wife’s heart attack the medicine regime has been costly. I get the prescriptions through mail order which is supposed to save money. With insurance. Maybe. I am not so sure. It is currently costing us $30.00 a day in pills that she is taking. Yep, close to a thousand dollars a month, with insurance. Damn drug companies are making a killing on their proprietary drugs. There are no generics that the cardiologist is willing to prescribe, no substitution allowed. I am willing to wager that there is some kickback involved to the cardiologist.
I get my prescriptions through the VA and pay $0.00 for anything, well almost anything. There are some drugs for which the VA refuses to pay. I know one veteran who needs a drug the VA will not provide. It is either die or get the drug. The VA would rather he die. A lot of the VA compensation claims are based on delaying long enough until the veteran dies thus avoiding compensation. That thought process carries over into the prescription arena.
There is a lot more beyond just texting that can be done with a smart phone. There are many apps that make life easier. I have IOS as does the spousal unit. We share a calendar which really helps with our scheduling. Some of the complication is coordinating dates that we can sub at the high school. Medical appointments are also helpful.
There are apps for taking notes and keeping information at hand. I have the entire schematic for the video system of the church on my phone. Has come in handy more than once. I also keep a chronological log of all significant changes, problems solved, or other events that I think are noteworthy.
I keep my health records on the phone provided electronically by the VA and my primary care provider. Test results and other metrics are available on the phone as are all prescription records.
My watch has fall detection, heart monitoring, O2 monitoring. My sleep is tracked and recorded from my CPAP machine.
One can make a compelling argument about whether having all that health information on a device is a good thing, or not a good thing. In my case I like it as when I get asked a question at a doctor’s appointment I have that information. It is also possible that some entity that I don’t know is scraping that information so that I can get targeted ads. Apple is supposed to keep the information private with no personal information. I do trust Apple more than I trust Google.
Regardless, transitioning from a flip phone to a smart phone opens up a lot of possibilities beyond just being able to text. There is a lot more capabilities available. For use, and abuse.
I will disagree on Apple.
Until recently I had a five year old iPhone that received the latest IOS version from Apple. Five years is a long time in the handheld device world. Batteries, or damage, will usually cause an upgrade on iPhones before the IOS version becomes an issue.
Apple allows updates to be downloaded directly from Apple. Updates are not controlled by an outside entity. Phones bought from Verizon, T-Mobile, or any vendor all get updates from Apple.
Android is different. Each cell provider, and phone maker, has decided their own unique version of Android. Updates are provided by those suppliers. A security update may take months for the provider to integrate into their version of the Android OS. Some versions may never get the security updates.
These Android providers also will deprecate a version fairly quickly when new devices come out to encourage people to get new devices. Apple does not. The iPhone 6S was released in 2015 and is still supported on the latest version of IOS. That is seven years of support. Android is lucky to get three years of support.
I can run most of the biz on a smarty pants phone while traveling. Booking travel, scanning docs, processing payments for books, quality photo and video for upload, etc.
I like to travel with a Bose mini boom box to play sleep sounds in the hotel. Some trips, I don’t even make calls. All text and email for coordination.
A smarty pants phone can do a lot, but it is up to you to utilize it to the max.
Pharmacists get the kickbacks these days, particularly from the generics manufacturers. Obamacare outlawed a lot of “marketing” to physicians.
I will admit that it got fairly gross. After Disney and Indy Car had a falling out following the first racing event, The Mouse kept the racetrack in Orlando for a decade afterwards as “The Richard Petty Driving Experience”, which was mostly a marketing tool for software and drug companies who held events on property.
Give the C-suite execs and doctors a spin in the race car then brief them on your new products.
Once Obamacare kicked in, however, the racetrack just became a waste of valuable parking space.
Masks were always kabuki outside of hospital grade PPE IMHO. People gave in to fear, and God forbid we stigmatize the sick … who should camp their happy a**es at home like we require for TB.
The Texas Supreme Court still hasn’t ruled on several mandate cases, particularly the one that will decide where the power lies to impose mandates, with the Governor or the “Judges”.
If the Court rules in favor of the Judges, masks will be back everywhere in Austin/Travis County and San Antonio, enforced by the city cops, at least through the election.
I noted before that Austin PD had a dress rehearsal for enforcement one Saturday at our local Sam’s back in January, in case the court decision took the power away from the Governor.
Until then, the Robert Francis voters are easy to spot.
Masks? No enforcement and very little compliance here in the desert throughout the entire dempanic. I was asked to put on a mask in one store, and offered one if I needed it. I politely declined, said I would rather leave, and left. Figured I would take my money elsewhere.
I was asked to put on a mask at a restaurant in Orange County (!) to walk 20 feet from the entrance to a table, where I took it off. I smiled and said nothing.
That’s it.
The 6S was an “apology” to the faithful for the lackluster 6. It also had the A9 which was standard in the iPod Touch until the current generation and that was the last non-SE phone to have a headphone jack – people are gonna cling to those.
Apple is good with security upgrades after the embarrassment of SSL in iOS 4 and earlier resulting in every phone prior to the 3GS going into the trash.
“Delay is the deadliest form of denial”.
C. Northcote Parkinson
the racetrack just became a waste of valuable parking space.
— well, that and the bad publicity from killing that guy.
N
We had an almost identical accident at the previous previous job at the test site in Taylor except it was a Uhaul truck’s passenger seat impaled by the guardrail at almost 100 MPH. Fortunately, no one was in the passenger seat, unlike at Disney.
The racetrack was an Eisner brain fart.
See yesterday’s comments for some of what I got done. Today’s plan is trim and carpet removal, cleaning and new lights and fan in another bedroom. I have some garden stuff to do in between. I might do some plumbing. There is always more on the list.
Did you get the BOL foundation fixed yet ? I cannot remember. If they have to do any work inside then the dust will be amazing unless they are real careful.
About time for “natural causes”:
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/04/16/latest-durham-filing-shows-the-net-is-tightening-people-are-flipping-n551196
@Greg, thank you for the advice. I am going to get it out and charge it today, so I will check that. We use Consumer Cellular, so if I do have to get a new phone, they will just send it to me. I’d prefer to save the hundred dollars or so if I can.
@Ray, It is truly awful. One of the anti-cancer drugs I take costs $3,000 a month. My husband says there’s no way any medicime costs the manufacturer that much to make. We would not be able to afford it. Although I am not normally on Medicade, when I was diagnosed, the cancer center helped me get approved for a Texas program that just covers cancer patients while I have cancer. Once my doctor declares me cured, I’ll go back to paying my own way… actually by that time I will have Medicare. I am hoping I don’t have to keep taking this that long. The side effects are not fun, but one of them is “fatigue” which is really interfering with life. If I have a lot of work to do, I stop taking it for a week in advance in order to get something accomplished. My oncologist wants me to try a lower dose for a couple of months to see if that will reduce the tiredness.
@Ray, @Mr Atoz, Maybe if I can ever master gestures, I’ll get past my mental block against having a phone as my comprehensive tool. Despite being a computer early adopter, and despite working remote back in the 90s and doing everything including manage people I’d never met via computer, I am a Luddite at heart. LOL
We are at Peak Brown Truck Mall and Food Court now. A lot of retailing will have to be relearned the hard way when the decline begins, and the more brick-n-mortar that survives The Legend of Jeff, the less the US will look like Russia during the cold war.
We are importing an enormous amount of food into the USA, mostly through daily jet airplanes from places like Chile, Guatemala, and Argentina. Plus ships of special food coming from other places such as Europe, etc. I just noticed that my dog’s HEB labeled dog food (55 cents for comes from the Netherlands (is labeled Beef really horse meat ?).
So are we now living in the “good old days” that @nick talks about ? Will we remember these as the best of times when those daily airplanes and ships stop ? I love my Guatemalan and Honduran bananas.
>> I need to sell my 2005 Honda Civic Coupe EX Special Edition, 5 speed, factory spoilers, sunroof, bright red. I have not started it in two years, my garage queen.
@lynn, is it well preserved and/or have any collector value? If so you might want to consider listing it at BAT, lots of people paying crazy prices for ordinary cars there.
My children have been lobbying to be able to text me for a long time. For some reason they think email is too much work. I’m still not promising to reply to their texts, but at least I would be able to read them.
IIRC, you don’t need a phone to text. Disclaimer: I occasionally get SMS messages (texts) on my Android phone, but I only check for them about once a week, or when someone tells me they are sending one. I used to have them blocked by our carrier, back when our plan charged for ones with graphics, but now our new plan includes unlimited texting. I still avoid it whenever possible. I consider it one of those old-fashioned things. I sometimes refer to email as the original killer app, and really like it. As for replying, I almost always reply to texts using email.
Anyhow, if you prefer using a computer, Windows 10 now appears to have an SMS client built-in, but I think you use Linux. I searched for SMS over Linux, and found the usual collection of stuff that wasn’t very helpful. It does seem that you could use Telegram or Signal, and several other Internet messaging apps, but I don’t know if they would be compatible with plain old SMS. A friend uses Signal on his phone, and says it is compatible with SMS. Perhaps the hive mind here could help more.
I use a smart phone, but I’m not a big app person. I have a first gen iPhone SE and a back up Motorola E6.
The E6 has a security patch date of August 2021. Not terrible, but I will look for an alternative if that doesn’t change later this year.
>> One of the anti-cancer drugs I take costs $3,000 a month. My husband says there’s no way any medicime costs the manufacturer that much to make.
Not defending the drug companies by any means – my wife takes a similarly priced drug – but the cost also includes the costs of the R&D, testing, approval processes, etc. for not only that drug but also a portion of the costs for drugs that don’t pan out.
If the Motorola is too old or has a dead non-replaceable battery, shop eBay. I have an LG V20. “Refurb” but from what I don’t know. I can replace the battery. It’s a nice phone. Should be, it was their flagship model a few years ago. Paying $120 vs $850 is a bonus.
A friend had a Blackberry Z10. Facebook or whatever started getting snotty about his browser or OS. I found a brand new sealed box from the factory LG V20 for $150. He’s still complaining three months later…. it’s not a Blackberry. But he’s figuring it out. Fun to watch.
We’re both on prepaid Verizon plans. He gets 5 Gb data for $27 and change a month. I get 6 Gb data for almost $38 and the most I have ever used is 4 Gb when the ISP was down for a long week. I need to change my plan. AT&T probably has similar plans…. but Verzion has better service here.
I’m not nuts about Swiping the keyboard. The Google Keyboard works well for me. shrug.
My children have been lobbying to be able to text me for a long time. For some reason they think email is too much work. I’m still not promising to reply to their texts, but at least I would be able to read them.
The millennials are not like us. They grew up with electronic servants and electronic friends. They do not like emails because emails are too long. They like texts so they can move on to the next interruption.
That is why they have a hard time connecting on a personal basis and forming long term relationships. Plus our generation did not do a good job in providing examples for them, we suck. Of course, our examples sucked too. The Bible teaches us that people are incredibly messy. I have serious concerns about them but I worry about everything.
If you have to sign into a Windows Account to use SMS on Windows 10 then Microsoft’s servers are providing the actual send/receive capability. If the privacy aspect of that is a concern, don’t use SMS in the first place. The service has no expectation of privacy and law enforcement can often obtain the records with a phone call.
Google Voice offers the capability to receive SMS on their lines using the web interface.
>> Android is different. Each cell provider, and phone maker, has decided their own unique version of Android. Updates are provided by those suppliers. A security update may take months for the provider to integrate into their version of the Android OS. Some versions may never get the security updates.
For this reason I stick to Google’s’ own phones (currently the Pixel line). Currently using a 2XL that’s stuck on Android 11 (12 is current and will not be rolled out to their older phones). Also with a Google phone you get ‘stock’ Android without any of the manufacturer’s (e.g. Samsung, Nokia) bloatware. Somewhere on the to-do list is to upgrade to a 5A (6 iirc is the current model) which is a good mid-level Android phone at a reasonable price. Plus it supports 5G.
From your e-mail program:
MMS number@mms.att.net
SMS number@txt.att.net
MMS number@vzwpix.com
SMS number@vtext.com
>> If the Motorola is too old or has a dead non-replaceable battery, shop eBay. I have an LG V20. “Refurb” but from what I don’t know. I can replace the battery. It’s a nice phone. Should be, it was their flagship model a few years ago. Paying $120 vs $850 is a bonus.
I tend to favor Swappa over eBay as the latter has more bulk resellers with stock photos of the phone and only a general indication of condition, although they’re starting to take over Swappa as well.
Paul and I were talking about bananas the other day. They are bulky and heavy, have a very brief usability span, yet they are sold for a pittance. However, because they can be shipped green, even back in the 60s I remember bananas being common in our little neighborhood store. That was back when oranges were a seasonal product.
I think the good old days for the Global North, and for much of the Global South, peaked sometime in the 1970s, maybe the 1960s, and we just don’t realize it yet. By the end of the 60s, the farming revolution had come into its own, industrialization was peaking, the most life-saving medical advances were available to most people and treatment costs were affordable without third party help, society had effectively incorporated everyone into the culture of success, and nearly all children had access to a good education which those with the ability and desire could springboard into advancement. The “developing” nations that were part of the third world in 1970 for the most part are still struggling 50 years later.
We don’t have enough of a record to know whether the changes and technological advancements since then are cumulatively improvements or degradations.
Driving around doing weekend errands with the radio on a few months ago, I heard a caller to the Ramsey show talk about being a bulk reseller of Apple returns in his area until Cupertino cut him off at the beginning of the year in favor of a larger group offering a better deal.
@JimB, thank you! I do have a Win10 computer that I could do that on.
@Greg, @Alan, @paul, thank you for the additional detail.
I’ll read over your posts again and do some homework. Now that I’ve committed to a phone, I doubt that Paul will let me back out LOL
Community Cellular has inexpensive phones, and Paul’s data plan is only an extra $10 a month, so I imagine it will be the same for me. He never exceeds it, even if he uses it a lot when we are away from WiFi. He sees his phone as a lifesaver, because he can do everything with it. He streams from YouTube most of the day, there is so much interesting content out there it keeps his brain alive. We are both grateful he isn’t dependent on Daytime Television of old.
I have T-Mobile “Senior” plan (for 55+, includes unlimited data/text/phone calls/no long distance charges. Two phones on the plan for $90/month. Got a Galaxy A32-5G for minimal cost. Works just fine.
Since it is an Android phone, I can send/receive text messages on my computer via the messages.google.com site.
>> I need to sell my 2005 Honda Civic Coupe EX Special Edition, 5 speed, factory spoilers, sunroof, bright red. I have not started it in two years, my garage queen.
@lynn, is it well preserved and/or have any collector value? If so you might want to consider listing it at BAT, lots of people paying crazy prices for ordinary cars there.
Some collector value, not a lot. It looks just like this car for sale for $5,500:
https://www.smartmotorguide.com/L48387975
@alan:
Re: Android bloatware. Samsung are a lot worse for that than Nokia is. I use a Nokia 8.3 5G, even though my contract is for 4G, and Nokia added a couple of apps that make doing certain things easier.
Samsung provide parallel, mutually-exclusive functionality, e.g. for email. And you can’t tell t’other from which, unless you look very closely. A friend of my wife had that a few months ago – for some reason, her phone was using the Samsung email app, rather than the Android one (although it may have been the other way round) and she couldn’t see older emails. I changed it to use the other one (at this late date, I don’t recollect which one) and got all sorted.
Add to that, historically, Sammy were slow to pass even security updates, whereas Nokia, being closer to stock Android, were quicker. I’m having to revise that opinion nowadays, but I prefer Nokia bloat to Samsung bloat.
And don’t get me started on number of updates… At least the 8.3 will get updates until some time in 2023.
G.
Maybe if I can ever master gestures, I’ll get past my mental block against having a phone as my comprehensive tool.
Perhaps this would help: https://www.kimdutoit.com/2021/10/18/tech-update/
I’ll read over your posts again and do some homework. Now that I’ve committed to a phone, I doubt that Paul will let me back out LOL
Community Cellular has inexpensive phones, and Paul’s data plan is only an extra $10 a month, so I imagine it will be the same for me. He never exceeds it, even if he uses it a lot when we are away from WiFi. He sees his phone as a lifesaver, because he can do everything with it. He streams from YouTube most of the day, there is so much interesting content out there it keeps his brain alive. We are both grateful he isn’t dependent on Daytime Television of old.
One important thing is that texting works when nothing else does. When hurricane Ike came in, a lot of relatives were texting us the next day to check on us. None of the cell phone services worked except the texting. So having a phone that can text independent of the wired internet is a good prepping thing.
“China & India need $50 trillion for Net-Zero transition, report says”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/04/13/china-india-need-50-trillion-for-net-zero-transition-report-says/
And they are looking to the USA to pay for the transition.
>> I need to sell my 2005 Honda Civic Coupe EX Special Edition, 5 speed, factory spoilers, sunroof, bright red. I have not started it in two years, my garage queen.
@lynn, is it well preserved and/or have any collector value? If so you might want to consider listing it at BAT, lots of people paying crazy prices for ordinary cars there.
Some collector value, not a lot. It looks just like this car for sale for $5,500:
https://www.smartmotorguide.com/L48387975
I found the car in San Antonio where it was sitting on a Honda dealer lot. I told the Honda salesdude that I was going to go to San Antone and buy it. He said wait and went and got the car for me. They had three offers to buy the car while it was sitting on the Houston dealer lot but I had already signed the contract. And they gave me a good deal and financed it at zero interest. I later found out that each dealer only got one special edition that year.
“Pollster: Biden’s Approval Rating Could Potentially Drop Into The 20s Before The Midterms”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/04/pollster-bidens-approval-rating-potentially-drop-20s-midterms
I doubt it. That is down in the blue dog territory where core democrats will vote for anything.
“Twitter’s Chickens Come Home To Roost”
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/twitters-chickens-come-home-roost
“Elon Musk has reportedly attempted to purchase Twitter, and I have no idea whether his influence on the company would be positive or not.”
“I do know, however, what other media figures think Musk’s influence on Twitter will be. They think it will be bad — very bad, bad! How none of them see what a self-own this is is beyond me. After spending the last six years practically turgid with joy as other unaccountable billionaires tweaked the speech landscape in their favor, they’re suddenly howling over the mere rumor that a less censorious fat cat might get to sit in one of the big chairs. O the inhumanity!”
And who knew that a Saudi prince owned more than 5% of Twitter ?
My wife had refused to consider upgrading her ancient Sprint “Mogul” cell phone, which had a slide-open keyboard. But with Sprint gone and NOBODY offering 3G service any longer, I persuaded to get a Unihertz Titan phone, a 4G smartphone with a physical keyboard. https://smile.amazon.com/Unihertz-Rugged-Smartphone-Android-Unlocked/dp/B0841HHLT9/ref=sr_1_2?crid=U9EX8WVO51NX&keywords=unihertz+titan&qid=1650142271&sprefix=unihertz%2Caps%2C126&sr=8-2&tag=ttgnet-20
So far (3 months now) she seems content. Somehow, hitting 68 years old has turned her into a Luddite.
The world as seen by Americans.
SMS travels in a diagnostic exchange broadcast between phone and tower. The upside is reliability, even if the rest of the network is overloaded the messages must have priority. The downside is that diagnostic data is available without a warrant.
Now that 3G is shut down and 5G is more dependent on unlicensed spectrum than the previous wireless standards, the next Ike-level disaster should prove interesting. Hopefully, Baby Yoda’s season is over for the year.
“Nuclear energy should not be part of the global solution to climate change”
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/nuclear-energy-should-not-be-part-of-the-global-solution-to-climate-change/620392/
Written by a Stanford engineering professor. He goes after nuclear on a cost basis. He is not wrong except that we need to have fuel diversity. And solar and wind have trouble producing power during the bad times.
“Trump endorses JD Vance”
https://www.rt.com/news/554001-trump-endorses-jd-vance/“
“The choice is likely to please the ex-president’s base but anger the GOP establishment”
Trump continues to choose wisely.
I get my service through Xfinity wireless. I pay $36.00 (that is with tax) a month for two phones with 3 gig of data, unlimited text and voice. I could have up to five phones on the account. They all share the same data. We have never exceed 2 gig in a month, the largest being on the last trip to Texas.
Lacking Xfinity I would go with T-Mobile. Veteran discount I would get two phones for $80.00 a month. The upscale plan that adds 4K streaming , in-flight WiFi and 40 gig of hotspot would be $100.00 a month.
The iPhone has eSIM and physical SIM capability. Thus it would seem I could have two providers on the same phone. Unfortunately Xfinity requires a physical SIM card whereas T-Mobile supports eSIMs.
I have often wondered if I needed a lot of data while traveling if I could get T-Mobile for just a month. Especially when going overseas to Europe. Just swap the SIM in my phone while I am traveling and replace when I get back. Or a better option would be to sign up for the eSIM from T-Mobile, get assigned a phone number, just keep it active for a month, then cancel.
I know that I have used a physical SIM purchased in Germany to use while traveling. Had the SIM mailed to me, swapped when the plane was taxiing in Frankfurt, and all was golden. Reversed the process when returning. The biggest hassle is keeping track of that tiny SIM card.
The Saudis know the oil will run out. They add the Emirates have been looking for other cash machines.
That is weird, now I can’t get a simple insert cursor. I get the long press text selection thing.
Well, headed home shortly. Just buttoning up.
N
Amory Lovins’ ship sailed a long time ago. He’s spent decades advocating for questionable solutions that have made little contribution to energy policy in the U.S.
The objections that he and other anti-nuclear energy zealots make are largely lists of deficiencies that come about when their own policies are implemented and the public listens to their propaganda.
Why is it that nuclear energy share is slipping? Because Lovins and his fellow travellers have spent decades demonizing it, and lately, shutting down perfectly good operating plants because of green zealotry, in which non-dispatchable sources are substituted for dispatchable, unattainable levels of market share are assumed, and the necessity of energy storage is not acknowledged.
If the man was a competent engineer he’d be the author of a sound dependability and lifecycle cost analysis of the wind power solution that he advocates.
ADDED:
I just took a look at his wiki entry. Caption on a photo is an unintentional hoot, and supports my initial comment:
“A “negawatt revolution” would involve the rapid deployment of electricity-saving technologies, such as compact fluorescent lamps.”
Ship has not only sailed, it went over the horizon, beached on a desert island, and found Wilson.
Ted Cruz Lights up Yale Student After She Accuses Him of Racism
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/04/16/ted-cruz-lights-up-yale-student-after-she-accuses-him-of-racism-n551422
That double standard will fly and flap vigorously in the breeze as long as “Republicans” includes the likes of Romney, Murkowski, and Collins, and as long as the Republican leadership are weak-kneed cowards.
The nomination should have been torpedoed. They passed up obvious questions that would have left no doubt as to her lack of fitness (“If you can’t define what a woman is, how do you propose to decide litigation that requires you to know? “) and didn’t even consider pulling the committee members to deny a quorum.
CFLs didn’t save much money, were very expensive, and didn’t last any longer than incandescent bulbs. LED lighting is MUCH better, but even that doesn’t save enough energy to power an industrial society. Natural Gas is the best stopgap until nuclear fusion starts actually producing energy.
LEDs are excellent for any use except in closed fixtures. Heat will kill them quickly. That’s why there are no “appliance bulbs” using LEDs.
It is better to have an obvious intellectual lightweight in the Roe seat.
Breyer probably felt comfortable retiring because the pending decision upheld Roe. If the vote had been to overturn, he would have stuck it out to write the dissent that will be published before the end of June, probably on the very last day of the month, Thursday this year.
It will be a lousy holiday weekend for the Sunday show staffers. Breyer is going fishing.
@Kenneth C. Mitchell
“Natural Gas is the best stopgap until nuclear fusion starts actually producing energy. ”
As Dr. Pournelle was fond of saying, nuclear fusion is always thirty years away.
@Greg Norton
“It is better to have an obvious intellectual lightweight in the Roe seat.”
Not if it means the Republicans roll over again.
Since they [PLT’s] don’t have anything but “obvious intellectual lightweight”, the risk is small.
And as the questions to Cruz show, they’re going to get accused of racism for the temerity of asking questions in any case, so why not make a sport of making it obvious that the nominee is an ILW and a fool besides? Gonna loose the BPOC vote?
https://news.baskinrobbins.com/news/baskin-robbins-aims-to-inspire-everyone-to-seize-the-yay-through-rebrand-and-new-campaign
Just add Bailey’s.
Or have a pint of Left Hand Double Milk Stout on the side.
Yes, and he WAS always correct in that prediction, but I think we’re down to the “twenty years away” mark. They’ve gotten ALMOST to the “break even” point, but there’s not (yet) any way to make the process industrial.
Natural gas, on the other hand, keeps popping up even where no theory says it ought to. Coal is certainly a “fossil fuel”, and oil may be, but it’s beginning to look like methane is being found where there isn’t any biological process to generate it. Every time they calculate the time at which all known gas deposits will be depleted, that date is further and further into the future. We’re finding natural gas faster than we’re consuming it!
@Kenneth C Mitchell
One of my interesting finds as a young rock collector was a fossil leaf imprint in coal.
That was my second-best find, after a metallic ore sample that was wildly out of place. I still have the latter, but the coal fossil was stolen along with the rest of my collection during a move in the mid-60’s. Whenever I think about that I direct a few minutes of hate to the sob and offspring unto the seventh generation.
I look forward to fusion break-even, meaning I hope to live that long and retain enough of my faculties to enjoy it.
Let’s burn nat gas until we can build modern fission plants… until fusion becomes practical. There. A plan. Simple. Next?
CFLs didn’t save much money, were very expensive, and didn’t last any longer than incandescent bulbs. LED lighting is MUCH better, but even that doesn’t save enough energy to power an industrial society. Natural Gas is the best stopgap until nuclear fusion starts actually producing energy.
LEDs are excellent for any use except in closed fixtures. Heat will kill them quickly. That’s why there are no “appliance bulbs” using LEDs.
The fifty LED can lights in my office building are dying due to heat. We run them from 7 am to 10 pm or so five days a week. You can see the cracks in their plastic bases. I have already replaced 4 or 5 of them that were probably five years old. But, they saved me a lot of money from the incandescents. And the CFLs only lasted a year or two and died of heat.
The Saudis know the oil will run out. They add the Emirates have been looking for other cash machines.
Something strange is happening with large crude oil and natural gas reservoirs. They seem to be refilling from the bottom. That would mean that there are more reservoirs underneath them. We just do not have enough data yet.
And the middle east nations are a two trick pony. First crude oil exports and then natural gas exports. Qatar is converting their huge natural fields to diesel using Exxon XXXXX old German technology (see Fischer-Tropsch for more info).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process
Others (Saudis and Kuwaitis) are converting their crude oil to distillate products (gasoline and diesel) and selling those at a higher price to customers. I suspect that Saudi Arabia and Qatar will be building LNG liquefaction plants soon.
So when the crude oil runs out, they still have enormous natural gas reserves before their energy exports run out. Decades, maybe even hundreds of years of natural gas.
Remember, the crude oil in Iraq fired the furnaces that King Nebuchadnezzar threw Daniel and his friends into almost 3,000 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadrach,_Meshach,_and_Abednego
Vanguard boosted their stake to over 10% this week, up from a little over 8% in December.
They kicked Musk out of the #1 shareholder seat.
Yes, and he WAS always correct in that prediction, but I think we’re down to the “twenty years away” mark. They’ve gotten ALMOST to the “break even” point, but there’s not (yet) any way to make the process industrial.
I don’t think so. They are having materials problems again. The temperatures are unreal and need to go higher.
@lynn
South Africa ran coal liquefaction plants (Sasol) for decades when they were under embargo. They developed the technology in parallel (although not, perhaps, entirely independently) with Germany from the 1920’s, and benefited from “liberated” technology post-WWII. Not all Nazis went to Argentina.
The U.S. spent billions and got nothing from synfuels forty years ago. Double boongoggle. First, they would have had to re-invent the wheel and play catch-up to the South Africans, who they couldn’t talk to or hire bcause of apartheid. Second, if they had, we’d probably now be running most of the top-ten single-source CO2 emitters on the planet, and have no horizontal drilling or fracking technology when the green panty-twisters shut it down and gave us $400 a barrel oil.
The U.S. spent billions and got nothing from synfuels forty years ago. Double boongoggle. First, they would have had to re-invent the wheel and play catch-up to the South Africans, who they couldn’t talk to or hire bcause of apartheid. Second, if they had, we’d probably now be running most of the top-ten single-source CO2 emitters on the planet, and have no horizontal drilling or fracking technology when the green panty-twisters shut it down and gave us $400 a barrel oil.
Sasol got their natural gas liquefaction technology from the Germans. South Africa has lots of natural gas. Probably plenty of coal too. They took it to the max. I am not sure if Exxon got their technology from the Germans or the South Africans though as they first built a 10,000 ??? barrel/day reactor, then 30,000 ??? barrel/day reactor, and then the present 60,000 barrel/day reactors in Qatar. They tried to build a 120,000 barrel/day reactor about ten years ago and it made mostly glycerine.
Before fracking went nuts in 2008, a number of my customers were getting ready to build coal to natural gas plants here in the USA. I got to help a number of them with their simulations. $14/mmbtu for natural gas will cause people to do all kinds of things to meet customer demand. The catalyst manufacturers were extremely involved in those efforts and were seeing big dollars of sales for the plants.
One of my customers (I cannot say whom as I am under severe NDA), built asphalt to gasoline reactors that the refineries crank up when the price of asphalt gets too low. There are about 15 or 20 of them in the USA and several more outside the USA. Man, that was a difficult simulation in my software. The reactor is a you know what to run as it has an incredibly small temperature and pressure range. But it works exactly as modeled.
I have been inside the underground coal to gasoline refinery in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. The USA never found it so it survived WW II. There is a 1950s 100,000 ??? barrel/day refinery sitting on top of it.
Some further thoughts on phones vs computers for @Pecancorner.
I have used lots of computers, including time shares on mainframes. For me, the PC was a mixed bag. Early ones had no connectivity to the outside world, and that was both a relief, and a need. The Internet and the web made that much better: total control and connectivity.
I have always been a late adopter, having preferred to wait until things mature. My first computer at home was a beloved AMD 386 with Windows 3.0 and then 3.11, a real workhorse. I didn’t get a phone until 2009, and it was a Windows phone. I figured it would be familiar, and it was. It was an HTC Fuze. I almost got a Blackberry, but thought something more versatile would be better, and it was. I liked the slide-out keyboard. Seems ancient now, but it was my version of Jerry’s pocket assistant. I especially liked maps and navigation.
I was looking for a bigger screen, and bought a Samsung Note in the first week they were shipping, a rare exception to being a late adopter. It was great, so I have stuck with Notes until today. That big screen is great, but makes me want something bigger. My next phone might be one of the Z Fold series, as soon as the software catches up. The idea of a tablet phone that fits in a pocket is appealing.
I bought a notebook computer when I needed something for travel. I never liked it, and that first Note took its place. There is a lesson. I went nuts, making the Note do all the notebook did and more. It also fit in a pocket. No more notebook to lug around. I still prefer a big phone to a notebook. All the phone lacks for me is screen size. Even a real keyboard is only a small comfort.
That is my lesson: adapt to your new phone; learn it like a musical instrument. Mine felt small and awkward at first. With the right apps, as some here have already said, it can do just about everything. I assume when you say swipe, you mean the keyboard. Don’t bother: just tap the keys. If you are feeling adventurous, get another of the many keyboards that are available. You might like one better. As for the UI, embrace it. Try some of the settings that change behavior. Make it yours. I’ll bet other things seemed a bit foreign at first, but after a while they became second nature. Ever try to play a clarinet?
I go through cycles. Sometimes I prefer my phone, and sometimes I am reminded how much better a good computer with a big screen and a great keyboard is. Sometimes I use both together. We are living in great times when our problems are some of the things I have just discussed.
@Lynn, I have liked fluorescent lights since my dad put one over a workbench in the 1950s. Always liked them because they are large, shadow-free light sources. When we built our house in 1977, I put lots of them in, but mostly in utility areas.
When CFLs first came out, I tried a few. The first ones I bought were over $10 each. They were… curious. The later twisted ones were better, but not by much.
Early LEDs did not match fluorescents, including CFLs, for efficiency, but they did last a bit longer to partially justify their higher prices. As you said, both did not do well in enclosed fixtures. Also, both lasted a lot longer if they were mounted base down or horizontal. Base up killed them pretty fast. We need fixtures designed for LEDs.
I have not yet experimented with LED panels, but will soon. I think they have a place in homes. I particularly like their thin profile and broad, even light. They are also pretty affordable.
What LEDs still cannot do is compete with halogen lamps for long throw lights, such as 10 degree or less spotlights. There are some being used in theatrics, but not yet in residential fixtures. I would particularly like an LED bulb or fixture with an elliptical reflector. GE tried that with an incandescent bulb, but it didn’t catch on because it required a deep can fixture. It had the advantage of a very small hole aligned with the outer focal point, which makes for almost no glare or scatter outside the beam. There are mirrored grilles that do almost the same thing.
Your high bay lights are good use of LED technology, but as you have found, they need a better design to cool the LEDs and circuitry. I have not tried them, but next time you buy some, try to get ones with big heat sinks. Might help. The good ones are also costly, as you have found.
Good day.
Free guitar lesson day at Guitar Center. Had a really great time. I was t sure I wanted a free lesson, but kiddo had a drum lesson (which got cancelled) and I wanted to noodle on that Seagull Folk S6 with the cherry top again. Man it oughta be illegal to have so much fun. Myself and a completely newbie showed up. Neither of us had signed up so the instructor didn’t know to expect us. I was communing eith the guitar I didn’t need, and the newbie was aimlessly wandering around. My husband took matters into his own hand and did things behind the scene to make the lesson happen.
Great hour talking about blues, Appalachians, Evolution of music. Learned some nest things and and a (slightly) better guitar player. New guy Was struggling with his borrowed guitar. the neck was too narrow for his beefy fingers. I made him swap guitars with me (it was a wrench. I don’t -need- this Seagull but man do I -want- it) and he had a much easier time of it. Music fills up my heart. Yeah, I know how crystal light and magic that sounds but darn it it’s true. it was fantastic to hear him frustratingly dulling the notes to hear them ring out crystal clear. I miss teaching. Instructor was very skilled – great player but more unexpectedly good at translating his skill to practical stuff for the student.
Emotionally satisfying Good Friday service last night. As a human immersed in the analytical I find it very very difficult to balance and rationalize my Christianity with the bits and bytes of my analytical mind. Reading CS Lewis helps. Thursdays Maundy service and last nights Good Friday service, which pulled no punches on original sin, our wretched predicamen, and Grace, hit hard. I hope Easter never becomes subsumed as Christmas has by the commercial enterprises. I’m a lousy Christian. I feel vaguely embarrassed by most of it. But there’s an inarculable aspect that I need and under which I’m a better human. The services last couple of days, combined with the onslaught of depressing daily news, drives home our powerlessness.
I suppose I’m a peasant. That these may be the good old days leaves me immeasurably saddened. So I cling to music, and Gods grace, because what else may I do? Realistically I have less effect on the world than a butterflies wings. my little dog is warm in my lap and perhaps that is enough.
Fabtastic beasts movie – don’t bother unless you’re a hardcore fan. Woke woke woke. Only genuinely fun scene was the lambic mimicry bit with the scorpion-y things. on the other hand while I don’t know whether or not I liked “Ecerything Everywhere All at Once” it was a creatively crafted film.
Good day.
Free guitar lesson day at Guitar Center. Had a really great time. I was t sure I wanted a free lesson, but kiddo had a drum lesson (which got cancelled) and I wanted to noodle on that Seagull S6 with the cherry top again. Man it oughta be illegal to have so much fun. Myself and a completely newbie showed up. Neither of us had signed up so the instructor didn’t know to expect us. I was communing eith the guitar I didn’t need, and the newbie was aimlessly wandering around. My husband took matters into his own hand and did things behind the scene to make the lesson happen.
Great hour talking about blues, Appalachians, Evolution of music. Learned some new things and and a (slightly) better guitar player. New guy Was struggling with his borrowed guitar. the neck was too narrow for his beefy fingers. I made him swap guitars with me (it was a wrench. I don’t -need- this Seagull but man do I -want- it) and he had a much easier time of it. Music fills up my heart. Yeah, I know how crystal light and magic that sounds but darn it it’s true. It was fantastic to hear him transform from frustratingly dulling the notes to hear them ring out crystal clear. I miss teaching. Our instructor was very skilled – great player and unexpectedly good at translating his skill to practical stuff for the student.
Emotionally satisfying Good Friday service last night. As a human immersed in the analytical I find it very very difficult to balance and rationalize my Christianity with the bits and bytes of my analytical mind. Reading CS Lewis helps. Thursdays Maundy service and last nights Good Friday service, which pulled no punches on original sin, our wretched predicamen, and Grace, hit hard. I hope Easter never becomes subsumed as Christmas has by the commercial enterprises. I’m a lousy Christian. I feel vaguely embarrassed by most of it. But there’s an inarculable aspect that I need and under which I’m a better human. The services last couple of days, combined with the onslaught of depressing daily news, drives home our powerlessness.
I suppose I’m a peasant. That these may be the good old days leaves me immeasurably saddened. So I cling to music, and Gods grace, because what else may I do? Realistically I have less effect on the world than a butterflies wings. My little dog is warm in my lap and perhaps that is enough.
Fantastic beasts movie – don’t bother unless you’re a hardcore fan. Woke woke woke. Only genuinely fun scene was the lambic mimicry bit with the scorpion-y things. On the other hand while I don’t know whether or not I liked “Everything Everywhere All at Once” it was a creatively crafted film.
It’s time to slaughter the oldest litter of rabbits. The youngest litter is ready to be weaned and I’ve got another litter due tomorrow. I need to clean the rabbitry. Once a week. Takes 10-15 minutes. I left their fabric door open tonight as it is supposed to remain above freezing.
@Jenny. Easter blessings to you, your family and all others. Noting also that if it is worth saying, it is worth saying twice. 😉
To me, Christianity (I consider myself a Christian), religion in general, is all about faith. You have it, or don’t. I was raised Lutheran, Baptised, Confirmed and Church member until I entered the military. I haven’t been a member of a church since then. You believe, or don’t. Lutheran: Believe In Jesus Christ As Your Personal Lord And Saviour And You Will Be Saved. I don’t need to give a ton of money to a mega church to understand that.