Moving on up

I'm changing URL's for this blog, I started to when
we moved to colombia, but I never really have time.

Please update your links.

http://farsouthofi-10.blogspot.com/

Let us drink, let us sing, let us for one more night spit in the face of death!

Another flowchart today from Achewood.
Any time a cartoon includes a flowchart spitting in the face
of death, you gotta love it. (pretty uneven cartoon, though,
but when the topics range from lying robots to gay porn, ya
gotta expect that.

It could be eat, drink and be merry, because tomorrow some
crazy korean kid could blow us all away!

Solar power putz's

The Nytimes has an article today about how solar power still doesn't
make economic sense. They use an example for a house with a system
that costs $54000, which to me seems excessive. The only way solar
power will make sense for anyone is to first cut down the demand side
of the equation, you can't solar power conventional air conditioning!

I took a class a few years ago on designing and installing PV systems,
and I learned from that class that it is possible to either be a shark
and screw people out of a lot of money and sell them things they don't
need, or you have to live like the instructor did, in a crappy 30 year old
camper. The 3rd way to live would probably entail me continuing to work
in the oilfield while selling PV on weekends.

To me, the people that installed a $54000 system are sharks. A rule of
thumb would guestimate a pv system costing $15/watt installed. So a $54000
system would be a 3.5 kilowatt system, and if New Jersey gets 4-5 usable
hours of sunlight per day, then they would generate about 505 kwh/month,
to try and meet the demands of a macmansion.

The better way that makes economic sense is to cut back on electricity usage,
use gas for heating, cooking and drying. Then replace all lights with florescents
that it's possible to put up with, then cut out all the thief loads and turn off
TV's, vcr's and computers that aren't in use with powerstrips. Every watt
you save on load saves you $15.

In New Jersey you could probably live without air conditioning, in Houston,
not so much. In order to try and be green in Houston you'd really need a
ground loop heat pump, which is probably the most cost effective thing
to do in areas that need aircon.

The ideal isn't just to spend money to propitiate the green gods [A la al gore]
or to live in caves without internet, but to sensibly cut back and save energy and
money, then put up a PV system that will cover the load.

Here's your sign.

Bill Whittle at Eject,Eject, Eject has a fantastic post rebutting conspiracy theories
that is like a cool wind blowing through a teenagers fetid bedroom,
his post has the cleansing power of logic to sweep away the augean
stables of stupidity that infests the modern world.

My favorite quote:

ALL of these 9/11 conspiracy sites have museum-grade idiots stating what “obviously” happens at velocities and temperatures that they are flat-out incapable of understanding. Not only are these people too stupid to understand the physics involved with what they are bloviating about…they are too stupid to realize that they are too stupid.

Too many people believe the conspiracy theories in the world today.
They use magical thinking instead of logic and science, which tells me that
when the world crashes some day, it'll be hundreds of years before it gets
back to the same level again since society is currently dismembering the
enlightenment structure that got us to this point, we're racing back to the
16th centry "if she weighs the same as a duck she's a witch" logic.

There are people that hold the stupidest viewpoints about things they know
nothing about:

Fire can't melt steel. The government is an evil nazi dictatorship, let's go
protest and shit on a flag trusting the same nazis to not arrest us. Iran is
a haven of democracy. Russia, france and china have the world's best interest
at heart, the USA only acts for the benefit of oil companies. Iraq is a war
for oil where we're willing to spend trillions of dollars just so that someday
we'll have the right to buy oil at market price.

Bill Whittle says all this a lot better than I ever could, he hits the truthers with
shotgun blasts of reality, too bad they are too deranged to read it.
I'm going to print and laminate his post to show it to people as soon
as the first flecks of foam appear on their lips; here stupid, here's your sign.

Sounds from the window

In our apartment we have a balcony that opens up to what should be
a side street, but since the next street over has become a major traffic
jam, our quiet street seems to get louder every day. Car alarms, traffic,
the rattle of trucks filled with propane bottles, it all fills the street.

Stranger still is the sound of horseshoes, since a major mode of garbage
removal is horse drawn wagons. Most garbage is picked up by modern
trucks a few times a week, but the horse drawn wagons pass every few
hours and pick up things of value like cardboard boxes, or appliances,
or an american flag that my wife tried to throw out. (I had to explain that
it's not junk no matter how fucked up looking it is, we need to burn it
during a barbeque after I rescued the flag from the trash.)

In the mornings on the weekends there is a tamale vendor that walks the
streets, "Tamales, tamales, tamales" she cries, and it's more stretched out
than the tamale vendors in the apartment where I lived in 2000, so instead
of "tamales, tamales, tamales" it's really more of a "ta-ma-les" over 5 seconds
in a high pitched voice.

There is also the sound of the bar a block away at night. I've got speakers
on the patio now so I'm tempted to try and fight their salsa with some high
volume eagles tonight. or maybe not.

Until we have actual curtains on the windows this place seems very similar
to a fishing camp I lived in back in '94-'96. Very open to the world. I can't fish
here, but I can drink beer on the porch.

thanatopsis

It's pretty depressing that at some point most of the blogosphere will
be nothing but dead links and dead people. As my bookmarks such
as Cathy Seip and Acidman pass away, the internet will become another
tomb of man.


As William Cullen Bryant said:

...The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods—rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste,—
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man! with a modern update: The links and banner ads, porno and erection aids Arguments over politics and religion, cutting wit and sock puppets, bloggers and MSM fill this internet, this google cache, the darkening web

bleh. old age

I'm just waiting out the last couple of hours before I turn
40. In an optimistic way of looking at things, I've probably
got another half-life left to go. Less optimistic way of looking
at things gives me 20 - 25 effective years before I retire
to the couch full time. Since I've only got 17 years professional
work experience, I still have more ahead of me than behind
me. (not sure if that's optimistic or not, I think I'd rather retire
now)

Who knows? maybe in 40 years aging will be conquered, and
I'll live long enough to see all the rich and famous people get
treatments that keep them young forever and I'll shake my
diet bud can at the HD hologram set as Paris reenacts her
sex tape live on CBS for the 50th anniversary of it being released
on the internet. As my palsied liver-spotted hand stabs at the
tivo button, tivo will reach into my blogspot archive and bring out
this post and I'll get the satisfaction of knowing I was right about
the future before I have to get up to get another diet bud and change
my depends.