| Good To Be A Banksta |
[05 Oct 2008|11:29am] |
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![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) rpeate links the love from Sinfest.
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[03 Oct 2008|04:53pm] |
A few years ago, my sister and her hubby took some of their extra cash, bought property and built their dream house, one she designed herself. She also pressed her builder to stop with the head-scratching and provide the house with the most energy-efficient design the house size would allow; they got structural insulated panel construction with a radiant floor fueled with an oil boiler. (The oil boiler was my suggestion. Though they have a proven track record, propane tanks can fail, sometimes spectacularly. Keep that much pressurized flammable gas around and one day, you might spring a leak. Oil tanks can also leak, but since home heating oil (essentially, low-grade diesel fuel) has a high flash point one can drop a lit kitchen match or cigarette into the tank and safely watch it fizzle out. That level of redundancy in safety appealed to her.)
She called the other day with news. Since they have been in the house a few years and have smoothed many of the unforeseen design wrinkles, she felt it was time to start further improving the energy consumption profile. Her builder suggested a Thermomax solar array (like the one The Wife and I are contemplating) backed by an on-demand electric water heater. Why electric? With the crest of Peak Oil probably upon us, electric has become a cost-effective alternative to either oil or gas for home heating. The builder estimated she and her hubby would pay for the oil boiler replacement in 7-10 years.
Me? ( I had to balk. )
X-Posted to ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) home_effinomic.
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| Embracing the Long Descent |
[30 Sep 2008|08:35pm] |
kmo had a couple of great podcasts on his C-Realm Podcast over the last couple of weeks. The first I'd like to mention featured John Michael Greer, an archdruid who speaks very well about economics and their peaks and valleys. From his September 24th entry:
Yet it also has to be remembered that not too long ago, economic depressions were simply a fact of life. In the 19th century, before government regulation restrained the excesses of the business cycle, major economic depressions happened every twenty or thirty years on average; most people could expect to live through two or three of them. The New Deal reforms of the 1930s, which restricted the vagaries of the business cycle, made depressions a thing of the past; still, those reforms were tossed aside in the deregulatory frenzy of the 1980s and 1990s, and unless they get put back in place, we will all likely have to get used to depressions again.
Counterintuitive though it may seem, furthermore, a serious depression right now may just be the best thing that could happen to the United States. I don’t say this by way of passing judgment, or in the spirit of schadenfreude that seems to surround so many predictions of social catastrophe. Rather, a good many of the dysfunctions that are dragging America to ruin will be immediately unsustainable in a time of depression, and a certain amount of economic suffering now could spare the American people a far worse experience later on.
I know, I know, those of you contemplating the blood and tears of employment spent just to squirrel away enough money in your later years to enable you not to produce more blood and tears in your later years might find these words revolting treacle. I'm sure everyone with their tootsies poised on Wall Street window sills in late 1929 thought exactly the same thing about other analysts explaining the robust economies that might emerge from the ashes of that crash. A lot of good a correction now does for my planned trip to Hawaii next year.
His bloggy entries, though, make a lot of sense. He makes a further observation in the podcast as well that jives very well with a concept I've been trying to articulate for several years now, an idea best expressed in an analogy between plants taking over a cleared lot and societies. Greer traces the development of agriculture and equated that to a dandelion on a vacant lot; the farms sprout where the soil is fertile, consume the soil nutrients, crash and disperse just like a weed growing in the soil briefly only to scatter as many seeds as possible:
The weeds that grow in a vacant lot; they maximize their resources, they reproduce themselves, produce lots of seeds. They don't cycle. They tend to burn through the available cheap and easy resources, and then they tend to get squeezed out by something else which is slower and more efficient.
And it goes, stage by stage, with increasing efficiency, more cycling, more . . . concern for durability, less concern for maximum production in any immediate period. (The) history of agricultural societies follows that trend.
Exactly. For years I have wanted to make a documentary that followed this line of reasoning, tracing human technology in terms of what the newer gadgets could deliver in efficiency. Yes, it's fun to light an open fire and try to cook a dinner; but over the long run one gets more efficiency enclosing and controlling the fire in a wood stove, then a gas stove, then electric, then induction; and so on. Each successive addition to the technological tool chest increases in complexity and often in support needs, but decreases the necessary operator input time and resource energy needed to support the tech. The weeds to forest analogy fits that old chestnut of mine very nicely.
Anyhoo, I encourage a look into Greer's interview and blog. Good stuff. This last week, kmo once again hosted ellenbrown to talk about why our financial future is crashing around us. She explains the derivatives market, a bizarre system of betting on both success and failure that pretty much works to inflate our economy. . . until it crashes. After all, in conflicting bets only one will prove a winner. The fact that both bets show their outcomes as positive assets? Well. . . that's proving a bit problematic of late, now isn't it? She describes this process in more detail. I won't bother to summarize this stuff. I can barely understand it.
Enjoy the depressing content I heartily recommend!
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| The Methane Emerges |
[25 Sep 2008|01:56pm] |
Remember that scary scenario I recently mentioned, the one about the world's atmosphere changing rapidly for the worse should global greenhouse effects run too rampant? On that note, this article should help the constipated make their desired releases:
In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through "methane chimneys" rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a "lid" to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.
They have warned that this is likely to be linked with the rapid warming that the region has experienced in recent years.
Methane is about 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and many scientists fear that its release could accelerate global warming in a giant positive feedback where more atmospheric methane causes higher temperatures, leading to further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane.
(Emphasis mine.)
This is one of those positive feedbacks Dennis Bushnell mentioned.
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| This Could Be Worrisome |
[25 Sep 2008|01:37pm] |
From this site:
The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) is reporting in the Kremlin over the past several days that the Bank of England has received from the United States Federal Reserve Bank a notice that President Bush is preparing to declare an Economic Emergency during the week of October 5th and will further announce that the American Presidential election due to be held on November 4th will be indefinitely suspended.
(Emphasis mine)
The source seems a bit shaky, so I won't clean and load my gun just yet.
Paranoia from alostrael.
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| More On Electric Cars; an Electric Car for Morons |
[23 Sep 2008|10:56am] |
My neighbor forced me to read a Wired magazine article the other day. He brought his copy over and let me borrow it just so I could give him some feedback. (Some might remember that I let my subscription lapse for very good reason.)
The cover story concerns someone trying to implement a new structure to electric vehicle sales and support. Instead of selling the cars complete with batteries and let consumers figure out the maintenance issues that arise on their lonesome, Shai Agassi takes a new approach:
Instead of gas stations on every corner, (Agassi's system) would blanket a country with a network of "smart" charge spots. Drivers could plug in anywhere, anytime, and would subscribe to a specific plan —- unlimited miles, a maximum number of miles each month, or pay as you go -— all for less than the equivalent cost for gas. They'd buy their car from the operator, who would offer steep discounts, perhaps even give the cars away. The profit would come from selling electricity —- the minutes.
(Emphasis mine.)
( To me, that bold section reeks of stupidity. )
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| Finally, a Well-Executed Chart! |
[20 Sep 2008|10:13am] |
Political talk bores and fascinates me. Politicians have but one job: to convince voters. What they do to pursue that goal is boring (personal slams against opponents and the media frenzy and froth following same) and fascinating (policy discussions that actually get reported). Graphs can sometimes be a political tool, but for the most part they are slanted and difficult to understand.
Here is an exception.
Rather than simply give the breakdown on tax cuts/increases by income bracket, the author Karmanaut lengthened the brackets themselves to indicate how many actually fall into those brackets. This proves the joke in McCain's off-the-cuff estimate at the definition of "rich," since his $5 Million per year would be almost twice the income of the largest tax bracket categorized by the IRS, a group comprising only .1% of the population. It also shows the most likely source for Obama's support, his power base, folks with income between $111K and $161K. How else to explain that weird hourglass bulge near the top? I must say, it would be weird to make over $111.7K one year, lose under a grand of income and see your after tax take-home pay go way up the next year.
Oh, but do, do, do look very closely at that very skinny line at the top. See it stretch both left and right, indicating the fat cuts and increases provided to the very, very wealthy. That's a sharp distinction between the two camps.
As very cool and clear as this chart is, I would like to see more like it. How about a animated version tracking bracket percentage changes over the years? How about a similar one with lines demarking not just the shifting median average, but the more important modal average, the average that shows the income shared by the largest group in the country?
I'll have to check out this Chartjunk site more closely.
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| Listening to Nazareth |
[15 Sep 2008|12:31pm] |
. . . I started to sing along -- with needed modification.
Now you're listening to a . . . repetitive song! (Repetitive song.)
Now you're listening to a . . . repetitive song! (Repetitive song.)
Now you're listening to a . . . repetitive song! (Repetitive song.)
Now you're listening to a . . . repetitive song! (Repetitive song.)
Ah, the seventies. They didn't die until at least '84.
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| The Deist Miasma Part II: The Tendency to Blame the Stink |
[11 Sep 2008|01:07pm] |
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Last month, I rambled a bit on Part I of the Deist Miasma to introduce the deliberately manipulative obfuscation those of a certain religious bent spin on scientific discoveries they feel threaten the basic tenets of the faiths they espouse . . . and that keeps them in positions of relative power. I did this, however, without even mentioning why I called it "The Deist Miasma." ( I'll correct that oversight with this post. )
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| I Am Inordinately Proud of Myself Right Now |
[09 Sep 2008|07:49pm] |
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I have books. I am, however, a cheap bastard, so I've never invested in "nice" bookshelves. As a result, I sometimes fashion plywood shelving and not bother to finish it because it is, after all, plywood, or out of desparation I spring for some Ikea monstrosity and call it good. Sadly, because these are Ikea monstrosities, I never buy enough shelves for my books, leaving most of them in boxes in the attic. I vowed long ago to actually do as my sister and brother-in-law do, buy nice wood and take some time with all the power tools I have cluttering the garage, but I don't. Why? Again, I am cheap.
Almost a year ago a solution ( was literally dumped on my lawn. )
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| In Case You Were Wondering What Exactly is Wrong With America. . . |
[09 Sep 2008|11:40am] |
. . . Dan Rather does a good job outlining the major cause.
Thomas Jefferson said that a democracy cannot function without an informed electorate. News is supposed to inform the electorate. When it does not, we get, well, what we have now.
By definition, "corporate news" is either an oxymoron or a press release.
Hat-tip to sunfell.
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| Avoiding "Google Juice for the Woo" |
[05 Sep 2008|10:03pm] |
Swoopy over at Skepticality interviewed Tim Farley at What's the Harm? recently. He had some excellent advice I, as an internet thumbs-typist, should take to heart.
We all like sharing websites on our journals that reflect the absolute bottom feeders society on the intertubes has to offer. Schadenfreude must be appeased by being shared. However, every time I or anyone else out there offers a link to God Tube, Conservapedia, or Answers In Genesis, these links add to the spider crawl count Google and other search engines consider when ranking the importance of the sites on the search requirements . . . meaning we linkers are inadvertently making these sites more important just by mentioning them.
I do not want!
Therefore, to avoid giving these sites "Google Juice for the woo" (referring to the supernatural theremin-sung "Woooo-oooo-ooo" nature of the snake oil they peddle), Tim recommends the No Follow tag in the html link. I hope I've gotten it right: You put " rel="nofollow" " right after the link, separated by a space, before closing the tag bracket. Supposedly, this puts the spider off the scent by marking derisive content as other than meaningful.
If you are (as I'm sure many of you are) html savvy, I apologize for the n00b note. It was written for My Kind and My Kind only. We are Legion.
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| This Worries Me |
[05 Sep 2008|09:44pm] |
Though I'm sure it's burning up the intertubes by now, I find the situation against the wannabe assassins disturbing:
KUSA - 9Wants to Know has learned three men in Denver planned to assassinate U.S. Senator Barack Obama during the Democratic National Convention in Denver by sneaking into one of his events and shooting him with a gun hidden inside of a camera, according to federal court records. . . .
Based on the evidence, FBI special agent Robert Sawyer believed there was probable cause to charge the men with conspiracy to kill Senator Obama. However, US Attorney Troy Eid last week said there is insufficient evidence to indicate a true threat, plot or conspiracy against the senator. (Emphasis mine)
HUH?!? Compare how these heavily-armed white-supremacist nut-jobs are treated to a black man who sent John McCain baby powder in the mail . . . from prison:
Another funny thing: When a black man in prison sent a threatening letter containing baby powder to John McCain, Troy Eid brought down the full force of the law, complete with press conferences and public declarations that "We won't stand for threats of this kind in Colorado."
Since Barrack started his campaign, I've said, "I hope he both wins. . . and survives." This is why.
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| Raked! |
[03 Sep 2008|12:13am] |
For you gardeners, please remember to lay your garden rakes down with the tines pointing into the soil. Why?
It enables you to walk around the garden without threat . . . or injury.
Right after I dropped to the ground quivering in pain, I heard my friend who witnessed it say, "Hey! It's Sideshow (Peristaltor)!" I only got the gag after I stopped shaking and bleeding.
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| On The Effectiveness of Protest |
[02 Sep 2008|11:54pm] |
bradhicks posed a question on his LJ a few days ago. He noted that, as far as he knew, no protest ever stopped a war, especially a movement and its supporting marches. I had honestly never considered the question, but when he posed it, it made sense. After all, millions across the country marched in protest of the Iraq invasion. No effect, and barely a blip on the media screen. Did the US pull out of Vietnam because of the civil unrest it caused? Nope. Instead, US forces stayed long enough to get their asses handed to them, culminating in a mad helicopter rush from the embassy to offshore carriers as (to paraphrase the headline at the time) Phnom Phen phell.
Why protest might not work -- and, more interestingly, why those that protest might continue to insist that it does work -- ( strike me as worthy questions. )
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| On The Road |
[28 Aug 2008|08:55pm] |
Neighbor Larry burned the midnight oil and saw our neighbor's house off.
Ooo! Ooo! Bigger!
I'll get a shot of the empty lot as soon as I'm done with this overtime thing.
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| A New Show for the Food Network |
[24 Aug 2008|10:08pm] |
In this show, two chefs will be presented with a theme ingredient. They will have one hour to prepare a meal that fails to use the theme ingredient, but still tastes like it does.
The winner will be crowned The Ironic Chef.
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| Veggie Porn |
[20 Aug 2008|06:07pm] |
From Burger King!
Let's face it, folks: That onion had it coming.
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| Getting Closer . . . . to a New Bike! |
[20 Aug 2008|05:49pm] |
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The Vectrix price has dropped from $11,500 to about $9000.
Because of this, I took another test drive, this time mostly on the freeway. (My job is only freeway-vehicle accessible.)
It rocked. And the wife loved.
Checking out financing options tomorrow.
This video is a bit irritating, but has the best shots of the bike.
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