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The ‘Tollahs tweets here.
Is it too late to uncheck the organ donor box on my motorcycle drivers license?
Lifted from John’s Twitter Feed
I saw a very interesting presentation Sunday from a guy who started a company called InStove. It’s a low cose high efficiency wood burning stove that reduces emissions by 90%. It also does a lot more cooking with a lot less fuel. In the presentation the founder of the company, who founded the org to give away these stoves to the third world, claimed that the total pollution from 3 billion people who cook with wood is greater than the sum of all the cars on earth. “This is low hanging fruit”, he claims. His stoves make life better and could cut CO2 emissions by a huge amount.
Important point. It reduces smog/CO2 because it uses far less wood.
“Trump for President” reminds me of the old Peanuts cartoons where Charlie Brown is trying to kick the football and Lucy promises over and over not to pull it away – but she always does. Trump has run, or almost run, for president in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and not he’s doing it again in 2016 and the news media is falling for it yet again.
Never mind his “Mexicans are rapists and drug dealers” nonsense. The real question is, “Are we really stupid enough to believe The Donald is actually running?” Does anyone really think that by the end of this year Trump won’t become bored with his little political stunt and crawl back to his casinos to find something else to amuse him? Are we that dumb? Apparently – yes we are. And isn’t that just a little sad?
I KNEW it! Hah!
not my actual laptop
I have been delaying repairing the fan on my laptop for quite some time. My model, the Acer Aspire 8942G, had an ongoing issue with its fan, which would make quite a racket when it would have to spin too fast.
A species of fish best-known for attacking human testicles has apparently invaded America.
A father and son were fishing in New Jersey when they got a bite from an unfamiliar fish with a startling array of near-human teeth. It was a pacu, a relative of the piranha that is native to the Amazon.
The pacu has accumulated some colourful nicknames – nutcracker, ball cutter – and a sighting in Sweden in 2013 led to a warning for male swimmers to keep their trunks on.
This time the catch came not in Sweden but in Swede’s Lake, a man-made body of water near Philadelphia. Fortunately for Ron Rossi, this particular fish went for the bait.
Mr Rossi knew as soon as he “scooped” the fish that he had “never seen anything like” it. He originally thought he had caught a piranha.
Henrik Carl, a Danish fish expert, said that was a common mistake.
“They are almost identical to the piranha, you couldn’t even tell from the outside,” he explained after the Scandinavian pacu sighting. “It’s just that they have different teeth. Flatter and stronger, perfect for crushing.”
Holy Crap!!!!….I’ll take my chances with the shark.
For years I have wanted to do my own solar project. Last summer, I finally decided to take the plunge and do an off-grid solar project. Over the years I’ve done a lot of research, talking to contractors, and neighbors who have done this, but there were only two other off grid solar projects in the area that I knew of. Both were actually small solar power “mini-grids” as their homes were more like compounds and so much larger than mine. They were using their batteries more for backup than their primary source, So we were entering new territory for myself as well as my installer.
The Basics – Data Collection
The first thing I needed to do was determine my average power consumption. I purchased a wireless power monitor, which clamps around each 120V leg of my 240V grid power service. This device transmits data to a receiver that records daily averages and the data can be output to a spread sheet through USB connection to a laptop. I placed the monitor in a central location so I could watch the results on a real time basis. It was interesting to see what various household devices were drawing. An overhead fan draws 100W. The water pump kicks in, 1000W (1Kw), same with an A/C unit. etc,. After 2 weeks I determined that my average daily needs were about 15 – 20 Kw, total. (I rarely use A/C but more on that later). I then replaced all lighting with LED lights. These were mostly 60 Watt bulbs that draw 8 Watts. We then isolated the wiring for the bedroom A/C units, and Washer Dryer, to a separate power panel that connects to the grid, so I do get a very small power bill if I occasionally decide to use A/C. A 50 gallon water heater (1400 Watt power hog), is at this time still on the solar system, and timed to heat water twice a day for 30 minutes. This provides plenty of hot water for 2 people.
Thanks, Honeyman
Here’s a thought experiment I’m working on.
I’m going to make some assumption about the future. These aren’t predictions – but it’s plausible possibilities for the purpose of the thought experiment.
Let’s assume that there is no major crisis and technology continues to move forward at today’s exponential pace. At some point the computers become smarter than we are. I’ll call it the AI. (Artificial Intelligence) And there’s a lot of sci-fi out there that addresses some of these questions.
Politically correct or clueless? Amazon bans the Confederate Battle Flag but still sells KKK T-Shirts. I think they don’t get it.
Matt York/AP
Over the past two fiscal years, Customs and Border Protection – CBP – drones helped nab less than 3 percent of the drugs seized by agents in the few sectors where they were used, according to CBP’s own figures.
By comparison, since this fiscal year began on Oct. 1, manned aircraft have accounted for more than 99 percent of weapons, cash and meth seizures, 95 percent of cocaine seizures, and 89 percent of marijuana seizures in which aerial assets were involved, according to CBP data.
The obvious questions here is what if it was Hillary or Obama, or anyone other than a white Republican in front of that pistol? Is it acceptable because Republicans (other than Karl Rove) defend the 2nd Amendment?
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