Woz Details His Plans for Energy-Efficient House

An anonymous reader writes "ECN magazine has posted a long interview with the Woz on his new passion: energy-efficient housing. 'ECN: In PC World, you said, "It's like the way I used to make computers" -- how so? Woz: Simple design. Think about the right way to build something and take a lot of time to get it the best that can be done with the fewest resources used. No waste. Build it right and with few parts it does a lot. Don't cover things with more and more and more technology for features. Design them in from the start. It starts with the architect, of a home or a computer, working from a knowledge of the building materials and a desire to choose wisely.'"

Comments

Northern Californians know everything

[Loundry]

Well, I have the usual Californian's reaction to that.

If the "usual Californian's reaction" is myopic, self-centered, and indulgent, then you're entirely accurate. But California is a highly-populated state, and I refuse to believe that most Californians are as selfish as you are.

Even so, having lived up and down the California coast, I can tell you that it is by no means paradise, if by paradise you mean a place where the average person is willing to live without using heat and AC.

Yeah, that sounds like a ripe hell-hole. It certainly explains the vast quantities of cheap land out there on the California coast. Do you remember what happened in France a few years back when about 20,000 old people were not willing to live without AC? Something tells me their sacrifice was steeper than those who suffer the indignities of living up and down the idyllic California coast. Yes, I've been there. Yes, it's idyllic.

The real problems are (a) too many people

Bring on the misanthropy! Whom should we kill off first? Albertans? Texans? Tell us!

The Iraq war is nothing but a way of paying for the unnaturally cheap energy we get in the U.S.

You should get a blue ribbon for that clause. Not only is it one of the stupidest comments I've ever read about the war in Iraq, but it's also one of the stupidest things I've ever read. How, precisely, do we get "unnaturally" cheap energy? Does George W. Bush pray for it, and Jesus delivers? Do Scientologists audit it out of thin air? And how in the world does conducting an immensely expensive, futile war which necessitates massive expenditures in fuel for the thousands of trucks, humvees, stykers, planes, and helicopters "pay for" cheap energy? The *least* we could have done was steal Iraq's oil, but we're letting them keep it!

The interstate highway system is one big subsidy for fossil fuels.

Nevermind all of the millions of people who use the interstates to get to work, or the millions of trucks that use the interstates to get food and clothes on the shelves, and all those aforementioned people who depend on fossil fuels to do all those things. I suppose that you enlightened Northern Californians, living in your charming, 2.2 million dollar bungalows in Monterrey or Santa Cruz, know the right way that everyone else should live. We should all live like you do.

Global warming is going to be the ultimate subsidy for the 20th century's fossil fuel addiction, and it's a subsidy that's going to be paid for by my grandkids.

Whatever you do, don't read this!

When cities discuss zoning and density, the big issue is always traffic and parking; again, it amounts to a subsidy for the automobile.

All those people should just take the bus. If it works for you, it must work for everyone! Life is so simple in San Francisco! Why can't everyone live like that? They must simply be stupid and selfish. No wonder they inhabit inhabitable places like Alberta and Texas.

The trouble is that people are selfish, stupid, and shortsighted

And the answer is that you are selfless, intelligent, and enlightened. I get it, now! I should add you as a friend because you are clearly as prophetic as your ideas are fresh and new.