My son was arrested, along with some friends, for shining a green laser on a police helicopter. I was out of town at the time but paid his bail. I looked the charge up online and what he was charged with was part of the Patriot Act. Hooray, I thought, my own son got charged on part of this worthless act. The police had to drop the charges because they couldn't tell which kid had actually done the deed.
It is also a felony to use any laser pointer aboard a plane. The penealty is $250,000 and 5 years in prison. This federal law has been in effect for many years, since not long after 9-11. Of course I make a point to use my own pointer on every flight. The penalty is too ridiculous.
You can get 5 mW green laser pointers for $17 at and they have ones up to 200 mW (lights matches) pretty cheap too.
I was asked what I thought about the price drop. I had to be honest and tell what tons of people, including many industry analysts, said when it occured. Apple has said the same thing, that the price drop was too much too fast. Steve Jobs apologized for it. Apple recinded to the tune of $100 store credit faster than new Coke was pulled. There's very little to debate here. I'm on the same side as Apple and Steve Jobs.
In the '80's I would set my clocks and watches, even computer clocks by WWV. On more than one occasion I detected the local time signal (Los Gatos, CA,different central offices on different occasions when this happened) drifting. I might notice it 10 seconsd off. Then a few days later 12 seconds off. I would report this but nobody at GTE that I spoke to understood or got it fixed. One time it drifted as much as 40 seconds off before they fixed it. Another time it got to 1 minute and 40 seconds off, despite my several calls to report this. I guess those at the phone company trusted it so much and didn't believe me. This was before digital cell phones with accurate time and before computers had accurate time, so how do you know that your time signal is off? Very few people used WWV (5, 10 and 15 MHz on your shortwave radio) to set the time.
On one occasion I was in a class at San Jose City College. I call myself an alumni of that college but it was a 2-day driver improvement course. On the second day of this 2-day weekend one gentleman showed up 10 minutes late. The class had been shooting the 'b' (breeze?) and hadn't started into any material yet. But the instructor looked at the late arrival, who was Indian and could barely speak English, and told him to go home and register for the class again, that he was too late, that the class rule was 10 minutes late. I looked at my watch, which had been recently set to the correct time via WWV and this late arrival had actually beaten the 10-minute late allowance. The clock on the wall was 45 seconds fast. I raised my hand and explained this and the teacher thought I was making up things like "WWV" and "5 Megahertz." I swore that it was true so strongly that the teacher said we'd take a vote. Naturally everyone voted this poor guy in. The teacher once again asked me if was really true and I told him it was.
It was fun back then being about the only person with such exact time. Those days are gone though. Almost everyone gets it the easy ways now.
What you say is correct. Some days and nights will be better than others. This aspect has to hold for any passive temperature control. The Enertia homes use more than just resin-wood in this temperature control. I do like the fact that it's a passive system. I doubt that I know anyone without a heater or air conditioner so I'm thrilled to be trying to do so. No promises though.
I do plan on using fans instead of air conditioning. It's based on too many hot days with failed AC's in my last 2 homes. I had to use fans and decided that I liked it better than relying on the expensive and energy inefficient AC's. That goes whether or not I'm in an Enertia home.
No, I don't want to be an example to others that they should have goals to write books. I'd rather be a quiet example that it's good to help out neighbors and those in need. I do this all the time. Starting tomorrow I am providing my home for a 4-day Camp Woz for seriously disadvantaged, socially maladaptive, abused youth from New Jersey. It will have a positive effect on them forever and there's no fighting or conflict. To have a positive social impact on a large scale you have to go the political route (like this awful slashdot treatment) and as good as you are others put you down for not doing something else. I know who I am and who I want to be and I've been very fortunate to remain that person and not be changed where it matters by success.
Actually, I was making a point about how you consider whether something has the benefits it claims. I wasn't saying that all solar cell now days are inefficient in this regard. I haven't even researched that. But my inclusion of the word "if" makes my statement quite true.
It goes by other names. I have heard about 3 names used. Basically, if the dirt where your home is to be built has enough clay content (30%), which is common, then a [$200,000] machine is brought to the construction site. The dirt is dug (top 2 feet can't be used because of organic content) and a sealant (various shades of 'green') mixed. The mixture is compressed by the machine and a block comes out which is laid in the sun for a week or two. The blocks are grooved in the case I'm familiar with so they fit together and nails are not used.
Maybe other names are ram-earth or compressed-earth.
Throughout the year, most of my transportation is in my Prius and on my Segway. I probably spend the same amount of time in each when I'm home. I take the Segway to town and to concerts almost every day when the weather permits. I don't want to live where it's too hot and humid, despite my love for Austin, Orlando, New York, etc.
I may move to a hotter place in California, or even out of California. I could have a normal house or a less normal house with some interesting aspects. I prefer to go the latter route, and it is a sacrifice for me not to take the safe route.
The self sacrifices I refer to are great amounts of my own money that I tranferred (as in charitable contributions) to environmental groups. Liking California doesn't run counter to this. I have contributed to many important forest and river groups in California in fact. I suspect that you read me wrongly.
After my last kid graduated from high school I had too large a home. I don't use it all. That's one of my big concerns. I don't like things bigger or more complicated than what I want. It's part of how I think. I'll be as comfortable as ever in this smaller home.
I don't use corporate jets. I drive my hybrid most places. I won't get a plug-in hybrid because I have come to feel a connection to our earth and the plug-in hybrid uses more resources overall. It saves gasoline directly but burns a lot of it to charge the batteries and uses much more in terms of cost - more than you'll get back in gas savings ever. Cost is reasonable to apply as 'resources'. As I mentioned in my answers to questions, if you spend more energy creating a solar cell than you get out of it in its usefull life, that's a no-brainer. It sounds good but the net is not. Actually, hybrids in general don't fare too well by this analysis but they are justified by very low pollution. I would weigh that my Prius using gasoline and batteries, with U.S. software to put low pollution above gas milage, pollutes less per mile than the plug-in hybrid will. In other words, I don't think that the coal burning to generate electricity is very good as to pollution, but I could certainly be wrong.
Also, I do care about such things as energy efficiency but I do not act as though you are good to do it and bad not to. I don't put anyone down for living their own way in this regard. It's for me and for me only.
Yes, and in my answers to questions I covered that issue, although I feel it's more a matter of feeling just personally that you do things that are good. We all do many good things and tell ourselves that this makes us good about everything.. That may be part of my reason for building an unusual energy efficient home, even though it's not consciously so.
In my case, I just bumped into a very cool technology. David Pogue was a judge with me and had the same reaction. I'm planning to move out of my comfortable large home and live without an air conditioner. If you knew me, you'd know that this is a major sacrifice. I will also have to be able to build a wood house and keep it that way. In expensive communities like where I currently live, you don't have much choice over even the shade of gray you paint your house. If it's wrong, the neighborhood committees make you repaint it. If you stain they get concerned if the stain you used wasn't approved.
Oh, I could always ditch to a hotel (or Hawaii!) on a hot day, ha ha. But actually, after my last kid graduated from high school I had a big house with a nice view and I used very little of it and I will be more comfortable when I complete my new home.
I have VERY little time compared to most people to plan and build a new home. For example, I'll only be home from my crowded schedule 5 days in the entire month of September. So it may take me a year or two to accomplish this whole thing. It's not rush-rush. I don't want to pay someone to build it for me either. I want to do it myself. Hopefully I'll have privacy.
I don't want to promote myself to the public about this. I'm sorry such appears to have happened. I don't even know how I got asked the questions. I must have run into someone casually and mentioned my home or the topic must have come up in some context. I pu the questions off for weeks but finally got an hour to reply to them this morning from a hotel in Boulder, Colorado, where I drove [with] my son to college.
I wish this had not been publicized. I want to be a good example but only on a person to person basis, not publicly. I have a good history of this. I didn't publish CD's or books on computer use, like Apple wanted me to. I privately taught classes to young students for 8 years with no press at all. I can go to my former students' graduations and see that I had a part in their lives. I avoided any management role at Apple for the same reasons. When things get like politics, count me out.
Actually, the Enertia.com site shows homes mostly in very hot or cold places and the testimonials are outstanding. I think that 3 of them have been built in California and I believe that all 3 are in very hot areas, like Auburn. I'm looking forward to a huge reduction in energy usage. My current energy bills are quite large. I may build in an AC system anyway but it won't use as much power as at my current home. I don't want to get into pissng contests about what is better than something else. I do want to make a major improvement for myself, that's all.
Actually, I expressed the idea that it was my personal favorite because I am a great dog lover (contribute lots to rescue and care for pets) and an easy to use invention like this means a lot if it saves the dogs pain. it's a very simple idea using paper hat changes color with temperature.
I spent a full 3 hours talking with all 25 semifinalists in depth. It meant a lot to them. There were some very good inventions there and some that may revolutionize industries. A robot that builds a house in a day may offer homebuilding at 1/5 the cost, for example. Only about 2 of the devices really used electronics. Most of the inductees in the Invertors Hall of Fame have invented things outside of what we computer types consider. Still, the members of this Hall and the inventors of this contest share a similar personality and similar stories. It was one of the best times of my life to talk to such inventors before they have money or greed, and to hear their stories.
One finalist was a simple laser and light addition to a nutdriver. The inventor came up with a desire to achieve this solution when she was 9 years old and her father needed for her to hold a flashlight. One man invented a remote control on the reins of a horse to steer and stop it remotely. He's a real strong cowboy type, fun to talk to. He may not be a technical genious, but like many of us worked hard to achieve a device that was his passion to create. I spoke with the neice of the winning inventor and she told how for 9 years, back to when she was 14 years old, he talked about wanting to develop this building material made of wasted straw.
As a judge I had read descriptions of the various inventions. I had also seen the 25 semifinalist exhibits on display in Los Angelas, the first city a tour of those exhibits hit. But you get a more complete picture of an invention being a combination of a device and a person. This is true of such inventions that come out of want and passion and lack of money, instead of out of well funded company projects.
These are not the sort of people to criticize or challenge. They were all so incredibly wonderful. Did anyone at all who is contributing to this Slashdot item even attend the day-long exhibition or awards ceremony in Grand Central Station on Tuesday? The winners werr culled from 3400 invertion submissions. Even the ones that got passed over may have been greater ones. Any of them could have been given the grand award. We will see many of these devices in our own lives.
When this project started I had 2 choices. I could take a [presumably] high paid job to judge on American Inventor, or whatever that reality TV show was named. The producers said I'd have to be like a Simon Cowell type and criticize the inventors. Or I could do this voluntary judging for the National Inventors Hall of Fame (non-profit) and the History Channel. I took the high integrity one.
Also, when it comes to the start of Apple, I did not just get dirty with a soldering iron. I conceived and created every bit of the hardware and software of the early Apple products. I wasn't asked to go into the lab and design it. The design came first and the company was an afterthought and not something that I even pursued myself.
Not only that, the security guy who had called the Secret Service had previously determined and told me that the bills were good after I had asked whether they were counterfeit. This security guy at the Hard Rock Casino said that they had the 'fibers' and had passed the pen test. So the SS guy forced me into questioning, after reading me my Miranda rights, for bills he knew were good. But if I'd protested they'd have held me for 72 hours. Instead of risking that I plopped a ridiculous phony ID on him and he bought it, earning him a place in my book someday.
Just the authority and appearance of a big title like FBI or SS is enough to throw your weight around in ways that normal police could not. You can do anything you want and there's virtually no way to be questioned.
Slashdot Mirror
My son was arrested, along with some friends, for shining a green laser on a police helicopter. I was out of town at the time but paid his bail. I looked the charge up online and what he was charged with was part of the Patriot Act. Hooray, I thought, my own son got charged on part of this worthless act. The police had to drop the charges because they couldn't tell which kid had actually done the deed.
It is also a felony to use any laser pointer aboard a plane. The penealty is $250,000 and 5 years in prison. This federal law has been in effect for many years, since not long after 9-11. Of course I make a point to use my own pointer on every flight. The penalty is too ridiculous.
You can get 5 mW green laser pointers for $17 at and they have ones up to 200 mW (lights matches) pretty cheap too.
I think you meant 'til or until, not till.
who's whining?
I was asked what I thought about the price drop. I had to be honest and tell what tons of people, including many industry analysts, said when it occured. Apple has said the same thing, that the price drop was too much too fast. Steve Jobs apologized for it. Apple recinded to the tune of $100 store credit faster than new Coke was pulled. There's very little to debate here. I'm on the same side as Apple and Steve Jobs.
actually, I'm just echoing Steve Jobs' apology - sort of plagiarism on my part.
In the '80's I would set my clocks and watches, even computer clocks by WWV. On more than one occasion I detected the local time signal (Los Gatos, CA,different central offices on different occasions when this happened) drifting. I might notice it 10 seconsd off. Then a few days later 12 seconds off. I would report this but nobody at GTE that I spoke to understood or got it fixed. One time it drifted as much as 40 seconds off before they fixed it. Another time it got to 1 minute and 40 seconds off, despite my several calls to report this. I guess those at the phone company trusted it so much and didn't believe me. This was before digital cell phones with accurate time and before computers had accurate time, so how do you know that your time signal is off? Very few people used WWV (5, 10 and 15 MHz on your shortwave radio) to set the time.
On one occasion I was in a class at San Jose City College. I call myself an alumni of that college but it was a 2-day driver improvement course. On the second day of this 2-day weekend one gentleman showed up 10 minutes late. The class had been shooting the 'b' (breeze?) and hadn't started into any material yet. But the instructor looked at the late arrival, who was Indian and could barely speak English, and told him to go home and register for the class again, that he was too late, that the class rule was 10 minutes late. I looked at my watch, which had been recently set to the correct time via WWV and this late arrival had actually beaten the 10-minute late allowance. The clock on the wall was 45 seconds fast. I raised my hand and explained this and the teacher thought I was making up things like "WWV" and "5 Megahertz." I swore that it was true so strongly that the teacher said we'd take a vote. Naturally everyone voted this poor guy in. The teacher once again asked me if was really true and I told him it was.
It was fun back then being about the only person with such exact time. Those days are gone though. Almost everyone gets it the easy ways now.
What you say is correct. Some days and nights will be better than others. This aspect has to hold for any passive temperature control. The Enertia homes use more than just resin-wood in this temperature control. I do like the fact that it's a passive system. I doubt that I know anyone without a heater or air conditioner so I'm thrilled to be trying to do so. No promises though.
Thank you very much.
I do plan on using fans instead of air conditioning. It's based on too many hot days with failed AC's in my last 2 homes. I had to use fans and decided that I liked it better than relying on the expensive and energy inefficient AC's. That goes whether or not I'm in an Enertia home.
No, I don't want to be an example to others that they should have goals to write books. I'd rather be a quiet example that it's good to help out neighbors and those in need. I do this all the time. Starting tomorrow I am providing my home for a 4-day Camp Woz for seriously disadvantaged, socially maladaptive, abused youth from New Jersey. It will have a positive effect on them forever and there's no fighting or conflict. To have a positive social impact on a large scale you have to go the political route (like this awful slashdot treatment) and as good as you are others put you down for not doing something else. I know who I am and who I want to be and I've been very fortunate to remain that person and not be changed where it matters by success.
Actually, I was making a point about how you consider whether something has the benefits it claims. I wasn't saying that all solar cell now days are inefficient in this regard. I haven't even researched that. But my inclusion of the word "if" makes my statement quite true.
It goes by other names. I have heard about 3 names used. Basically, if the dirt where your home is to be built has enough clay content (30%), which is common, then a [$200,000] machine is brought to the construction site. The dirt is dug (top 2 feet can't be used because of organic content) and a sealant (various shades of 'green') mixed. The mixture is compressed by the machine and a block comes out which is laid in the sun for a week or two. The blocks are grooved in the case I'm familiar with so they fit together and nails are not used.
Maybe other names are ram-earth or compressed-earth.
Throughout the year, most of my transportation is in my Prius and on my Segway. I probably spend the same amount of time in each when I'm home. I take the Segway to town and to concerts almost every day when the weather permits. I don't want to live where it's too hot and humid, despite my love for Austin, Orlando, New York, etc.
I may move to a hotter place in California, or even out of California. I could have a normal house or a less normal house with some interesting aspects. I prefer to go the latter route, and it is a sacrifice for me not to take the safe route.
The self sacrifices I refer to are great amounts of my own money that I tranferred (as in charitable contributions) to environmental groups. Liking California doesn't run counter to this. I have contributed to many important forest and river groups in California in fact. I suspect that you read me wrongly.
After my last kid graduated from high school I had too large a home. I don't use it all. That's one of my big concerns. I don't like things bigger or more complicated than what I want. It's part of how I think. I'll be as comfortable as ever in this smaller home.
I don't use corporate jets. I drive my hybrid most places. I won't get a plug-in hybrid because I have come to feel a connection to our earth and the plug-in hybrid uses more resources overall. It saves gasoline directly but burns a lot of it to charge the batteries and uses much more in terms of cost - more than you'll get back in gas savings ever. Cost is reasonable to apply as 'resources'. As I mentioned in my answers to questions, if you spend more energy creating a solar cell than you get out of it in its usefull life, that's a no-brainer. It sounds good but the net is not. Actually, hybrids in general don't fare too well by this analysis but they are justified by very low pollution. I would weigh that my Prius using gasoline and batteries, with U.S. software to put low pollution above gas milage, pollutes less per mile than the plug-in hybrid will. In other words, I don't think that the coal burning to generate electricity is very good as to pollution, but I could certainly be wrong.
Also, I do care about such things as energy efficiency but I do not act as though you are good to do it and bad not to. I don't put anyone down for living their own way in this regard. It's for me and for me only.
Yes, and in my answers to questions I covered that issue, although I feel it's more a matter of feeling just personally that you do things that are good. We all do many good things and tell ourselves that this makes us good about everything.. That may be part of my reason for building an unusual energy efficient home, even though it's not consciously so.
In my case, I just bumped into a very cool technology. David Pogue was a judge with me and had the same reaction. I'm planning to move out of my comfortable large home and live without an air conditioner. If you knew me, you'd know that this is a major sacrifice. I will also have to be able to build a wood house and keep it that way. In expensive communities like where I currently live, you don't have much choice over even the shade of gray you paint your house. If it's wrong, the neighborhood committees make you repaint it. If you stain they get concerned if the stain you used wasn't approved.
Oh, I could always ditch to a hotel (or Hawaii!) on a hot day, ha ha. But actually, after my last kid graduated from high school I had a big house with a nice view and I used very little of it and I will be more comfortable when I complete my new home.
I have VERY little time compared to most people to plan and build a new home. For example, I'll only be home from my crowded schedule 5 days in the entire month of September. So it may take me a year or two to accomplish this whole thing. It's not rush-rush. I don't want to pay someone to build it for me either. I want to do it myself. Hopefully I'll have privacy.
I don't want to promote myself to the public about this. I'm sorry such appears to have happened. I don't even know how I got asked the questions. I must have run into someone casually and mentioned my home or the topic must have come up in some context. I pu the questions off for weeks but finally got an hour to reply to them this morning from a hotel in Boulder, Colorado, where I drove [with] my son to college.
I wish this had not been publicized. I want to be a good example but only on a person to person basis, not publicly. I have a good history of this. I didn't publish CD's or books on computer use, like Apple wanted me to. I privately taught classes to young students for 8 years with no press at all. I can go to my former students' graduations and see that I had a part in their lives. I avoided any management role at Apple for the same reasons. When things get like politics, count me out.
Actually, the Enertia.com site shows homes mostly in very hot or cold places and the testimonials are outstanding. I think that 3 of them have been built in California and I believe that all 3 are in very hot areas, like Auburn. I'm looking forward to a huge reduction in energy usage. My current energy bills are quite large. I may build in an AC system anyway but it won't use as much power as at my current home. I don't want to get into pissng contests about what is better than something else. I do want to make a major improvement for myself, that's all.
sounds like openness helped get justice done
presumed innocent, a hallmark of our system of fairness, means that the burdon of proof is on the accuser (unless it's Saddam Hussein's WMD's)
The current Prius is not an SULEV in California.
I have never in my life used an illicit substance. I have made up jokes on many occasions and not turn out good.
Actually, I expressed the idea that it was my personal favorite because I am a great dog lover (contribute lots to rescue and care for pets) and an easy to use invention like this means a lot if it saves the dogs pain. it's a very simple idea using paper hat changes color with temperature.
I spent a full 3 hours talking with all 25 semifinalists in depth. It meant a lot to them. There were some very good inventions there and some that may revolutionize industries. A robot that builds a house in a day may offer homebuilding at 1/5 the cost, for example. Only about 2 of the devices really used electronics. Most of the inductees in the Invertors Hall of Fame have invented things outside of what we computer types consider. Still, the members of this Hall and the inventors of this contest share a similar personality and similar stories. It was one of the best times of my life to talk to such inventors before they have money or greed, and to hear their stories.
One finalist was a simple laser and light addition to a nutdriver. The inventor came up with a desire to achieve this solution when she was 9 years old and her father needed for her to hold a flashlight. One man invented a remote control on the reins of a horse to steer and stop it remotely. He's a real strong cowboy type, fun to talk to. He may not be a technical genious, but like many of us worked hard to achieve a device that was his passion to create. I spoke with the neice of the winning inventor and she told how for 9 years, back to when she was 14 years old, he talked about wanting to develop this building material made of wasted straw.
As a judge I had read descriptions of the various inventions. I had also seen the 25 semifinalist exhibits on display in Los Angelas, the first city a tour of those exhibits hit. But you get a more complete picture of an invention being a combination of a device and a person. This is true of such inventions that come out of want and passion and lack of money, instead of out of well funded company projects.
These are not the sort of people to criticize or challenge. They were all so incredibly wonderful. Did anyone at all who is contributing to this Slashdot item even attend the day-long exhibition or awards ceremony in Grand Central Station on Tuesday? The winners werr culled from 3400 invertion submissions. Even the ones that got passed over may have been greater ones. Any of them could have been given the grand award. We will see many of these devices in our own lives.
When this project started I had 2 choices. I could take a [presumably] high paid job to judge on American Inventor, or whatever that reality TV show was named. The producers said I'd have to be like a Simon Cowell type and criticize the inventors. Or I could do this voluntary judging for the National Inventors Hall of Fame (non-profit) and the History Channel. I took the high integrity one.
Also, when it comes to the start of Apple, I did not just get dirty with a soldering iron. I conceived and created every bit of the hardware and software of the early Apple products. I wasn't asked to go into the lab and design it. The design came first and the company was an afterthought and not something that I even pursued myself.
Not only that, the security guy who had called the Secret Service had previously determined and told me that the bills were good after I had asked whether they were counterfeit. This security guy at the Hard Rock Casino said that they had the 'fibers' and had passed the pen test. So the SS guy forced me into questioning, after reading me my Miranda rights, for bills he knew were good. But if I'd protested they'd have held me for 72 hours. Instead of risking that I plopped a ridiculous phony ID on him and he bought it, earning him a place in my book someday.
Just the authority and appearance of a big title like FBI or SS is enough to throw your weight around in ways that normal police could not. You can do anything you want and there's virtually no way to be questioned.