Just make sure you get her back to day care before her mommy comes to pick her up. -- W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo. Burn. Harsh. Actually, my girl friend became my wife years ago, and I read the book that your signature is from to our son just a few nights back. But all these details clog up the simplicity of the joke.
The only time such a level of detail actually helps the joke is in a case like the 'Pink Monkey' joke or the 'Flower' joke which rely on the excessive use of details to make the joke funny. But getting a 5-15 minute long joke off is more of an art form, rarely seen these days. No, the simpler the better, especially in type, for todays crowd. That's why jokes like, "What do you call a boomerang that won't come back?... A stick!" and "So, a baby seal walks into a club." work so well. Staged and delivered well, those two can get people rolling.
That post wasn't in response to whether they can afford the upgrades or not, it was in regards to how to force consumers to change their habits through billing practices. Changing from a flat "unlimited" monthly fee to a per bit fee would dramatically change the amounts that people are being billed for. Currently, if I use my 3Mbps for light web browsing and email, I get billed $30. If I use that same connection to download and seed large P2P files 24x7, I get billed $30. If they were to change to a per bit billing scheme, using my connection for light browsing and email might cost $5 a month, where as keeping the download pip maxed out might cost $400 per month.
Having such a billing scheme would have a dramatic effect on distribution of copyrighted materials. Of course it would have a dramatic effect on the distribution of non-copyrighted materials as well. So it is very much NOT in our interest for them to make that change, but it is really the simplest way for the RIAA/MPAA to get what they want. No more DRMs, no more encryption, just huge bills that make it non-cost effective for people to distribute things online.
Didn't you ever play the "find the facts" game in grade school?
It isn't a false opinion however it isn't a fact (it's an opinion) so what is false is not the statement itself but the statement that the statement is a fact. Forget the actual statement that was made. If I say "I think chocolate ice cream is the best", that is an opinion. You can not prove an opinion wrong, there is no factual basis to differ on. Sure, you can show polls that show everyone else in the world things vanilla is the best ice cream, but that doesn't mean my opinion is false. It may mean that it is an unpopular opinion, but it is not a fact, so it can not be proven, either true or false.
If I say "The sky is green", it is a factual statement, you can produce the scientific evidence to prove that the spectrum of light that we view as that coming from the sky is in fact, blue.
So regardless of my preference of IDE's, if you identify an opinion of a selection of software, you can not say that the opinion is false. You can voice your opposition to that opinion, you can state your disagreement, and even your own opinion, but there is no fact to dispute. You can show that every other developer in the world disagrees with the person who posted their opinion, but that still doesn't make their opinion false, it just makes them unpopular.
People aren't going to stop transfering data over the internet just because the telecoms say so. They might if they charge enough, per bit. I'm really surprised they haven't pushed harder for a consumer per bit billing scheme.
But I agree with you, the tel-co arguments are just ridiculous. If they are having bandwidth shortages, then increases in capacity are necessary. It's not like they haven't been on the receiving end of a significant amount of tax payer money to do just that.
False. This is an opinion. Not to be excessively picky, but if it is an opinion, it can not be false. You can disagree with it, you can argue against it, the entire world may thing the person who holds that opinion is a whack job, but by definition, it can't be false, as it is an opinion.
As for the value of his opinion, I don't think it's far off. It's been a few years since I've worked with Apache, and functionally it was probably a leg up on IIS at the time, but IIS is significantly easier to work with and configure. MySQL has come a long ways, but it's interface still isn't up to SQL Server's standards. Again, the functionality has seems pretty much on par for both of them (I've used both concurrently for the last 4 years), but the MS product again wins in the interface department. PHP is cool, I've used it to write a few CMS sites. But PHP feels like it is trying to be everything to every one, the same way VB was in the 90's. At this point, I've moved away from PHP and just gone to straight.Net based functionality (ASP.Net, Web services, and some of the new Silver Light 2.0 stuff)
And the grand daddy of them all, Visual Studio. VS blows away the competition and is with all likelihood the true reason MS holds as much of the development market as it does. Sharp Dev is a nice tool an all, and it has improved a lot since it's early release years ago. But Visual Studio 2k8 is extremely slick.
There is a reoccurring theme here, MS is dominating in these comparisons, not because their products are inherently more functional, but because they are easier to use and have a more refined form. Give enough time and work, MySQL, Apache, Sharp Dev, and other MS alternatives, can and will likely catch up in usability. But I haven't seen anything in the last year that really looked like a "MS killer" app.
No. While the Senate needs a quorum, the House needs only a majority. The Democrats had a majority, they voted, and the motion to hold in contempt passed. Ms. Meiers and the others are now in contempt of Congress. Good to hear. I car pooled yesterday and missed out on my usual dose of political news:(
No. They just delay it. The immunity bill will again be taken up as soon as Congress re-adjourns week after next. The population of the US is fickle. They'll get bored of hearing about the tele-com immunity and other scandals will push it to the back burner of America's attention. I think South Park summed up the tactic as the "look at the silly monkey" strategy.
No. They continue the perception that the Republicans are obstructionist to a degree unheard of in any Congress up to this time. Amongst people with working brain cells and the time and inclination to investigate what is happening beyond the stories that Faux News spoon feeds them. There are people who believe that Kerry is not a war hero, Obama is Muslim, and that Saddam ordered the 9/11 attacks. There are those that believe the failure of our congress to accomplish much of anything over the last year is the result of the democrats sitting on their asses.
That is part of the reason why it disgusts me that if the republicans even threaten to filibuster, the democrats table the bill. There is no media spotlight being shined on the Republicans for being obstructionists. And that fault goes straight to those spineless lackies Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
Now Batman, I'm usually well aligned with your views. And even in this I can see your point, but I think it is a bit naive to claim that the reason for the walk out was not related to the tel-com vote. Pitching a fit over the contempt charges was just a scape goat.
By walking out at that point they achieve 3 political goals: 1) They prevent the contempt issue from being settled. 2) They spare themselves the popular heat of voting for immunity. 3) They continue the perception that the democratically lead congress is unable to take action.
Many congressmen are behind impeachment, but unfortunately the majority leader has taken it off the table and quashes any movements for it. So they are taking what actions they can. It is the responsibility of the legislative branch to maintain the balance of power with the Executive and Judicial branch. If the option of impeachment is not available, they must use what ever powers they do have to attempt to do so. If that means censures and contempt charges, so be it.
Sure, it may be grandstanding, but it is grandstanding that the people, the congressmen's constituents are demanding. If the representatives are getting pressure from their State, from the people that they are there to represent, to pursue contempt charges, then their actions seem to be right on the mark.
And besides, I didn't hear any complaints from the Republican party (at least not on this scale) when the congress was wasting days on steroids in baseball hearings. Talk about a waste of tax payer resources. Who gives a flying f' if some sports star was juicing. Let the league handle it, and if there was a criminal act, let the judicial branch handle it. There is no reason for us to be paying these over-aged pasty white guys to sit around talking about baseball.
Step 1: Generate pure hydrogen in highly efficient processing plant Step 2: Merge with carbon to create less stable and lower density hydrocarbon based fuel Step 3: Using a vehicle based unit, crack the hydrocarbons back into hydrogen and carbon Step 4: oxidize hydrogen to power fuel cell. Step 5: return carbon to processing plant.
This would work amazingly if there were a shortage of carbon and an excess of easily accessible hydrogen. Unfortunately, our problem is the other way around. I can walk to any local gas station in the middle of summer and pick up a 20lbs bag of carbon for a few bucks. Getting my hands on 20lbs of hydrogen is a bit more challenging and expensive.
Not to mention there is no way they are going to get a vehicle based cracking unit to be more efficient than the factory unit. Not to mention that energy density is already an issue in pure hydrogen storage, turning it into hydro carbons isn't going to help on that issue if they are only using the hydrogen for energy generation.
The whole concept seems to fall on it's face as yet another attempt at a perpetual motion device.
Just saying, investing $21M now in increasing penetration of high efficiency appliances will have a significantly larger impact on the economy and environment than investing $21M on a technology that is years (if not a decade) away from entering the market designed to replace an already efficient system.
Well lets see, both the original dryer and the new dryer ran at ~5000 watts. And we run probably 10 loads of laundry a month. The original dryer had a hard set timer for 1 hour's worth of drying. The new dryer would auto stop when the laundry was dry (which usually took about 50 minutes). So, over a month, the old dryer would use ~50kW and the new dryer would use ~41.7kW.
Switching from the old non-energy star rated top loading washing machine will save a lot of energy in water heating as well (but I don't have any numbers on that as I just got the dryer last week). But the one thing it has done impressively is to get more water out of the clothes before the end of it's cycle. This has cut our drying time down significantly. The auto stop on the dryer on average kicks in at 35 minutes. So over a month, the new dryer is using ~29.2kW.
So, excluding any energy savings in water heating, or in the washing machine it self, in one month I have saved 20.8kW.
All of the lights in my house are 15w CF bulbs with the exception of some full sized tubes in the kitchen. My wife is a light Nazi, she leaves all the lights off during the day and limits lighting to only the parts of the house that are in use at night. For argument's sake though, lets say we leave the (2) living room, (2) dining room, (2) stairway, and (3) bedroom lights on from 6 to 11. 9 x 15W x 5h = 675W per night, 246kW per year, 2.5MW over the lifetime of the lights.
I can't find much for solid info on SSL bulbs, but the best I'm seeing for comparable LED lighting is in the range of 2W. So 9 x 2W x 5h = 270W per night, 98.5kW per year, 1 MW over the lifetime of the CF lights. So a 1.5MW savings.
So my statement was a bit of a hyperbole, the saving from one month of using a high efficiency washer/dryer (counting only the dryer's savings) will save ~21kW. It would take 72 months (6 years) for the dryer to save as much energy as the lights.
Now this rationalization is heavily flawed as it is taking a worst case scenario for lighting and maintaining it for 10 years, it doesn't include the savings in the washer's power consumption, nor the savings in water heating. So I think it is a fairly safe statement to say that replacing inefficient washers and dryers would save significantly more energy than any further improvements in lighting.
If that $21M was distributed instead as a $200 tax rebate to anyone who had purchased a HE washer or dryer, we could have replaced 105,000 units. At 9kw-12kw energy savings each month per unit, that would save 945kW-1.2MW monthly. Heck, that's almost half a GW over a year, and again, that doesn't include the energy savings from heating water, or the washing machine itself. And that's not a theoretical "if we pay, they might invent, and it might make it to market in 10 years" kind of investment. That's a right here, right now, by the end of the year more people will be saving more energy, kind of investment.
Who cares? Unlike peek oil, peek coal in the US is still 180 years away. And why blow the cash on improving light fixtures for 1M cars of coal when blowing cash on improving wind power generation and distribution could save millions more? Or heck, $21M in tax rebates/incentives to buy high efficiency washers/dryers/refrigerators/AC/Heaters etc...
My dryer shorted out a few months ago. It was an ancient hand me down from a friend. We replaced it with a new more efficient model with auto shutoff and moisture detection. It dried clothes a bit faster and would shut off when they were dry, regardless of the timer. It saved us a bit of energy and a tiny amount of cash every month.
My washing machine went up in smoke last week. Literally, it was not a pleasant experience. It was an ancient piece of junk, a matching item to the previously mentioned POC dryer. Wanting to be responsible, I plunked down the extra cash to get a HE front loading washer (~$540 instead of a traditional low efficiency top loader for ~280). This new front loading washer uses significantly less water, which saves my aging water heater (by aging I mean it really should have been replaced 5 years ago) a lot of work. Not only that, but the rinse cycle is so much more efficient that my dryer time is almost 1/2 of what it used to be.
Those two appliances combined will generate more coal savings in 1 month, than replacing every one of the CF light bulbs in my entire house with best case SSL/LED lights over their entire life. (excluding production requirements, no idea on those numbers)
I've worked in a few different tech retail stores. And at each of them at least 1 person (usually middle management) is busted for walking off with repair units, RTVs, or stuff right off the truck.
Heck, the first CompUSA I worked at in high school, the front end manager was busted for skimming the drawers. The cage manager got busted with his van at the loading doc moving inventory out. The tech bench manager skipped town with thousands of dollars worth of memory and processors. The General Manager got busted on tax evasion. All within a year and a half time span.
I had a friend pick up a job there a year later while I was in the military, they had all new management, with new vices. Instead of ripping off the store/customers, the wound up with a bunch of small time pot dealers in supervisor/middle management positions. Not like they were doing business in the store, but their smoke breaks were a taken in back by the loading doc. On the bright side though, they got great customer reviews for their friendliness and chipper attitude.
The vast majority of electric power generation in the US is coal based. So you could change every light bulb in the US and still have no effect on world oil consumption.
And a sudden nation wide demand for solar power would do nothing to the price of silicone? Even if the price on solar units stayed relatively stable, you're still looking at probably $6k for an integrated roof system that in So Cal might offset the usage of 1 average family.
So, well to do single family houses would be able to afford it. Middle class and below single family houses would likely not. And anyone living in a multiple resident building would be screwed. Such actions will crush the middle class, starve the poor, and be relatively insignificant to those who have the money to work with. But I guess if your goal is to increase to economic disparity between the haves and the have nots, deregulating the electric industry is a great way to do so!
Correct, Similar != same. But a civil war is a civil war, whether it's over slavery, religious differences, economic disparity, or any other issue. Sure, maybe the NH/VT Maple Syrup coalition would be fine, but who's to say every single other alliance would also be fine for all times. It takes only one failure to start a war.
You are opperating under the assumption that State behavior would remain relatively unchanged with out Federal oversight. That assumption is with all likelihood, false. Sure, Wisconsin isn't going to invade the UP the day Ron Paul takes office, but what's to say that 50 years from now, with the Federal Government effectively neutered, VA won't be looking to annex WV?
In the here and now, the implications of stripping federal regulations in a wholesale and thoughtless manner, as Ron Paul has been pushing for, would certainly have dire consequences along with the rays of sunshine that RP followers appear to have crammed up their back sides.
Heck, he has pretty much said in this very "interview" that he would maintain IP laws that protect corporations and in other responses further limit the consumer's ability to take part in inter-state/federal class action lawsuits.
Yet still,/.ers appear to be drawn to him like 6th graders to fart jokes.
Yeah, in the same way that the 'Northern' states alliance was different than the 'Southern' states alliance. That worked out beautifully last time we tried it, didn't it?
Gut the federal regulations of power companies and see how long it takes for every state in the US to come up with new regulations and get them passed the legislature and onto the Govener's desk.
Even if it only takes a few weeks, there will undoubtedly be a slew of Enron-like scandles with reseling power, time shifting energy for profit margins, and a lower quality of service for the customers.
Some arenas the states need to take power back from the US. Some arenas they don't. But in each case the process should be very clearly defined, and any distibution of power from the federal government to the states should be done in such a way that there is no period of un-regulated time.
Woh, wouldn't that be a crazy idea, if a bunch of States, United, and formed some kind of group, or Republic, to help them combat interstate and international issues that could not be resolved at the local level?
Such a huge premium wouldn't attract new companies wishing to profit? More companies in the same market doesn't cause competition to increase? Increased competition doesn't cause prices to fall? Repeat the cycle some times and you'll reach the correct offer vs. demand price for electricity. Do you know how much it costs, per foot, to run an over head powerline? The enterance cost of power distribution is huge! A company would have to spend billions of dollars to develop and install a 2nd set of copper to run power to all the same places that the exiting power company's lines run to.
Wouldn't this suddenly turn wireless networks into a pretty attractive market, attracting new companies wishing to profit? The same argument above applies. And you fall into the same problem. Even if the wireless providers offer an alternative to last mile wireing, they still have to plug into the same backbone as the old last mile providers, and will suffer the same fate. The only other alternative is to lay a new backbone, which again, is absurdly expensive.
Ah, but then, you see, if you're "pro-business" (in the sense of granting subsidies, imposing barriers, crafting anti-free-market laws etc.), then, simply put, you're not a libertarian. And vice-versa. Which is exactly why I call Ron Paul a 'quasi-libertarian' (or a wannabe).
It's completely absurd for you to walk into a grocery store and tell other shoppers what they will purchase for themselves and for yourself. Every time you buy something, everytime you make a choice, that's a free market action. You are right. It is absurd of me to demand that every person in the US buys produce free of contaminants. It is horrendous of me to demand people who buy toys can only buy toys that are colored with lead free paint. It is entirely despicable of me as a resident of WI to demand that slave labor is not aloud in Ill.
Lets say I own a software company, and I have a 90% share of the OS market. I use my unregulated power over the monopoly I have to prevent other companies to compete with my Office suite. My business is based in, lets say Washington, and my prime competitor, we'll say is in California. Now, the state of Massachusetts is pissed off because I won't let 90% of computers easily run with my competitor's Office suite. But, I'm not in their State, and neither is my competitor. So what are they going to do? The could bar the sale of my software in their State, and hop that the threat to sales would alter my behavior. Looking at the numbers, I can see the money I would lose by working with my competitor in that state, and I can see the sales I would lose in that state. But realistically, I know that people in MA aren't going to just stop buying computers. They'll cross state lines, order them online, or buy them on the black market. So my sales won't really be impacted. So enacting a state ban would only hinder the residents of that state, and do nothing to prevent me from exercising my power.
Sure, maybe if you could get enough states to put up a fight, after years and years of exploitation, you could have some effect. Or if WA started something, but then it's just a mater of relocating the corporate head quarters to some offshore, and it's business as usual. So long as the investors are still seeing a profit, my reign will continue.
I agree with you that IP laws are a plague to modern invention and business, but the wholesale abdigation of regulation is not the way to rectify it. We need to toss out the dirty bathwater, not burn down the house around it.
Two consenting adults should be allowed to trade with each other at whatever terms they voluntarily agree upon. There are limits to that. Because as you have just phrased it, debtor armies and slave labor would be entirely acceptable.
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W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo. Burn. Harsh. Actually, my girl friend became my wife years ago, and I read the book that your signature is from to our son just a few nights back. But all these details clog up the simplicity of the joke.
The only time such a level of detail actually helps the joke is in a case like the 'Pink Monkey' joke or the 'Flower' joke which rely on the excessive use of details to make the joke funny. But getting a 5-15 minute long joke off is more of an art form, rarely seen these days. No, the simpler the better, especially in type, for todays crowd. That's why jokes like, "What do you call a boomerang that won't come back?
-Rick
It's that exact logic that got me a girl friend with small hands.
My junk looks HUGE!
-Rick
That post wasn't in response to whether they can afford the upgrades or not, it was in regards to how to force consumers to change their habits through billing practices. Changing from a flat "unlimited" monthly fee to a per bit fee would dramatically change the amounts that people are being billed for. Currently, if I use my 3Mbps for light web browsing and email, I get billed $30. If I use that same connection to download and seed large P2P files 24x7, I get billed $30. If they were to change to a per bit billing scheme, using my connection for light browsing and email might cost $5 a month, where as keeping the download pip maxed out might cost $400 per month.
Having such a billing scheme would have a dramatic effect on distribution of copyrighted materials. Of course it would have a dramatic effect on the distribution of non-copyrighted materials as well. So it is very much NOT in our interest for them to make that change, but it is really the simplest way for the RIAA/MPAA to get what they want. No more DRMs, no more encryption, just huge bills that make it non-cost effective for people to distribute things online.
-Rick
If I say "The sky is green", it is a factual statement, you can produce the scientific evidence to prove that the spectrum of light that we view as that coming from the sky is in fact, blue.
So regardless of my preference of IDE's, if you identify an opinion of a selection of software, you can not say that the opinion is false. You can voice your opposition to that opinion, you can state your disagreement, and even your own opinion, but there is no fact to dispute. You can show that every other developer in the world disagrees with the person who posted their opinion, but that still doesn't make their opinion false, it just makes them unpopular.
-Rick
But I agree with you, the tel-co arguments are just ridiculous. If they are having bandwidth shortages, then increases in capacity are necessary. It's not like they haven't been on the receiving end of a significant amount of tax payer money to do just that.
-Rick
As for the value of his opinion, I don't think it's far off. It's been a few years since I've worked with Apache, and functionally it was probably a leg up on IIS at the time, but IIS is significantly easier to work with and configure. MySQL has come a long ways, but it's interface still isn't up to SQL Server's standards. Again, the functionality has seems pretty much on par for both of them (I've used both concurrently for the last 4 years), but the MS product again wins in the interface department. PHP is cool, I've used it to write a few CMS sites. But PHP feels like it is trying to be everything to every one, the same way VB was in the 90's. At this point, I've moved away from PHP and just gone to straight
And the grand daddy of them all, Visual Studio. VS blows away the competition and is with all likelihood the true reason MS holds as much of the development market as it does. Sharp Dev is a nice tool an all, and it has improved a lot since it's early release years ago. But Visual Studio 2k8 is extremely slick.
There is a reoccurring theme here, MS is dominating in these comparisons, not because their products are inherently more functional, but because they are easier to use and have a more refined form. Give enough time and work, MySQL, Apache, Sharp Dev, and other MS alternatives, can and will likely catch up in usability. But I haven't seen anything in the last year that really looked like a "MS killer" app.
-Rick
Artist makes up dance, makes robot do it while you sleep.
-Rick
That is part of the reason why it disgusts me that if the republicans even threaten to filibuster, the democrats table the bill. There is no media spotlight being shined on the Republicans for being obstructionists. And that fault goes straight to those spineless lackies Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
-Rick
Now Batman, I'm usually well aligned with your views. And even in this I can see your point, but I think it is a bit naive to claim that the reason for the walk out was not related to the tel-com vote. Pitching a fit over the contempt charges was just a scape goat.
By walking out at that point they achieve 3 political goals:
1) They prevent the contempt issue from being settled.
2) They spare themselves the popular heat of voting for immunity.
3) They continue the perception that the democratically lead congress is unable to take action.
Many congressmen are behind impeachment, but unfortunately the majority leader has taken it off the table and quashes any movements for it. So they are taking what actions they can. It is the responsibility of the legislative branch to maintain the balance of power with the Executive and Judicial branch. If the option of impeachment is not available, they must use what ever powers they do have to attempt to do so. If that means censures and contempt charges, so be it.
Sure, it may be grandstanding, but it is grandstanding that the people, the congressmen's constituents are demanding. If the representatives are getting pressure from their State, from the people that they are there to represent, to pursue contempt charges, then their actions seem to be right on the mark.
And besides, I didn't hear any complaints from the Republican party (at least not on this scale) when the congress was wasting days on steroids in baseball hearings. Talk about a waste of tax payer resources. Who gives a flying f' if some sports star was juicing. Let the league handle it, and if there was a criminal act, let the judicial branch handle it. There is no reason for us to be paying these over-aged pasty white guys to sit around talking about baseball.
-Rick
Step 1: Generate pure hydrogen in highly efficient processing plant
Step 2: Merge with carbon to create less stable and lower density hydrocarbon based fuel
Step 3: Using a vehicle based unit, crack the hydrocarbons back into hydrogen and carbon
Step 4: oxidize hydrogen to power fuel cell.
Step 5: return carbon to processing plant.
This would work amazingly if there were a shortage of carbon and an excess of easily accessible hydrogen. Unfortunately, our problem is the other way around. I can walk to any local gas station in the middle of summer and pick up a 20lbs bag of carbon for a few bucks. Getting my hands on 20lbs of hydrogen is a bit more challenging and expensive.
Not to mention there is no way they are going to get a vehicle based cracking unit to be more efficient than the factory unit. Not to mention that energy density is already an issue in pure hydrogen storage, turning it into hydro carbons isn't going to help on that issue if they are only using the hydrogen for energy generation.
The whole concept seems to fall on it's face as yet another attempt at a perpetual motion device.
-Rick
Mmmmm deregulation and privatization in action! Screwed with no recourse. But there's competition, right?
-Rick
Just saying, investing $21M now in increasing penetration of high efficiency appliances will have a significantly larger impact on the economy and environment than investing $21M on a technology that is years (if not a decade) away from entering the market designed to replace an already efficient system.
-Rick
Well lets see, both the original dryer and the new dryer ran at ~5000 watts. And we run probably 10 loads of laundry a month. The original dryer had a hard set timer for 1 hour's worth of drying. The new dryer would auto stop when the laundry was dry (which usually took about 50 minutes). So, over a month, the old dryer would use ~50kW and the new dryer would use ~41.7kW.
Switching from the old non-energy star rated top loading washing machine will save a lot of energy in water heating as well (but I don't have any numbers on that as I just got the dryer last week). But the one thing it has done impressively is to get more water out of the clothes before the end of it's cycle. This has cut our drying time down significantly. The auto stop on the dryer on average kicks in at 35 minutes. So over a month, the new dryer is using ~29.2kW.
So, excluding any energy savings in water heating, or in the washing machine it self, in one month I have saved 20.8kW.
All of the lights in my house are 15w CF bulbs with the exception of some full sized tubes in the kitchen. My wife is a light Nazi, she leaves all the lights off during the day and limits lighting to only the parts of the house that are in use at night. For argument's sake though, lets say we leave the (2) living room, (2) dining room, (2) stairway, and (3) bedroom lights on from 6 to 11. 9 x 15W x 5h = 675W per night, 246kW per year, 2.5MW over the lifetime of the lights.
I can't find much for solid info on SSL bulbs, but the best I'm seeing for comparable LED lighting is in the range of 2W. So 9 x 2W x 5h = 270W per night, 98.5kW per year, 1 MW over the lifetime of the CF lights. So a 1.5MW savings.
So my statement was a bit of a hyperbole, the saving from one month of using a high efficiency washer/dryer (counting only the dryer's savings) will save ~21kW. It would take 72 months (6 years) for the dryer to save as much energy as the lights.
Now this rationalization is heavily flawed as it is taking a worst case scenario for lighting and maintaining it for 10 years, it doesn't include the savings in the washer's power consumption, nor the savings in water heating. So I think it is a fairly safe statement to say that replacing inefficient washers and dryers would save significantly more energy than any further improvements in lighting.
If that $21M was distributed instead as a $200 tax rebate to anyone who had purchased a HE washer or dryer, we could have replaced 105,000 units. At 9kw-12kw energy savings each month per unit, that would save 945kW-1.2MW monthly. Heck, that's almost half a GW over a year, and again, that doesn't include the energy savings from heating water, or the washing machine itself. And that's not a theoretical "if we pay, they might invent, and it might make it to market in 10 years" kind of investment. That's a right here, right now, by the end of the year more people will be saving more energy, kind of investment.
2 birds in the hand > 1 in the bush.
-Rick
Who cares? Unlike peek oil, peek coal in the US is still 180 years away. And why blow the cash on improving light fixtures for 1M cars of coal when blowing cash on improving wind power generation and distribution could save millions more? Or heck, $21M in tax rebates/incentives to buy high efficiency washers/dryers/refrigerators/AC/Heaters etc...
My dryer shorted out a few months ago. It was an ancient hand me down from a friend. We replaced it with a new more efficient model with auto shutoff and moisture detection. It dried clothes a bit faster and would shut off when they were dry, regardless of the timer. It saved us a bit of energy and a tiny amount of cash every month.
My washing machine went up in smoke last week. Literally, it was not a pleasant experience. It was an ancient piece of junk, a matching item to the previously mentioned POC dryer. Wanting to be responsible, I plunked down the extra cash to get a HE front loading washer (~$540 instead of a traditional low efficiency top loader for ~280). This new front loading washer uses significantly less water, which saves my aging water heater (by aging I mean it really should have been replaced 5 years ago) a lot of work. Not only that, but the rinse cycle is so much more efficient that my dryer time is almost 1/2 of what it used to be.
Those two appliances combined will generate more coal savings in 1 month, than replacing every one of the CF light bulbs in my entire house with best case SSL/LED lights over their entire life. (excluding production requirements, no idea on those numbers)
And THAT is why lighting is not a large concern.
-Rick
I've worked in a few different tech retail stores. And at each of them at least 1 person (usually middle management) is busted for walking off with repair units, RTVs, or stuff right off the truck.
Heck, the first CompUSA I worked at in high school, the front end manager was busted for skimming the drawers. The cage manager got busted with his van at the loading doc moving inventory out. The tech bench manager skipped town with thousands of dollars worth of memory and processors. The General Manager got busted on tax evasion. All within a year and a half time span.
I had a friend pick up a job there a year later while I was in the military, they had all new management, with new vices. Instead of ripping off the store/customers, the wound up with a bunch of small time pot dealers in supervisor/middle management positions. Not like they were doing business in the store, but their smoke breaks were a taken in back by the loading doc. On the bright side though, they got great customer reviews for their friendliness and chipper attitude.
-Rick
The vast majority of electric power generation in the US is coal based. So you could change every light bulb in the US and still have no effect on world oil consumption.
-Rick
And a sudden nation wide demand for solar power would do nothing to the price of silicone? Even if the price on solar units stayed relatively stable, you're still looking at probably $6k for an integrated roof system that in So Cal might offset the usage of 1 average family.
So, well to do single family houses would be able to afford it. Middle class and below single family houses would likely not. And anyone living in a multiple resident building would be screwed. Such actions will crush the middle class, starve the poor, and be relatively insignificant to those who have the money to work with. But I guess if your goal is to increase to economic disparity between the haves and the have nots, deregulating the electric industry is a great way to do so!
-Rick
Correct, Similar != same. But a civil war is a civil war, whether it's over slavery, religious differences, economic disparity, or any other issue. Sure, maybe the NH/VT Maple Syrup coalition would be fine, but who's to say every single other alliance would also be fine for all times. It takes only one failure to start a war.
/.ers appear to be drawn to him like 6th graders to fart jokes.
You are opperating under the assumption that State behavior would remain relatively unchanged with out Federal oversight. That assumption is with all likelihood, false. Sure, Wisconsin isn't going to invade the UP the day Ron Paul takes office, but what's to say that 50 years from now, with the Federal Government effectively neutered, VA won't be looking to annex WV?
In the here and now, the implications of stripping federal regulations in a wholesale and thoughtless manner, as Ron Paul has been pushing for, would certainly have dire consequences along with the rays of sunshine that RP followers appear to have crammed up their back sides.
Heck, he has pretty much said in this very "interview" that he would maintain IP laws that protect corporations and in other responses further limit the consumer's ability to take part in inter-state/federal class action lawsuits.
Yet still,
-Rick
As per Einstein, "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
And the always classic George Santayana phrase, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
And for one last appropriate comment from the dead, I give you Alphonse Karr, "The more things change, the more they stay the same."
-Rick
Yeah, in the same way that the 'Northern' states alliance was different than the 'Southern' states alliance. That worked out beautifully last time we tried it, didn't it?
-Rick
Gut the federal regulations of power companies and see how long it takes for every state in the US to come up with new regulations and get them passed the legislature and onto the Govener's desk.
Even if it only takes a few weeks, there will undoubtedly be a slew of Enron-like scandles with reseling power, time shifting energy for profit margins, and a lower quality of service for the customers.
Some arenas the states need to take power back from the US. Some arenas they don't. But in each case the process should be very clearly defined, and any distibution of power from the federal government to the states should be done in such a way that there is no period of un-regulated time.
-Rick
Woh, wouldn't that be a crazy idea, if a bunch of States, United, and formed some kind of group, or Republic, to help them combat interstate and international issues that could not be resolved at the local level?
Man, that's some out there thinking!
-Rick
-Rick
Lets say I own a software company, and I have a 90% share of the OS market. I use my unregulated power over the monopoly I have to prevent other companies to compete with my Office suite. My business is based in, lets say Washington, and my prime competitor, we'll say is in California. Now, the state of Massachusetts is pissed off because I won't let 90% of computers easily run with my competitor's Office suite. But, I'm not in their State, and neither is my competitor. So what are they going to do? The could bar the sale of my software in their State, and hop that the threat to sales would alter my behavior. Looking at the numbers, I can see the money I would lose by working with my competitor in that state, and I can see the sales I would lose in that state. But realistically, I know that people in MA aren't going to just stop buying computers. They'll cross state lines, order them online, or buy them on the black market. So my sales won't really be impacted. So enacting a state ban would only hinder the residents of that state, and do nothing to prevent me from exercising my power.
Sure, maybe if you could get enough states to put up a fight, after years and years of exploitation, you could have some effect. Or if WA started something, but then it's just a mater of relocating the corporate head quarters to some offshore, and it's business as usual. So long as the investors are still seeing a profit, my reign will continue.
I agree with you that IP laws are a plague to modern invention and business, but the wholesale abdigation of regulation is not the way to rectify it. We need to toss out the dirty bathwater, not burn down the house around it. Two consenting adults should be allowed to trade with each other at whatever terms they voluntarily agree upon. There are limits to that. Because as you have just phrased it, debtor armies and slave labor would be entirely acceptable.
-Rick
Sucks to be a low population state. How well do you think the state emission regulations would have stuck if they started off in Nebraska?
-Rick