Comment What I tell my wife about the garbage cans (Score 1) 86
If I hit the garbage cans and not know why this is a problem, it is time for one of these tests.
If I hit the garbage cans and not know why this is a problem, it is time for one of these tests.
The excuse that "they are not going to destroy the Universe" is based on cosmic rays having energies way beyond what a ring circling the planet could achieve, although I guess the luminosity is low and that is why we are not swallowed up by a black hole?
But Dyson's point is that these mega projects are throwing bucks/Euros after diminishing returns as the interesting stuff is probably still outside your reach. He thought that people should be considering novel concepts rather than just making what we have bigger . . . and more expensive.
Or a non-PED version of a Presidential campaign (cough, Mitt Romney, cough)?
Wee wuz robbed! If it weren't for that Russian ice dancing judge!
If you can't transport it, it won't get used.
Yeah, the guy dissed the people letting him go. Dock him a day's pay. Mr Corporate Big Shot, show yourself to be . . . really small.
The fixtures in question come on automatically for about 60 seconds when someone passes from the house through to the garage. The fixtures use about 2 W each in standby, so yes, I have checked. As to the "low tech" solution of simply operating the light switches, people forget to turn them off, and spouses don't cotton to being called names or being scolded as is the custom in Slashdot comments. The motion detector is convenient and energy saving, and it is a sad day when the "geeks on Slashdot" deride such an approach.
Yes, halogens are a (pricey) answer, and I will probably use halogens if they are available, but my experience is that halogens are only marginally more efficient than incandescents (they are a type of incandescent). They may not be available with the new regs.
I have had 100% FL and CFL in the house, with the exception of 3 of these motion detector fixtures -- the outside of the door, the garage, and the stairway from the garage. The manufacturers recommended against CFLs in these fixtures. Two of them make a click as if there is a relay contact, the third works with an electronic switch like a dimmer, but there are warnings against CFLs in all three. No matter how many times you flip your LEDs on and off, you are not flipping them on 120 times a second with a triac, generating a waveform rich in harmonics that will fry the electronic ballast in an LED bulb not certified for this use.
The argument against the ban is it treats homeowners like primitive peoples who don't know where "babies come from" (never proven -- many alleged primitives have elaborate cultures and rather "conservative" moral standards). A home owner is said to be clueless as to where their electric bill comes from and can't be trusted to make decisions about whether to reserve incandescent light bulbs for light-duty use such as motion detectors, closet lights, lightly used rooms, and so on.
So hydro as a source of electicity weakens my argument? Huh?
A really good gas furnace is 96 percent efficient.
So if you have some spot application, where maybe you don't want the pipes to freeze but you don't want to dial up the thermostat for the whole house, you may come out way ahead on CO2 emissions. And maybe even cost.
Thus spake the master programmer: "After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"