4July2011
Posted by Brent under: Nothing Special.
Well, what goes around, comes around. Remember in the old days of tube radios and TVs? You’d have to plan your viewing or listening pleasure ahead of time. You’d turn on the set, then sit around and let it warm up for a while before you could enjoy the program. Then came transistor radios and instant-on TVs. Push a button for instant gratification. Nowadays the good old days are back again. If I want to listen to the news via the Internet at the top of the hour from an Atlanta radio station, I first fire up a browser, the enter the url in the address bar, wait for the page to load, click on the ‘listen now’ button, wait for the player window to open and the player to load, connect to the station, then listen to the pre-roll commercial, then finally listen to the program I wanted to hear. How simple is that? Yes, it makes the old tube radios seem like a pleasure by comparison!
2July2011
Posted by Brent under: Nothing Special.
The other night we watched the first few episodes of Leverage, which we’re enjoying so far. For those unfamiliar with the made-for-TNT series, here’s the plot outline: they’re vigilantes. So this got me thinking about vigilantes in entertainment, alone or in groups. Clearly Bronson’s Death Wish is a lone vigilante. I wouldn’t count the Count of Monte Cristo as one, as it was all personal revenge for him. So not too many loners, probably because you can’t have too much good dialog. Vigilantes in media often come in pairs: The Lone Ranger and Tonto, Batman and Robin, the Green Hornet and Kato. I’ll let you decide if the Knight Rider is solo or not. How about Don Quixote and Sancho Panza? And of course, vigilantes come in packs. The prototype of these would be Robin Hood and his Merry Men. More recently we have the Mission Impossible team, the A-Team and now Leverage. So how do you like your vigilantes? solo, duo, or in a band? My guess is that Vigilantes in entertainment are more popular when people feel oppressed and powerless. But are there cultures where vigilantes are more popular? If so, is there a cultural solo vs. group vigilante preference?
21June2011
Posted by Brent under: Nothing Special.
In shopping for a new waffle iron on Amazon the other day, I came across the most wonderful line of small electric appliances made by Smart Planet. They include the electric corn dog maker, the electric mini-donut maker, the electric donut-hole maker, the electric waffle cone maker, and most impressive to me, the electric pigs-in-a-blanket maker. (only 12 left in stock, order soon!! 5-star rated!) Lora said we’d need to add a new room to our house, just to store these beauties. I’m guessing a new electric sub-panel as well. What’s really frightening is that Amazon reports that the pigs-in-a-blanket maker, the the corn-dog maker and the mini-donut maker are ‘frequently bought together’. Wedding gifts, maybe? or the opposite: what a newly-divorced guy would buy for himself?
21June2011
Posted by Brent under: Nothing Special.
In our morning walks, we sometimes pass a nearby house (doublewide?) with a concrete statue of an angel out front. Not the former ‘lawn jockys’ of my youth. Between Dahlonega and Gainesville is a company that makes lawn statuary: turkeys, dinosaurs, pigs, all the concrete statuary you need to make your lawn the envy of the neighborhood. I need to stop by and talk to them about my proposed product. My idea is simple and should be a best-seller: Elvis. Particularly the ‘Vegas Elvis’ with the white jumpsuit. One could embed colored cut-class gemstones in it. I’m telling you, we could make a fortune. I can just see the Elvii among the vinca right now.
3June2011
Posted by Brent under: Nothing Special.
Today I was driving past a 1 Megawatt solar power installation and got thinking about power distribution. One of the troubles with solar is that solar panels put out DC, while our homes use AC. The whole AC/DC fight goes back to Edison/Westinghouse/Tesla/Steinmetz, etc and is a longer story than I can go into here. Edison wanted to run homes on DC, everybody else knew the only way to conduct electricity over long distances was AC, so our homes run on AC. All well and good until rooftop solar power shows up, generating DC. The traditional solar setup then stores the energy in batteries, runs an DC-to-AC converter, synchronize it to the grid, and use it.
But let’s look at how we use it once it comes out of the receptacle. My computer changes that AC wall power to DC for the machine. So does my cell phone charger, battery charger, TV, amp, PS3. In short, everything in my house except lights and things with motors changes the AC to DC before it can use it. When LED lighting comes about in the next few years, move the lights to the DC column as well. So here’s my radical notion: start transitioning house current to DC. Initially this would be a separate 12 volt distribution system in the house. Once standards are set, then electronics manufacturers could start making alternative DC adapters in addition to the AC adapters (power bricks) we now use. There’s already lots of manufacturing capacity and engineering knowledge built around 12 volt DC systems, since that’s what cars run on.
The advantages of this system are numerous: solar power would be much more efficient and economical since you don’t have to convert their output to AC, power supplies (and power bricks) would be smaller, cheaper and more efficient. And best of all, we start to truly get the benefits of the long-touted ‘smart-grid’ systems because storing DC in batteries without having to convert it back to AC reduces complexity and loss. Did I mention that 12 volts DC is much safer than 120 volts AC? All in all, when we convert to LED lighting a few years hence, I think it’s time to take a serious look at wiring homes with DC.
I’m sure hundreds of people have thought of this before, but I don’t have a link into their fountain of knowledge. If anybody knows of a reference, drop me a note or post a comment to this blog entry.
2June2011
Posted by Brent under: Nothing Special.
Yesterday started the Atlantic Hurricane Season. So everybody load up your 10-gauges, get that license and head for the Gulf. Hope everybody bags their limit this year. Be safe and have fun!