Friday, January 19, 2018

Off-grid discussion 1.19.18

Batteries are complicated.  Besides that, they suck as a storage of power off the grid.

Perhaps it is better to avoid using them, but unfortunately this isn't going to be an option.  Reason being that propane generators also suck.  These will use up way too much propane, and therefore, will be much too expensive to operate.

Another option is to hook up the car to a deep cycle battery, and let the car charge up the batteries.  Car alternators may be able to crank out a lot of juice.  It is surprising.

One thing that seems to keep popping up, though.  Batteries seem to like to be charged for five hours, or so.  Go faster than that, and you may cook it.  Slower than that, and your pockets had better very deep, for it will take forever to charge the darn thing.

So, five hours seems to work.  Now, a 200 amp-hr battery at the 20-hr rate will only support a 10 amp load in order to get that 200 amps of work out of it.  That many amps at 12 volts is only 120 watts.  An a/c will pull a lot more than that.  You could run a swamp cooler for that long as long as it didn't pull that more than that much current.  Swamp coolers do not inspire confidence, though.

A 200 amp-hr battery isn't cheap, either.  One of those could run 400 bucks and some change.

You could run a propane generator for a few hours a day.  Maybe that five hr number could charge the batteries, and also, maybe you can run an a/c off of it.  Five hours for each simultaneously could suffice.

Yeah, it looks like a more complicated problem than the water problem.  Climate control takes a lot of juice.  That's why I want to think SMALL, because small takes less BTU to heat or to cool.



Bombshells going off everywhere

Look, it is hard for me to get excited about something that people should have known anyway.

Sure, releasing the info may be enlightening, but will it change the minds of people who remain steadfastly determined to be stuck on stupid?

You've got to out-wolf the wolf.  It might hurt, but that is what it will take.

update:

For those who need explanations, here goes nothing



AGW discussion number 101

Incidentally, someone may notice a bit of a joke in the title.  There used to be a commercial for excederin pain reliever, which mentions a type of headache with a number associated with it--- ex., Excederin headache number 101.  These discussions may give you a headache, alright.  Tedious stuff, I suppose.

With an introduction like that, why bother?  Indeed.  But, I need to write something in order to have a blog.  Maybe you don't have anything better to do, so you come here.  If you are not a bot, that is.

Let's begin with the usual discussion about the weather.  Everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything about it.  Until we got modern day liberals, that is.  Very nice of them to care so much about it.  Of course, they expect a fee for all their caring.

When the weather is hot, it is often described as hotter than normal.  Or when it is cold, it is colder than normal.  So they say.

Here's a bit of tedium.  ( maybe more than normal )  There is a mathematical property called a normal distribution that may or may not work in predicting weather observations, such as temperatures.  By the way, a normal distribution is also known as a "bell curve".  Observations of temperatures can be compared to this bell curve in way that tells us how far from the "mean" an observation is.  By mean we mean that it is nothing more than the arithmetic average of a set of temperature observations.  If this set includes temperatures for the last 150 years, then for any particular day of the year, there is a mean temperature for that date.  Any temperature observation may vary a bit from that mean.  This "variance" can be quantified into a number which is called the standard deviation.  Now, for a normal distribution, each observation should fall within plus or minus three standard deviations from the mean.  So, how do we know if a temperature is normal or not?  Well, maybe it fits this normal distribution.  Keep in mind though, that this distribution is only valid for that set of data.  Any new data may change the mean and the standard deviation, you see.

For people familiar with these mathematical concepts, I hope I didn't mangle it too badly.

One objection to how weather data is reported is that these concepts are usually mangled pretty badly.  If I think that, imagine what a statistician may think of weather reporting.

How do you know when weather is normal or not?  You don't have enough data.  You cannot predict the next 100 years from what has happened over the last 100 years.  For one thing, it isn't statistically valid.  You can certainly try to predict it.  But weather is pretty variable.  And the Earth is a lot older than 100 years.

Basically my objection is that a variance from the norm cannot possibly be based upon what we know, unless it is confined to our own experience, which is limited.  But the far past is outside that experience, and so is the far future.  That ol dog won't hunt in any kind of weather.

AGW theorists try to persuade based upon weather reports.  What a concept! /sarc


Thursday, January 18, 2018

Haiti's principal city has no modern sanitation

Workers have to literally clean up the mess with their bare hands.

Cholera, which is a disease spread by human waste, is rampant in Haiti.

If Haiti isn't a shithole, then what do you call this? ( For every shithole is an asshole for a leader )

Yes, and the Clintons robbed Haiti of the resources that may have fixed this.

Durbin is the only leader we know for an absolute fact, who called any country a shithole.

Why be mad at Trump?  For telling it the way it is, if he said it?  If he didn't say it, then why not be mad at Durbin, if you wish to be angry at someone?

Whatever reason there is in using this word to damage Trump, it has nothing to do with truth, nor with helping people.  The person who used the word, Durbin, does not help Haitians by using this word.

Note:

This may gross some people out.  But here goes anyway:  immigrants to the US do not know that you can flush toilet paper down the drain.  They tend to deposit their used toilet paper ( with you know what on it ) in the trash.

If you don't know this, the check it out.


Wave election?

Scott Rasmussen has an article up at Townhall, which analyzes the prospects going forward in the upcoming 2018 election.

He says only 45 out of the 435 seats are competitive.  There are 187 likely Dem seats that won't flip GOP.  Rasmussen says that nine more are "leaning in that direction".  This also means that the GOP could flip those, if things don't go the Dems way.  Assuming all of those go Democrat, then they got 196.  They need 22 more.  He identifies 17 races that could flip to the Dem side supposedly.  In a normal cycle, this would still not be enough, as it would only bring them to 213.  The Dems need a "wave" that would swamp those that were considered safe during a normal cycle.  There are 19 of those, he says.  They would have to win approximately one out of four safe seats.

What I get from all of this is that Dems have to depend upon everything going right for them.  Furthermore, they would have to depend upon the GOP being grossly incompetent.

Both things are going to be necessary.  Merely being lucky won't be enough for them.  On the GOP side, mere competence could be enough to hold on.  If they are brilliant, it will be another disappointment for the left.


Trump didn't say it

That infamous word that he is alleged to have said?  Remember that?  How could anyone forget?  It is all these people can talk about.

I say that Trump didn't say it because they had him wiretapped before and couldn't find anything like that.  If he ever talks like this, they would have had it on tape, and they would have used it.  If they couldn't get it then, then they have to make it up.

As for the wiretapping during the campaign and transition, a lot is coming out that confirms what I have believed all along that this kind of thing was indeed happening.

It should not surprise anyone.  Especially after what Durbin just did.  These people do not respect boundaries nor laws nor rules nor etiquette.  Since they won't honor these, then what is a little wiretapping to them?????

Trump didn't do it.  So now they have to make things up.  It is the wolf and the lamb thing again.  In an argument with a wolf, you don't act like the lamb in Aesop's fable.  You out-wolf the wolf.


All caught up? Not quite.

Things have a way of piling up, causing problems that might have been avoided.  For instance, I just ran out of propane.  It is early morning, dark outside still, and I'd like to have some heat.  But no propane.

Actually, there's a bottle left.  But I have to go outside and switch bottles, which is a pain in the neck.

Even though I am caught up, so to speak, and not really out of propane, it may as well be the case.  Plus, I have no back up for the propane.  Instead of the space heater, propane was to be used.  Now, I can't use either.  Things were not kept up properly, so now I am without for a few hours.  Boo, hoo.

It's not really all that big of a biggie.  Not even a biggie.  I can deal with it.  Still, could I have done better?  Of course.

I look around the place, and there's plenty to do.  No reason to get bored.  Yet, I may decide at some point to say that I am bored.  No excuses for that.

I did get one thing done yesterday.  Maybe more than one.  I had some service work done on the van.  It has been neglected.  At least that is caught up for now.  Another thing I did was to conserve some of this propane so that I could run out this morning, as opposed to yesterday when it was still daylight outside.  Funny how that works.  Conserve a few hours of propane, and just put it off for when it is the least convenient to change the bottles.  Sometimes you cannot seem to win.  Even when you win, it seems like you lose.

Was it Satchel Page who said not to look back, something may be gaining on you?  But if you don't look back, how can you improve upon your mistakes?

In the end, what will be, will beQue sera, sera.



Wednesday, January 17, 2018

An example of winning through intimidation?

Robert Ringer once observed that the left has been winning through intimidation for years.

What does Ringer mean by winning through intimidation?  You'd have to read the book.  It isn't likely to be what you think it is.  That is one of his points.

Basically, this post by Ace may give you a hint about what Ringer means.  In short, Ace shows that Trump is not constrained from telling it like it is, even if that means he is not considered to be a "nice" person for having said so.

What is so wrong about seeking one's own self-interest?  If you are talked into thinking you are obligated to set aside your own self-interest just because someone may dislike you for it ( for not having been "nice"), then you have been "intimidated".  That is how the left wins, according to Ringer's short but sweet analysis.

Ringer thinks the left is going to be beaten badly, soon.  Rush seems to think so, too.  As for me, I am not so sure.  They are too many "ostriches" out there to be too confident.


AGW discussion number 100

 It may not be a hundred.  It may just seem that way.  This post will be titled this way in order to systemize posts of this type, for future reference.  Since that has not been the way so far, it may be hard to reference them all.  Consequently, ideas and so forth may get repeated.  One search produced 73 posts.  Okay, but the search filter may not have captured them all.

Whatever the case may be, I will write another one of these things.   Maybe it is only repetition of old ideas.

This post is inspired by the Wapo article referenced here.  It is not my intention to address it directly, but to attack on the premises of AGW theory.  The premise is that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will cause the Earth's climate to heat up significantly.  This is referred to as AGW  ( Anthropogenic Global Warming ).

The discussion does mention parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  One means of attacking the severity of the alleged problem is to note that "per million" is a small number.  Thus, a change from - 280 parts per million (ppm) to 400 parts per million - is not a significant move in terms of its scale.

If it were money, the difference would be 280 dollars to 400 dollars as opposed to one million dollars.  If it were distance, it would mean a difference of a hundred and twenty feet over a two hundred mile jaunt.  Parts per million is a small number.  It doesn't need to cause such consternation.

At the current level of nearly 400 ppm, the scale is about 1/2500 th of the atmosphere.   A tiny fraction, yes?  Once again, if it were weight, it would be like one pound as opposed to twenty five hundred pounds.  The comparison is like the difference in weight between a soft drink in a pint size bottle, and the weight of a car.

That much weight is going to influence the rest in significant ways?  That is quite a claim.  It cannot be proven.

For example, it takes 140 BTU to heat up a pound of water to boiling temperatures.  The same amount of BTU's would only heat up the 2500 pounds of water to 140/2500 degrees, or about 5 one hundredths of one degree.  Pour that boiling water into a tank of water with 2500 pounds of water in it, and you would hardly notice the difference.  It is doubtful that you would even notice it at all.

However, the carbon dioxide would never get that hot, anyway.  This would be the case no matter how well it could hold heat.

Water holds het better than carbon dioxide.  Try boiling that pound of water in the sun all day.  Won't happen.  It is doubtful that you could get it to boil on a hot summer day.

Even if you did, you would have to sustain that over the night period.  The water would return to normal temperature from a boil in a much shorter period of time.

In order to raise the temperature of the atmosphere, it has to retain some heat from the prior daylight hours.  If all of it escapes, then how does that warm the climate?  It cannot.

AGW is bunk.



Afterlife

Updated, 1.17.18:

Here's a thought:  What about a Dr. Frankenstein scenario, in which a dead man is brought back to life?  Does the soul that was once united with that body return to it?

That question may come up some day if artificial life is created.

The truth is a slippery thing.  But keep in mind that the truth is out there.  Post modernists like to say that there is no truth.  Not the same thing as saying that it is slippery.

Truth is truth.

Originally posted on 1.12.18 :

This seems to clear up a bit of confusion.

If there is a soul..., is there a God?

When asked that question when I was young, I said yes, I believed there was a soul.  But I wasn't sure about a God.  I was told that that made me an agnostic.

Prager says something here that shows me that ( if I were to accept what he says as true ) that what I really was, at that time, was confused.

But the confusion lives on.  Life is short, and answers to questions have a shelf life equal to one's own.  That would seem to indicate a need for urgency.

I tend to follow things closely in this life because I think it is important.  Some may think that this is a mistake.  But there it is.

If there is an afterlife, then eternity is a long, long time.


Tuesday, January 16, 2018

The latest accusation

Updated, on 1.16.18:

What did I tell you?  Dems love shitholes so much that they want America to become one.  Check out the story of the bluest of the blue, San Francisco.  You need a poop map to avoid stepping in it!



1.12.18, 5:20 pm:

The significance of what Durbin said can be illustrated thusly:  If Durbin characterized what Trump said in the exact same language as Trump did, it isn't news.  What is news is that Durbin said that Trump called these countries the name that Durbin (himself ) used.  Now if Durbin is lying about what Trump said, then the one who should apologize is Durbin because he used that word himself.

Calling these countries bad names is not what Trump said he said.  It is what Durbin said that Trump said.  I think that is a distinction worth pointing out.

By making it a news item, it puts some pressure on Trump which would not have existed otherwise.  Without the aid of the news media, there is nothing to see here.

Let me put it this way:  Durbin is using the news media to slander Trump.  The proof against the charge of slander of Durbin's is proof that Trump really did use that language.  Durbin cannot do this, but Trump cannot prove himself innocent either.  That's what's so evil about it.  You can lie without consequence.  Trump says he wants to use tape recordings of future talks.

When people double cross you like that, trust is broken.  That is why you don't a) disclose what is said in a private meeting, and b) lie about what was said behind closed doors.

It is a dirty trick no matter how you look at it.


12:47 pm

The people who related this information, even if true, are in the wrong for having done so.  The meeting was behind closed doors, which means it should have been kept confidential.  It only proves that those who related this information ( not an admission of any accusation ) are in the wrong.  If it is offensive, and is attributable to Trump, and even if Trump did it, they are still wrong.  They have no honor.  Moreover, if they really cared about the sensibilities of the people who might be offended, they would have conveyed that information in the manner it was given--- through diplomatic channels.  To make it public is a dastardly thing to do.  But, as I said before, these people are not above making false claims.  Trump may not have even said it that way anyway.  These people will say and do anything.  This proves it.  Just sayin'.


original post on 1.12.18 @ 10:56 am follows:


So, Trump is reported to have called certain countries "shitholes".  Seems like he is denying having said this, but so what if he did?

Instead of understanding why they are what they are, and doing something constructive about it, these people want to disparage Trump for saying it.  Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if they made it all up.  These people are not above making things up.

Do these people that make these accusations really want to keep America from becoming a third world country ( aka "shithole") country?  Seems to me that this is the goal of Democrats.  They love countries like this so much that they want America to become one.  And so it has, in many respects.

So, if Trump really said that, then don't run away from it.  Truth is truth.

Haiti is a "shithole".  Why deny that?  Why would they want to come here if it wasn't?

Liberals want to discredit people so that they will shut up and cave in to their outrageous demands.

Screw 'em.  I would rather use even a dirtier word, but this essay is filthy enough as it is.


Clinton Foundation

Updated,

3:20 pm:

Here's another story that fits in with the general idea.  The general idea is that the left only uses the black people.  They really don't help them, they just use them for their own benefit.

If the Clintons skimmed off the money for themselves, instead of actually helping the Haitians, it would not be the first time amongst those on the left.  Indeed, it is part of a pattern with those people.

In the Soviet Union, the people who were in the nomenklatura got the goodies, while the ordinary folks that they claimed to be fighting for, went without.  This pattern tends to show up again and again in leftist governments, like Venezuela or North Korea.

These people stuff themselves at the expense of their own.  Then they claim to be in service to them.  The truth is those people, under these governments, are enslaved, as they are in service to these people who claim to lead them.



10:00 am, 1.16.18:

This is a story that didn't interest me much.  Still doesn't, but it sure seems like it could be in the center of this shitstorm going on the country right now.

There are those who are claiming that the Clintons robbed the Haitians of the assistance that they were supposed to get when they had a bad earthquake years ago.

An obvious question should be how the hell did the Clintons get so rich?  Did they use their name in order to make their money?  It is a fair question.

Now, if they used their name to make money, could it also be the case that they just might have skimmed a good bit of it off for themselves?

Now you've also got a question about those emails.  Emails that were deleted.  The entire point of having a server off the reservation, so to speak, was to keep it away from prying eyes.  If that was the case, and it had to be, then what were they hiding?

The part of the email story that interested me was the national security aspect.  But the plain and simple corruption of the Clintons could be even bigger.

Always keep in mind that Seth Rich is dead, and a whole lot of people seemed to get dead quick when they got too close to the Clinton's corruption.


Monday, January 15, 2018

Spock dead? Impossible!

Originally posted 2.28.15:

Updated 1.15.18:

6:35 pm :

The warp drive allusion came from the Alcubierre theoretical warp drive.  It satisfies a number of physics-type constraints in the production of said drive.  I remember reading about this possibility of a warp drive many years before starting this blog.  Anyway, the production of "negative mass" is one of the stumbling blocks that may have been overcome.  Maybe.

Another post is here on the subject.


1:30 pm :

The idea for this update was inspired by an Instapundit post about "magic dust".  It has the property of "negative mass".  What that means is not clear to moi, but what is clear that it is all....

drum roll please..

Fascinating..

Negative mass may make futuristic type products, don't you know.  It may even allow the production of a warp drive.   Seriously.  But that speculation may be a bit much, but we'll see.

I want to use the word fascinating with a date on it so as to identify posts like this for future reference.  Spock lives!

the original post follows:


Well, that's not nice.

If you in the public, you have to be able to take a joke.

I took one of those quizzes that asked what so and so are you, and there was one about Star Trek characters.  I am Spock.

Fascinating.


Off-grid discussion, 1.15.18

There are so many posts like this, it may be a good idea to systemize it so that I can more easily reference it later, if need be.  There are posts that I want in my off-grid series, but this one won't go.  Also, I have the How to category as well.  Just one more way to find posts for later reference.

Now for the main part of this discussion...

An idea to transport the 5x8 trailer to the property popped into my head.  It wouldn't take that much to disassemble the thing again.  Just don't do any welding.  So far, I haven't.

Now, the thing that I may want to do is to attach a piece of metal to the bottom of the frame part, and then drag that behind the van.  What this does is to clear the vegetation that is in the way.  Some of that vegetation is some stuff that can puncture tires.  Once done, I can definitely drive up and down the trail without worrying about flat tires.

This would not require damaging the trailer, or so I think.  I do need a piece of metal that can be attached to bottom part of the frame so that it can scrape the ground.

Even if the frame is damaged by using it this way, I may not care.  The idea of putting a box on top of it seems a bit dodgy to me right now.  I won't be doing that.

Now, it may be possible to obtain a car dolly in order to allow me to take the little Uber car to town and back.  This is so I can a few extra bucks to pay bills.   However, a car dolly could cost some bucks, and the van needs to be set up for hauling a trailer.  Something to consider.


Sunday, January 14, 2018

Fair question?

Could it be that the main problem in this country now is that there are too many dim-witted people who cannot find their asses with both hands, with a Rand McNally atlas as a guide, and a GPS turn-by-turn map directions app running?

Just curious to know.

Also, if you want to know where I am coming from, it isn't from Dick Durbin's neighborhood.


Extreme Ways - Moby (The Bourne Identity)

Oh, baby!  Then it fell apart.  Like it always does.

Do you ever get that feeling?



Update: Replaced the original video with the above. I like this one better.