life upgrade: turning off my phone

I have always had an uneasy relationship with the telephone.   To paraphase the famous historiographical quip, this says more about me than it does the telephone.    So what makes voice calls unpleasant for me? First, I am socially awkward.  Trying to understand social cues even under favorable conditions maxxes out my CPU, increases my anxiety,

backchannel/backlog: inverters aren't magic

I just noticed I have 28 (!) drafts I never publshed.  Will start pushing them out if they are anywhere near done.   Beginners have many illusions about powering things offgrid.    In this exchange we see two of the biggest ones: heating/cooling using electricity made from solar the apparent belief that inverters or other devices create

idiot permanence

Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, touched, smelled or sensed in any way. — wikipedia I propose idiot permanance, which is the understanding that idiots and jerks continue to be idiots and jerks even when they are out of your direct observation.  That swervedriving guy

backchannel restraint

So proud of myself.  Didn’t post the following: It’s not “hidden in the manual”, the manual doesn’t say “it’s bad”  and it’s not a “bad controller”.  This situation derives from a failure to understand product specs. To paraphrase Dave Chappelle, “that’s how PWM works;  that’s what PWM is for.”   I encourage you to slow down

a modest proposal, Covid-19 edition

inspired by reddit post The Case for Scaling Down the Economic Shutdown of Texas we have not even come close to hitting our ICU bed cap that we increased in preparation and our overflow facilities are still very under utilized Shower thought from a layman: since hospitalization is a lagging indicator, maybe communiities could tie public covid policy

in praise of the single Battle Born lithium battery

I have ranted elsewhere that buying too much lithium battery bank is a self-limiting behavior due to prohibitive cost.    I may have been wrong — I have seen lots of people running (or planning to run) multiple Battle Born batteries at $1000 per BB. Holy crap, y’all.  That’s real money.

3 strikes and SoCal is out

all in the space of two weeks, mind you strike one Joshua Tree North BLM area – obnoxious off-roaders cut through camps in day time at high speed, and one night began idiotic donut riding, jumping, and slinging roost at 10pm.  Began. Also in 29 Palm (the nearest town) there were junkies wandering in the streets

backchannel rant: paying for unwanted features

inspired by (but not necessarily a response to) this reddit comment. —– Brand name loyalists (or people who equate price and quality) will pay a premium. Cheapskates will look for the lowest purchase price. Somewhere in the middle are people who do the research to buy gear that meets their needs without paying for a

Prediction: windows lite –> linux

At some point, Windows (or Windows Lite) will be a slick overlay on top of linux, the way MacOS is a beautiful layer on top of Darwin/BSD.  MS is already moving toward subscription service model rather than “buy our OS” model, and making nice[r] with the linux community. There are many benefits to moving to

on principles

I read a blog comment recently.   Then I remarked on the incongruity of watching a self-described conservative argue against the principles of free trade and states’ rights.  This is Through the Looking Glass stuff. As you might expect my point was sidestepped and belligerience ensued.  Too close to the nerve?  Below is the thread that