It's a Recession Up There

Don't see overalls much.

Image credit: diynetwork.com

It was decided long ago that lighting fixtures should no longer protrude from the surface of the ceiling to do their light-casting thing.  In the 1940s, recessed lights came into fashion - a fixture that is positioned above the ceiling plane in an aluminum housing, downlighting from up on high.  So in an effort to create a more evenly distributed and presumably more aesthetic shower of light, we cut myriad six inch holes in our ceilings - gaping pathways for precious cooled and heated air to escape.

And why did we do this?  Because it was the nineteen-doublefrontin'-forties, and energy conservation wasn't even a thing in the scientific community.

Note the absence of 'Energy Conservation'.  Also missing, the period after Truman's middle initial.  Why?

The energy lost through recessed lighting fixtures is significant enough that the Department of Energy's excitingly-titled Energy Savers Booklet (a comprehensive guide to home efficiency - worth a glance) calls them "a major source of heat loss".  My comprehensive reading skills tells me that it's something worth focusing on.

 Is that money escaping the house or being deposited in, piggy-bank-style?  I don't like this graphic.

Nice hat.

So what are our options?  Your home probably already has recessed lights; it would be too much of a production to remove them, patch the holes in the ceiling, sell your home and get a cottage in one of the Dakotas.  I thought I was the only one that appreciated this problem until a google search for "recessed light cover" turned up - you'll never guess - www.recessedlightcover.com.  This dude's got recessed lights covered!  [casual whistle...]

Tenmat, Inc. out of Newport, Delaware offers a fire-resistant enclosure that sits atop the fixture which is then sealed air-tight, putting a stop to the energy loss. Watch this vid where a guy proves he knows how to use a torch:

Anyone else hope he was going to write "FIRE SALE"? BTW, a better blogger would have sized the video properly.  I'm not a better blogger.

Amazon's got 'em for $20.40 including shipping.  I know you're not going to buy them, but I also know that you know you should buy them.  Which really leaves you with an ethical and moral internal debate with which I cannot help you.  I'm a recessed light cover salesman, not your psychologist.

LOLpower: two

CU L8R Climate Legislation!!!1

Bye you guys!!!  No it's fine, we'll save ourselves!! See ya!  This was fun!

Image credit: lulilab.com

The New York Times today was like "looks like the Democrats are giving up on the whole climate legislation for awhile".  I paraphrase.  A collective f-word was heard throughout the Greater Northeast and Pacific Northwest, not quite in unison, but still.

Hey Dems - w the f?  Harry Reid attributed the retreat to lack of support from the opposition.  That's like the Cubs forfeiting because the Padres have explicitly stated they're going to try to win.  (How's that for stoking the ol' Cubs-Padres rivalry, huh?)  And just like the Cubs ignominious ineptitude for capturing championships, it looks as though the most drastically needed energy bill in generations will have to wait another one to be realized.  Steve Bartman, man.  Steve Bartman.

Everyone, Laugh With Me at This Potentially World-Changing Car! (Pointing Optional)

credit: Commuter Cars

This car is really small, and as such, I find it amusing!

Now look at it from the front:

 credit: Commuter Cars

Getting weirder.  Now can we see it with Clooney using it as a leanin' post?

credit: Commuter Cars

Terrific, thank you.

What in tarnation are we looking at here?  This is the Tango T600, adorably manufactured by Commuter Cars in Spokane, Washington.  It's an all-electric one-seater that reaches 60 MPH in 4 seconds.  Wait this thing goes zero to sixty in four seconds?!  Presumably your last four...

Actually the safety concern isn't a legit one.  This puppy has a roll cage that lets you crash at 200 MPH* and still has you walking away, giggling. "OMG, that crash was cutesters!"

It's 39 inches wide.  Compare the Prius at 69 inches, the Toyota Highlander at 75, and the ten-foot pole with which you'll never touch this at 120.

So if you're thinking "I wouldn't pay a penny over $108,000 for this!", you are in luck, my idiotic friend!  Oh Lord, this "car" costs six figures?  We're never getting off oil.

*into marshmallows.

Won't You Meet the Powers?

The Power Family, clockwise from top-left: Petey,The Gas Man, Blacko, Professor Ace "The Kid" Cooltoppers, Nukers

You can't pick your family.

The assemblage of American energy sources is a mixed bunch.  Some of them are as old as the Union itself, while others are still in their infancy.  They've served us ever so well over the years, but change is in the air.  A new generation is bearing down, with exciting technologies that spell opportunity no matter how you look at it.  Won't you meet our family?  

Petroleum: 37.1%

Mmm, petroleum, can you do no wrong?  Aside from all your wrongs?  Ol' Petey gives us the most foreign flare of the whole gang, being a quarter domestic and the rest a mutt variety of Canadian, Mexican, Saudi Arabian, Venezuelan and Nigerian.  Petey's always on the go, more than two-thirds of which is dedicated to the transportation sector.  The tricky thing about Petey is how hard he is to find!  There's not much more of him left, with some estimates indicating less than 50 years of supply remaining.  Petey can get a little tipsy from time to time, and when that happens, watch out.  I'm specifically talking to coastal aquatic wildlife.  Seriously, keep your head on a swivel when this dude's around.

Natural Gas - 23.8%

Mostly domestic in nature, The Gas Man zips around the country by pipeline or is hauled by tanker and is comprised almost entirely of methane.  But to get the methane into usable form, it requires one s-load of processing, incurring great costs and emitting greenhouse gases along the way.  Once ready for prime-time, The Gas Man produces electricity, heats home, cooks food, flies planes and surfs the internet (I assume). 

Coal - 22.5%

How's your lungs?  That cough there, regardless of where you live, might be due to our made-in-the-USA homeboy bituminous coal.  See, we pull it off mountaintops and mine it from holes in the ground, then burn it, which drives a turbine and spits out shiny electricity on the other end.  The burning of coal is the most injurious activity for the stability of the climate, and the idea of carbon sequestration, while technically feasible, is so cost-prohibitive as to be ignored entirely.  Hey Blacko, are you missing a pupil?  You know what, you got us through the 20th century, why don't you go sit on the bench for a little while?

Nuclear - 8.5%

The Nukester!  Nukerstein!  Nuuuke!  Once hailed as the panacea to our energy needs, nuclear use in America ground to a halt in '79.  Ahem.  AHEM.  I'm ahem-ing at you, one single guy who misread a gauge at Three Mile Island Generating Station and ruined our nuclear future.  While nuclear energy production doesn't spew CO2 like its older brothers, it presents two problems - one being where to put the radioactive gook left over, the other being blowy-uppy.

Renewables - 7.3%

Did a chorus of angels just sing in your ear?  Oh, it's just Ace, America's Cleanest Energy.  Look at him!  My God he's hip!  Rockin' a military-style field cap kinda to the side like that, he was clearly just listening to music - are those...yeah, those are Beats By Dre!  Man I just wanna get a beer with you!  Comprised mostly of hydroelectricity, the renewables sector exploits the always-on nature of the Earth's cycles: the water flows, the biomass grows, the wind blows, the sun shows, and geothermal...also...exists.  I dunno, thought that would work better.

It'll be interesting to watch the members of this family continue to evolve in one way or another.  If the country would just get ballsy enough, Professor Cooltoppers* might just be the king of the hill in just a decade and change.

*Also considered: Baron Johnny X. Greenstamper, Emperor of the Solarwinds, Citizen Zero the Energy Hero, Steve Jobs

LOLpower: one

credit: http://bluntobject.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/mid-week-misanthropy-vol-52/

Guest Blogger: 17th Century Gadget Freak Ferdinando II de' Medici!

Guys, please, "Ferdinando II de' Medici" is so formal, call me the Grand Duke of Tuscany, no really, under threat of incarceration.  Yeah, I Grand Duked it up in Italy for like 50 years.  Ran things.  Hell I took the helm at eleven.  I ran Tuscany at eleven!  Who do you got that's doing anything at eleven?  That Bieber chick?  Have fun with that.

Don't say 'happy birthday' or nothing.  Ah, yeah, you just remembered, nice.  The big 4-0...-0.   So what's new the past few centuries?  Lemme guess, nothing!  Yeah it's like Alphie Karr says, "the more things change, the more they stay the same."  Am I right, you guys?

You guys?  Alphie Karr?  You don't remember Alphie Karr?  Hmm.  Then you sure as hell don't remember me. Medici Bank mean anything to you?  It's like your Wachovia and B of A and Citibank rolled into one.  But our banking system was different, we wielded predatory influence over the citizenry and were tightly interwoven into the political power structure... [time-traveling social commentary high-five!]

Tech nut, guilty as charged.  I mean tech nut.  Guess who I was BFFs with?  No really, guess!  EHHH, too late!  Try Galileo.  Yes Galilei!  We were like this!  I backed him during his stupid trial, heliocentricity, you know the deal.  Tried to bail him out afterwards and all; Popester was not having it.

But seriously, my nerd cred was legit.  I was rocking a condensation hygrometer before it was cool (is your era still impressed by hygrometers?  What am I talking about, you probably pick yours up at 7-11!).  Check it:

credit: edgoubert via flickr

Before my experiments with the hygrometer, people couldn't 

even measure relative atmospheric humidity.  Could you imagine??

I'm not here plugging a book.  I'm here to remind you that you, the people of a free society, have the power to hold your leaders accountable.  Promote the sciences!  Demand technological progress!  Study hygrometry!  These things are important people.  It's like George Santayana says, "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it"!  Santayana.  Come on people!  What?  No he didn't play Woodstock!

I'm going back to Tuscany.  You people are the worst.  Probably can't even calculate the humidity of an air-water vapor mix.  Noobs.

You're So Useful! That's...Not a Compliment...

How familiar are you with your electric bill?  Do you read it top to bottom?  Are you comfortable reading the many abbreviations and purposefully tiny print?  Are you friends with it on Facebook?  Do you set a place for it at your dinner table?  You do?

Well you better git familiar.  Because over the next ten years, your electric bill might start looking more like your mortgage.  Is that a literal statement?  Dude, I don't know, but it's at least figurative.  What's important is to start understanding your current use, and to know what comprises it.  If you use 100 units of electricity in a year (let's call the unit a "Tesla", because he's a pretty popular figure these days), how many Teslas does your lighting account for?  Your refrigerator?  Got central air?  That's a lot of Teslas right there.  Charging your cell phone?  Teslas.  Only take cold showers?  You don't?  How very Teslatic of you.  Oh neat, you drive an electric car?!  What, are you running a Teslatron in your basement??

[What's a Teslatron?]

Nice clothes.  And skin.

Well, in real life, we don't work with cool-sounding terms like "Teslas".  No, our unit of measurement is the kilowatt-hour.  And nicely-rounded numbers like 100?  Forget about it.  Start wrapping your head around "10,000".  Yuck!  Get your TI-83 handy!  Yup, ten large.  That's the average number of kilowatt-hours you're using every year.  Assuming you run a household.  And you do.  You so do.

Ten-thousand a year.  That's nine-hundred a month.  Thirty a day.  One an hour.  Go with my estimates here.  Why is it so critical to know these things?  Because you like candy.  And you can only buy candy with money.  And you only have money for candy if you haven't already spent it.  And an easy way to not spend it is to understand the crazy wasteful areas of your life where you're already pissing it away - and I guarantee you energy is one of those areas. 

Yours, if you get your damn head right.

Hey Let's Give It Up For Josh Peterson!

Can JP whip up a template or what?  He made the one for this blog.  Not exclusively or nothing. 

It's friggin' pretty. Reminds me of an old Irish blogger's poem:

When the sun that now holds his bright path o'er the mountains
Forgets the green fields that he smiled on before,
When no moonlight shall sleep on thy lakes and thy fountains -
Oh, then, dearest Erin, I'll love thee no more!

You guessed it, that's J.J. Callanan, the early 19th century Gaelic balladeer that made Yeats look like a stuttering buffoon.  J.J. caught a touch of the tuberc' and kicked at the tender age of 34, whenceupon his stanzas went straight viral.  His passing might be looked on as a blessing, as the Great Famine was right around the corner.  He would have hated that.

If we dig into J.J.'s words for a moment, we see the theme of sustainability - the everlasting nature of life's cycles, and the author's ne'er-dying passion for Erin, presumably the secretary in his office.  Just like the sun's always gonna keep shining, and the moon's gonna keep reflecting the sun's light thanks to the opposition effect and even despite its low albedo, ol' J.J.'s gonna keep texting Erin nonsense like "ur hair looked super cute today, wut color is it red or orange lol".  

Isn't our world cool-looking?  Should we save it?  If you think so, go to File -> Save.  I have to imagine that's what it's there for.

 credit: Josh Peterson via Flickr

This shot took like four and a half billion years to get right.

Superfun Scourge Alert: Coffee Cups!

Like collecting things?  What idiot doesn't?!  Recovering pathological hoarders, you say?  Nah, they love it more than anyone, and they excel at it too!

One great thing to collect is disposable paper coffee cups!  Sarcastically fun fact: if each member of Congress collected an equal share of cups to represent just one year's worth of the world's total consumption, they'd each have 108,000,000!  And check out this depressing coincidence - they all happen to store their prized collections in various city dumps spread throughout the planet!

Actually when it's put that way it doesn't sound too bad.  Kinda sounds like the cups are neatly arranged on shelves waiting to be sold on eBay.  They're not.

Look, there's no solution to the mind-bogglingly wasteful practice of coffee cup manufacturing, thirty minutes of using, and throwing away.  They're not recyclable. They're not structured soundly for reuse.  You can only turn so many into kitschy iPod speakers.  

No solution.  No.  Don't even say it.

Okay, yesss, you could technically employ a reusable container, but come on, seriously?  Haven't you ever been jonesing for some joe while waiting for the B-Train at the corner of 353rd St. and 20th Ave...and Lexington?  Clearly I haven't, but I know for a fact urban settings are overly conducive to convenience, to instant gratification that the human condition just cannot resist.  Capitalism FTW?  Capitalism FAIL?  Epic?  Man, the 21st century is confusing.

Check out the folks at betacup.  They're putting the hivemind on this little problem and have $20,000 of prize money behind it.  Interesting ideas include a collapsible travel cup that fits in your pocket, and an innovative shared ownership model - bring your filthy mug back, exchange it for a ready-to-go clean one and let the establishment do the cleaning.

credit: john karpinsky on flickr

This kid's got the idea.

[Wait, why was Congress collecting coffee cups again?  I guess contact your rep and talk to them about climate change?  That sounds right.]

Art Imitating Life; Me Imitating Both

There's nothing funny about the oil spill along our country's third-best coast, which is why we have to manufacture our own funny on its behalf.  A number of ostensibly clever webateurs have unleashed provocative browser plug-ins that mimic the deleterious effects on your very own monitor.  As mother nature news covered on July 1, here's the jess3 creative agency's offering for how to bring the disaster home:

credit: mother nature news

Wherever you see an "oil", a "BP" or the like, get your tissues ready.  And when you're done weeping, find something with which to clean up your fouled display.

But today on Treehugger.com, it appears the ante done got upped! 

C

Credit: Instant Oil Spill

Get a load of Instant Oil Spill, a site that unabashedly obfuscates any URL of your choosing with an ever-expanding plume of oil until your screen real estate is fully-blackened.  If this doesn't initiate an honest conversation about our nation's energy security policy, I don't know what will.

Never to be outdone, OJSTW has entered the burgeoning monitor-turned-oil-spill market.  Mine gets right to the point with a message that can't be any clearer.

It's just a completely black screen.  I don't know, is this a good idea or not?  It's evident the other two probably spent a lot of time on theirs, but I just did a big black rectangle.  I can't tell if this is poignant or stupid?  It's overly simple, but that's the point - getting out of this oil dependency mess is a cinch...if we only change the way we look at the world our computer monitors!

[Oh, and to all you image hijackers: please note I got my site name on this here pic.  So...you know...lay off.]

Oh Snap! This Video's Got Potential!

Learned people for milennia have known the secret to teaching kids tough-to-grasp scientific concepts: create an animated short, wait thirty years, then post that sucka on the YouTs! Yes, according to my sampling of one, it never fails. Here you can enjoy a film demonstrating the difference between kinetic and potential energy, while confirming your beliefs that violence is the best method of conflict resolution.

Hey You Know What's a Good Website? Treehugger.com

Hey you know what's a good website? Treehugger.com

It sets the gold standard for sustainability blogging. Treehugger covers the gamut - environmental issues ranging from clean energy technology to eco-friendly fashion trends to the politics of climate change. With twenty or so new posts every day, it's a fresh, constant source of all things green.

That's all well and good, but here's the real scoop. Founder Graham Hill started this puppy in 2004, built its readership to 1.4 million unique visitors per month by 2007, then unloaded it on Discovery Communications for a cool billion - that's right, billion - pennies. More often referred to as $10 million. I realize that was annoying but I wanted to prove a point, and dropping b's where you expect m's? Well that drives it home hard, stylistic integrity be damned.

Energy Crisis! Energy Crisis!

Feel free to look at the drawing I did to represent the Earth's energy crisis. No charge.

(That "no charge" comment worked on at least two levels. You know what else works on two levels? Escalators.)

Back to the artwork. Let's open up the floor to a little Q&A.

It appears your medium of choice is the back of a ketchup packet.
Okay, not a question per se, but, yeah. Well it's actually the back of a hot sauce packet, but I'm not gonna split hairs with you on this one, it's packet-based canvas, yes.

What, uh, what...tell me again what the drawing represents?
It symbolizes that we, the citizens of Earth, are not currently equipped to adequately provide enough energy in a sustainable way, and it's meant to provoke debate and the generation of creative ideas as to how best to combat such an obstacle.

It - and no offense here - it looks like 'Earth does not equal a lightning bolt'. Can you just explain why you chose that as a metaphor?
No offense taken, I actually appreciate the candor. Listen I need to tell you something, I'm not a classically trained artist, I'm not. When I sat down with my three primary-colored markers, I thought "how best does one communicate the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced with a mere image?" So like any great artiste, pronounced like it looks, I grabbed the nearest hot sauce packet and just let my emotions flow.

I appreciate your forthcomingness in regard to how you found your muse, I do, but the actual components you chose, they just don't ring true. You got the Earth, then the mathematical symbol for inequality, and then a red lightning bolt (which, I think you'll agree, are typically yellow). Have any regrets?
I guess my only regret was initiating the Q&A session, but um, yeah so look, I just did the best I could, vis-a-vis the artwork.

Your gonna go with 'vis-a-vis'?
I am.

You feeling comfortable that you used it appropriately?
I don't know. I hear it used from time to time, and I guess I thought "why can't I use it?" And so I did.

I respect that. You know what word I've been trying to work into convo but just can't seem to find the opportunity? "wunderkind"
You mean "wunderkind"?

Oh is that how you say it? I thought it was like "wun--
No, it's wunderkind. Definitely.

Geez, good thing we had this talk before I used the word! Isn't that funny? It's the one word I've been badly trying to sneak into a convo, and I've been pronouncing it wrong. That's funny!
That is sincerely and truly funny.

Do you know if they still show Saved by the Bell?
It's on in the mornings in the Philadelphia market, not positive what channel. I guess check your local listings. Did you have any other questions about the artwork?

No, it's pretty good, I was just giving you a hard time. Looks like you were going for precise realism when you drew the continents? Did you trace them out of an atlas?
Wow, I'm majorly complimented, I actually drew them freeha-- wait, are you just messing with me?

Totally messing with you.

Quiz! And a Pop One at That!

This little test here won't count for your final grade, because this is a blog and not a classroom or any kind of educational institution whatsoever.

Does the world have: a) not enough energy to meet its inhabitants' needs? b) the exact right amount of energy to meet its inhabitants' needs? or c) more than enough energy to meet its inhabitants' needs?

The answer's (a). Ya dope.

A lot of people ask me "can you quantify this?"

...

Well, enjoy the rest of your day! And remember - if you used a number 2 pencil on your screen for this quiz, you've already failed. Buh-bye!

Isn't It Time Someone Fixed All the Problems?

So as I see it, there's two piles. One is all the problems. The other pile, that one's the solutions. I counted up both sides (actually I estimated because I was running late for something), and the problems side was bigger. By a huge bunch. So. I guess that's why I'm here. You're here because your dentist appointment was pushed back twenty minutes*.

*I grant it's unlikely this situation applies to you, but imagine the one person out there for whom this proves accurate. They're totally freaking out right now!