EleBlog

27 Sep, 2010

Two pieces of evidence - from widely divergent venues

CE Pro magazine's article (8/30), What's So Great About Ethernet -- talks about power-over-ethernet for the home!

Instrumentation.co.za (.za means South Africa, I think) has an August article on Smart Machines Provide More Power -- talks about EthernetIP and a publication, "Converted Plant-Wide Ethernet Architectures," that the  pub says is coming from Rockwell and Cisco (interesting combination!). The article was written by a Rockwell guy.

26 Sep, 2010

From a recent piece from the Green bloggers at the NY Times site:

GOOD


AWFUL


EleBlog take: I'm doing a lot of reading about EVs these days. I'm starting to come to the conclusion that they are going to be an ENORMOUS flop. I wouldn't buy one; I wouldn't rent one (from Hertz, say); I would not accept one as a gift.

26 Sep, 2010

I stumbled across the September 2010 "Global MarketView" from CB Richard Ellis, which is one of the biggest commercial real estate companies anywhere. Here's a section that I read with interest:


EleBlog take: One of the big surprises (so far) in the current Depression has been the relative strength -- and optimism right now -- in the commercial RE market. It might last; it might not.

26 Sep, 2010

Stuff about the basics of electricity, as explained by a renewable-centered website. 

26 Sep, 2010

If you go here (perhaps you might do that b4 reading this screed), you'll see Bill McKibben -- who is pretty famous -- and two others issue a "call for action" in the climate movement. Here are my problems with this:

1. The summer was hot, it's the warmest year, blablahblah. Problem here: We had tons of snow here in the D.C. area this past winter (worst winter I can remember, and I'm almost 57 years old). Basing your thinking on what just happened -- or leading your plea with nonsense like this -- justifies the anti-climate-change people, who do the same thing when we have a bad winter.

EleBlog take: IDIOTIC.

2. The article compares the climate change "movement" to the suffrage movement, the civil-rights movement, and "the fight against corporate globalization." I think "the movement" is the clear LOSER in #3. In suffrage, there was a civil point to be made (women are equal to men, at least in terms of voting). In the civil-rights movement, a 400-year-old WRONG was finally in the process of being righted. The fact that women could not vote was EVIDENT. The fact that black people were treated as Third-Class Citizens was EVIDENT.

What's being righted by the climate-change movement? What's evident here? The comparison is INEPT.

3. There's a lot of bad thinking in the piece. The idea here is that the general public can be convinced to come around to the side of the climate-change believers (I might be included in that group). The science behind climate change -- even if you believe it -- does not tell you how far along in the process we are.

- - - - - - -

I know how to convince the world that climate change IS real.

a. Advocate radical actions. In one column that I wrote, I noted that we had to seriously advocate the abolition of air conditioning. It uses a lot of energy. And it's something that billions around the world are able to get along without. As long as those in developed nations treat themselves well with AC, and the climate be damned . . . well, I don't blame people in India and China for watching WHAT WE DO, and not what we say.

b. At the same time, the nonbelievers (and those on the fence) would believe the climate-change advocates more if they were planning -- actively -- for the end of the world. Do you really think Fort Lauderdale and San Francisco are going to be Under Water within a few years (or decades)? Well, then, we should be seeing ALL OF YOU sell ALL OF YOUR HOUSES and apartments in these low-lying places, and moving into the mountains.

c. Finally, maybe the proper solution involves what helped the Mormons in Utah. Maybe all of the climate-change advocates should move to one state (Colorado?), buy property, become politicians and stakeholders, get elected, and run the place as a Survivalist state. In a democracy, you can do this. It takes personal commitment -- and money. The effort to do that would tell anyone watching that the End Is Near, we really believe what we're saying, and since YOU won't listen, we're going to take care of ourselves and our own.

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I see none of a-b-c happening. I see McKibben et al saying their "movement" needs to adopt the tactics of Gandhi and ML King Jr. These things just do not add up to me. I think if 6 million climate-change advocates moved -- all of a sudden -- to one place, in the mountains, a heck of a lot of people who don't believe them would be . . . scared.

What King (following Gandhi) believed -- I think (and I have admired and studied him) -- is that there are proper tactics for situations, and there is the right time to do one thing and another right time to do another thing.

Also: Based on my 3 readings of the letter linked above, I've lost all respect for the mind of Mr. McKibben.

26 Sep, 2010

I apologize to you if the Elephant stuff that occasionally wanders in here is distracting.

BIG News: India has declared to be its "national heritage animal."

This is just wonderful. It tastes, in my mind, like candy!

. . . on the other hand, there is this Grim reminder from the piece:

23 Sep, 2010

. . . that's the gist of Tall Tales Your Contractor Tells, from the July issue of Money magazine.