Heisenberg's Theorem on Green Energy Measurement...

Heisenberg's Theorem on Green Energy Measurement...  My three long-time readers will know that CoyoteBlog, by Warren Meyer, is one of my daily visits.  He's been on a roll recently with a series of excellent posts.  This morning, before I got to my morning blog reading, my friend Doug W. emailed me about a really good, short post there.  He took unfair advantage of the time zones, as he's currently traveling in Italy :)

Mr. Warren is many things, but a world-class speller is not amongst them :)  I've taken the liberty of correcting his spelling, and quoting his awesome post in its entirety – it's way too short to be excerpted:

Heisenberg's Theorem on Green Energy Measurement

Theorem: A media article on a wind or solar project will give its installation costs or the value of its energy produced, but never both.

Corollary 1: One therefore can never assess the economic reasonableness of any green energy project from a single media article

Corollary 2: For supporters of green energy, there is a good reason for Corollary #1.

The media and the greenies, in bed together.  The result is pretty bad...

Wait, what?

Wait, what?  I saw this headline and feared that Utah had done something stupid to interfere with business:

Contested Utah law could impact contact lens industry

On reading the article, though, I discovered the exact opposite: Utah has acted to prevent the contact lens business from fixing prices artificially high.  They are removing a barrier to getting lower prices for consumers.


Yay, Utah!


More like this, please...

Kinetic sculptures in wood...

Kinetic sculptures in wood...  Completely by accident, this morning I ran across the work of David C. Roy.  The video at right shows one example; more here and here.  I find these sculptures both beautiful and fascinating. 

Mr. Roy limits his sculptures to purely mechanical motion (springs, weights, etc.) and eschews anything like an electric motor.  Personally, I don't think they'd suffer if motorized.  Beautiful things!  And it makes me wonder if I could do something like them...

Progress in Paradise...

Progress in Paradise...  Yesterday we finally finished the maze of paperwork, inspections, etc. required to transfer registrations of our vehicles from California to Utah.  Now when we travel about the area, we won't have the locals looking at us and wondering who the hell let these damned Californians in here!

I started working on replacing all the fixtures in our upstairs bathroom.  When we bought the house, that bathroom was equipped with rather cheaply made chrome faucets, drain, towel racks, etc.  They were also badly installed (just screws in wallboard).  I'm replacing the whole kit and caboodle with much nicer fixtures in an oil-rubbed bronze finish.  One sink and surrounds are finished, and they look quite nice.  Works well, too.  But ... I have kinks in my back and side where I shouldn't outta have them, thanks to all the under-sink work :)

“Caboodle” is an interesting word.  It's American slang (according to the OED), dating back to at least 1848.  Every reference to it is from American magazines, newspapers, or books.  That means it's one of those words you can use to confuse a Brit!