I don't think it qualifies as snuff, you don't see anything.

I think the thing that is upsetting most people is that the cops claimed they tried to go in and save them. If they would have just been honest and said that it was a swampy area full of alligators, so they called for rescue and waited, people would have been more understanding.

Not saying they shouldn't have jumped in, but if they weren't trained to deal with rescue in a swamp environment it could have just led to more deaths. From everything I have read, the pond was more like a mire, full of muck and sludge.

I also love it when the jerk tiger pulls the coy "oh hey, what's this pond over here? In the last two seconds I've completely forgotten about our social interaction".

That sounds right. I'll just go to the river down the street and catch some I guess. It's likely I won't have to, because I'm making the pond fairly natural, so dragonflies will probably stock it with nymphs by themselves. I won't be buying any from out of state, or even out of my county, that's for certain.

Nice. I might have to stock my new pond with them to keep mosquitos from developing into a problem. I have mosquito fish and gold fish in there already, but more=better.
Why do you think it's not good to release them? We have dragonflies here, but are you thinking an invasive sub-species might harm the natives?

Yea, we're looking at a horrible mosquito year unless we can stop the retard next door from nuking his pond again. We got him to stop last year and you wouldn't believe the size of the dragon flies. Mosquitoes were decimated. Ironically, he was doing it to kill the mosquitoes... We proved to him that DFs need the pond to develop, whereas any puddle or bucket of water is enough for mosquitoes.

Gosh, I love DFs. They're like the A10 Warthogs of the fight against getting bit to death...

4.5 thousand million years... or 4.5 billion to us on this side of the pond. Of course I think Numberfile did a good on it... Yep... http://videosift.com/video/How-big-is-a-billion-Numberphile

Not at all. I hate seeing nice trees cut down as well.

I would guess they took it down because of the HUGE crack in a large branch that you can see at the start of the video.....oh...I just read the description where they explain EXACTLY why they took it down, it was dropping branches after a lightning strike, almost hitting someone. That likely means the trunk was also weakened, and it was certainly close enough to take out that house.

I can relate. I (sadly) took down a 30-40 meter Douglas Fir tree in my yard a few years back. It's still painful to think about. My tree had grown too tall, and had a weakened root system because it was growing sideways out of a small hill, and had massive gopher activity all around it. All the surrounding trees on other properties were cut well before we moved here, so it was also exposed to full wind. I was terrified that it was going to come down through my bedroom and kill the wife and myself, or through a neighbors house, so we had it cut. I've spent the nearly 3 years since then digging out the root ball (which WAS as weakened as I had thought) and turning the hole into a large pond. I still hate that we had to kill the tree, but it was a safety issue. At least I have firewood for years to come, and a pond.

Thanks, that's nice of you to say.
Unfortunately, snorkeling up here means subjecting myself to hypothermia, so it probably won't happen much. There will be some while I set up my pond, but I doubt that will be as therapeutic as warm Hawaii waters. Maybe I should move!

Whenever there's a mosquito vectored disease, people talk about eradicating mosquitos, but never consider their role in the food chain, and it is not a small role.
They also never consider the effects of the eradication methods, which are often poison sprayed into the air or onto ponds. Decades ago, a 12 year old boy designed and made a device for eradicating mosquitos in water using sound waves for a science project, and it worked. He tuned his device to resonate at the same frequency as the gas bladder in mosquito larva, popping it and killing the mosquitos without effecting anything else, and leaving no residue. For some reason, I never hear about that method being used, but instead often see people dosing small ponds with poison, oil, or bacteria, all of which harm other organisms.
Targeting single strains of mosquito with genetics may be a good way to deal with disease issues, but will certainly also have unexpected unpredictable consequences. I hope they remember the fiasco caused by creating killer bees and study the issue from all sides thoroughly before releasing them into the wild.

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I really think this was 'faked' by dad, trying to let his little girls reel in a big (pre-caught) fish....here's my reasoning.

First, that looks like a huge fish for what looks like a small pond (but the pond may be larger than it looks).
Second, we don't see her hook it, just reel it in.
Third, that fish is totally exhausted, not putting up the fight a fresh caught bass would give.
Fourth, pops doesn't grab the pole and reel it in for her...like a normal fisherman would do...he lets his little girl reel in what is a huge catch and takes his time reaching to grab it as if he knew she wouldn't lose it (and like he was not really excited by the 'catch').
Fifth, and most telling, his other daughter asks him to 'put that on my fishing pole'...like he had just put it on the first girls pole and now it's her turn.
Sixth....I noticed that the fish is double hooked, one in each side of it's mouth. That rarely if ever happens, you would expect one to be deep in it's mouth, not both in the corners.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it sure seemed like a set up to me.

I use slightly less than that myself on average, but we have solar water heating (supplemented with gas), so that's a good savings (especially since it also heats the hot tub), and we replaced all our light bulbs with led bulbs when they became feasible last year. Now, we usually read between 400 and 1000 watts during the day (depending on how many lights I have on, and if the refrigerator is cycled on or not.) That's running a big screen TV, computer, and often ps4 almost all day, every day. We also have electric stove and oven...and I weld, adding somewhat to our total.

Yes, my battery bank is only useful for power outages. It's enough to keep the lights on and the fridge from thawing, but not much else. We get about 3-4 hours out of it if I don't notice the power went out, but can make it all night if we conserve. Our system is grid tied, and first powers the home, then tops off the batteries, then sells any excess to PG&E. To date, I've never drawn the batteries down to zero...but we do have a small generator to supplement it when the power's out for days. The average home would certainly need more, but a 10kwh battery should be plenty to make it through an average night without AC (we don't have AC here).

My current system could not produce that much, but close. I live in N California, one of the foggiest areas in the US. Because we have a renter, an electric hot tub, dishwasher, and electric washer and drier, we use slightly more than we generate at this point, but my system is upgradeable to 6500 watts of generation (I have less than 1/3 of that now) when panels get cheaper...and when I can find space for more.

My system is not flat to my roof, and I have 2 strings of 8 panels. With the solar water tubes, it takes up most of the south 1/2 of my roof (1200 sq ft home). I could maybe fit 4 more panels up there and still be able to walk around them to clean them, but any more and I'll need some mounting structure. I really want to add a small wind turbine to generate at night or when there's a storm...solar doesn't work in the dark.

In America, we still have some rebates for people adding solar to their homes, but they are drying up fast. 15-20 years ago, you could almost do it for free if you got every rebate available.

We used to have about 1-2 weeks of power outage where I live per year, and that was part of why we did they system. We hated having no power and losing food every year, and also hated paying the ever rising cost of electricity. Before adding our system, we had $4-500 a month electric bills, now we have <$100 in winter and sometimes a negative bill in summer...we pay our bill once a year now, lump sum at the end of 12 months.
On to your second post....
I often think...electric cars were popular and the norm in cities before Ford came along. It's still astonishing to me that it was basically dropped for a century as a technology (with minor exceptions). I'm glad someone had finally gone back to it and is trying to fix it's issues. If I could afford a Tesla, I would have one.

I also agree, people won't adopt the technology as long as they have to sacrifice lifestyle for it. I said the same thing, but I found that I don't change my lifestyle at all with my solar system, I just pay lower bills. I determined that buying a system would pay for itself in under 10 years, with the lifespan of a system being about 20 years, that's 10 years of free electricity! That all assumes electric rates didn't go up, and they certainly have gone up...but not for me. You just need to be sure you install enough panels to supply all your power, and you're there.

The battery thing is really mostly for non-grid tied systems, or emergencies. Most people don't use batteries at night, it's simpler and cheaper to just sell power to the grid during the day and buy it back at night if you can, using them as your battery. Perhaps this battery will change that, but with lead acid, it's hard to make them worth the cost.

Panels aren't that expensive, really. In many areas, with rebates, they can be near free. (some companies will even give them to you and split the power generated off your roof). It's a myth that solar is expensive...when compared to non-solar. Mine are paid for by bill savings already (8 years + in) so I'm saving money with them now, and my lifestyle has not suffered in the least. I have lights on if its dark, I watch TV all day, and use the computer all day, have tons of electric devices I use, and soon will power a pond, etc. I often think that my life is a much better example of how you can be 'green' without much change than Gore's. He really doesn't seem to walk the walk, but he can sure talk the talk.