>> ^jimnms:

Maybe you have hands tiny enough to get inside and scrub out a bottle, but I don't. You can only put some washing soap in and shake it up, but that can only do so much.


No, I don't have tiny hands. But I DO have a brain and know how to use tools and such. Get yourself a glass scrubber (or improvise your own cleaning utensil), stick it in there and swirl it around.
Also, if you don't just wait til they're all grungy and start washing them from the get-go, shaking up the soapy water might be enough.

>> ^Opus_Moderandi:

>> ^jimnms:
I drink (filtered) tap water at home, refilling empty water bottles that I've bought. After a while they eventually start looking foggy and/or develop a funky residue in them. When that happens I chuck them.

um... you can WASH them, just like your drinking glasses... or do you chuck those when they get dirty too?

Maybe you have hands tiny enough to get inside and scrub out a bottle, but I don't. You can only put some washing soap in and shake it up, but that can only do so much.

I'm about halfway though it, right where they give their "verdict" on their first question of "is the world getting any warmer".

Basically, everything they showed was a litany of cherry picked data points.

I was particularly disappointed when they started citing news reports in 2008 about how there might've been an increase in ice cover that year from 2007. 2007 was the warmest year in the entire historical record since they started directly measuring temperatures and keeping records.

They kinda give away their problem when they showed the level of solar radiation on top of the last century's temperature record and said the "correlation was high". Well, yeah, but if you look at that picture carefully, you notice that the temperatures start getting above it more and more often the longer you go forward.

Why? Because there's more CO2 in the air, so I'll see now what they say about CO2.

Oh my. I guess I'm not sure what the argument they tried to present really was. Some things they said:

• There's a really small amount of CO2 in the atmosphere
  
• Most of the CO2 in the atmosphere comes from natural sources
  
• CO2 makes plants grow more
  
• Nobody's ever proven that CO2 has ever increased temperatures (no supporting evidence or refutation of people who've claimed to have proven this, just the naked assertion)
  
• The only reason why anyone thinks global warming is real is because of a "dubious" computer program (no info given on why it's dubious, or what might be wrong with said program)
  

This doesn't disprove CO2's effect as a greenhouse gas. It suggests that maybe the Gaia hypothesis is right, and that plant growth will react to the increased CO2 and absorb it all to maintain it at present levels, but uh, we have data showing a sharp increase since the industrial revolution, and that would seem to disprove the idea that increased plant growth will keep CO2 in check.

Also, part of the global warming hypothesis is about deforestation -- it's not just that we're digging up fossilized hydrocarbons and releasing them into the atmosphere, it's that at the same time we're destroying the forests that would scrub excess CO2 from the atmosphere, which will destabilize the equilibrium even more than burning oil and coal would by themselves.

@Psychologic, in answer to your first question, here are the equations relating to the greenhouse effect. Those don't cover real-world situations, since it's assuming 100% IR opacity of the atmosphere, and it's not 100% in the real atmosphere.

Water vapor and clouds actually have two effects, one it increases the IR opacity of the atmosphere (warmer), but it also increases the albedo of the atmosphere (cooler).

I don't know what the measured/approximated values are that they plug in, but that's where the real climate science debate is right now, i.e. how much CO2 is too much? When will methane trapped under the ocean and under ice get released, knocking us permanently off equilibrium?

That's where the real debates are these days. Otherwise, it's like dft said, the only reason there isn't total consensus is because of a propaganda campaign perpetrated by oil and coal companies, and it gets repeated by people who have fantasies about punching hippies.

equality:
you don't deserve to make more money than me for the same job and the same quality of work just because you have a penis. i can do more with my life than pop out babies and clean up your shit. my thoughts, ideas, opinions, feelings are just as valid as yours, as yours are as valid as mine. and blah blah blah blah you know all that

chivalry:
what remains of it, for the most part, is part of the courting ritual. if we're on our first date and you make no attempt to open doors for me or pick up the check or have good manners, that's our last date. i'm not sure why that's how it is. i am perfectly capable of doing those things for myself, but courting rituals are important and that's part of it. on the same coin, i'm expected to reciprocate by pretending you're fascinating and funny, not being opinionated, smiling politely, wearing make up, smelling nice, looking presentable, making polite conversation and being more conventionally feminine than i normally am. it's just part of the deal. i also used to feel bad having someone else pay for my shit, but apparently if i try to pay for my own stuff on a first date that's a signal that i just want to be "friends". these are cultural rules and they exist and most people abide by them. it's cool.
after a relationship is established the rules get more lax, i can pick up checks, i can open some of the doors, i can get more opinionated, you can act like more of a pig. as far as household chores go, if both people work to pay the bills then the chores should be split and how a couple chooses to split them is up to that couple. but i'd guess you're better at moving heavy objects and opening jars than i am. and i'm probably happier to scrub the toilet and fold the laundry. and you're still responsible to make each other feel special sometimes, and sometimes that means the traditional gender role courting game comes back into play.

common decency:
everyone should make way for everyone else and hold doors open if you get there first. regardless of gender. it's just being decent. it's like saying "i acknowledge your existence and i respect you", anything less is sheer rudeness. if i make it to the door first, i open the door. if an elderly person is slowly edging ahead of me to the door, i pick up my step and open it. if anyone is carrying something heavy or cumbersome to the door ahead of me, i step up and get the door. it doesn't matter what their gender is. out in public men do end up going out of their way more often to open doors for me, it's not necessary, but i do smile and say thanks and acknowledge it. and i do think it's polite. but i certainly don't just stand there and wait for some strange man to move his ass and get out of my way or open this silly door. i'm teaching both of my kids to open doors for other people and help other people with things in public, but i do emphasize "opening doors for ladies" more with my son. because gentlemen are appreciated (or should be). but my daughter is getting heavily schooled in respect and courtesy as well.

i'm sorry you have bitchy, attractive, spoiled neighbors. but chivalry and feminism aren't the issue.

This is getting interesting now. I'd rate this discussion quite a bit higher than the video.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the decay during transmission was estimated at 7.2% back in 1995 (and unlikely to have gotten worse). That's a lot better than when I had expected, and doesn't supply much reason to convert to a new technology.

I've heard a bit about the battery ownership approach (undoubtedly from one of the sifted vids), and that may well offer a solution for the first two issues. It doesn't strike me as helping price, though. We'll see.

I'm far less enthusiastic about using car batteries for grid storage. That sort of aggregated solution has been proposed in other areas. The ones I'm familiar with were mainly IT-related, like using local hard-drives in a company's workstations to store backups. So far, I haven't heard of one example that didn't have serious issues. Admittedly, electricity is fungible, while data is not. But I still think control and coordination is likely to make it unfeasible. Think about the start of rush hour...all those cars that were making up a shortage get pulled off the grid in a very short time. That sort of scenario would make temporary shortages even worse, not better.

It probably -can- be done. I'm less sure it can be done efficiently and in a cost-effective manner. My own prediction is that the approach won't account for more than a miniscule fraction of storage. I'd put my money on non-battery storage, either gravitational or thermal.
>> ^demon_ix:
Well, there are downsides to centralized power generation as well. Power decays when transmitted across large distances, and even the most centralized sources still have to be spread across the world.
Some of the problems with any smart grid concept is the financial viability. Why change the whole way the grid works, when all you're gonna do is run it the same way (from power plant to end user, across miles of power cable). Changing the way the economics work, by moving the power production to the home, or to the neighborhood will make a smart grid all the more viable. People will be able to put these things in the house, use up whatever power they need, and the rest will be sold back to the grid, for use in houses that don't have this capability.
One of the solutions to electric car adoption has been sifted a few times in the past, and is about to go into full testing in Israel soon before a scheduled commercial release in 2011. I'm referring to Shai Agassi's Better Place, which has been sifted quite a few times.
By separating the battery ownership from the car, they're changing the cost of the EV from what's the main deterrent today from those cars today, which is the initial investment. Their solution to range is replacing the battery, and as long as they manage their goal of almost ubiquitous charge spots, range will not be a problem for 95% of car users.
This also relates to the smart grid concept by giving power companies the means to store electricity around the grid in the form of car batteries. The concept is called V2G, meaning the grid can take power out of the car when needed, making it a battery for storing intermittent sources, like wind or solar. By itself it's not very useful, but in large EV quantities, it becomes a very viable option.
---
Wow, I sort of went off-topic there, didn't I? This discussion was about a stationary home/neighborhood power generation device at some point.
>> ^Stormsinger:
The problem with decentralizing power generation is that there really -are- economies of scale here. Large generating plants have significantly better efficiencies in all our current technologies. Centralized plants also offer a cheaper avenue for cleaning the results, whether that means CO2 scrubbing, filtering soot, or handling nuclear waste products. Perhaps fuel cells can change that...perhaps not. But in my mind, efficiency is more important than decentralization simply for the sake of decentralization.
People will support electric cars when electric cars are available that have a reasonable range, can be conveniently and quickly recharged, and have a reasonable price tag. That's likely to be quite a while, given our current battery technology. The question of where the electricity is generated has nothing to do with it.

Well, there are downsides to centralized power generation as well. Power decays when transmitted across large distances, and even the most centralized sources still have to be spread across the world.

Some of the problems with any smart grid concept is the financial viability. Why change the whole way the grid works, when all you're gonna do is run it the same way (from power plant to end user, across miles of power cable). Changing the way the economics work, by moving the power production to the home, or to the neighborhood will make a smart grid all the more viable. People will be able to put these things in the house, use up whatever power they need, and the rest will be sold back to the grid, for use in houses that don't have this capability.

One of the solutions to electric car adoption has been sifted a few times in the past, and is about to go into full testing in Israel soon before a scheduled commercial release in 2011. I'm referring to Shai Agassi's Better Place, which has been sifted quite a few times.
By separating the battery ownership from the car, they're changing the cost of the EV from what's the main deterrent today from those cars today, which is the initial investment. Their solution to range is replacing the battery, and as long as they manage their goal of almost ubiquitous charge spots, range will not be a problem for 95% of car users.
This also relates to the smart grid concept by giving power companies the means to store electricity around the grid in the form of car batteries. The concept is called V2G, meaning the grid can take power out of the car when needed, making it a battery for storing intermittent sources, like wind or solar. By itself it's not very useful, but in large EV quantities, it becomes a very viable option.
---
Wow, I sort of went off-topic there, didn't I? This discussion was about a stationary home/neighborhood power generation device at some point.
>> ^Stormsinger:
The problem with decentralizing power generation is that there really -are- economies of scale here. Large generating plants have significantly better efficiencies in all our current technologies. Centralized plants also offer a cheaper avenue for cleaning the results, whether that means CO2 scrubbing, filtering soot, or handling nuclear waste products. Perhaps fuel cells can change that...perhaps not. But in my mind, efficiency is more important than decentralization simply for the sake of decentralization.
People will support electric cars when electric cars are available that have a reasonable range, can be conveniently and quickly recharged, and have a reasonable price tag. That's likely to be quite a while, given our current battery technology. The question of where the electricity is generated has nothing to do with it.

The problem with decentralizing power generation is that there really -are- economies of scale here. Large generating plants have significantly better efficiencies in all our current technologies. Centralized plants also offer a cheaper avenue for cleaning the results, whether that means CO2 scrubbing, filtering soot, or handling nuclear waste products. Perhaps fuel cells can change that...perhaps not. But in my mind, efficiency is more important than decentralization simply for the sake of decentralization.

People will support electric cars when electric cars are available that have a reasonable range, can be conveniently and quickly recharged, and have a reasonable price tag. That's likely to be quite a while, given our current battery technology. The question of where the electricity is generated has nothing to do with it.

>> ^MaxWilder:
I'm ecstatic about anything that moves away from fossil fuels toward home-based decentralization. When people start feeling like they are making their own electricity, they will be more likely to support electric cars. Anything to reduce the value of oil will make this a much better world.
Of course I would love to see less CO2 as well, but I'll take any steps in that direction as a giant leap forward.

Yeah I actually resented the cartoon back in the day for making the comic/RPG mainstream. But I loved the movie mainly for the darkness that Siskel didn't understand. At that point, the "grim and gritty" treatment was something fresh. In the same year, I couldn't even get interested in Dick Tracy, mainly because of the scrubbed-clean look of the production design. Also because I don't think anyone ever really gave a shit about Dick Tracy... how fucking lame was that crap.

Tedium's not so bad when you're working with good people, and you get some reasonable variety to your work. If a company puts you on a riveter all day, they're condemning you to some kind of repetitive stress disorder years down the line. A smart factory or jobsite would rotate your tasks during the day to prevent that from happening. At my old job, we'd frequently change our "position" between onloads and offloads of aircraft, and each task even had a lot of variety.

Most people don't do the things they know they should be doing. I guess there are some supermen and women out there that have no trouble fitting in their needed exercise, social contact, and intellectual challenge in every day of their lives (assuming they have the free time). But the majority of society does what their environment leads them to do, as bad as it may be. Using myself as an example, I know exactly how to eat right and how to exercise from the couple years I spent seeing a personal trainer twice a week, but now I'm always doing a poor job of staying in shape. I'm in-between remodeling projects right now and have tons of free time, but precious little of that time is spent being productive or doing something really beneficial.

This is similar to some of the discussions I've had about religion here on VS, because both religion and physical labor jobs offer you what your body is built for in complete packages. Surely a secularist can be part of a supportive social group, spend time quietly reflecting on his life, and be at peace with his environment; and someone with lots of free time could engage in communal activities, get regular physical exercise, and challenge themselves intellectually. It's just that doing all that stuff piecemeal is much more difficult for the average person, and it's more likely they'll play WoW and eat pizza instead. It's easier to get a job swinging a hammer and go to a church once a week to achieve all those same things. I think Eastern philosophies have been aware of this for a long time, because their religious scholars focus on things like maintaining gardens rather than sitting in comfy chairs and reading books.

I was out of work for about a year before I started my remodel project, and I remember telling an unemployed friend of mine how much more I could appreciate my free time when I spent 8 hours that day working. Work and accomplishment is a necessary part of life, and separating out the physical from the mental work is not the same as when the two are united. That's why I'm working on a house remodeling project instead of putting my degree to any use. I decided that if I have to choose between success and money or a fulfilled life, I'll choose the latter.

In reply to this comment by Psychologic:
I can't speak for chilaxe, but for me it's the tedium rather than the physicality I'd like to avoid. I can't see much of a health benefit from filling envelopes or scrubbing septic tanks. One could argue that it "builds character", but so does learning advanced physics or training for a marathon.

There are many jobs that people would rather not do if their livelihoods weren't dependent upon them, and many of those jobs could (or soon will) be performed by robots rather than people. I don't think that situation, in itself, is a bad thing. I'd rather spend my time improving myself both physically and intellectually, but I also have to eat so that means I need my jobs (I have three currently).

I do agree with you on the value of physical work, but if we end up in a world where people can choose their own methods rather than choosing those that pay well then I believe we will benefit from such a world both individually and societally.

I can't speak for chilaxe, but for me it's the tedium rather than the physicality I'd like to avoid. I can't see much of a health benefit from filling envelopes or scrubbing septic tanks. One could argue that it "builds character", but so does learning advanced physics or training for a marathon.

There are many jobs that people would rather not do if their livelihoods weren't dependent upon them, and many of those jobs could (or soon will) be performed by robots rather than people. I don't think that situation, in itself, is a bad thing. I'd rather spend my time improving myself both physically and intellectually, but I also have to eat so that means I need my jobs (I have three currently).

I do agree with you on the value of physical work, but if we end up in a world where people can choose their own methods rather than choosing those that pay well then I believe we will benefit from such a world both individually and societally.


In reply to this comment by Lodurr:
>> ^Psychologic:
>> ^Lodurr:
Studies are showing that the healthiest and longest-lived people in the world do some daily manual labor their whole life. There's nothing tedious about accomplishing something with your own sweat and two hands: in fact there's nothing more rewarding.
Physical activity is certainly a very healthy thing.
Personally though, I'd rather go hiking than bolt wheels to car frames every day.


I didn't think much of physical labor either until...

One of the most overrated shows on television. Scrubs is a comedy that isn't funny.

Thanks dd, yeah Djevel, this is definitely not the instruction viddy for anyone with obsessive cleaning issues-When you don the chef's scrubs it's implied that a separate support staff take over after the magic happens.

I could imagine someone with OCD freaking out over that dude's granite counter-top. It made me want to take out a washcloth and start scrubbing.

Oh...yeah...food looks great!

Tags for this video have been changed from 'PSA, dirty, clean, energy, bugs, scrub, tweek' to 'PSA, dirty, clean, energy, bugs, scrub, tweek, mmm, meth' - edited by demon_ix

He got $50,000 http://www.videosift.com/video/Tosh-Nintendo-64-Kid-Now

In reply to this comment by lucky760:
Uh . . . this is part of a BMW ad running right now in NY. Did they steal it?
Unbelievable. I wonder if the owner of this video got paid, but yeah I just saw the BMW ad during Scrubs. I couldn't believe my eyes when it started. They covered the image of the N64 on the box with a generic, old-fashioned robot.