DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

As of today we are officially generating solar energy. PG&E installed our “time of use” meter, which effectively tracks the power we use, and when we use it. PG&E will send a monthly summary, but our next actual electric bill won’t arrive until our anniversary, one year from today. If we’ve sized our PV system correctly, the bill amount will be $0.

Weather and our own consumption habits will affect the balance, of course. Lately we’re thinking a lot about our consumption. Although it has always been true that leaving lights or appliances running unnecessarily would result in a higher electric bill, now I’m especially conscious. I feel like I’m in a contest to zero my annual bill. I’ll be replacing a few more incandescent bulbs with CFs this weekend.

The new meter is digital. It starts at 50,000 kWh, apparently because it’s easier to track negative consumption (that is, net energy production) if the counter doesn’t roll backwards past 0 kWh to 99,999.

The small triangle in the lower left quarter of the display points either right (as pictured) to indicate consumption, or left to indicate production. As was true with our array installation, the TOU meter went in during a rainstorm… resulting in a fairly dismal showing of all this technology. I’m looking forward to the summer, for its long clear days and thousands of watts of free energy.

Well, this is disturbing.

When President Bush travels around the United States, the Secret Service visits the location ahead of time and orders local police to set up “free speech zones” or “protest zones,” where people opposed to Bush policies (and sometimes sign-carrying supporters) are quarantined. These zones routinely succeed in keeping protesters out of presidential sight and outside the view of media covering the event. (Source: How the Secret Service protects Bush from free speech)

Why is it disturbing, other than the loathsome same-old-same-oldness of it all?

1. This has been going on for at least six months, yet this is the first I’ve heard of it. I read Google’s news page and the SF Chronicle daily. I skim the NYTimes and LA Times frequently. I’m not uninformed. And yet a story as ugly as this has escaped my attention. Is the media complicit with its own manipulation? I guess the media isn’t as liberal as conservatives claim.
2. I find the Bush administration’s sarcastic use of the term “free speech zone” despicable. Bush’s supporters are allowed to line the roadways, but dissenters are evacuated to a cage a half-mile away, far from the view of TV cameras. How is that “free speech?”

   The precedent of naming something for what it is not is an old Bush (or, really, Orwell) trick; it worked well with Bush’s “Clean Air” act. For my part, I’m not fooled… just disgusted.

3. What Bush is doing is probably unconstitutional. Imagine that, a US President ordering regular and frequent violations of the 1st Amendment. Then again, I shouldn’t assume Bush is aware of any of this. This is more likely the work of the puppet masters.

The obvious solution is to stealth-protest: show up at Bush’s next rally with pro-GOP signage, but then after the Secret Service has sanitized the crowd of dissenters, strip away the “more blood for oil” text (or whatever such a feel-good Bush rally sign would display — really, I can’t imagine) to reveal something more honest and heartfelt like “I’m about to be arrested for exercising my 1st Amendment right to assemble peaceably!”

The Matrix website contains a short story by Neil Gaiman, entitled Goliath. It uses and expands on some of the ideas in the first Matrix film. If you liked the movie, you’ll probably like the story. It’s a free read, and contains neat illustrations, and neater implications.

Neil Gaiman has written a number of compelling books, my favorite of which (at the moment) is Neverwhere.

Today I tried to catch up with a backlog of digital pictures. I wholly appreciate that digital photography affords me the opportunity to improve my pictures — I can correct exposure and color balance problems, and I can crop to improve composition. The cost of this is that it takes time: I processed 90 photos in about 5 hours.

The reason I bother with this time-consuming process is that we print our photos and stick them in books. It’s pretty easy to make huge improvements to most images in 1-3 minutes per. Some images take longer; the payoff for this investment in time is recovering a nice image from what initially appeared to be a ruined shot.

Here’s a representative quick correction. (Click to see a larger version. The original is on the left… I hope that’s obvious.)

This image could be improved more, I’m certain. There are techniques in my favorite image-repair guidebook that I haven’t attempted yet.

Fun food-safety fact: At room temperature, E. coli 0157 survived for 34 days on stainless steel and only four hours on copper.

Think of that the next time you see a gleaming stainless-steel commercial kitchen. Or a stainless-steel toilet, for that matter.