DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

The photovoltaic vendor who installed our solar electric system returned last week to inspect the man-made shade problem. The lead system architect and the head of customer service spent 45 minutes on the roof measuring and diagramming. They didn’t leave until they had a solution.

A crew will be here within two weeks to implement the configuration changes. I’m not being billed for any of it.

True, they should have got this right the first time… but I’m very impressed at their responsiveness once we found that a problem exists. In fact, they found the problem in the first place by analysing my production records.

I’d like to post an aerial photo of the entire installation, to document the “before” and “after,” but my aerial photographer has been overcome by a bad case of gravity. I suppose I could haul a ladder up onto the roof to get enough distance from the panels to fit them all into the camera’s frame… I guess I’ll get to that just as soon as I finish cleaning out my electrical outlets with my tongue.

“In the race for the White House, it has come down to two major candidates. The ultimate winner could determine the environmental future of our country.

On one side, a President who has spent the last four years dismantling 30 years worth of environmental protections; on the other side, a Senator who has a lifetime record of standing up for a clean and healthy environment.”

Source: LCV

Senator John Kerry’s “lifetime score” from the League of Conservation Voters: 92%

President George W. Bush received an “F” on his most recent LCV Presidential Report Card — the first failing grade given to a president in LCV’s history.

You don’t have to hug a tree to want clean air and clean water.

Check out the Ebay auction for an original Apple I: own a piece of modern American history for only $16,500. This must be the most expensive 1 MHz computer in the world!

This computer, as is documented, was bought from Steve Job’s parents garage. The checks for the purchase and the original manual are included. The checks are in fact made out to and endorsed by Apple Computer Company. They were not yet incorporated.

More photos are here.

Q: How do you make a 42'' television look no bigger than the 20'' television it replaces?
A: Sit twice as far away.

So, we don’t have that huge theater-screen experience we were hoping for, but at least the couch need not sit in the middle of the room like it used to.

The other thing that surprised me about owning a widescreen TV is that some movies are even wider than 16:9. I thought there were only two common aspect ratios for video content — 4:3 (old TVs) and 16:9 (widescreens). 16:9 is roughly 1.77:1… but some movies are shot as wide as 2.35:1. In short, you can buy a widescreen TV, but you can’t fill it.

(Modern televisions have several viewing modes that zoom in on, stretch, and/or squash content to fit the screen. Our plasma even has an innovative mode that only squashes the edges, so that bodies change shape as characters walk offscreen. But I was surprised that a cutting-edge display is essentially already obsolete in this respect.)