DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Earlier this year I wrote a song called “Ode to Soup.” Although the song was far from complete, I published an early demo version on this site because I thought it would be interesting to hear the song mature over time. The final version will be recorded during Thanksgiving week, and posted here in December, unless rather than maturing it becomes stuck in that awkward pimply stage of adolescence in which case it will spend a few years working at the car wash to develop character.

Anyway, my juvenile demo recording has recently returned from a summer in southern California, where it acquired a great loopy fretless bass line thanks to my 6-fingered friend Andrew.

Ode To Soup demo II (October, 2004) (Copyright © 2004 matthew mcglynn.)

From here, the song flies to Cincinnati so my guitarist friend Steve can compose a guitar solo in 15/4.

Meanwhile I’ll be re-tracking the drums with my acoustic kit, and probably re-tracking the dulcimer too, with better microphones and my whizzy new deck.

The new racks are in place. This is apparently a lot more work than it might look like; a crew of four worked for most of two days to disassemble the previous superstructure and build this one. Note the leftover stanchions on the roof, useless and sad like supernumerary nipples, except for the surface rust.

This view is from behind; the PV modules will install on the far sides of these two stands, facing away toward south/southwest.

The crew will return Monday, hopefully before noon, to complete the re-installation.

The Save Betamax people are reporting:

Congratulations! Late yesterday, the news from Washington was in: the INDUCE Act is dead for the rest of the year. Thank you so much for the effort you put into contacting your Senators. Your work has made a difference, and if the RIAA and MPAA try again to pass INDUCE, we’re 7,000 voters strong, we’ll rally even more support, and we’ll stop them.

See historical INDUCE coverage at debris.com

The night before the PV crew was to begin reconfiguring the array to prevent shading, the company’s designer sent two additional layout options — CAD diagrams as PDF, regrettably marked “not to be reproduced without written permission.” Apparently the initial redesign attempt didn’t meet generation expectations either.

We selected a design that best accomodates the area tree cover. The 24 modules will be split onto two racks (rather than the current five). A “shading study” shows the roof lit by the afternoon sun on the longest day of the year, December 20, to prove that the southern rack won’t shade the northern one.

Yesterday the crew disassembled the current system and built one of the two new racks. I realized that reinstalling solar is even more work than the initial installation; last December, the crew started with an empty roof.

Ford’s experimental hydrogen-powered shuttle bus is powered by H2ICE, “Hydrogen Internal Combustion Engine”:

A Hydrogen Internal Combustion Engine (H2ICE) is a traditional internal combustion engine that is modified to run on hydrogen, rather than gasoline. Compared with today’s gasoline engines, H2ICE delivers up to a 99.7 percent reduction in CO2 and includes many of the benefits of a hydrogen fuel cell, but at a fraction of the cost.

High-school physics instructor Cory Waxman of Phoenix, Arizona, led a team of students in building a solar-powered H2ICE truck. It requires no external source of hydrogen; an electrolysis unit in the bed extracts hydrogen from tap water. More info: 1, 2, and videos. [Thanks to Joe Stump for the tip.]

Pegasus is a 3000 horsepower Land Speed Record vehicle:

The Pegasus Team’s main focus is designing, building and developing the world’s fastest environmentally friendly car. Our aim is to be the first team to reach 500mph with a wheel-driven car powered by a low-emission hybrid-electric propulsion system. The Pegasus Car will run on clean fuels including Natural Gas and unleaded fuels and features an innovative gas turbine engine / high-speed electrical generator system.

And, it would look great in my driveway. [Thanks to Bim for the tip.]