DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

It’s a fruit year. Every tree in the orchard set fruit this year — lemon, peach, apricot, apples, asian pear, persimmon, plum, fig, and whatever this thing is.

I was walking near the bottom of the property with Raphael. This is sort of a novelty because we just had the grass cut (using the term “grass” charitably here); for the first time in three months we can actually walk across the yard without a machete to hack our way through the overgrowth. At two and a half years, Raphael likely has no memory of what our back yard normally looks like.

At age 40, I don’t either. But then I don’t get out much.

Anyway we found three trees we’d never seen before. All three are covered in small yellow-orange fruit. We don’t know what it is.

If you recognize it, let me know. Maybe I’ll send you a pie.

Update 2007-07-05: We figured it out.

Excerpt from a campaign update from my favorite eco-charity, the Union of Concerned Scientists:

Late last night the Union of Concerned Scientists and our allies won a major victory on fuel economy! Thanks in part to your numerous emails and phone calls, the Senate voted yesterday to substantially increase the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standard of America’s cars and trucks for the first time in over 30 years — setting a target of 35 miles per gallon by 2020.

I’m all for raising CAFE standards, but this sounds like a pretty feeble compromise. I drove a car in 2004 — nearly 3 full years ago — that measured 53.9 mpg over a 4-5 hour commute. Yet in 13 more years, the best average our politicians are willing to demand is 35 mpg?

I suppose what makes this newsworthy is, as noted above, that the numbers have moved at all. The original CAFE standards were proposed in 1975 (when the average fleet mileage was apparently a dismal 14 mpg) and never amended, except for a period in the late 1980s when mileage minimums were lowered. Detroit, you go girl!

Just need to say that this is blowing my mind, and I’m seriously thinking about disabling the locking mechanism on my oven door.

It used to be true that the best way to spend money in a foreign country was via credit card, because the credit companies offered fair exchange rates, and the cards themselves avoided the risks of carrying cash, not to mention the problems associated with exchanging cash at storefronts whose reputations for fairness are not known. But over the past few years, credit companies and the card-issuing banks alike have begun adding sizeable fees for foreign-currency transactions, or in some cases, for any foreign transactions (even when no currency conversion is required).

The fees vary widely, so if you’re planning a trip, it pays to call your various card providers to ask what their fees are. For example, here’s what I learned:

The $10 minimum fee on my platinum Visa was a real shock. But even beyond that, there’s a 3x difference in transaction fees just for the cards I carry.

The following article is dated, but its conclusions still seem relevant: Abroad, not all plastic is created equal

Popular Mechanics’ test of compact fluorescent light bulbs is really great. It not only points consumers at the best bulbs, it provides a first step in holding the manufacturers accountable for their claims, e.g. I don’t think any of the tested bulbs actually produced as much light as the packages claimed.

There are a ton of feeble CFLs on the market — in my experience, most of the $3 six-packs at the warehouse club fall into this category — and they give the industry a bad reputation, thereby turning consumers off one of the cheapest, easiest, most effective energy conservation strategies available. Quality CFLs are truly miraculous, providing tons of light at a fraction of the cost of incandescent “heat” bulbs, and the wide availability of crappy bulbs masks this reality.

So if you’ve been waiting to buy CFLs, check out the ratings at PM and buy yourself some new light bulbs.

(Read more rants about light bulbs.)