DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

What would you say to someone whose goal is to plant 8 million trees in an African desert?

Fortunately nobody asked me, and they’re proceeding with the project. It got a kick-start last week when the folks behind the Web2Summit conference — O’Reilly Media and CMP Media — purchased a tree for each of the conference’s 1200 participants. I love the idea; it’s the most thoughtful and most environmentally-conscious conference schwag I’ve ever received. Read more about it.

(I wonder if Dale Dougherty had something to do with this decision? His post from April about wasteful conference schwag may have been a tipping point. The Web2Summit did have a schwag bag, but it was much emptier than normal — significantly less paper waste — and the bag itself was meant to be reused.) (photo credit: violet.blue)

Anyway, kudos to O’Reilly and CMP and whoever sold this idea to the conference organizers.

I planted a second tree just now. Here’s my Tree-Nation profile.

For each of the past three years, I’ve spent the Summer and Fall on rehearsing and recording drum parts (resulting in this CD and this one plus one tune on a sophomore release from the same guy — watch for a record announcement here shortly — and a couple other songs (1, 2, 3)).

I call my studio “Borrowed Time” in part because it’s a terribly clever play on words, but mostly because it was only a matter of months until my son was old enough to move into the space I’d been using as a live room. That day came last March. It was a great move for his independence and maturity, but not so great for my two-bars-a-day recording habit.

Nonetheless, the recording projects continue. I’m only about 40% through the material for my upcoming solo record, and my prolific friend Andrew has already written the material for his second CD, the drum tracks for which are due by the holidays.

Fortunately I had the foresight to pick up an electronic drum kit late last year, so I’ve been doing all the preproduction work in headphones. The plan was to rent a local room, move in for a long weekend, and do the final tracking on my acoustic kit quickly.

It would mean less tweaking, fewer takes, and hopefully a little more spontaneity.

Last weekend was the first of the season’s two recording sessions. I spent about two hours getting the drums in and up, about four more hanging mics, routing cables, and getting sounds.

Click to see photos from the 2007 sessions.

Needless to say, due to time constraints I had to make a few compromises. I didn’t sound-check my second snare drum or the other two of the three available snare mics, or spend a day experimenting with room mic position. But, having done this several times before, I think the sounds I got were better than in any previous session.

The kick-drum sound this time was far superior, due to a mic-positioning tip I picked up from Marc Senasac. (In a nutshell, the external or ambient kick mic needs to be a couple feet away from the drum, not up against the resonant head.)

I got bit by a few gremlins on my first day. One of the room-mic channels had an audible, pulsing white noise problem that I first attributed to the mic’s proximity to a breaker box in the corner of the room. However, moving the mic, then swapping the cable, had no effect. Then by happy chance I discovered that the channel was producing the white noise even with no mic plugged in. It was my first bad-channel experience, but no doubt not the last. I’ll identify it faster next time.

The other gremlin was pure user error — a couple new insert cables have a much tighter fit than I’m used to. Two of the four didn’t get plugged in all the way and caused some bad hum in my compressor chain. I diagnosed this quickly on the second day of the session.

In terms of gear, I had only three new pieces:

• PreSonus DigiMax FS 8-way preamp, replacing the Focusrite Octopre LE, which I never liked. In close listening tests, I can’t tell one from the other, but I liked two features of the DigiMax:
  1. stepped attenuators allow easy gain-matching of overheads and room mics
  2. each channel has an insert chain. The Octopre LE required me to patch compressed signals back in through an additional input, muddying the signal path and burning twice as many inputs as should be necessary.

• New TRS insert cables custom-made from Canare cable, replacing molded consumer-grade Hosa gear. I honestly doubt I’d be able to hear a difference here, but I needed more of these anyway and, what can I say, I’m a tweaker.
• a Crown PZM mic. I was hoping to get some interesting room sounds through this, but it sounded really trashy to me. It’s not a defect of the mic, which sounds beautiful for casual voice recording. More likely, it was a combination of the room and the placement. If I could have put this out of line-of-sight of the cymbals, or even outside the live room, it would have been much more interesting. But these options were not available, so I replaced it with a large-diaphragm condenser in case anyone downstream in the production process wants a mono, retro kit sound as an effect.

On the 2nd and 3rd days of the session, I knocked out four songs, one of which I’d literally never played before — the album’s cover tune, an old Paul McCartney song. Overall I think it went well, and it should be very interesting to hear how these songs get built up on top of the drums.

This was the input distribution (for my reference):

• Digimax FS
  1. Kick, internal (insert: RNC)
  2. Kick, external
  3. Snare, top (insert: RNC)
  4. Snare, bottom
  5. OH, left
  6. OH, right
  7. (dead)
  8. unused

• Mackie 1604
  1. Tom 1
  2. Tom 2
  3. Tom 3
  4. Tom 4

• Digi-002
  1. Hi-Hat
  2. Ambient LDC
  3. Room, left
  4. Room, right

Shopping list for the next session:

• Studio-style telescoping boom stand — one of the professional models with a 20-lb stand and a 10' boom
• I’m having my three Oktava MK-12s hod-rodded by Michael Joly.
• I want a new high-hat mic. Not sure which way to go here yet.
• I want a ribbon mic too; maybe a Karma K6.

I’m delinquent on my promise of a couple weeks ago to reveal the solution to my PV array’s under-production problem. I hadn’t wanted to chatter about the issue until we’d actually solved the problem. Our installer, SPG Solar, and the panel manufacturer Kyocera have since come through with the ultimate solution, so I’m ready to tell the tale.

Back in August, we thought we’d found the problem right away when we flipped open the DC disconnect switchbox and a gallon of brown water jumped out.

Yes, jumped. It was alive. And seriously nasty… we’re having to repaint the splash zone.

Long-term readers may recall that the DC switchbox flooded once before. Statistically speaking, this is nearly impossible. As the field supervisor and chief system debugger from SPG commented, “I’ve only ever seen this problem two times in six years… and for both of them I was standing right here on your porch.”

The problem, this time, was different — not so much that water was getting in, but that it couldn’t get back out. The counterintuitive reality is that outdoor switchboxes like these are built on the assumption that moisture will get in, so they come equipped with punch-outs to allow for draining and ventilation. In January 2004, when our first DC switchbox was replaced, the installer (who is no longer with SPG) failed to pop open the drain holes. Ironic, no?

So, the first step was to replace, and actually upgrade the DC disconnect switchbox. We were confident that this would solve the problem. But it didn’t.

SPG’s crew then tested each module on the roof. One was found to create a voltage drop, and was removed, but this didn’t affect total system output.

Next they tried a spare inverter… no change.

Next they bypassed the original wiring harness… still no change.

Yet under full sun, the array was producing significantly less power than it should have, even when correcting for the angle of the sun (using an irradiance meter). To confuse matters, the array worked fine up to a certain level of generation, and then fell off as the sun climbed in the sky. All very mysterious, and frankly, frustrating.

SPG finally called Kyocera’s regional office for assistance. We’d replaced or bypassed every component in the system except for the modules on the roof. There wasn’t anything else to do but pull down the 23 remaining modules and put up new ones.

So that’s what they did.

The modules are warrantied to produce 90% of their rated power for 10 years, and at least 80% for the next 10 years. We’re well within the first decade, yet clearly below 90% production, so Kyocera stepped up or a full replacement, including the labor costs. I’m impressed with this level of service — warranty or not, to see any company do the right thing without a fuss seems remarkable, and worth noting.

SPG deserves a commendation too. They have north of 70 man-hours invested in the diagnosis and repair of my PV system, yet I haven’t paid them a cent since October 2003. But I’ll say this: PV is a long-term investment, so if you’re considering it, choose a company that’s going to be around in 20 years. Sure, you might save a few dollars now buying through a co-op, but before you do please find out who you’re supposed to call five years down the road when production is off.

That’s not to say that most PV systems fail. You sort of have to figure that the reason manufacturers offer 20-year warranties is that most systems work fine for that long. Still, I recommend using an installer with a track record, and more importantly, a future.

Here’s the money shot… 15 minutes after turning up the new system, production hit 2531 watts, the highest I’ve ever seen.

My buddy Darell, accomplished motorcyclist and true EV nut, got his hands on the new Vectrix Maxi-Scooter.

It’s a plug-electric scooter that’s highway-legal. It has a variable regeneration control that’s basically like a reverse throttle; Darell says you can just about not touch the brakes because the reverse throttle is so good. Note the “regeneration” aspect — just like the Prius, the Vectrix recharges the batteries when you slow down. And there are front and rear brakes, too, in case things get hairy.

Here’s an excerpt of the writeup:

I have owned and ridden a variety of different motorcycles (and scooters!) over the years, and none of them - regardless of cost - have been as smooth, responsive and as pleasant to pilot as the Vectrix. I searched pretty hard for corners that were cut, and came up empty. This thing is simply stellar in all aspects: design, build and performance.

See the full review for photos and video: Vectrix Maxi-Scooter review and driving test

I don’t actually commute, but I’d love to have something like this for grocery runs into town. Too bad there’s no sidecar for Raphael.

Lane-sharing is legal in California, or at least officially tolerated, because otherwise they couldn’t have filmed all those awesome two-shots of Ponch and Jon.

I did a fair amount of lane-sharing when I owned a motorbike. I commuted from the City to Oracleville, as I’ve noted previously in a story that’s probably a lot more entertaining than this one will be. And for 10 months I was doing 80 miles a day, to Palo Alto and back. No way I could have survived that drive at the pace of the cagers. I’d still be out there right now, hoping to get home in time for some distant-future dinner.

My mindset when I began lane-sharing was basically, I’m about to be killed. Certainly that felt true for the first couple weeks.

Once I’d gotten more comfortable and a little more skilled, I settled into a more-relaxed mindset: with a little luck, I’ll probably survive.

Yes, most people driving cars are really that bad. I saw a guy eating cereal one time. With milk.

So, when the one driver out of 100 would see me coming and ease his car slightly out of my path, the feeling of gratitude was immense. These few people had granted me a brief reprieve from the near-certainty that I was moments from exercising the “dismemberment” clause of my life insurance policy.

It didn’t take much effort: they checked their rearview, and then adjusted the steering wheel about a half a degree. They’d slide their cars a foot or so away from the edge of the lane, not so much giving me space to pass, but simply telling me they weren’t going to try to clip me if I did.

I always waved as I passed. It was a simple thing, but motorcyclists do it to each other all the time — from the cross-country BMW pilots to the skinny guys sitting six feet in the air on Enduros, I’d get a little wave of solidarity, part shared celebration of the open air, part acknowledgement of survival against considerable odds. It was a friendly and welcoming thing, a gesture of fellowship that I was glad to extend to any cager who had pulled his head out of his tailpipe long enough not to run me over, at least for once.

I liked the feeling of connection across a distributed community, but also I liked the idea that maybe some of those people in cars would pull over for the next biker too, if only to earn another wave. Yeah, it was a tall order, retraining the 600 million drivers on California’s roads, one at a time, but I figured I had 80 miles a day in which to do it.

Fast-forward a bunch of years and a couple of career changes… I haven’t ridden or even owned a motorbike in three years, and I only commute once in a while, but I’m still conscious of all the motorcyclists fighting the good fight between lanes 1 and 2 on the highway. I see them coming, I slide a little further left… but not once has any of them waved at me.

(It’s a lack of foresight, guys, I’m telling you. I must have gotten to at least 10 of the 600 million in my day. You need to pick up where I left off!)

So today I’m trapped in my cage, lamenting my sorry condition (no A/C, no CD, and my standby driving tape is warbling like a vinyl record that got left in the sun) when I see a new commute-time readout above the road, predicting that the remaining few miles to the bridge will consume 27 minutes of my life. I could sense the mass evaporation of attention around me as all the other drivers stared slack-jawed at the sign as if believing they’d misread the number… 27 more minutes?!

Cars that stop being actively driven tend to continue at speed in whatever direction they were already pointing, lane markers be damned, so the biker on the slick new FZ1 who was approaching from behind was no doubt thinking OMGWTFBBQ and wondering if his health insurance would cover full dental reconstruction.

But I’d seen him coming, and I slid over far enough to give him a place to ride for the couple seconds it took everyone else to swerve back between the white lines.

He didn’t wave when he passed, but he nodded in a sort of strangled way. I understood his response. I wouldn’t have taken a hand of the bars either.