Pollywogs!

Not sure what or where to get the software to do so?

May I suggest eDrawings Viewer?

http://www.solidworks.com/pages/programs/eDrawings/e2_downloadcheck.html

Free, easy, simple…prints, views, etc etc etc.

Does exactly what it should without bloat or hassle!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rMHOUFl0uvU

This is exactly the video I’d make if I could make videos!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1MCXTiyGW1Y

A much more controversial video, still with a lot of good content and interesting ideas.

I was thinking (after reading a couple sites, including Tesla Motors here : http://www.teslamotors.com).

Wouldn’t it be grand to have wind and solar generation on every house in the United States? Imagine all of that electricity generated on top of each and every house. Some people might use more, some might use less. If they use more than they make, they pull some off the conventional grid, if they make more than they use, they push electricity out onto the grid.

Then, imagine pulling up in a 100% electric vehicle. If you are like most people, 99% of your driving starts and ends at your house, and is less than a 100 mile round trip. Each and every one of those trips would be free, if your car was also being recharged off of your renewable energy. Free, and pollution free.

What is the cost of this far-out and so strange concept? Not a hell of a lot. For $20-30,000, you can have a decent sized renewable generation system installed on your house. Sounds like a bit? Maybe not so much considering how much houses cost these days…and think of it this way: each month that extra money on your morgatge is going to pay for your own personal power company, not being sent away to some faceless giant burning hundreds of millions of tons of coal every year to keep your TV and Interwebs running…reduced pollution, and you are subsidizing yourself and the future of the rest of the world.

Local generation is vastly more efficent than the current setup where power is transmitted hundreds of miles all over the country. We’ll always have a need for the old power plants, but it should be a signifigantly reduced need and reduced pollution. Industry will always use more power than it could generate on its footprint, but that is definately not the case with your average US household.

The future starts today. Actually, it started yesterday, and has been for a very long time. Don’t wait to tomorrow to save the future, it is here before you realize it…

If I ever build a house, you’ll be damn sure that it is going to have a signifigant renewable generation capability.

Some quick math: I pay around $60 a month for electricity. If it stays roughly the same for the next 30 years, I’ll have paid $21,000 to the electric company to keep the lights on. And have nothing to show for it at the end of those 30 years. Or, I could put on a renewable system that costs roughtly the same amount, help support manufacturers who make such equipment, instantly reduce the amount of coal, oil and gas which is being burnt (reducing pollution) and maybe even make a couple bucks pushing my extra electricity back onto the grid (possible with conservation and a large renewable generation capacity).

Oh, and at the end of the 30 years? Free electricity baby…

Every year the technology gets cheaper, more advanced, more efficent and more prevalent. This is only possible by people now actually purchasing and using the stuff. Hopefully it will be much like computers, and after a decade or two it will go from a luxury item to an inexpensive commodity. Can’t happen fast enough, in my opinion!

If you are interested in learning more, may I recommend :

http://homepower.org
http://investigate.conservation.org/xp/IB/savingbiodiversity/impact_quiz.xml
http://www.conservation.org/xp/CIWEB/programs/climatechange/carboncalculator.xml

Just don’t do it…it is not worth it…

Do yourself a favor and rent “WalMart: the High Cost of Low Prices”. Main Street Movies in Jersey Shore has it.

Imagine you worked at an IGA for ten years, made decent money, had good health care. A WalMart supercenter moves in a town over and the three local IGA’s close because they instantly lost 30-50% of their business. Now, you put your application in at WalMart as there isn’t much else going on in the area any more. WalMart has their pick of the jobless, and then pays them $7 an hour if they are lucky, and gives them the option of completley garbage benifits. Oh, and full time employement is 28 hours a week. What else are you going to do?

More to follow…

UPDATE: If you see a WalMart commercial where they say they love the enviornment and want to protect it, it means they got caught fucking the environment and are now spinning damage control. If you see a commercial where they say they are giving back to the community, it means they are fucking communities. If they love their employees, they are actually fucking their employees over. WalMart = the Bush Administration when it comes to lies and spin…

There ought to be a law…
http://techdirt.com/articles/20060817/1659225.shtml

Amazingly insightful, why couldn’t I have written that? Well, I wanted to but didn’t know I wanted to yet, so they get the page of the day award. Techdirt.com in general is a very interesting site…

Runners up:

10 Tips on doing nothing at work
http://www.fullduplex.org/humor/2006/08/how-to-get-away-with-doing-nothing-at-work/

18 Ways to stay focused at work
http://www.davecheong.com/2006/08/14/18-ways-to-stay-focused-at-work/

The evolution of desktops through the past 25 years…Windows 3.1 just jumped right back at me…and Windows 95? Hey, my desktop still looks exactly the same…how strange…
http://r-101.blogspot.com/2006/08/evolution-of-desktops.html

Worthy mention:

A little distraction is in order…
http://www.workfriendly.net/