rantlust

Posted by Suman on December 12th 2007 in Earth, Environment, Government, Politics, Society, Technology
::  [Print This Post]

As you may know, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an energy bill last week (H.R.6) that among many other things raises mpg standards for cars (to 35 mpg by 2020), extends and raises the tax credits for residential solar energy (thru 2014, and to $4k from $2k), and eliminates tax breaks for oil companies (currently $13.5 billion - that’s $13.5 thousand million, for our readers who speak U.K./European English).

The bill is currently being debated by the Senate, which may reject all or portions of it, and the President may also use his veto powers.  If you are a U.S. voter, please send a quick note to your elected representatives to let them know your views on the matter.

To write in support of H.R.6, click here.

To write in opposition to H.R. 6, click here.

Comments(1)

Posted by meerkat on November 05th 2007 in Rants, Society, Technology
::  [Print This Post]

I always thought all cubicles in the cube farm are bad for humans. But, some cubicles are really really bad. Here’s Wired magazine’s sad cubicle list.

Comments(0)

Posted by meerkat on September 19th 2007 in Internet, Society, Technology, USA
::  [Print This Post]

I am looking to move to another apartment in San Francisco and boy, is that difficult! I am looking for apartments by browsing Craigslist and have set up RSS feeds on my home page. I constantly check to see if there are any apartments on the market. There are a few that come up now and then. It is not as straight forward as elsewhere in the bay area. There is this open house that you have to go to and there are so many people that show up there looking for a place to live in SF. The owner of the apartment gets to choose the lucky one from many many many applications. Owners’ market for sure. I have found that an open house is a waste of my time competing with so many people and try avoiding them altogether.

Then, I look for ads that do not call for an open house. There are no guarantees even here. When the owner gets too many emails from people looking for a place, they call for an open house eventually. This is what happens in most of the cases in SF. Anyway, I chanced upon an ad that sounded so good.

$1500 / 2br - Amazing apartment! W/D, D/W, A/C, 1300 sqft, all is included, parking (noe valley) (Read more…)

Comments(82)

Posted by anupcs on August 29th 2007 in Internet, Language, Technology
::  [Print This Post]

This is cool. I can now enter queries in Malayalam from my iGoogle page using their on screen keyboard “gadget.” The results are displayed in Malayalam. You don’t need a separate localized keyboard for this. Other Indian languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, etc., are also supported. If nothing else, I hope this will prevent me from forgetting my own native script.

Comments(1)

Posted by Suman on August 06th 2007 in Environment, Raves, Technology
::  [Print This Post]

I’ve been asked this question fairly often ever since I had a PV solar array installed on my roof in early 2006.  The short answer is yes, but many factors are involved.

The main components of a PV system are the solar panel array, which converts light into DC electricity, and the inverter, which converts the DC electricity into 110 Volt AC electricity that can be used by the house.  The system is designed to run the house on solar power first and only switch to the grid when electrical demand exceeds the PV system’s power output.  It operates seamlessly, so no manual intervention is ever necessary.

During winter and early spring, my home’s electrical demand is low enough that I use solar power exclusively.  In fact, for a few months I generate more electricity than I consume, and sell the excess to my power company, which applies a credit to my bill during those months.  During the summer, however, air conditioning (a necessity in Phoenix) requires more power than my array provides.

(Read more…)

Comments(24)

Posted by papi on June 29th 2007 in Computers, Rants, Technology
::  [Print This Post]

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, let me begin by stating that I have never been one for operating system holy wars. I have no particular affection for Windows, Linux, Unix, or MacOS, nor do I bear any excessive rancor towards any of them. I’ve worked on and used a number of different flavors of Unix over the years, currently am working on an open source project that spans several Linux distributions, and have used Windows on my laptop for many years. I think that operating system is best which intrudes the least, both in terms of not using up resources on the machine, and in not requiring the user to endlessly tinker with it or to spend time figuring out how to get it to work. Of course, all operating systems fall short on one or other of these points, but occasionally one is spawned that’s such a colossal mistake, such a gigantic steaming pile of fecal matter, that one is forced to take one’s case to the only court of public opinion that matters, the blog. Which finally brings me to Windows Vista, and the reason for this post.

(Read more…)

Comments(3)

Posted by riyer on June 27th 2007 in Design, Engineering, Nature, Society, Technology
::  [Print This Post]

Turns out you can use spinach to derive the energy to run your house as well
See here
All they need to do is grow olives and press some olive oyl from it.

Comments(0)

Posted by anupcs on June 21st 2007 in Technology
::  [Print This Post]

June 29 is destined to become the most over-hyped day in techdom since the launch of Windows 95 way back when. On that day, thousands of people with nothing better to do will descend in throngs to urban centers to get their hands on an Apple iPhone. For those in the SF Bay Area, here’s a handy campout guide including free restrooms and wifi info.

Comments(0)