What have we here? Some expensive cookies, see the product size compared to the camouflage packaging. At 14 calories per cookie, I’ll forgive them. Not for being tricksters but because I got enough free money today to buy a luxury or two. People, never install new software in automatic mode. That’s like saying you trust a stranger not to download crap and spyware onto your equipment. One nasty outfit to watch out for is Softonic (“Free downloads and expert advice”). These people are level 90 scumbags who will hijack your computer. Then you get to pay me to fix it.
Band practice today. We are ready and have been for a while. I have very little faith in the “modern” methods of promoting bands and music. How recently have you actually played a demo DVD? How many hours a day do you listen to indie radio hoping to hear the next superhit? Or the last time you paid $100 for a ticket to hear an original band at the arena? Never, that’s when. Same as everybody else. So I suggested we practice “live”. The twist? Where can we do such a thing without the onerous task of packing gear there and back? I know! I know!
Next Sunday afternoon, welcome to the Jimbos afternoon tea. Come hear a four-piece orchestra that doesn’t blast your with rock and blues. All live, no backing tracks. A three hour show and treat for the ears. Good, because they’ve been closing down early on Sundays again. No business. This is only technically a freebie, in that how well it goes will definitely get back to the Moose. Be ready next week and show up early.
For a laugh we jammed a bunch of tunes that are not on our list. The group that practiced before us left some of their cheatsheets on my music stand. So away we went. Purple Haze. Sunshine of Your Love. Hey Joe. Said the onlookers, “You guys play it better than the rock bands.” Yes, that is what makes a professional. I admit, it sounded pretty damn good. What I can't figure is how a startup band is looking to make any money playing that material. Ah, but then again, there are very, very, few startup bands that get on the circuit these days. I cannot think of one really new band in this area.
Trivia. Your self-serve of Coca-Cola from the dispenser, how much does it actually cost to produce? The flavoring syrup is manufactured for 1/200th of a cent per glass. This occurs in, where else but Ireland, where foreign corporations are exempt from income tax. It consists mainly of nutmeg flavored caramel. (I suspect the “secret” formula is a myth.) Coca-Cola then cranks up the price by 1600 times to its biggest customer, McDonald’s (who pay about 8 cents per glass), and sell it to you for at least a dollar. Remember that McD’s has overhead so it isn’t pure profit, but by far soda is the biggest money-maker in the restaurant industry.
You’ve been good, so here is another little item to make some of your days easier. Don’t you hate it when you click on “End now” and Microsoft takes forever to do it? The usual problem, and I did say usual, is an error reporting feature called dumprep which creates a file that gets sent to MicroSoft, where nothing has been done to stop such errors in the past 30 years. So you might as well disable (but do not delete) it. Remember, I use XP and have no intention of changing until I have to. Do this:
Click on the “Start” button and find “My Computer”. Right-click on it, and I did say right and not left, then click on the item “Properties”. When that opens, click on the “Advanced Tab”. In the bottom right-hand corner, you’ll find a button “Error Reporting”. Open it and click on the dot that says “Disable error reporting”. This will grey out the other selections and now you are done. If you notice an immediate improvement in speed, you are welcome. Of course, if you are unlucky enough to have Windows 7, 8 or any of that other garbage, you’ll have to adjust the steps. But at least you know it can be done.
ADDENDUM
To answer a recently frequent question, no, there is no manufacturer of solar kits who will give you a straight and complete answer about what is involved. There is no kit that does not leave out something important and the sneaky pricks don’t tell you. There is no one single source that spells out what you will need to gain a working and practical system. Gee, sounds a lot like the field of electronics, where everybody is an expert—until you need something done your way.
Each company plugs its own product without warning you about any deficiencies. Their philosophy appears to be if they told you the truth, you’d shop elsewhere. They are ignorant because it is these layers of confusion and double-talk that put most people off about buying the technology. It is like those phony ads for a web page for $99. The seller doesn’t tell you about all the related expenses that crank it up to $2,000 to get something quite different than what you wanted in the first place.
Now back to my system. The panel kit I am looking at has this arrangement:
Solar Panels-->Distribution Box-->Appliance.
I consider the basic system to require this arrangment at a minimum:
Solar Panels-->Diode Protectors-->Charge Controller-->Marine Battery-->Distribution Box-->Inverter-->UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply)-->Appliances.
And several sets of fuses in between. Here is an interesting Lithium Battery in a bamboo box. This company, Clean Republic, is constantly steering you toward buying the whole kit for $1,295. There are kits with lower mileage for less money, but trust me, you don’t want an electric bike that advertises a ten-mile range, even if they could really go that far. That is a lousy waste of cash. To really go ten miles, you will need the twenty-mile kit and so on.
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