Global Warming Theory #47

(Caution, this post may contain tongue in cheek bullshit!)

Ponder This.... what if our Air Conditioners are the direct cause of global warming? An air conditioner works by transferring heat (a heat pump) from inside our buildings and cars to the outside world. As time goes on more and more of us are installing Air Conditioners.... and as time goes on average global temperatures are allegedly on the rise... see where I'm going? I know I have stood outside near a working Air Con unit and been blasted by hot air while inside is blissfully cool. Where does that heat go? Into the atmosphere is the obvious answer ;-) surely there has to be some effect if only at a local level? Think about a densely populated area with hundreds of air conditioners all pumping out heat..... 
Yeah yeah, I know Correlation does not imply Causation etc, but hey, I like my theory :-)


Reality:
A lot of us (Globally) are probably powering our air conditioners using fossil fuel supplied power which is more likely contributing to global temperature rise... and then there are the refrigerants used in said air conditioners that if leaked to the atmosphere are apparently more destructive than CO2...

Boring rules....

I couldn't find rules 1 to 4 ..... :-/

The Butterfly (and harnessing the power of Chaos)

This is our Butterfly that has resided on the front of our house for a few years now.

You might think it is purely decoration, but it has an alternate purpose (for me anyway).

Have you heard of (Random) Chaos Theory? A common analogy is of a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon causing a series of events that culminate in a Cyclone/Hurricane on the other side of the globe.

Well my theory is Harnessed Chaos , whereby I am harnessing the Chaotic Powers of the Butterfly to achieve a set goal. For example, I will snap my fingers in the kitchen to alert/wake up the butterfly and it will flap its wings to start the chain of events needed to make the kettle finish boiling and trip off so I can make my Coffee. Or I snap my fingers to alert it to the fact that my web page hasn't finished loading...

Other theories I have previously published:

http://pittsy.blogspot.com.au/2005/12/gravity.html

http://pittsy.blogspot.com.au/2005/11/stuff.html






Geoff

It's been a while....

Hi all, I haven't posted to this blog for several years, (nearly 5!!!) so I thought I'd best keep it going. Incidentally my Vegemite Moon Blog has been trickling along slowly in the meantime... A lot has happened in my world over the last few years, not all necessarily good mind you.

On a positive note I found a great job auditing/surveying for a company contracted to provide performance data related to Public Transport in New South Wales. It involves night work in Railway Yards and travel on Trains at all hours of the day! Completely different to anything I've done in the past, which may be why I enjoy it so much. That and the fact I've always liked travel and working in the field. I've certainly learned a lot about our rail system and passenger train rolling stock! I may be in danger of becoming a train spotter hahaha!

Our children are growing up fast, with 2 studying at University now, a third starting University next year, and one still at High School. The last few years has been a constant driver training school at our house and will continue with our last learner driver starting soon.

My own personal health has taken a double whammy, having suffered a heart attack late in 2015, requiring stents and then finding out mid 2016 I have bowel cancer. I am currently just over half way through chemotherapy, after spending 47 days in (2) Hospitals as a result of botched bowel surgery and complications. All is looking good at the moment and I hope to be back to "normal" by mid year!

Here's to a positive 2017! and hopefully some more consistent blogging.....

Westinghouse... soon to be out of the house?

Our bleeping Westinghouse refrigerator is having it's annual spack attack!  Seems to be a yearly event that we have to have major repairs done to it.... This time it's the hinges on the Fridge side... worn out. Causing the door to drop and set the fridge's alarm off at all hours... it's like having to get up to a baby in the middle of the night!!!!  No big issue you say... just replace the hinge?... No can do.. as we learnt with our Westinghouse Oven, the hinges do not come as a separate replacement part... you have to buy a whole door! a costly exercise.... particularly when the door contains the control panel for the fridge!
Last year when the ice maker shit itself, for the second time in the fridge's (relatively) short life we vowed that next time it needed repair we would turf it and get a new fridge.. we are now at that point.
The disappointing aspect of this is the apparent lack of quality of new appliances. Our old fridge (a Westinghouse) was inherited from Michelle's mother and was eons old and still running fine when we renovated the Kitchen and thought that one of those two door jobs with an ice maker/ water dispenser would be a good idea.... The old fridge was donated to son #1 and as far as we know is probably still soldiering on!
The dilemma now is what to buy to replace it.. obviously we are burnt by Westinghouse's latest offerings, also we have a few LG appliances in the house, some of which have worked trouble free for some years, some not.... How do I know what is crap and what will last? I tend to think there are probably not any appliances truly built to last any appreciable amount of time.
In the meantime all the shelves in the fridge door have been removed to lighten the load on the door and the top bracket adjusted in an attempt to pull the door upright a bit to stop the door switch actuating and setting the alarm off. But its days are numbered as I can see with every opening of the door, more "shavings" appear on the floor due to the state of the bottom hinge...
......lets just hope it doesn't fall off!!!!

Chirp!

...just a quick post to mention I am toying with the microblogger Twitter at the moment....@ CessPitts.
Can't say whether I'll stick with it ..... see what happens...




Cecil

spitting image

I had to laugh the other day when Jimmy Buffett "walked" ( OK fell!) off stage. The doctor who just happened to be at the concert and came to his aid was a Dr Gordian Fulde. He apparently escorted Buffett to hospital and treated him also. The funny bit is that I think he is the spitting image of Walter Bishop from the hit sci-fi show Fringe, which I am quite partial to watching....

So has anyone seen them in the same room together?  ..... and how freaky would it be if you were a fan of Fringe and you woke up to see Dr Fulde looming over the top of you, ha ha ha....

Dr Fulde...













... and Walter:












...freaky

cecil

Apply yourself

.....following on from the last post re. android apps. I can now list a few favourites:

games... angry birds, fruit ninja and anoduko ...yes I'm a bit of a Sudoku tragic, my last phone had a sudoku game and it was the most used game...

fun stuff... Flight Deck Artificial Horizon...uses the inbuilt accelerometer sensors to give an artificial horizon display... great fun in the car with the boyz, seeing how much "Bank and Pitch" we can create whilst cruising in the Forester. Another personal fun favourite is the iBeer free app. and the boyz get a "buzz" from one called Spark which turns the phone screen into something akin to a plasma ball where  sparks follow your finger on the screen whilst the phone vibrates.

In terms of useful apps?... the WIFI analyser app gives a good graphical representation of the local WIFI access points, showing the signal strength and channel overlap etc. ...could prove handy if you are trying to pick the best channel to use at home if you live in a crowded WIFI area.... I find most AP's in my street/block are on channel 1 or 6 with at least 4 different ones visable on each at different places around the house, and I'm in "suburbia", hate to think what medium to high density housing is like !

cecil

Androids

Ok, so I've finally got an android smartphone. A Nuvifone A50 to be precise, which has an inbuilt (satellite not mobile phone tower) GPS. This is great - as it mounts on the windscreen (mount supplied) and not only allows me to 'navigate' but take calls hands-free concurrently (the phone reception has to be better up there on the windscreen too I would suspect!). Much better than having the phone in your pocket or sitting in the console or sliding around the passenger seat ....   other niceties are geotagging for pictures and videos taken with the inbuilt camera and with mobile internet you can get "google street view" from the GPS map screen.
I'm still exploring all the available 'apps' (so many to choose from ...) and will comment later on any particularly handy ones I come across.
Cecil

Tool bars

Dilbert recently commented on people who crowd their browsers with useless toolbars at the expense of browser window space.


I still repair peoples computers from time to time and can't get over how many people do this! I suspect some are piggybacked onto some dodgey software download and the user is clueless as to how it got there or how to remove it. They are only more of a nuisance now we are being pushed into using you-beaut widescreen monitors that effectively give you less vertical space than your trusty old CRT monitor!
I hate 'em, don't use 'em, and if I find them on someones PC I'm fixing, I remove them! (No, I don't ask!) As far as I'm concerned they are a blight on the face of your browser and I treat them as you would any malware or virus......
Love your work Mr Adams

Our one eyed arab

...Garfield (our ginger Persian cat) is recovering well after having his right eye surgically removed by the Vet, a result of an out of control lesion on his eye. The eye was removed Thursday week ago and the stitches will be removed Thursday this week. He is not impressed at having to wear a conical collar to stop him pawing at the stitches.... He really appreciates human intervention such as a scratch behind the ear where he can't reach!  I think he's a bit frustrated at not being able to bath himself properly too...he bends around and starts to lick but realises he's just licking the cone!  doh!
Not sure why he had the lesion, but we suspect the KGB!,..."Claude" our Russian Blue, as he does pick on Garfield a bit! They have been separated since the operation, only allowed near each other under direct supervision until Garfield is fully recovered.
....me thinks Garfield won't like the Vet ever again.... that's three "balls" he's had removed now!

*Update*

Garfield is doing really well. He was glad to get that cone collar off after two weeks of frustration at not being able to clean himself and bumping into stuff with it!
The fur is starting to grow back now and his eye socket now looks a bit like a teddy bear thats lost its button-eye. I suggested to the family we get the Vet to sew on a teddy bear eye but didn't get a good reception... I'm now thinking that I'll raid the Daycare craft cupboard and stick a "googly" eye on him ;-P

cecil

another company flogging my idea!

...yet another "people power" generation copycat... this one will give you a free meal if you generate enough power on a cycling power generator.... see I wasn't mad, you could turn your Gym into a power generation enterprise!

From the ABC news website......

"A Danish hotel is pioneering a pedal-power electricity generation scheme it hopes will catch on in other countries.

The Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers, 15 minutes from the centre of the Danish capital and five minutes from Scandinavia's main airport, is installing two exercise bicycles hooked up to generators.
Guests will be invited to jump on and start pedalling - and if they produce enough electricity they will be given a free meal.
From June, they will be able to race against the 366-room hotel's solar panel system in a bid to produce the most electricity.
"Anyone producing 10 watt hours of electricity or more for the hotel will be given a locally produced complimentary meal encouraging guests to not only get fit but also reduce their carbon footprint and save electricity and money," the hotel said in a statement.
Hotel spokeswoman Frederikke Tommergaard said the free meal offer applied only to paying guests, not passers-by.
The value of the meal - any one of the main courses on the hotel restaurant or lobby bar's menu - is about 240 Danish crowns ($44), she said.
The electric bikes will be up and running from April 19 and the plan is to test the idea for a year with a view to expanding it to more Crowne Plaza hotels, part of the InterContinental Hotels Group."

cecil

new ubuntu out soon.....

ubuntu 10.04 LTS 'Lucid Lynx' ...coming soon......

LTS (long term support) versions are supported for 3 years (desktop) and 5 years (server) whereas other releases are only supported for 18 months....

and then there were four . .

Sadly we have lost another of our long lived pets, Jack the Budgerigar. He passed away around midday today after 12 well lived years. Not a bad knock for a budgie! Jack was Michael's pet that he got for his 1st birthday in 1998. He will be remembered for his cheeky wolf whistles, constant chatter (yes he talked), and in your face attitude when he wanted fresh seed or water...(he would hang upside down on the side of the cage and stare at you walking past so you would notice him!)

When he was a bit younger Jack would distinctly imitate our voices, ....and also the Teletubbies which used to be on every day out the back in the playroom where he lived.("Hello Tinky Winky"..etc.)
We're going to miss the little fella heaps....  'night Jack

Cecil

Rogue app.

Apologies to anyone who tried to access my "Vegemite and the Dark Side of the Moon" blog recently,  seems the "asteroids" gadget (game) I had at the bottom of the page had turned nasty and was redirecting viewers to an advertising site. I checked the Blogger site and it is a "known problem" they are "working on".....

Thanks to Peter for alerting me to the issue!

cecil

stole my xxxx'n idea?

There is an ad on tele currently that appears to have borrowed my musings regarding treadmill power production, see my blog entry 18th April 2009 . Admittedly they use a dog to generate the power for the teev instead of a "pothole" but still, same idea!  ... perhaps I should point this out to them...I wonder if they'd send me a slab as compensation.... then again  they probably wouldn't give a XXXX.. ;-)

cecil

RIP Bingo

It is with a great sadness I have to inform of the passing of our oldest pet, Bingo.
Not totally unexpected considering her age (17 years) and her health was slowly declining.
We will miss her immensely.

Rest in Peace old girl.

Pardon?

You'll have to speak up .... went to the AC/DC concert last night. . . My ears haven't recovered fully yet!!!

Talk about a powerhouse of a show! Angus Young (well he's got about 7 years on me so he'd be old, right?) was simply unbelievable. For a man (schoolboy) of his age to perform his "stage act" solidly for 2 hours ...and every second day on tour is just simply awe inspiring! I'd had a little heads up on his 20 minute guitar solo prior to going to the show which really didn't do it justice . .
..oh yes, and I'd guess by the amount of light, sound, guitars (let there be rock...sorry) that Energy Australia had to bring another turbine on-line, else the entire state's lights would probably have dimmed with each piece....
The staging and effects / props / lighting etc were world class . . . if you haven't seen their Black Ice tour show and you're a bit of an old headbanger like myself, do whatever it takes to get a ticket . . you wont be disappointed !!!!

The main support act, WolfMother, was well worth seeing too, and quite popular with the crowd...
. . . but the same can't be said for the first group Calling All Cars who insisted on sucking up to AC/DC every second song . . "once again we'd like to thank AC/DC for letting us play, we are really honoured for the privailage...etc" fair dinkum guys, we don't want to continually hear that BS...just play and let us hear what you can do!!!

..sorry? . . still can't hear you! ...

cecil

Lights out!

Earth hour again approaches....
...time to spend an hour with the family in the dark (or candle light)



...hmmm has anyone looked at the birth rate to see if it spikes in December since this earth hour thing started?

update:... I've had a brief look at the birth statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and my first impression is that there is NO noticeable spike difference Dec/Jan since 2007 compared to the other months.. Perhaps everyone is playing cards/monopoly!

Queensland Education System Failure?

....just received a pic sent via MMS from Macca who must be on holiday in Rockhampton....

 

.... apparently it's the other left!

Hey Kiso! hope you've got yer eye on what them banana-benders are teaching yer young'uns!!!!!

Cecil