Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

@purr1n or anyone from TX: Is this accurate?

 

Yeah, see the WFAA (Dallas ABC affiliate) story here https://www.wfaa.com/mobile/article...torm/287-14a54a65-39cb-4d1c-931c-0d003002f529

There's likely to be some change to the billing schemes for the event's time period, but nobody has had time to make adjustments yet. Give it some time.

 

Wait... are water heaters in the attic a common thing down south? Nevermind weird weather phenomena, just considering the weight of the water and risk of leaks when the tank gets old, I don't see why people would do this unless you're seriously cramped for space.

edit: I believe our local building codes here in maple syrup land actually require the water tanks be placed near a floor drain

 

After years of fretting "am I getting a decent deal on energy", and having to research and do selections every 1-2 years, my neighbors turned me on to Energy Ogre, which I first signed up for last June when my energy provider contract was about to expire. It's a service that looks at your usage pattern and selects/manages your electric plans for you, for a $10/month fee.

And I think the top wholesale price was $9k/kWh, not $9/kWh. At least according to the WFAA story.

Yeah, but more often they're in the garage, I think. Depends upon your floorplan. There's a drain pan beneath with a pipe running to the eave for draining. And when they're in the attic in Texas, they barely run in the summer time!

We had 2 50-gallon tanks up there above our master (plumbed in series; we have 5 full baths), and finally after 20 years one of them gave out. Our drain pipe was on a long run and had sagged over the years, so we did have some leakage into the master. But it was very slow and not over our bed. We had a plumber out to turn it off and bypass it to the second one temporarily, and dried the carpet and replaced the sheetrock that got damaged.

I haven't yet, but plan to replace them with a hybrid tankless system (I feel bad for those that had just tankless during this no-power episode; that meant no hot water for them).

Spoiler: Aside

I'd drained both tanks to clean out residue 6 months after we built the house. Also I set the first one to heat up to ~90º, and the second one to heat to ~135º. I figured we'd lose ~5º on the travel between heaters and faucets, but that lower temperature meant nobody had to worry about getting scalded, ever. Dishwashers and our laundry both have built-in water heaters. Any way, I think having them staggered like that, each doing some of the heating job, and cleaning out the residue, helped contribute to their longevity. And saved energy at the same time.

 

is it just me or does everyone else see right wing media and conservative pundits, political members lead nearly every attack against democrats with the word. "radical".

'radical' 'insert your opposition party member, agenda, platform'

 

"radical" "socialist" "baby-killers" "Non-American" Yeah...petty much.

You know what, this tacit does work. I have plenty of right-wing friends who consume a lot of right-wing media say those words in "" when any discussion about the Democrat comes up.

 

It’s a common thing on both sides of the aisle to try to paint their opponents as out of touch with ordinary Americans but unfortunately the country has been so polarized by corporate and social media so they’re both kind of right.

If you’re familiar with the Overton window it’s shifted so far left that the fringes of the Democratic Party (and if you’ve been paying attention it’s really not that fringe anymore) are starting to become almost indistinguishable from classical far right rhetoric, e.g.:

 

I wasn't familiar with Griddy but it seems predatory. The perceived lower rates would be desirable to lower income households who are more likely to be part of the "stupid" people you mention who would be less likely to understand things like hyperbolic discounting, black swan events, and calculating expected returns over long timelines based on historical power prices and global weather models. Regulations we'd hope would be there to prevent companies not just from hurting vulnerable people but stopping the construction of the type of financial Jenga towers like we saw in the 2008 crisis. Thankfully, it doesn't seem like they were that large of a company.

 

Why stop there: people buy mutual funds with 3.1% management fees, idiotically speculative stock, buy crypto currency. Why not try to stop people from doing anything they do not understand, but the state obviously does?
Example: Blockchain general ledger is an ingenious, but a very complex thing.
What if someone decided 5 months ago that only institutional investors can buy bitcoin because most people definitely do not understand what a currency build on blockchain is?
If the state has regulation power over utilities and resellers, go after them, but what does it have to with supervising what people do or do not understand?

 

The Noble Peace Prize is usually ridiculous. Historically, lasting peace is usually achieved by one belligerent leveling the other’s cities and slaughtering their population of young men. How do people think the Civil War and both World Wars ended for the losers?

 

I seem to recall something about teens not being allowed to drive after dark without their legal guardian in the car either. And there are limits to the number of teens allowed in a car with a teen driver IIRC. Enacted a few years ago now.

I have a ways to go before I'm paying much attention to it…16yo doesn't want to drive, and 11yo is 11.

 

I didn't get my license until 23, but then again in Europe it is perfectly practical - not to mention usually faster - to travel everywhere by public transport.

Only now that I live in very small towns do I travel to regularly to locations that require a car.

In a city I'd just get a big moped. In Milan its common to see an army of people in office suits in 200-500cc mopeds at stoplights in the morning (because why deal with parking a car if you don't have to).

Which actually sounds weird now that I think about it. Swarmed by salarymen

 

They will want to drive sooner or later when they are in a big state like Texas.

My GF due to money issues and poorer family never taught her how to drive. In FL you need a car to survive unless you are in Miami. GF is very limited on jobs due to she is limited on distance.

 

I was amazed when my son was somewhat meh about getting his driver's license at 16. That lasted until his first girlfriend after he turned 16. I was at the dmv door 15 minutes before they opened on the day I was 15 3/4, chomping at the bit. But then I realized that a large portion of his non-school social life was virtual. Much different times.

 

Some people never really bother getting driver's licences despite knowing how to operate a vehicle (cough). It's kinda part of the territory with how public transportation and ride sharing is that much more convenient compared to before, not to mention there's that whole Eco Warrior™ guilt thing; a few of the more posh locales encourage walking around for both personal and environmental health and because these places were properly planned it's not entirely unfeasible.

The additional ID can be useful at times but that's about it.

Could also just be a regional thing. I've got a few friends who live in Texas now or have relatives they visit there and I hear about how you literally cannot get around to doing anything without driving a couple minutes in some places.