Solar savings

Solar panels

Kelly and I had been wondering how much money we are saving with our solar PV system, so tonight I worked a little spreadsheet magic. Bottom line? Our electric bills so far have been half what they were the year before. Here’s how it all looks:

Date        Amount  Prior Year  Difference  Percent Savings
02/28/2014  $36.79   $72.91     $36.12	    49.54%
01/31/2014  $40.78   $79.75     $38.97	    48.87%
01/03/2014  $38.86   $67.66     $28.80	    42.57%
12/04/2013  $33.89   $65.84     $31.95	    48.53%
10/31/2013  $27.70   $60.49     $32.79	    54.21%
09/27/2013  $56.45  $112.77     $56.32	    49.94%
08/30/2013  $83.30  $140.69     $57.39	    40.79%
08/02/2013  $34.71  $143.40    $108.69	    75.79%
07/03/2013  $69.41   $78.15 	 $8.74	    11.18%
05/31/2013  $68.00   $70.30 	 $2.30	    3.27%

There are a couple of things to keep in mind here. First off, this is a simple comparison of charges between this year and the last: it doesn’t adjust for variations in weather. A better comparison would be to adjust this by the actual kWh purchased but I didn’t want to get too complicated.
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Air Force nuke crew failings are worse than reported | The Salt Lake Tribune

Knowing what I know about nuclear mishaps from reading Eric Schlosser’s book Command and Control, I find the lack of integrity of those entrusted with our nation’s nuclear force absolutely terrifying.

The Air Force initially called the overall March inspection outcome at Minot a "success," reflecting the fact that the 91st Missile Wing as a whole was rated "satisfactory." But after The Associated Press learned in May about the "marginal" performance in the missile operations sector of the inspection, the service disclosed that 19 officers had been forced to surrender their launch authority in April because of performance and attitude problems. That was an unprecedented mass sidelining of launch control officers, reflecting what the 91st’s deputy operations commander at the time, Lt. Col. Jay Folds, called "rot" in the force.

Until now, however, it was not publicly known that of 11 crews tested on a launch simulator for the inspection, three were rated Q3, or "unqualified," which the Air Force defines as demonstrating "an unacceptable level of safety, performance or knowledge." Five of the 11 earned a top rating and three got a second-tier rating.

via Air Force nuke crew failings are worse than reported | The Salt Lake Tribune.

Careerbuilder ignoring location preferences

This is a case of “too much of a good thing.” A few weeks ago, tired of the few job opportunities coming my way from LinkedIn, I posted my resume on Careerbuilder.com. The job opportunity floodgates opened and I was soon inundated with job opportunities.

One would think that would be a Good Thing, but instead the opportunities left something to be desired. Out of state recruiters, some who could barely speak English, were calling me about jobs that were nowhere near Raleigh, which is the only place I want to work.

I want to somehow add “NOT interested in relocating” to my Careerbuilder profile but Careerbuilder doesn’t have any such option. Now, Careerbuilder does offer the ability to specify what location its job seekers are interested in. I’ve taken advantage of that option as seen below: Continue reading →

Duke Energy’s net metering red herring

Power graph of a perfect solar day

Today was the perfect day for generating electricity from solar. Sure, it was blustery and cold but from a solar point of view you couldn’t ask for better conditions. The sun this time of year is hitting the panels at a sweet-spot angle, skies were absolutely cloudless, and the humidity was a low 22%. Thanks to these near-perfect conditions our solar PV system generated a whopping 23.4 kWh of electricity. In almost a year of having our panels I’ve never seen a higher total.

These absolutely clear days coupled with the fact that we haven’t had to run our air conditioner yet means that it’s more likely this time of year that we’ll bank more electricity than we use. The rest of the year we’ll cover 30-50% of our demand, so in essence our solar PV advantage will never be greater than right now. Continue reading →

Can’t get there from here

No-Go Triangle

Why does bus service suck so bad? That’s the question I have after trying to plot a course downtown by bus from our home this evening.

Travis is performing in tonight’s Pieces of Gold performance and needs to be at Memorial Auditorium by 6, so Kelly took him and decided that the 7 PM performance didn’t warrant another trip home. Hallie and I were hoping to take the bus to Memorial Auditorium so we wouldn’t have to fight for parking with the hundreds of other families attending the event but the bus that serves our neighborhood, Capital Area Transit (CAT) bus #3, stops running after 5 PM. Why does it do this? I have no earthly idea.

The result is what you see above. Fully 75 minutes out from showtime, the best that CAT can do is for us to walk over a half-mile to Glascock and hope that the busiest bus in Raleigh has room for two more passengers.

Plain and simple, this service sucks. Sure, there’s a bus stop nearby and apparently plenty of buses available, but try to find one when you need it and you’re out of luck.

Once upon a time, downtown Raleigh rolled up its sidewalks at 5 PM but those days are thankfully long gone. Raleigh really needs to get its buses on a schedule that makes some sort of sense for its passengers.

How Daylight Saving Time is worse than jet lag

I tried to keep my mouth shut this year about Daylight Saving Time. I really did. I was content to let my friend Damon Circosta take point on this as he likes to do, but I found I could hold out any longer. I’ve heard Kelly relate too many tales of office brain-dead-iness (also know as the Daylight Saving Time Fog) this week not to think this cause deserved another rant.

I used to enjoy comparing Daylight Saving Time to jet lag. After a few mornings spent awakening from unsatisfying nights of sleep, it occurred to me that Daylight Saving Time is actually worse than jet lag.

When you fly to a different time zone your body needs to adjust to local time. It does this through environmental clues, i.e. “the sun comes up later here so therefore I need to wake up later.” For instance in both Raleigh and Los Angeles, the local time at sunrise is around 7 AM and when you’re in either one the clock mostly matches the sun. However, when we reset our clocks without “resetting the sun,” none of the accompanying environmental clues are present to help reset our internal circadian clocks. It’s no longer 7 AM when the sun rises.

The result is a confused body and mind that struggle to reconcile this time fiction with what they are actually experiencing in the environment. Thus, Daylight Saving Time is actually worse than jet lag.

Oakwood files bogus DMCA takedown notice

I sympathize with neighborhood listserver moderators. I know what they deal with, having moderated a handful of East Raleigh neighborhood lists for several years. It’s not easy keeping certain topics from exposing strong opinions and blowing up into a major snit. This is especially true with the listserver of a nearby neighborhood, Historic Oakwood, full of very passionate citizens.

Recently it came to light that someone was reposting snippets from this neighborhood’s listserver onto a Twitter called OakwoodListserv. The listserver moderator complained that the account violated the listserver’s terms of use and so the account should be removed. These terms, adopted in October 2013, prohibit reposting list content in other forums without the author’s permission.

These rules are prudent and understandable. Listserver moderators have the right to regulate what goes on on their lists and to expect list members to abide by certain standards. I get that because I’ve done it myself for years. I’ve regretfully had to kick certain members off my lists because they couldn’t behave.

It’s what I didn’t know until today that gives me pause. On March 4th, someone representing the neighborhood filed a DMCA complaint against the mocking Twitter account, claiming copyright infringement. Twitter subsequently deleted the account and there would be no trace of it today save for the DMCA abuse-tracking website Chilling Effects. Here’s the complaint as posted by Chilling Effects:

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Critical crypto bug leaves Linux, hundreds of apps open to eavesdropping

Whoopsie! A big security hole has been discovered in a Linux package. It goes to show that Linux is not immune to flaws. The difference is that with Linux anyone can audit the code. This didn’t seem to happen with GnuTLS because apparently the code was really a mess.

Hundreds of open source packages, including the Red Hat, Ubuntu, and Debian distributions of Linux, are susceptible to attacks that circumvent the most widely used technology to prevent eavesdropping on the Internet, thanks to an extremely critical vulnerability in a widely used cryptographic code library.

The bug in the GnuTLS library makes it trivial for attackers to bypass secure sockets layer SSL and Transport Layer Security TLS protections available on websites that depend on the open source package. Initial estimates included in Internet discussions such as this one indicate that more than 200 different operating systems or applications rely on GnuTLS to implement crucial SSL and TLS operations, but it wouldn’t be surprising if the actual number is much higher. Web applications, e-mail programs, and other code that use the library are vulnerable to exploits that allow attackers monitoring connections to silently decode encrypted traffic passing between end users and servers.

via Critical crypto bug leaves Linux, hundreds of apps open to eavesdropping | Ars Technica.

How can jet disappear? In the ocean, it’s not hard

How can a jet disappear? Good question. Aircraft flying at altitude just don’t vanish without a trace. If a plane breaks up at altitude it will leave a debris field miles long, easily visible to search and rescue teams. If the plane nosedives into the water then there might not be much visible evidence. However, the seas where MH370 supposedly went down are a shallow 200 feet. This is well within diver depths and wreckage should be easy to locate if not by visuals then certainly by sonar.

The article compares this crash to the Air France 447 crash of 2009 as a way of showing how long it might take to find a crashed plane. This is not an apt comparison as Air France 447 went down in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in waters up to 15,000 feet deep and far away from shipping lanes (and even flight paths). The MH370 allegedly went down in shallow water near ome of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — In an age when people assume that any bit of information is just a click away, the thought that a jetliner could simply disappear over the ocean for more than two days is staggering. But Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is hardly the first reminder of how big the seas are, and of how agonizing it can be to try to find something lost in them.

It took two years to find the main wreckage of an Air France jet that plunged into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009. Closer to the area between Malaysia and Vietnam where Saturday’s flight vanished, it took a week for debris from an Indonesian jet to be spotted in 2007. Today, the mostly intact fuselage still sits on the bottom of the ocean.

"The world is a big place," said Michael Smart, professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Queensland in Australia. "If it happens to come down in the middle of the ocean and it’s not near a shipping lane or something, who knows how long it could take them to find?"

via How can jet disappear? In the ocean, it's not hard :: WRAL.com.

Putin’s real fear

Russia has occupied the Ukrainian province of Crimea for over two weeks now. So far nothing’s seemingly able to stop Putin from taking over the whole country. Certainly the war-weary U.S. is not up for taking on yet another armed conflict, and the Ukrainian military is barely holding out.

As the sun soared over my head this afternoon, I realized the one thing that could pull the plug on Putin’s military adventures: the spread of renewable energy. Russia’s military, while formidable in comparison to Ukraine’s, is not Russia’s real strength. Russia’s real strength is the country’s economic might. As the largest supplier of oil and natural gas to Europe [PDF], Putin knows he can get away with just about anything. All it takes is for Putin to merely threaten to withhold these energy sales and the European Union will cave.

Don’t believe me? How else can you explain why a secret briefing document spotted in the hands of an advisor on the way into #10 Downing Street states that the UK will oppose economic sanctions on Russia for it’s Ukraine escapades? Not only are we not talking about a military response but even something as tame as economic sanctions are off the table.

But one thing can shift the advantage to the EU: renewable energy. If the EU invests in solar, wind, and hydro energy it could make natural gas an afterthought and sap Russia of much-needed funds. Renewable energy shifts power from giant energy companies like Gazprom to local control.

Energy independence is what keeps Vladimir Putin up at night because the energy card is really the only card he has to play.