Hot and humid, probably clear. Mid 90s likely, both in temperature and humidity… summer is here in Houston.
Spent the afternoon doing a round of pickups. I realize it sounds like I’m doing nothing but buying stuff at auction. Well… that isn’t wrong, as such. What might be missing is that I buy almost nothing from stores or online anymore unless it is something very specific that I need quickly. For example, one of the stops yesterday was for cleaning supplies- two gallons of dish washing soap, 4 spray bottles of bleach/soap, and a couple of other things. Was it cheap enough to drive across town? Yes. Absolutely. Some flexibility was involved as the dishsoap was Joy lemon scent, when we prefer the blue stuff, but at only a buck or two a bottle, I’ll smell the lemon…
A stop at goodwill yielded a box of silver colored indoor door knobs because the universe still loves me. I wanted to change out the gold colored ones at the BOL, as most are very worn after 40 years, and they weren’t high quality to start with. I wish they were levers, but beggars blah blah… Flexibility. Anyway, not a priority, but doorknobs are something you touch every day and if they don’t work right, it’s frustrating.
A chat with another seller and he’ll send me advance pics of some of the stuff I’m looking for for the BOL before it hits the auction. People, networking, meatspace. Relationships are important. I’ve been saying it, and I’ll repeat and I’ll repeat and I’ll repeat that you need practice in the secondary economy, just like anything else. It could just be confirmation bias but I’m convinced that you or someone in your group of acquaintances will have to play the role of ‘scrounger’ or supply clerk, or whatever you want to call it, but someone will have to know where to get stuff, who to try getting it from, and what is worth trading.
A lot of preppers talk about stacking stuff ‘for barter’ but they’ve never dickered over a price, or shopped anywhere but a big box store. I don’t stack ‘for barter’ but I do have stuff that I think I’ll need later, and if I need it, probably other people will too. And since no one can go it alone, or stack every thing they might need, it might be that I end up trading or bartering or just plain selling some of that stuff. A HUGE amount of commerce is happening in the person to person space already. That is only going to increase. Get some practice. Hit some yardsales this weekend, and check out a thrift store… driving around your area will help you survey the current conditions near you too. Lots of benefits to getting out and looking around.
The best part of shopping in the secondary economy is saving money. Second best is getting something you couldn’t get otherwise. Leverage it to build your stacks…
nick
69F and 99%RH this morning.
Strange dreams last night. Looking for an odd day.
n
For now, the lawsuits still fly.
Flush with Apple’s money, the local ISD has been on a cr*p buying spree lately and that superintendent has incentive to keep his mouth shut.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-dads-arrested-school-board-meetings-sue-district-violating-free-speech
There was a reddit post about homeschooling, with a pic from a 4th grade science textbook. Maybe it’s clickbait outrage material, but some comments were from people who said that their parents actually used this book.
And it goes on in this vein. No mention of electrons, or batteries, or electrical generation. Are there no restrictions on what crap people can teach their kids? Some level of required quality or standardized tests?
The Bob Jones University Press. Anyone homeschooling their kids out of that imprint are going to be hardcore right evangelical fringe in the US.
Of course, I could probably find more fringe Prog textbooks which are in the public schools paid for by tax money.
The university’s own curriculum turns out competent science graduates, believe it or not. My wife met a couple in med school where the husband graduated from Bob Jones.
Most of the time, the school flies under the radar, but “The Maverick” made Shrub Bush’s appearance there in February 2000 a campaign issue during the primaries since the school had an interracial dating ban at the time.
Of all the media outlets, I remember that “LA Law” made the school famous in the 90s.
Are there no restrictions on what crap people can teach their kids? Some level of required quality or standardized tests?
The bigger question is why can the state compel any specific standards? Society in general has a benefit from a well educated populous but who determines the “well” part?
I’d bet money that the madrasses teach even more objectionable crap and no one is forwarding memes from them….
n
Life seems excessive, and two years actually served, followed by a lifetime ban on practicing law seems about right for torching an empty vehicle.
Randy Weaver has died. Ruby Ridge was an example of goobermint overreach. The survivors paid off with our tax dollars. No matter what you think of Weaver, surveilling on your land, killing your dog when found, then your son and “whoops” killing your wife with a sniper shot to the head, should have led to massive incarceration of the Feds. There are consequences for your actions, but this was beyond the pale.
The police union probably wants the five year maximum sentence.
A working firebomb successfully torching a police cruiser is really crossing the line for a corporate lawyer.
Like I’ve written before, my wife’s partner in WA State had an idiot husband who ran a blog about cocktails but harbored aspirations for radical left wing politics having studied Literature at one of the spoiled rich twit schools in Houston. He’s probably involved with Antifa now. Guys like that need to face a penalty of a serious length of time being anal raped nightly – effectively, the sentence — as a consequence for their actions or their imaginations start to wander.
The couple ended up in Oregon because the husband did something bad while running for Mayor as a fringe candidate out in Fredericksburg in 2010, right after the hospital set his wife up in private practice, spending a bunch of money, only to have them searching for jobs on the West Coast in March 2011.
With our 400-year calendar cycle it is slightly more likely that the 13th will fall on Friday.
The NY attorneys had multiple firebonbs and were trying to share with others. Life in prison would be fitting as an examle. 2 years if an effing leftist joke.
It’s a property crime. Life for a property crime? Be careful what you wish for.
n
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10812643/Moment-pair-gunmen-assault-rifles-kill-man-gas-station-brazen-broad-daylight-attack.html
unless this is mistaken identity, mom is wrong, dude WAS involved with criminals.
n
If you (general you) are so affected by market swings, you shouldn’t be heavily invested in the market. My retirement accounts are down. A lot. Yeah, it stinks, but I’m in for the long haul. Not only am I leaving everything as it is, I’m continuing my normal contributions every month.
I’ve made two changes. Late last year, I started buying ibonds. I’ll probably continue that as a decent place to keep what would otherwise be in a CD (if rates were decent). Also late last year, I moved the money in my son’s 529 plan from an aggressive fund to a conservative fund. I’m treating that as if it’s a retirement account and I’m closing in on retirement – less aggressive.
The Feds will change the inflation calculation used for the I bonds and Social Security COLA.
Absolutely no WMDs in Iraq.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10805419/Solved-Gulf-War-syndrome-mystery-Gov-funded-scientists-blame-SARIN-released-air.html
@Nick
”It’s aproperty crime. “
Disagree. It’s fabricating illegal incendiary weapons and attempting to distribute them. Felonies both. Having them charged as a property crime equivalent to breaking a windshield with a rock is leftist prosecutors supporting the revolution.
@nick: Property crime
No, it’s arson. Once upon a time, it was considered a justified shooting if you shot an arsonist in the act almost everywhere in the U.S.
Fire can spread; it endangers bystanders; firefighters can be injured or killed trying to extinguish it. I found this article by doing a search for “great fires”.
About the same here. My accounts are down over 15% on paper. But I am looking at five years down the road before I need the funds. My stuff is very conservative and is relatively protected from the market downturn. The actual value is much higher than what is showing in my statements as that is surrender value. Held to maturity, even if the market crashes 50%, my principle is still protected as are gains that have accumulated before the crash. My advisor has said to me multiple times, “don’t panic”. I did that once and converted stuff to cash. If left alone would be worth almost double.
The Federal Reserve has manipulated interest rates for years, keeping them artificialy low and making it impossible for investors to get a return. That forces money into more risky areas. Look at investing for retirement ca 1970 vs now for the change in advice on cash equivalent prpprtion as you approach trtitemretirementent.
Very strange.
If I Select All and Copy before posting, I can edit.
Otherwise not.
Popo are busy this morning arresting people. Lots of following them around until they can stop them. Several different ops, including one at an apartment.
n
Friday is a great day for that.
I haven’t suddenly gone all soft on crime or discovered a love of lefty rioters, but you get on average only 7 years for actual murder. They lit a cop car on fire. Potential doesn’t matter. Could of, would of doesn’t matter.
Had they attacked people, in Texas anyway, lethal force would have been justified. I get that, but there weren’t people in the car. If they’d been charged with the federal crime of manufacturing an illegal destructive device, they wouldn’t be facing life. (and that’s a BS charge anyway)
Never give your political ally a power you wouldn’t give your political enemy. WE or people like us could be facing the same situation in 4 years. HeII there are people still sitting in jail for the peaceful protest on Jan 6. because of political and malicious prosecution charged with crimes FAR out of proportion to what they actually did.
I don’t recall if this case the vehicle was old and worn out, but I’ve seen the cops leave vehicles out that they WANT to be destroyed so they can get new during the Ferguson rioting.
Give them a real sentence, make them serve all of it, disbar and ban them from any position of trust or legal responsibility, and move on to the next. Absolutely don’t make them martyrs or cause celebre’.
n
However, nowadays it is OK to burn down a store during a protest of a police action.
If you (general you) are so affected by market swings, you shouldn’t be heavily invested in the market. My retirement accounts are down. A lot. Yeah, it stinks, but I’m in for the long haul. Not only am I leaving everything as it is, I’m continuing my normal contributions every month.
Yeah, I am down about 30% or more. I was heavy Netflix and Amazon. I am still going to keep on buying Amazon stock though. About half of my IRA is in real estate though.
Remember, when the market turns, it will turn quick. It is very difficult to catch a falling knife.
If you (general you) are so affected by market swings, you shouldn’t be heavily invested in the market. My retirement accounts are down. A lot. Yeah, it stinks, but I’m in for the long haul. Not only am I leaving everything as it is, I’m continuing my normal contributions every month.
BTW, my father-in-law left his $300K IRA to his two daughters. He took out the mandatory distributions until he passed at age 87 but his IRA supplements their IRAs and may help with their needs. Think about that also. They both have to mandatory distribute because they inherited it but they have it in their back pockets now for emergencies.
Psaki left the WH today. But not before saying how great she is, and the Dumbocrats, and plugs, and how great DC is. I can’t wait for the female, Black, QWERTY replacement to fumble the ball. What will plugs do then? Can’t fire her due to her sex, race and orientation.
Please, oh please, let that chip off the nearest asteroid take out DC.
Watched an interesting “Nova” last night on PBS about the asteroid that caused the extinction of dinosaurs. Even though it impacted in the Gulf of Mexico, it caused earthquakes that affected the area of North Dakota, where they found the debris from the impact in and around the fossils there.
And the fact that it took many years for the atmosphere to recover from the impact. I think it said that the average temperature dropped by 40F.
All that was from an asteroid that was only 7 miles wide (as I recall). A fragment that takes out DC would have the same world-wide environmental impact, I’d think.
Details about that episode here: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/series/dinosaur-apocalypse/ .
One chip, one chip only Vassily.
Point for movie reference.
Plumbing tip:
I have a couple of these TeraPump TRHA01 Battery Operated Liquid Transfer Pump around for emptying clogged sinks, toilets (no poop!), etc. I tie a mesh aquarium filter bag around the sucky end to keep out chunks. The Twins let their toilet go, so we emptied the bowl for serious cleaning.
“The Hunt for the Red October” . See https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/bab00c8a-09f3-4fb1-a1e2-62768e0c77b3
The dinosaur killer created the Gulf of Mexico. (Or else created a 100-mile crater within the Gulf of Mexico; the articles I found are not clear and consistent and I’m not interested enough to research it.) DC is comparatively tiny, so a comparatively tiny (or slow) asteroid would suffice. Unless you wanted to be really, really sure that no one escaped the hive.
>> Texas homeschoolers are subject to the same requirements as an private or public school.
Does that include passing standardized tests (given by and graded by someone impartial) required for a GED?
RIP Fred Ward.
Like vandalizing Stonewall Jackson statues?
A quick question for the collective:
How much does 4500 m3 of LPG weigh at 25 oC and 50 mbar ?
Am getting what seems outrageous answers from someone 🙁
Preparing to be amazed !!!
xkcd: Crêpe
https://www.xkcd.com/2619/
I love crêpes ! My Dad, myself, my son, and three of my nephews stood at a fancy crêpe stand and ate about 20 to 30 of them in Paris by the Eiffel Tower back in 2009. We had a lot more fun than standing in that hours long line to ride the Eiffel Tower elevator.
And funky non-ASCII characters are tough on us programmers.
Explained at:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2619:_Cr%C3%AApe
Dilbert: Mystery Solved
https://dilbert.com/strip/2022-05-13
Is she legally blind with her glasses on or off ?
Stolen from Monster Hunter Nation:
Them: Why do you always carry a knife ?
Me: The last time I tried to open a bag of chips with my 9mm there were problems.
Joe Dirt’s father!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE7zOyAt14Y
A quick question for the collective:
How much does 4500 m3 of LPG weigh at 25 oC and 50 mbar ?
Am getting what seems outrageous answers from someone
Preparing to be amazed !!!
My software says that an LPG mixture at that pressure and temperature is a vapor. The density is 0.093365 kg/m3.
0.093365 kg/m3 * 4500 m3 = 420 kg
I am assuming that the pressure is absolute, not gauge. If the pressure is gauge then the lpg may be a liquid.
Nope, still a vapor if the pressure is gauge, just much more dense at 2.0184 kg/m3.
“Musk says $44 billion Twitter deal on hold over fake account data”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/musk-says-44-billion-twitter-095443759.html
So not only did Twitter repress the speech of conservatives, they either created or allowed fake accounts to be created. Not good and there is some potential fraud there.
Educate me, please. If LPG is a vapor, is it still considered LPG? Or is it just “gas”, no longer being liquefied?
Educate me, please. If LPG is a vapor, is it still considered LPG? Or is it just “gas”, no longer being liquefied?
LPG is typically stored under pressure, from 100 psig to 200 psig or much higher. At those pressures, most of the LPG is in the liquid phase. There is always some vapor in the top of the propane tank, especially since they stopped putting 20 lbs of liquid in the tanks. But, when the LPG is let out of the container and that pressure drops, the LPG becomes a vapor. Or, the LPG in the container drops and the pressure decreases in the container, therefore allowing most, if not all, of the LPG to flash into vapor.
And yes, even when LPG becomes a vapor, it still is LPG. When you have a propane BBQ pit, if you pull from the top of the propane bottle, you are pulling vapor. If you flip the propane bottle and pull from the bottom, you are pulling liquid. BTW, don’t do that ! The propane burners are built for vapor, not liquid.
And even though the propane tank is called propane, it is LPG. There is a mixture of methane, ethane, propane, butane, pentane, and hexane in there. Propane is just the major constituent.
ERCOT is barely hanging in there. The price of electricity is over $4,000/MWH (the normal price is around $30/MWH). We do have over 3,000 MW of spinning reserve and interruptibles so we are not in a crisis.
https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards
What happened ? The wind stopped blowing. We have been having 15,000 to 20,000 MW of wind all week. But today we are only getting 5,000 MW of wind over the peak.
Next week is gonna suck for ERCOT. Higher temperatures usually mean less wind.
Austin Energy has already been in trouble for outages.
Power at one apartment building downtown has been out for two weeks. That situation smells supply chain related.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/residents-at-austins-northshore-apartments-dealing-with-two-week-power-outage/ar-AAXfywd
That’s only 200,000 Jesus Trucks over peak.
How many is Ford supposed to deliver over the next year? Assuming no mishaps like launching the Bronco?
I figure that Summer 2024 is going to be hilarious for many reasons.
Well, depending on your point of view.
>> All that was from an asteroid that was only 7 miles wide (as I recall). A fragment that takes out DC would have the same world-wide environmental impact, I’d think.
Time to re-watch this for more ideas…
I agree with Lynn 100%.
My BS degree was in Chemical Engineering. OTOH, I choose not to fool with metric units (g, m, deg K, mmHg, etc).
WRT BBQ cooking, I chose not to fool around with going back and forth with LPG containers, full and empty. For gas BBQs, the Weber company makes those burning both propane and methane. Consequently, I tapped into a natural gas line and connect my Webber gas BBQ into that. No, I will not buy XXXXXXX sq, ft. of mirrors and focus them to my BBQ grill.
That’s only 200,000 Jesus Trucks over peak.
How many is Ford supposed to deliver over the next year? Assuming no mishaps like launching the Bronco?
Ford is saying that they will deliver 200,000 Ford F-150 lightnings per year across the USA. They delivered the first truck last month in April.
My BS degree was in Chemical Engineering. OTOH, I choose not to fool with metric units (g, m, deg K, mmHg, etc).
I am beginning to hate multiple dimensional units. At least half of our bugs are dimensional units problems. We support 17 different pressure units alone. I just found out that we do not support mbar and mbarg, we only support bar and barg.
>> “Musk says $44 billion Twitter deal on hold over fake account data”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/musk-says-44-billion-twitter-095443759.html
“…less than 5%…” Oh right sure, chuckle, chuckle. If you believe that I’ve got a great deal for you on
another social media platform called MySpace, err, a bridge in Brooklyn.Smells like Tony buying time for his attorneys and investment bankers to restructure the deal based on the lower stock price.
Has your Texas Governor Abbott suggested building new power plants (conventional or nuke)?
It seems to me that, built or not, even the suggestion would be a nice political hedge for him against blame during power outages.
Two weeks until Stranger Things. I may have to rewatch S04 to get up to speed.
I like ST:Strange New Worlds. I keep waiting for some super-woke crap thrown in.
“Texans asked to limit electricity use after six power plants went down ahead of a hot weekend”
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/13/texas-power-conservation-heat/
“The Electric Reliability Council of Texas is asking electricity consumers to keep their thermostats at 78 degrees or above and avoid using large appliances between 3 and 8 p.m. from Friday through Sunday.”
Six out of a thousand power plants is not bad. Probably all of the hydroelectric plants are down due to no rain. And the wind don’t blow at 100+ F. Hopefully those six were small and not large. The power plants in Texas are anywhere from 3 MW (burning trash dump gas) to 1200 MW (the four nukes).
I like ST:Strange New Worlds. I keep waiting for some super-woke crap thrown in.
I liked it too. Even with them blaming WWIII on the Jan 6, 2021 protest.
The wife is rewatching ST:Discovery all the way through. She likes it even with all the work crap.
Who do you think you are, King Arthur? “One – Two – Four!” “Three, sir.” “Three!”
It must be the whomp-whomp of the rotors, shaking your brain over the years. Sad, really.
Since the freeze last year, the Governor and Legislature have laid low on the issue, hoping to make it through the midterms with their jobs intact.
That’s all that seems to matter in Austin. And chasing Ann Richards’ ghost – the last Dem who beat them.
The Dem Mayor and City Council who run Austin have Ann Richards face hanging from what seems like every lamp post in the tourist areas downtown.
Just wait. Kurtzmantrek. The helm officer and/or the obvious Khan relative security officer are still mysteries, and “Strange New Worlds” will overlap with “The Orville”, where a lot of Stage 8/9 era Trek production people now work, starting in June.
Plus, everything in Hollywood slated for release now was reshot/re-edited to temper the woke after “Ghostbusters” and “Spiderman” made Sony $3 billion last year.
Has your Texas Governor Abbott suggested building new power plants (conventional or nuke)?
It seems to me that, built or not, even the suggestion would be a nice political hedge for him against blame during power outages.
Supposedly Buffett is building ten gas turbine plants across the state on a emergency basis. They will only run when things go really bad so he is bypassing all of the emissions and environmental stuff (maybe his buddy Biden has something to do with this). Seven of the new gas turbines are going in about five miles away from my house. I have yet to go check them out but one of my buddies was installing the natural gas pipeline control system for them the other day.
“…less than 5%…” Oh right sure, chuckle, chuckle. If you believe that I’ve got a great deal for you on
another social media platform called MySpace, err, a bridge in Brooklyn.Smells like Tony buying time for his attorneys and investment bankers to restructure the deal based on the lower stock price.
I read a stock report on twitter today that the price should be $10/share due to the books being supposedly well cooked.
https://finance.yahoo.com/m/bad9ce2b-4f4d-3e25-be26-353e79f354db/are-you-listening-elon-walk.html
If I had to guess, Buffett is adding capacity to the grid for when Berkshire acquires control of Pilot/Flying-J in … 2024 ? … and the truck stops become EV charging lots after the founding family members are sent packing.
A lot of unicorns are going to be headed for the mystical glue factory (now with sparkles!) if Musk can prove his point with Twitter.
Twitter didn’t invent using bots to generate phony numbers for ad revenue.
Real price discovery for the FANGs will involve the “Lean In” twit going back to the only job for which she was ever truly qualified — teaching aerobics at the Harvard Co-Op. Until that happens, only use your beer money.
>> Consequently, I tapped into a natural gas line and connect my Webber gas BBQ into that.
Tapped before or after the gas meter? 😉
Reminds me of the old days back in NYFC where, according to a friend, you could unplug the electric meter and plug it in upside down and the mechanical counters would count backwards. Supposedly, also according to this friend, there were replacement meter seals to be had. Of course, personally I wouldn’t have actually tried this, playing with live electrical connections and all that being so dangerous.
“Misplaced Priorities: While Americans Are Suffering, Democrats Want To Give Ukraine $40 Billion”
https://www.blabber.buzz/global-news/1037905-misplaced-priorities-while-americans-are-suffering-democrats-want-to-give-ukraine-40-billion
How much of that $40 billion is for Hunter and the Big Guy ?
You know, one of these days the money fountain at the Fed is going to run out.
Real price discovery for the FANGs will involve the “Lean In” twit going back to the only job for which she was ever truly qualified — teaching aerobics at the Harvard Co-Op. Until that happens, only use your beer money.
F – Facebook
A – Amazon
A – Apple
N – Netflix
G – Google
is now
M – Microsoft or Meta ?
A – Apple
G – Google
A – Amazon
no reason that this should be in the news:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/05/feds_and_media_ignoring_doubling_of_mortality_among_young_and_middleaged_adults_in_latest_data.html
or this:
Abbott Fires Back After Alarming Psaki Claim About Their Baby Formula
summary: extensive testing found no link of Abbot Labs baby formula to infant deaths, yet the FDA has not okayed startup of the plant that supplies half the antion’s formula, but has been shut since February “just in case”.
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/05/13/must-read-abbott-fires-back-after-alarming-psaki-claim-about-their-baby-formula-n564313
“DOE plans to buy capacity on proposed power lines in first step for $2.5B transmission funding program”
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/doe-capacity-transmission-power-lines-fund-infrastructure-loans/623546/
“The Biden administration sees building new power lines as a key step in meeting its goal of the U.S. having entirely carbon-free electricity by 2035, according to the request for information.”
You know, the REA was a great program 100 years ago. This move by the DOE looks to be a scam to me. They are just renting transmission capacity without building generation. Does not make sense.
“Are All Court-Created Rights Now in Peril?” by Pat Buchanan
https://buchanan.org/blog/are-all-court-created-rights-now-in-peril-159377
If Roe v. Wade goes down, is gay marriage next ?
@Lynn
Lynn knows from daily immersion, but those unfamiliar might be misled a bit by the above statement. (Lynn, please proofread)
LPG is 95% propane and butane. There are grades that call out the mix more specifically, and the winter fuel version contains proportionally more propane.
(note: alkanes are hydrocarbons with single bonds between the carbon atoms. “Normal” is default and refers to a straight chain with no branching. “Iso” has branching, which has little effect on boiling point. “Cyclo” is a ring which elevates the boiling point, but is relatively rare.)
The boiling point at one atmosphere decreases with the number of carbons on the alkane. Hexane is the first to turn liquid at a modest 156F. It’s a useful industrial solvent, so it is drawn off and purified for separate sale, leaving only a small trace in the liquid. (Lynn’s software could tell you how much)
Pentane liquefies next at 97F. Pentane is also drawn off–it’s the primary blowing agent for foam insulation, replacing CFC’s. Note that the change makes foam insulation much more flammable.
Propane and butane are the primary constituents of LPG, BP’s -44F and 32F respectively. (They also have industrial uses, but we have lots so most of it is burned for fuel)
Methane and ethane are the primary constituents of natural gas. They are not liquefied to LPG due to the extreme low temps required. Also, natural gas vapors are lighter than air, and LPG gas vapors are heavier, making leaks behave differently, so there are advantages to keeping them separate.
When doing separations of these gases there are always small amounts of the liquefied gases remaining in the vapor, just as there are small amounts of water vapor in the air when the temperature is below freezing. The reasons are thermodynamic, the graphical representation of which is called a phase diagram, which is a thing of wonder and beauty rendered in exquisite detail by Lynn’s software as a seas of digital data.
@Lynn–I recently recommended Kean’s “Caesar’s Last Breath” and would do so specifically to you as it has very interesting details on development of the Haber-Bosch process for fixing nitrogen, which is industrially very similar to the development of Fischer-Tropsch for coal gasification. Since reactor conditions for the former are much higher temperature and pressure, the technology was at hand when the need turned from munition feedstock to fuels.
For anyone else, I’d say the book is worth reading just for the chapter on the development of surgical anesthesiology.
Couple of glaring omissions, though.
ADDED: There is a natural gas variant, compressed natural gas or CNG that is gaining some ground as a transportation fuel. The beauty is that you can have a dual-fuel vehicle and change from CNG to gasoline with the throw of a switch. 10-12 years ago I advocated converting government fleets like the post office to CNG when the price was very low compared to gasoline. A home compressor station is relatively inexpensive for nightime “charging”, unlike the electrical charging, and for the most part does not require changes in infrastructure.
“If Roe v. Wade goes down, is gay marriage next ?”
Marriage is not a right listed in the constitution, but it has been recognized by religions and governments for millennia.
Unlike abortion, there is a tradition of marriage. Across cultures that tradition includes polygamy and polyandry, and more esoteric forms such as line marriage have been discussed (see Heinlein). Historically, marriages have been common at much earlier ages than is considered legal in the U.S. Other restrictions due to consanguinity, race, and mental capacity were also common and legal.
Race restrictions on marriage were thrown out with all such restrictions. Good riddance. Mental health rules have also been changed, although not unifromly and not with as much public fanfare.
But also historically, gay marriage has not been within the commonly accepted definition. The U.S Supreme Court conjured it as a right. But note that otherwise state laws have been left in place.
And laws in the U.S. over time coalesced into a definition of “one man and one woman of legal age” even with some variation on legal age. There has been speculation for some years that a successful challenge might take place based on other world customs. It would not surprise me if such a challenge materialized out of Hawaiian or American Indian origins, or were manufactured out of Wiccan or other New Age inventions.
Wasn’t that the scam that Kenny Boy ran at Enron in California 20 years ago?
IF there is a change to the one and one definition of marriage, or the lower age limits it will come from islam. They just ignore the current laws anyway.
n
“A lot of unicorns are going to be headed for the mystical glue factory (now with sparkles!) if Musk can prove his point with Twitter. ”
Twitter claims to determine 5%. Musk is reasonable in requiring them to defend that numbers. I don’t Twit myself, but have read some responses from people claiming up to 50% is more reasonable. If the value of the company is due to the number of actual users now and projections of future change (as growth), then it’s reasonable that the data and methods be public, just ad calculations for oil and mining reserves and other SWAGS be public.
The fact that the stock price tumbled -25% on the news of such a simple request is telling. Despite the rebound to -10% when Musk affirmed his intention to buy the company, there’s a strong indication in that large reaction that the stock price is very elastic with respect to user base, and that a large number of investors are well-aware that the numbers are likely inflated.
If public disclosure shows that 5% is wishful thinking and the real number is 10-15% or even higher, then whole levels of managers will lose their jobs and we’ll be looking a t clawbacks and prison terms and Enron comparisons.
Enron took Arthur Anderson down with them. The follow-up question is: What enabling companies will be at risk in a Twitter debacle?
The regulators, of course, will be blameless, and clamor for new authorities and bigger budgets, so that question becomes: Who is the new John McCain?
Wasn’t that the scam that Kenny Boy ran at Enron in California 20 years ago?
My understanding of the “scam” is that California first started having electrical capacity problems 20+ years ago. So, various power generating entities would report that they were not available to force the prices up, creating a shortage of power generating facilities. Some of those facilities had severe time limits on their power generation due to environmental limits with soot generation due to 1950s gas turbines on liquid fuels, etc.
There is a youtube video of my high school valedictorian, Joe Bob Perkins, testifying to Congress about this back when he was president of Reliant Power Group. Joe Bob and I used to carpool to TAMU and back. He had several power generation units in downtown Los Angeles, hidden inside fake buildings, that smoked when running. He had to pay an environmental fine to California every time he ran them. The fine incremented over time. He also had to call out operators since the units were not usually staffed.
I would not call it a scam. I would call it the power units were not available for running more than X hours per year, X being less than 100 hours or something like that. California was trying to run the units 100 days per year, 6 to 8 hours per day and that was not compatible with his limits. The units also had severe maintenance requirements after so many starts and operating hours.
My wife got a three figure dividend check from PG&E today. This is the first dividend check that she has gotten from them in years. She got the stock from her Dad. I am amazed, I thought that California had permanently sucked all of the blood out of PG&E.
AC Nielsen and whoever else was involved in justifying the shift from traditional media to online.
Arthur Anderson deserved the death penalty. Enron was the prototype of a whole new class of services to the Fortune 500 that the firm planned to roll out if they hadn’t been stopped.
@Lynn
Within the space of a few months more than 20 years ago I happened across several histories of small electric companies and picked them up because they looked interesting. Ever since then I have kept an eye out and found a few more, although not actively collected. One of the common threads is that their management was called to Washington by Emperor Roosevelt’s Stazi and forced to surrender, even if they didn’t have any problems that needed fixing.
(As an aside, there were hundreds of company-owned banks that were closed during that time, but two company’s banks met the new requirements, stayed intact and thrived for decades.)
Having some nameless sacks of fertilizer in the U.S. guberrmint be in control of the means of delivering electricity without having to follow any rules but their own whims is bad enough, but having it happen when said gubbermint is led by a vegetable past ready for composting is indeed frightening. One can only imagine the excuses that will require the curtailment of electrical power to the non-blue.
ADDED: How are they renting capacity? Do they have time when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine? If the transmission capacity is dedicated to renewables, then watch for any excess to be sold at exorbitant price to conventional power generation as a means of obfuscating the high cost of non-dispatchable power.
Of course they did–they weren’t even capable of identifying a company that was losing money.
The question remains what companies might be collateral damage to a Twitter implosion and what are the slicky boys doing with the stock?
It has been a while since I saw “The Smartest Guys In The Room”, but I remember that one of Enron’s antics covered in the film was renting transmission line capacity that they had no intention of using.
The film is really dry. It isn’t “The Big Short”.
The Chinese relations bit hard on Enron because Number One Son’s wife started at Portland Gas & Electric as a temp and manipulated her way into a permanent exec position, convincing everyone to buy the stock.
The crazy thing is, the management’s email exchanges about Number One Son’s wife’s manipulating the manipulators are covered in the email corpus. She was shocked when I told her I had seen the messages in my research work data mining the emails.
Already a caucasian woman, a ginger, she turned nearly translucent she got so pale.
Vanguard held 8% of Twitter and increased their stake to 10% when the rumors started about Musk buying the company. Whether or not the company did anything illegal, it wouldn’t be good if Vanguard started pursuing an agenda.
Some reforms were already coming regarding the large index fund companies and the voting power they hold in major corporations. Twitter may be the catalyst for an accelerated timetable.
Vanguard held 8% of Twitter and increased their stake to 10% when the rumors started about Musk buying the company. Whether or not the company did anything illegal, it wouldn’t be good if Vanguard started pursuing an agenda.
Some reforms were already coming regarding the large index fund companies and the voting power they hold in major corporations. Twitter may be the catalyst for an accelerated timetable.
Plus, if Twitter was lying about their number of users, there may be a whole lot of stockholders suing them for fraud. The lawyers will win as usual but Musk may get scared off with that kind of liability facing the company.
Blackstone ? will not allow Congress to force it to do anything without a serious public outcry.
It has been a while since I saw “The Smartest Guys In The Room”, but I remember that one of Enron’s antics covered in the film was renting transmission line capacity that they had no intention of using.
The film is really dry. It isn’t “The Big Short”.
I tried to watch that once, got five minutes in and gave up. “Dry” is being kind.
Enron’s big failure was they were trying to set up their version of Netflix video streaming without being technology ready or really understanding what the problems were. Netflix organically grew the video business from mailing DVDs to people to streaming the DVDs over the internet. Netflix made a lot of mistakes and survived them. Enron did not.
Enron was going to serve all of their video streaming from their 50+ story building in downtown Houston. They had that building wired with multiple fiber lines going to each floor with fiber routers using the old glass cables. Hundreds of fiber routers just inside the building. Thousands of web servers inside the building. Billions of dollars. Horribly expensive back in the 1990s.
And then Tropical Storm Allison happened in 2001 (36 inches of rain in downtown Houston) and flooded the building from the rooftop elevator shaft covers just before they went online. They had 2 to 6 inches of standing water on every floor of the 50+ stories. They had to replace all of the fiber routers and web servers on each floor, horribly expensive.
Oh yeah, them cryptocurrencies are definitely a safe investment…
“There has never been an event in crypto where $80 billion was wiped out of the market, never,” he told her in a webcast. “A lot of people lost a lot of money on Luna…and these are crypto believers.”
https://fortune.com/2022/05/13/luna-terra-ust-stablecoin-do-kwon-wife-protection-crypto-crash/
“Super Flower Blood Moon 2022: Everything to know for the total lunar eclipse”
https://www.space.com/blood-moon-lunar-eclipse-may-2022-guide
“While timing depends on your location, TimeandDate.com says the partial eclipse begins May 15 at 10:28 p.m. EDT (0228 GMT on May 16). The Blood Moon will peak May 16 at 12:11 a.m. EDT (0411 GMT). Then the event ends at 1:55 a.m. EDT (0555 GMT). Note the penumbral moon ohase of the eclipse will begin about an hour earlier and end about an hour after the partial eclipse.”