You’ve seen those page-long legal disclaimers that legal counsels require on outgoing e-mails? Well, I’ve been dealing with an Irish company that has the best one ever:
If this e-mail does not relate to Company‘s business then it is neither from nor authorised by Company
Short, to-the-point, and all you need.
Further to winter, we’ve just had our first anemometer icing event in Alberta. Let it snow, etc.
Well, that’s CanWEA 2005 fully over. Yes, I’m still sifting through the contacts, brochures and swag I picked up, but it’s back to work for me.
I met a lot of people (including, quite unexpectedly, Stuart Hall of Natural Power in Scotland, whom I hadn’t seen in about 8 years), and the show seemed to be absolutely jumping. Could 2005/2006 be the year that Canada gets wind energy?
So I’m at the 2005 CanWEA conference for the next few days. The swag bag is a standard nondescript nylon thing, thankfully big enough to take my iBook and a few other bits and pieces. The contents are a bit disappointing, though:
You’ll note an absence of useful pens, pads, USB keys, model turbines, or other special swag. I was hoping for more …
The Decemberists were as great as ever last night. We snagged comfy sofas up on the balcony at The Phoenix, so it made up for the usually dire venue.
I’m definitely showing my age, though. When they played a demento-rock version of ELO’s Mr Blue Sky, I was about the only person who could sing along.
Hope that Derek got his laguiole back; it was confiscated at the door …
— from the very wonderful Animals Have Problems Too.
(the above image is copyright 2005, Zach VandeZande, btw)
got a tall Estima (supposedly fair trade — they didn’t know) at the First Canadian Place branch at Adelaide & York, Toronto. It’s okay, but most fair trade coffees are too light for me.
Paul’s Subaru hit 400,000km today. This, according to Nick — who is also a car mechanic — is quite something considering it’s on its original engine and transmission, and hasn’t had significant engine work done to it.
My dad called yesterday, asking, “Wind turbines do run for more than 25% of the time, don’t they?”. Seems he read an opinion piece in his favourite fair ‘n’ balanced rag (The Telegraph) that said that wind turbines only run 25% of the time.
I see this factoid popping up more and more from the anti-wind crowd. It’s a particularly difficult one to refute in the press, as by the time you’ve tried to explain the difference between capacity factor and operation time, you’ve lost them. Or gone over your allotted time/word count, at least.
I’ve got a year’s production data from WindShare/Toronto Hydro‘s turbine in front of me. It’s on a marginal site, one that probably wouldn’t be developed by a commercial entity. So, does it run for more than 25% of the time?
Yes; the turbine is generating 63% of the time. I’ve defined generating as providing a net export of power to the grid. Our turbine’s a bit more cranky than most, and I have a suspicion that our metering system is dropping some production, but even so, 63% is way more than the claimed 25%. So it gives me great pleasure to say:
MYTH: Wind turbines only run for 25% of the time.
BUSTED! Wind turbines run at the very least 60% of the time, usually more.
(I can’t guarantee that Country Guardian won’t quote me out of context. I could make a cheap shot about not blaming them for their paymasters in the nuclear industry requiring value for money, but I won’t …)
Anent George W. Bush’s “God Told Me To Do It …” revelation, was it purely coincidence that the week’s quotation in Catherine‘s Women Artists Datebook is:
I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.
— Susan B. Anthony
?
Steve’s experience with natto — the fermented soy beans of doom — pretty much matches mine, though I suspect he liked it a bit more than I did.
I have found my OS X virtual workspace manager: Desktop Manager. It does exactly what I want.
I used to be an avid reader of Adbusters, but now I’m letting my subscription slip. It used to be quite amusing, but it’s taken itself far too seriously for the last couple of years. When the stuff about subvertising went, so did my interest.
We’ve had our first frost at a measuring site out in Alberta. From now on, it’s data censoring for frozen anemometers until April next year …
Ever get one of those sales call-centre calls where you get some automated message before an operator picks up? We get a lot of those, and usually it’s fairly easy to tell they’re automated.
The one I just got was somewhat lacking in clues of configuration: “This is the default message for the live person message.”
I so hung up on them.
Perhaps the best game ever: 3D Death Chase. It helps if you play it at the full speed your computer allows 😉
Coo, was I really all fired up about Dexit, like I appear to have been in January 2004? ‘Cos, basically, Dexit sucks.
The coffee place I get my morning fix got rid of its unreliable Dexit machine when it changed hands. So I’ve got nearly $70 sitting on the useless Dexit tag, doing nothing.
Today I called for a refund, and discovered that Dexit won’t refund your balance. I wouldn’t have signed up for it if I’d known there’d be this in the ultra-sneaky Dexit user agreement (PDF):
Only in the event of your death (and upon receipt of such documents as Dexit reasonably requires in such circumstances as to whom is entitled to your estate funds), or Dexit closing your Dexit Account without cause, will the remaining funds in your Dexit Account be repaid to you. “Cause” will include any violation of this Agreement, any fraud or attempted fraud, any other operation of the Dexit Account or use of a Dexit Tag in an unsatisfactory manner, or non-use of your Dexit Account for over three (3) years.
So, do I hafta kill myself to get my money back?
Oh, and Dexit’s phone support staff are untruthful. I needed to speak to a supervisor. They promised one would call before 8pm this evening. It’s 9:55 now, and I’ve heard nothing.