dcarto

Low Power Home Computing

2009-01-03T13:14:00.000-08:00

Does each new computer you buy need to consume more power than the last? Isn't it inevitable that computers and operating systems and software get more and more bloated and computers get so hot you can toast bread on them in the morning? Are power supplies going to be measured in the kW? What, for a home computer?

An 8 watt processor will do it all.

Let's face it, if you're like me, for home computing you just need something that doesn't get viruses, gets your email, maybe serves a printer for the house, runs a scanner, reads cards from the camera, also talks to your portable media devices. You also need an rss reader, a web station and a place to listen to music and watch youtube. This machine does all that beautifully and elegantly, and with little power. I don't have a power meter but I think this server represents a cut of about 50 watts from our 24/7 load.

A few years ago I started to become attracted to linux. One day my OS crashed and I couldn't find the windows XP cd. (I finally found the windows XP cd but now it's gathering dust on a shelf.) I first tried mandrake (now mandriva) and my friend HTP told me about ubuntu. I quickly found out that without antivirus running all the time, linux is like having a whole additional processor core! I soon discovered old computers that couldn't handle antivirus software breathed new life, they lived on when a light OS like x ubuntu was installed on it.

My new low power computer is running xubuntu 8.10 with compiz which makes a very light and elegant desktop. I have compiz running four desktops on a cube that i flip laterally. In this way I can have tasks running on each cube face, kind of like Jefferson's revolving bookstand!

The benchmark for me is how quickly it loads firefox. Xubuntu is generally fast at that. Since this computer will be on all the time I'm already finding it runs lots and lots of processes for me and for the house. There is RAM to spare with a 2GB DDR2 and plenty of desktop space.

There are so many linux distributions to choose from you can choose just what you need and what is right for you and nothing more. In fact I've used some distributions for a single purpose and disposed of them.

Just recently my xeon workstation started to become demented. When its sound chip died, I decided it was time to pull the plug and start anew with something I've always wanted to do, replace the electric space heater with something low power. Heat was what did this thing in anyway. So I chose an intel D945GCLF2 motherboard running the intel atom 330 low power processor. The atom 330 is an 8 watt dual-core hyperthreading processor and it's doing exactly the job I wanted it to do. It's the fastest of the atom processors that are out there now, I wanted to make sure it could handle all the tasks i throw at it.

At the minimum I spent $100 on the motherboard and fixin's but I also bought a few bells and whistles for the case gentrification, another $60 spent on a floppy drive size card reader, a pci card with two usb 2.0 plugs on it, and another floppy drive size usb and audio port up front. I have usb devices coming out of this thing everywhere and it looks like medusa. You can't have too many usb plugs is what I think.

Inside there is a giant heatsink I cemented onto the northbridge that looks like a blue metal sowbug. The dirty secret of this motherboard is the northbridge. If you can wait to buy a low power motherboard, good idea. Wait until this northbridge is designed out of the motherboard. It consumes more power than the processor and it also comes from the factory strapped with a 39 cent fan that is persistent and gnatlike. It's not dentist drill loud but it's sure a whiner. Get some arctic alumina cement and a zalman northbridge heatsink and glue the heatsink on the northbridge. Then get rid of that fan. It still will consume more power than the CPU but at least it's quiet.

By the way, this thing is fanless except for the power supply. I'm going to replace that soon with a fanless one and then in a year or two replace the hard disks with an SSD. Imagine silent computing.

For the case I used an old compaq case that I painted with old paint I found lying around, and the power supply is plundered from a computer in the garage. I thoroughly enjoyed building a computer just how I like it myself "from scratch" and reusing materials whenever possible. This was more difficult than it needed to be because old parts always need adapters and deelybobs to fit new stuff. I ended up cementing the floppy drives in with epoxy because these compaq floppy rails are impossible to find. I found out salespeople crack up at fry's when you say you are looking for floppy parts.

The best feeling is knowing that I can do this again! There was some learning that had to happen on the way there but it's good for you.

There are some intriguing ready-made low power computers out there, among them the acer mini desktop. Making your own computer is great but not for everyone! It sure is rewarding to blog from a computer you built yourself though...

Just some pictures of the garden from July 19, 2008

2008-07-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

Corn. This is popcorn "dakota black". This is part of an experiment to see how people used to grow corn, beans, and squash together in one patch. The beans didn't come up in this end but this is how we learn..

Around the margin here we have some sunflowers and scarlet runner beans. The scarlet runner beans are the only ones to come up and it will be interesting to see what these taste like as frijoles

Cucumbers climbing a trellis

And of course, Tomatoes! I'm getting ready to can these guys right now. We have an assortment of cultivars stupice, early girl, celebrity, roma, shady lady, and a few types of cherry tomato. I think there's a cherokee purple in there or two. Planting some shady lady as an insurance policy payed off because they seem to survive the 108 degree (42c) heatwave we had last week. I wasn't here I was shivering on the equator in Nairobi!

Punica granatum

2008-05-21T19:07:00.000-07:00

On the south side of the house where there is a lot of sun we planted some deciduous pomegranate trees. Well, first we tried one and it did such a great job there that we planted two more.

This one is now three years old. I think it's cultivar "sweet". They are yellow skinned and inside the arils are a clear non-staining pink. The most common cultivar you find in the store is "wonderful".

A giant corporation called Paramount has almost a monopoly on Pomegranate production in the USA so it's good to buy them locally or make them yourself. You really are at an advantage growing them yourself because you have many kinds to choose from instead of just "wonderful". We put one in called "Kashmir Blend" but it's not doing too hot. It could be in the wrong spot. It didn't look too healthy to begin with, so I'm having buyer's remorse.

I really am beginning to appreciate these pomegranate trees. They are very well suited for where they are planted and have the following good qualities:

The tree is deciduous, shading the house in summer and allowing the sun to warm the house in the winter. The trees aren't tall enough yet to provide much shade benefit. But in a few years they should start making a real difference.

The fruit really is delicious, it's as good as you can get in the farmer's market.

The pomegranate tree is drought tolerant. This makes me very happy. The trees happen to be in the hardest part of the yard to pull a hose, and it's nice to know they can tolerate some neglect in the three digit summer temperatures.

Fourth, the tree produces such beautiful flowers. I never thought this tree would have so many good qualities. I hope we make choices this good in the future.

The solar oven in fall, processing squash

2007-10-07T15:31:00.001-07:00

Here is another amazing discovery about the solar oven, it makes cooking a squash a whole lot easier in the fall. You can just cut it in half and put one half each, covered, out in the solar oven all day and then you don't even have to monitor it or think about it again. The squash is ready that afternoon or at dinnertime when it's time to eat.

Right now there is a pumpkin processing out there, we got a sugar pumpkin from the farmer's market, spooned out the guts and seeds, then put each half upside down in the solar oven pots. Put a lid on those and put them outside just as they are, all day, no water necessary, and you have just made your own pumpkin pie filling. Easy!

The seeds are soaking in very salty water, and tomorrow they will roast in one of the solar ovens to become a snack.

By the way, other squashes make great pumpkin pie as well. I just ate a bunch of pieces of butternut squash pie, it was delicious.

The whole house fan

2007-08-04T17:34:00.000-07:00

Sacramento has a perfect climate for a special home appliance called the whole-house fan. I called sacramentowholehousefans.com and they set me up with a wonderful whole-house fan that is quiet and of high quality.

Sacramentowholehousefans.com webpage is simple and in a way underestimates the service that I got from them. What they could advertise is that a thoughtful and licensed contractor and energy specialist would come by the house and discuss it with us, and then have a guy put it in and do a professional job. He also gave me lots of invaluable energy saving advice for my energy independence project.

The fan is called the airscape 1.7 and it operates at only 70W at low speed. Operated for 24 hours, it uses less electricity than our largest room air conditioner uses in one hour. In our climate, cool marine air comes in through the Carquinez Strait on many evenings in the summer. On evenings when the "Delta Breeze" arrives just before sunset it is especially nice. In Palm Springs sometimes it is 100F at midnight, but here most nights you don't need air conditioning at all. And if you use the whole house fan, you can cool the whole house down really well before bed. We've needed a blanket most nights in summer because it drops down to 68F or below in here.

Your local farmers market

2007-07-23T13:54:00.001-07:00

Those of you who know us know we don't ever miss the Sunday farmers market at 8th and W streets. Here is a good reason why, breakfast. The little fish company had a half-off special at the end of the day, and we picked up some of their smoked salmon. It tastes like it was glazed with a ham glaze. Better still, the guy catches his own fish off Bodega Bay so it's not caught in Fiji and hauled all this way to your table. It's expensive but still cheaper than heart medicine.

There's a new cheesemaker and we tried her cheese again. This is an aged cheese, it's creamy like jack but tastes like emmentaler. I think the cheese still needs some work but it's coming along.

This sesame bread came from octoberfeast bakery which makes fine german and european style breads. Their rye breads have a really wonderful energy profile which sustains you through the day better than plain wheat breads do. They are also higher in fiber and low in calories. This sesame bread is one I've never seen before from this bakery. But with the fish, it's The Bomb. It's sort of an unbleached white mixed with wheat french type of bread generously coated with sesame seeds. With fish and cheese, a few nectarines and plums for dessert, we're set.

Apricots

2007-06-22T19:11:00.001-07:00

A picture of a lug of apricots! They were 20 bucks. From Stanislaus County. They're called "ruby red" but i haven't found any information on this type of apricot at all. Maybe the farmers made the name up hoping to trademark it or something.

I also like the way they vary in color when they are laid out on the table like this.

Apricot is the champagne of jams, or is that an appropriate analogy? The queen of stone fruits?

On the windowsill are garden tomatoes... they are all we have from 5 plants all week but they are ripening rapidly as we pass summer solstice.

Solar Powerhouse

2007-06-22T16:29:00.001-07:00

I am really impressed by this global solar oven that i just got. I took her for her maiden voyage today, just by boiling some water as a test. In a word, this thing is powerful.

It is the day after summer solstice at 38 degrees latitude, so this thing is really cranked up to the max.

It has metal reflective wings that collapse, focusing a greater area of solar radiation than its size into the box. It has a carry handle and looks like it will last 20 years. It's made of quality wood and metal with a "made in america" quality. And it features a swinging bench to hold your cookware level no matter how you have the thing tilted to catch solar radiation. In winter you set up an adjustable leg in the back of the oven to aim more toward the horizon. I found it on ebay from a reseller, about $225.

I started a 500ml erlenmeyer flask of 10-15c cold water at 1pm, with no preheat. At 2pm, the beaker was already boiling steadily as shown, the temperature inside the box was 150c. By 4pm it had boiled away 40ml and it was 145c inside the oven. Intense. My math may be wrong but that means between 2-4pm i got around 90,000 joules or 25 Watts?

This is more energy than the SOS sport solar cooker which works more like a crock pot. Since it's gentler I will use this one for cooking food slowly like while i'm at work. It has a different design which makes it a different style of cooker. Testing it now as a fruit dehydrator... A clothespin holds the lid of the SOS slightly ajar so it stays about 80c in there.

The SOS also is wonderful because every one you buy actually buys two, one for you and one for someone in a refugee camp somewhere in the world. So you probably are saving trees while you help win the war on natural gas. Truly a win/win situation.

Post-carbon food preservation III

2007-05-29T22:12:00.001-07:00

These chelan cherries were canned in the solar cooker in two batches, two jars each week. They are reputed to be good pie cherries, but this is all that I will bother with canning until the small, "true" sour pie cherries come out in June or July. This may be the Montmorency variety but I don't know for sure.

Actually the first sunday, May 13, was the most ambitious solar canning day. I had two quarts and a pint of cherries in there, each jar was covered with a black sock to maximize heat absorption inside the cooker. One of the quart jars caved in under the pressure of the sock, so I'm not using this method anymore. Too many precious cherries were lost on that maiden voyage.

So the second sunday, may 20, I only bothered putting two quarts in there. It took 4 hours to can these. This is more than enough time to get home from market, pit 'em, and can a couple of quarts in the sun while doing something else well before the sun sets.

Each quart will make one pie. A pint I figure can make some tarts or something. I put a cup of sugar in each quart jar and that may be too much for the chelan cherries. For the tart July cherries last year it was a good ratio.

The whole process takes 4-5 hours.

Sunshine and warm weather

2007-05-19T23:35:00.000-07:00

A zucchini plant basks in the sun

Tomatoes are getting taller and producing lots of flowers. So far so good. We also have eggplant, basil, cucumbers and sunflowers going. So far so good.

In about 2 hours in the sun you can roast a pound of almonds. Just put them in black pans with the lids off in a solar oven. Here they are slow-roasting at about 225F. I drizzle oil on it and salt them generously before roasting. Seems to do the trick. Also try garlic powder.

The wonderful tiny laundry room

2007-05-19T14:04:00.000-07:00

This laundry room has been a dream of mine for a couple of years. It's a tiny room that had a lot of potential. Taking out the tank water heater not only saved CO2 and energy, but allowed me to bring my conventional top-loader in from the garage. This washer is a fisher/paykel ecosmart which is a great washing machine. The thing saves an incredible amount of water by using only what you need. Other things I like are its direct-drive DC motor, and the fact that the whole thing is sensor driven. If you drop more clothes in the washer it automatically fills with water to incorporate the new clothes. After it rinses your clothes it spins them thoroughly at 1,000 RPM so they are almost dry when they come out of the washer.

Selling the stackable washer and dryer opened up this window, allowing more light into the room. I was then able to put a shelving unit up that i got from ikea. The drying rack can dry every little sock in a load of laundry when I put jeans and towels and tee shirts on the line. I can also use a box fan in the room and the clothes on the rack dry very quickly. So if I don't feel like using the dryer when it rains I have this option as well.

With use of the clothesline and a superefficient washer in cold water, almost all of the energy is removed from the clothes washing process. I find the line doesn't take much more time than using my electric clothes dryer. I use it as a sort of impromptu art project and a way to express myself. What I mean to do is show the outside world that I'm proud to hang my own laundry and maybe they will think it's an option they can use to practice conservation and self-reliance. I don't ever feel like I have to use the clothesline and sometimes I like just to dry jeans and towels on the line while putting socks and underwear in the electric dryer. Jeans feel great dried on the line, and everything smells wonderful when you put it on.

Another thing I love about line-drying my clothes is mrs. mockingbird likes to come visit and chat with me while i'm out there. Her favorite spot is on top of this chimney where she will chatter away.

It's a great excuse to be out enjoying the day and taking in things i had been missing and earning a feeling of satisfaction.

The fisher/paykel washer is supposed to use 1/4 the energy of comparable washers. In addition, using cold water detergents makes using heated water unnecessary in the laundry. On top of all that, if you use a clothesline to dry the clothes, you bypass the most energy-intensive part of the american laundry. I really like how this project turned out.

Tankless water heater

2007-04-15T18:34:00.000-07:00

I'm really interested in trying to figure out how to use less natural gas. I am in as good shape as I can get with gasoline and electricity. But gas is harder. I mean there are ways to save gas that will going to be more difficult than just changing a light bulb.

We just had the plumber put in this tankless water heater that I got a year ago. This thing really rocks. It is a Bosch 125b. It has a 15 year warranty and they are supposed to last longer than that. It was on sale at a store in vermont, $349 for a reconditioned model. I didn't see a single flaw in mine and it works beautifully. It should pay for itself + its installation in about 10 years.

These kind of water heaters are more efficient than our tank water heater by about $100 a year maybe? We'll see. Our plumber said the tank water heaters are like a teakettle that is left on 24 hours a day. It was pretty wasteful and took up prime space. Even though it barely held enough hot water to fill the bathtub 5/6 of the way, the tank was gigantic in the tiny laundry room. It had to be on a stand and in the door right by the kitchen. Because the water heater was taking up half the room, everything in the room had to be in a certain place. They had to have a stackable washer/dryer which blocked the view out the window, and then there was no room for shelving or an iron or even to hang a few shirts in there.

It saves a moderate amount of gas but it really saves a lot of space. We pay a lot per square foot of this house and this thing really opens up the laundry room. We can now sell our stackable washer/dryer and bring in the one we've had in the garage.

Taking a shower and everything is fine and works the same way. The pressure seems a little less to me but you don't notice it in the shower or anywhere except the rate that it fills the tub. Even then we've enjoyed the tub more because like i mentioned, the old tank heater didn't fill the tub all the way.

The 15 watt Tannenbaum

2006-12-06T10:55:00.000-08:00

Okay okay I'm now an LED geek. The invention of the white LED is one of the most significant breakthroughs in recent years, and I can't get enough of them.

Our tree does not skimp on lights. (It's overkill.) I have five strings of LEDs on there (250 lights total) and it's all backlit by a color-changing LED lamp. But all of them together only use the power of 1.5 traditional bathroom incandescent night lights.

If I had used regular incandescent lights instead of LEDs, it would burn over 160 watts to do the same job as the LEDs do on 15 watts. It's a 10 to 1 efficiency leap.

This is the biggest innovation since the electric light replaced the candle on trees. The safety must have improved as well, these LEDs are COOL to the touch even after being on for hours.

Negawatt Christmas

2006-11-18T13:07:00.000-08:00

Time to pull out the string of christmas lights... finding that one
of them is broken and so then they ALL don't work. This was another
great reason to switch to LEDs this year, no more tiny vacuum bulbs to
wear out.

A great reason to switch is they are much more efficient, only 3
1/4 watts per string instead of 50w for the regular kind of little
incandescent christmas lights. Just imagine when we all switch to
these. They are also much cooler in temperature against the dead baby
trees so they are probably safer as well.

The best damn car ever manufactured

2006-09-09T20:28:00.000-07:00

This could be the best car ever manufactured. It's really an amazing car, it's our 2006 toyota prius. We got it because we commonly keep cars a long time, and we wanted a car that would still be viable and useful in 2016. And we want to give the disgusting oil pigs as little of our hard-earned money as possible.

Just about every car on the market is not nearly the efficiency we want in a car. Now whenever I have to rent a gas guzzler somewhere i feel like I'm getting ripped off.

At current fuel prices, the car pays for its advanced technology in a little over 30,000 miles. So if we keep the car for 120,000 miles, we should save an additional $500 a year or so in fuel costs alone after reaching that threshold. People who think these cars don't pay for themselves should check out the latest numbers.

Smog emissions from the car are extremely low. It has three catalytic converters, and it emits 1/10 the average US car amount of smog, and 1/3 the US average for carbon dioxide.

The ride is smooth and it is easy to drive. There is more than enough power. It has a great stereo and a/c, and enough room to put adults in the back seat. Come to think of it, this car would be an ideal taxicab because of its low fuel costs and roomy interior. It has an MP3 player in it and it leaves the 20th century far behind.

Someday when the warranty expires or when i'm daring, I would like to convert it into a plug-in car. There's details on this at calcars.org . The kit consists of a new lithium ion battery for greater storage, and a cord which allows you to plug in to house electric current (110v in the USA) overnight. Basically the car runs with electric power at higher speeds and for a longer time, and only uses gasoline on long trips and to assist the car. Mileage is well over 100 MPG with a plug-in hybrid. Plus we buy wind power so the car would be even more carbon neutral, and the electricity costs 1/4 the amount per mile as gasoline.

Some people use their car as an emergency generator if their house power fails. This is an interesting concept, and it makes sense. You've got the generator, why not use it?

Some statistics we found with the car:
Sacramento - Point Reyes National Seashore and back: 4 gallons of gas.
Sacramento - Oakland and back: 3 gallons of gas.
Freeway, level ground going 70 MPH: 48 MPG. 55 MPH: about 50-54 MPG.
Freeway, heavy stop and go traffic: 55-60 MPG
City driving with traffic lights and slow speeds: 35 MPG

Hybrid owners aren't smug, they're laughing all the way to the bank.

WeBoggle

2006-09-03T21:47:00.000-07:00

Here's a really addictive game that can be played in any web browser, it's called weboggle. I'm wearing out my wrists playing, it's such a challenge.

Born free

2006-08-23T22:48:00.000-07:00

A lot of people don't know it, but there's a lot of good free software out there. I use a few of the freeware programs myself.

For example, why would you want to buy photoshop when gimp is available as freeware? The gimp is the gnu image manipulation program and I've been using it for years. I used photoshop for years before that. It's a bit quirkier than photoshop but you get used to it fairly quickly if you know photoshop, gimp is an easy program to use. If you install it on windows you will need the windows version with the gtk libraries. I even use this at the office, while others have a photoshop license.

The open office suite makes a good freeware office suite for the home. It even writes PDF files, something you can't do from microsoft word without acrobat. It opens and saves word files as well.

I also started using filezilla which is an excellent tool for ftp transfers. I send the filezilla download webpage to people when I send them instructions how to use our ftp site at work.

Here are some notable others. One old standby is the programmer's file editor which I use as a text editor. Sharpreader I've found to be a good RSS aggregator useful for reading the news from 50+ sources at the same time. Antivir is pretty good anti-virus software. However, it's kind of hard to use sometimes and scheduling updates is not straightforward.

Sometimes there is freeware that turns stupid or becomes nagware or worse. That's why oldversion.com is great, you can download the older version of something when it was still freeware. Tired of using a pesky, naggy program just to unzip files? I recommend power archiver 6.00 to do that job, it's simple and good. Winamp 2.8 is probably the best mp3 player, it's about the time Justin Frankel left and before winamp started to really suck after the AOL takeover.

Or how about a new operating system for an old laptop? I've tried xubuntu on an old pentium 2 laptop and i like it very much so far.

Liquid gold

2006-08-06T08:23:00.000-07:00

This is such amazing honey that our friends over at canyon bees honey gave to us. Many thanks to them for this delicious, sweet fluid.

More tomato pictures.

2006-08-06T00:37:00.000-07:00

Okay okay just a few more pictures of tomatoes. There's early girl, roma, black krim and golden jubilee. I think this is it for the determinate varieties. I hope we can get a few more pounds of the early girl at least.

Wonderful tomatoes

2006-07-29T22:15:00.000-07:00

Here is just a snapshot of the tomato harvest from the garden this year. The "early girl" variety have been producing a few weeks and was the first to ripen. Those are the tiny ones at the top of the picture. The "Black Krim" is one of the most interesting tomatoes I've tried yet. Also featured here are some unusual roma heirloom variety and "golden jubilee" which is just now ripening. I wonder what will be the best use of "golden jubilee". Maybe salads with feta cheese? And of course there is zucchini, we have so many! Anyone want any?

Cooler weather is welcome

2006-07-29T20:25:00.000-07:00

Good news, much cooler air is here. It feels more like Santa Cruz than Sacramento after the heatwave the whole state suffered through last week. Today it was in the low 80s and breezy (28c) with sunshine, no pollution or humidity, just gorgeous.

The high temperatures were 110, 111, 108, 105 and 100 on the 22 - 26th of July. This nearly drove us batty. 111 degrees fahrenheit is 44 degrees celsius. And it was humid as well. Today we took a bike ride and it was gorgeous. People were outside everywhere in all the parks, barbecuing and having festivals, everywhere a good time.

Cherry Pie, Anyone?

2006-07-21T14:48:00.000-07:00

I'm back from a short break in creating new posts, caused by getting a new picturephone that didn't work properly. I just wanted to show another example of solar canning that I did this year, these are sour pie cherries which were packed with sugar. The sugar has since dissolved into the pints of cherries. The season was so brief this year that I'm glad that I could can these so easily. Solar canning rules.

Solar Powered Boat

2006-07-18T21:25:00.000-07:00

This solar powered boat is a great idea. I wonder where else this kind of boat would work? It seems like a quiet ride and really low impact.

Summer salads with Black Krim Tomatoes = Good

2006-07-09T22:41:00.000-07:00

Just a picture of today's bounty from the farmers market and the garden. This was an unbelievable salad made from some of the first Black Krim tomatoes of the season, and a sliced, peeled Japanese Cucumber from the garden. Slices of red onion, herbs, and feta cheese were mixed in. Just olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressed the fresh ingredients, and this made a wonderful dressing also for a hunk of fresh sweet french bread. As you can imagine, this was mindblowingly good.

The olive oil and balsamic vinegar actually come from this county. It's made by the Bariani family and it's just delicious.

Sacramento public utility SMUD installs eight 3MW wind turbines

2006-07-08T20:29:00.000-07:00

Each of the eight turbines are 100 feet taller than the statue of liberty. They went online June 1, 2006.

These new turbines increase SMUD's wind energy capability from 16 MW to 39 MW.

There are some really beautiful pictures here taken by some UC Davis students of the new turbines.

If you live in the SMUD service area you might like to join their green energy program. The service costs less than they charge to read your meter, and you can buy 100% renewable power much more cheaply than becoming 100% renewable by installing solar panels on your house.

E-Z roasting in the solar oven

2006-07-07T21:43:00.000-07:00

Just another delicious thing to cook in the solar oven. These are beets that were roasted in the oven for a few hours, they're sweet like candy and the skin pulls right off. Again, no hot oven in the summer to deal with.

I have to tell you they are a treat. They were really good in this salad with maytag blue cheese and onion.

The Last Vacuum Tube

2006-07-06T23:17:00.000-07:00

Many people no longer have tube radios in their living room, but still use vacuum tubes in their homes for lighting. This article in the Minnesota Star Tribune says that often Edison light bulbs are the last vacuum tubes left in people's homes. I thought that was interesting.

There's been a few breakthroughs since Edison bulbs were invented. Lighting by cheap compact fluorescent bulbs are usually more efficient by 4:1. And now they come in all kinds of interesting shapes, including the bulb at left that is the same shape as an old light bulb. This is useful if you have a lampshade that clips on top of an old school bulb.

And now the new LED lighting is much more efficient still than that. It's still expensive, but the price is dropping by 20% a year.

The LED bulb on the left is interesting because it constantly changes color. Try that with an incandescent bulb. It consumes only 3 watts and puts out a good amount of light for the energy used. One of the most interesting applications of LEDs will be turning the walls of a building into a large video screen. Bridges are being illuminated with colored lights in Philadelphia and New York that change colors and consume the same energy as a toaster and a hair dryer.

Post-carbon food preservation II

2006-07-03T09:04:00.000-07:00

The solar canning was a success! I held the temperature of the solar oven at > 250F/120c for over an hour and took them out and the jars sealed. No liquid was added to this jar, it's preserved in its own juice. I pushed quartered roma tomatoes into each jar filling them up to the neck, but I should have crammed them in there. There's a lot of headspace in each jar.

The only things I added were 1/4 teaspoon of citric acid and 1 teaspoon of sea salt to each jar.

The 100% passive process took about 4 hours but it could have taken less time. I was expecting the liquid to bubble out and so it probably sat out there over 250F/120c for 2+ hours. I want to make sure and kill everything that moves and I don't mind the little sun-scorch on the top of the tomatoes.

This is a significant advance in my home. If you're wondering what the big deal is about solar canning I'll try to explain the multiple benefits of it. We live in Sacramento where it's crazy to not grow tomatoes. It's also crazy not to use the sun because it is very intense in the summertime. Air conditioning is expensive, and canning indoors fills the house with hot steam. You sweat like a dog, and it's easy to burn yourself with the hot water. Using a "water bath" canner is inconvenient and too much work. Plus it uses a lot of natural gas. There's lifting and bulky equipment. You can't just can one or two jars here or there, to make it worth your while you really need to get a whole batch together for such a big job.

We are growing 5 varieties of tomatoes this year* and as a group of each variety vine-ripen, they can be picked, washed, cut and canned on-the-spot in the sun to be used all year. It takes only five minutes to prepare two jars and then you peek at it now and then while watching the ball game, that's all.

Microwave 500ml of water to boiling, pour it over jar lids to scald them, rinse and quarter tomatoes and force into washed jars, close tightly, process in solar oven, remove to cool, eat tasty meals in February.

*Early Girl Hybrid, Costoluto Genovese, Boxcar Willie, Black Krim, and Golden Jubilee

Post-carbon food preservation

2006-07-02T12:18:00.000-07:00

The solar box cooker "SOS sport" is preheated to 250F/120c and is ready to can fruit. I just placed some tomatoes in here to see how well they seal up. It should take about 2 hours to bring the fruit to boiling inside the jars. I cored and quartered these and didn't bother with the skins.

You can make a solar cooker yourself or buy one, they're fun to use. Because I'm not boiling any water indoors, it stays nice and cool in the house.

This process is all detailed in Eleanor Shimeall's book "Eleanor's Solar Cookbook" details it all. Her book can be ordered by writing her at PO Box 1022, Borrego Springs, CA 92004 USA.

Mystery Hooch

2006-06-30T16:32:00.000-07:00

I finally did it, I bottled the mystery fruit mixture that i fermented last autumn. It doesn't taste like urine, and it doesn't taste like champagne either. It tastes like white trash wine at its finest. And it will be white trash sparkling wine.

I harvested 25 pounds of fall fruit and blended them into a juicy pulp in a cuisinart. The fruit consisted of 10 pounds of bland red delicious apples, and 15 pounds of asian apple-pears. The whole experiment was to see what I could do with some fruit a neighbor was giving away. He was holding a beer while telling me he couldn't think of what to do with all this fruit, and it gave me the idea, maybe I can make some use of it by fermenting it?

A boiling honey/cinnamon/clove mixture was poured over top the fruit to pasteurize it. Then when it cooled, I pitched champagne yeast in it. I supposed I was making cider or the recipe was actually similar to a "scrumpy" a Cornish cider with a rat in it (you can also use raw beef cubes if you actually want to buy a rat substitute). I chose not to add meat or raisins to this.

It tastes okay, i'm going to keep it bottled until this winter, and maybe age it a few years. It might be good and it might be awful. I tasted some of it and it's weird to say the least. It tastes sort of like spiced honey wine with mystery fruit flavors in it. I guess this is what i was thinking when I made it. Watching it ferment is half the fun, but next time I want to use enzymes to break down the fruit better.

Hungry?

2006-06-28T22:55:00.000-07:00

If you're wondering what this is, it is a batch of tomatillos that have been roasted in the oven. They're going into a blender. There are fried tortillas waiting and i think it's going to be chilaquiles.

I'm starting to get really hungry.

We've been on vacation and it's a good time to be creative. I've been fixing things around the house, painting, setting up the mythtv pvr, plus some cleaning and gardening so far. I've got quite a list going.

Solar ovens, the new microwave?

2006-06-22T09:02:00.000-07:00

Redding, California is a very hot place. In the summer, temperatures reached 110 degrees (43c) fairly often, and the hottest I've experienced was 120 degrees in the shade (49c). In these kind of temperatures, I'd go to my car after work and interesting things would happen. Cigarette lighters leak all their contents. Ice left in a wax-covered drink cup would melt, then the hot water would melt the wax in the cup, leaving a greasy slick on hot liquid. I used to think, what if I put a potato in the car all day? For one thing, dinner would be ready when I got off work.

I was onto something there. A few years ago I discovered that it's possible to cook food in the sun, and the results are excellent. It's not exactly a mainstream activity... there's a microwave, bread machine, and a crock pot in every home but a solar cooker??? Even in perfect climates like Sacramento or Redding for solar cooking, hardly anyone has even heard of the concept. I couldn't wait to try it.

The oven shown is the SOS sport solar oven. It was invented by retired 3m company scientists in Minnesota. It's made from recycled plastic soda bottles and is really effective. Also every oven that you buy sends one to people in poor countries where the amount of firewood and fuel saved is phenomenal. But we shouldn't underestimate fuel savings in the rich world where it's so easy to plug something into the wall, then the plug is plugged into something else, which is plugged into something else, which is plugged into... coal-fired plants in nevada?

Supposedly you can can tomatoes and fruit in it, and I can't wait to try it and report the results. Canning indoors in boiling water makes the kitchen so hot in the summer, you almost have to do it naked, which can be fun.

The solar oven makes very tasty and easy lasagna (no boiling of noodles required), I also use it to make jamaica (hibiscus beverage) and several other things: refried beans, moong or masoor dal, sour chickpeas, brown or white rice. And there are many many more things you can do. Supposedly dead animal parts taste fabulous when cooked in the solar oven. The solar oven society raves about corn on the cob in the oven, but i tried it and was not thrilled, it tasted like you tried to cook it aboard a space station.

One of the best things about cooking in the sun is dinner is ready when you get home from work. The kitchen stays cool so you save energy twice, once by not consuming gas for cooking, twice by not taking the heat out of the house you used for cooking with your air conditioner.

It's as easy to make meals in the solar oven as it is to make things in a crock-pot or microwave. Just about everything I make in it takes 5 minutes max of food prep. The lasagna is truly amazing that way. If you're a busy single person or family who doesn't like to cook, but you like slow home-cooked meals, solar cooking may be for you. These folks seem to like it. When I build the yurt commune to escape a crumbling society, I will need several of them to create multicourse feasts. Kumbaya!

Happy June 21, the summer solstice

2006-06-20T22:12:00.000-07:00

Have a thoroughly enjoyable longest day of the year! Maybe it's a good time to celebrate, perhaps by slowly heating dead animal parts over a flame, then tearing pieces of muscle and skin off the bones with your teeth and swallowing them. Whatever you do, make it a pleasant day!

Low technology

2006-06-19T22:57:00.000-07:00

This battery charger charges two AA batteries in about 2 sunny days. On a good sunny day this thing charges at the rate of 150 ma/hour. I set a pair of batteries out for a bicycle light and that took a week. Gradually the NiMH batteries are replacing all the remote controls and everything in the house.

It's pretty easy and kind of fun too. I particularly enjoy taking a nap with the radio on and letting the batteries run down without bothering to turn the thing off.

I also hate buying batteries and I'm kind of a cheapskate. Battery advertising is also particularly annoying.

I'm not sure if it's the solar charger or the nature of NiMH batteries, but some electronics and motors don't like the batteries. The batteries say 1.2v each on their side instead of 1.5 and this makes a big difference when you multiply cells (4.8 volts instead of 6 volts for example).

This tecsun R-97000DX is my regular travel radio. It can get any FM station you need, plus it has really good AM and shortwave. With analog tuning!

Winning the war on Natural Gas

2006-06-18T10:02:00.000-07:00

With our electricity now 100% renewable and the purchase of an ultraefficient car, we're now going to concentrate heavily on natural gas, because this is now where it's easiest to cut our carbon emissions. In fact, we're at "war on natural gas" for the next two years. So far we haven't been able to do much because many of the structural changes to our life will be in the hundreds or thousands of dollars. Or have we?

I looked at our gas bill for last month, and we reduced our May consumption from 2.8 cubic meters of gas to just under 2 cubic meters. A 30% reduction? How did this happen?

I'm thinking it must be the new showerhead which I love. It works really well and this thing cost only $12 at real goods which is a lot cheaper than new windows, or a new water heater or furnace.

My wife said that she didn't like how it rinsed her hair, but this was the last complaint I heard several months ago. She's been fine with it since then. The old showerhead is still in a drawer in the bathroom and can be reinstalled any time. All these things we do are completely voluntary, and in our house, we are not ascetics... we love luxury, but we make luxury efficient.

The great thing about this showerhead is that I don't ever think about "taking too many showers". I'll take 2 or 3 a day on weekends when i go bike riding or mowing the lawn.

In addition to it being a low-flow showerhead, it also has a shut-off button. For me I'm tall so it takes forever to soap up. I've acquired a new habit of shutting the thing off while I soap up, that must be where the 30% is happening because it takes a while for me to get soapy.

Pay us a visit, the more the merrier! We'll never run out of hot water!

Killer cat strikes again

2006-06-17T21:52:00.000-07:00

As I was saying... my cat Mei likes to kill mice and eat them. This just happened a few minutes ago.

Don't be fooled by the sweet face

2006-06-17T14:13:00.000-07:00

This creature is actually a vicious killer. I've never had a cat that catches so many mice as Mei-guo/Mei-day. And never birds, crickets, or moles, just mice and one rat. We think her dark face camouflages her head at night, but it may also be that she's very fast and athletic.

The rat happened last week, it was not killed but caught-and-released, much to our dismay. She was very proud having it by the neck, but she decided she would let go of it in the house and play with it awhile. She lost track of it and when we showed her where it was under the bookcase, she lost interest and was even afraid of it and left the room for us to shoo out of the house.

Then there are the times when she doesn't completely eat a mouse and I step on a mouse liver or spleen when I get up in the morning. I suppose you really have to like cats to put up with this kind of thing.

The summer beverage of 2006

2006-06-16T23:07:00.000-07:00

Solar Jamaica Aguafresca

Hibiscus sabdariffa

"Roselle or rozelle, sorrel, red sorrel, saril, Jamaica sorrel, Indian sorrel, sour-sour, Guinea sorrel, Queensland jelly plant, lemon bush, rosa de Jamaica, flor de Jamaica, Jamaica, quimbombó chino, Florida cranberry, oseille rouge, oseille de Guinée, sereni, agrio de Guinea, viña, viñuela, vinagreira, curudú azédo, quiabeiro azédo, zuring, carcadé, bisap, and hibiscus flowers -- and there are more!"

This recipe is for each "sport" solar cooking pot. I use both pots and make a large batch. Summer directions (38 degrees N latitude, cloud-free day):

1500 ml water
30g hibiscus flowers (calyxes)
Cane Sugar

Add hibiscus flowers (calyxes) to cold water in the pot in the morning, put in solar oven in the sun. Oven should reach 212F/100c in the late afternoon. Around sunset pour hot brew into large iced tea jar. Stir in cane sugar to taste. Add cold water and dilute to taste, about 1-2 liters. Allow to cool awhile then refrigerate.

This is great over ice, tons of vitamin C. Deep ruby red color. Delicious with beans/rice/tortillas. Also great mixed 1/1 with lemonade.

2006-06-16T18:25:00.000-07:00

No the drier is not broken...

This is an ongoing art piece. Since it's 96 degrees outside (38c) and very dry and sunny, we figure we would just go ahead and use some of the free energy from a huge nuclear fusion power plant that is 93 million miles away.

I read somewhere (probably not such good information) that Californians have a major stigma about hanging laundry outside. Californians think "tenement yard" instead of saving energy and common sense and saving the planet.

Sometimes we hang just jeans and towels, and the shirts I would hang anyway. Why not hang them wet instead? Then put all the underwear in the dryer, it saves like half the electricity. We have renewable power but this helps pay for it.

Severed head flies out of pickup truck during collision

2006-06-16T18:11:00.000-07:00

Severed head flies out of pickup truck during collision

Mrs Potato Head!

2006-06-16T10:21:00.000-07:00

This is a scene from the city that changed my life. This is a triple-decker parking lot for bicycles in front of Centraal Station in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. You can get anywhere by bicycle in Amsterdam, and when you wake up in the morning, what you hear are birds singing, not cars.

When I got back to Sacramento, I decided I would use my bicycle just as much. The weather in Sacramento is paradise compared to the Netherlands. Bicycle riding is instant joy to me, it costs nothing, and there's something about the speed and endorphines combined that lead to a special kind of happiness that non-riders just would not understand.

Additionally, my bicycle is helping my independence movement. What can be a better protest against the war than to stop buying products from the people that brought this war to the world?

I ride only a mile to work, but after a few years of doing this since the war began, I lost 15 pounds. There are so many benefits to bicycle riding that it's almost too many to list. I'll try.

Lose weight
Keep money out of the pockets of oil-war-pigs
Fight inflation
Reduce carbon dioxide emissions
Quiet down your neighborhood
No parking hassles
Bliss

2006-06-15T21:18:00.000-07:00

What does independence mean to you? What does it mean to be independent? This blog is about sharing ways i'm trying to be more independent. Well, it's about a lot of things.

I believe the way we Americans have been taught to use fossil energy developed in a time when there was a lot around and nobody else could afford it. If we blow it, we'll miss out on affording the next energy revolutions. I believe what we are in is partly an inner revolution.

I think leaders may not come around for what we need to do, that we may have to lead ourselves first and be examples to others. We lead ourselves by changing our chemical relationship with our planet and our great-grandchildren.