Dumberer

Being smart is not as great a defense against being dumb as you might think.

Case 1: Thinking about the problem with transporting archery butts around (they're bulky as hell because they have to absorb multiple arrows) I thought "They should make inflatable targets". I almost immediately realised why that wasn't such a hot idea.

Case 2: My phone has been AWOL since Sunday night. Today, while trying to find it, I thought "Wouldn't it be great if cell phones has some way of indicating where they were - some kind of noise making capability."

*beat*

I then went and called my cell phone from my land line and heard it ringing in my bed room. It had fallen behind a bed leg.

D'oh!

Responding to Reverse Metering Musings

I'm going to respond to evilscientist here because I think he should enable comments on his LJ, plus I think it deserves a wider audience.

He makes some excellent points about reverse metering (basically allowing end users to sell back energy they've produced - with a backyard wind turbine for example - to the grid).

Yes, the energy producers will bitch about lost revenue. The counter argument is that as long as Alberta has oil, we'll be growing. I assert that this growth will outrace any amount of extra "backyard capacity" growth. They may still complain that that extra growth is rightfully theirs, but at least they don't have the argument that they'll lose money.

On the flip-side, once that oil is gone, you're going to want all the solar panels and wind turbines you can get. Better to already have them in place then try to buy them with money you no longer have.

The counter to their lobbying is to get the other side to lobby. Not the tree-huggers though, because this is Alberta and valid arguments from environmentalists are dismissed out-of-hand here. Sad, irrational, but true.

There are two groups that need to lobby and they have the advantage that they will get a fair hearing: Retailers (like Canadian Tire) who sell the solar panels and wind turbines that people are likely to use and farmers, who stand the most to gain, revenue-wise, from such a scheme.

Get these people on your side and it will happen.

Thinner-Then-Paper Cut

I have a friend with a need for magnets. So I spoke to our IT department head and asked if we had any broken hard drives.

"Plenty", she said, "I need to destroy them to make sure nobody can get the data off them."
"Can I dismantle them? I want the magnets inside."
"Sure, just give me the platters when you're done."

I took about a dozen busted drives back to my office to dismantle a few of them. I don't want to do the all in case hard drive magnets are not what she wants.

Working on the last one of the initial set I look down to see my thumb is bleeding. I managed to give it a fine enough cut that I didn't even notice it when it occurred. I suspect it was one of the read/write heads in the drive. They're so thin they're barely there at all.

I now have ten magnets all for the low low cost of a few drops of blood.

Only One Living Link Left

Barbara West Dainton, believed to be one of the last two survivors from the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, has died in England at age 96.