My nice 19″ Neovo monitor broke a few months back. It sat in the dust for 3 months before I got it fixed. Why oh why did I wait so long?! Using only 1 monitor is like geeking with one hand tied behind your back.

I caught this radio show a few weeks ago and now I’m listening via podcast a lot. Work with Marty Nemko is a really good program.

I very much enjoyed this show:

7/6 Mary Ruwart, Libertarian presidential candidate, who argues that Libertarianism is best for American employees. To hear or download the show, click HERE

Here is a local archive. You’re very welcome to listen!

Marty asks intelligent, supportive and critical questions of his guest.

Listen to more episodes of Work with Marty Nemko here. Or via NPR podcast here.

If you have lots of books to get rid of, Amazon.com can be a good way to sell them. Here are some tips. I’m making this list because I just went through another round of selling stuff and want to remember it for next time.

• Find the book on Amazon via the ISBN number. It’s easy to find on the back right next to the bar code.
• Say something nice in the listing like “ships from San Francisco”. If the book is under 13 oz, you can ship it USPS first class inexpensively and legitimately mention “fast shipping”.
• Always make sure yours is the lowest price listing.
• Offering “expedited” or “international” shipping is a bother and usually not worth the money.
• Stamps.com is a bargain if you have a lot of items to ship in a month. They charge $15/month but you get to print the return address, address and postage all in one go, saving time. And you just have to copy and paste the address. Most importantly, the envelopes are then not “stamped” but “metered” and you can drop them in any USPS drop box no matter how heavy they are. USPS.com has/had a similar option on their website but it’s a pain to navigate (it’s the government, who’d have guessed!)
• Use UPS labels, 2 labels per 8.5×11″ sheet. They are free (for shipping UPS items only of course) from ups.com. I usually use the second label on the page to seal the envelope.
• Use 9×12″ manila envelopes. They are inexpensive and most books fit in them. Note that a padded mailer might cost $2.00 each while these cost $0.20 each. They also qualify as “envelopes” and not “packages” so they ship cheaper
• Use USPS “Bound Printed Matter” or “Media Mail” rate.
• Use a postal scale.
• Amazon should have a “I shipped this item” checkbox next to your sold items but they don’t. I use the change in color of a visited-link to note when I ship.

Solar proponents claim that electric rates in California have been going up significantly faster than inflation, making solar a good deal. Here’s the data to prove it.

http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricity/weighted_avg_retail_prices.html

Utility-Wide Weighted Average Retail Electricity Prices 1980-2005

(nominal $) (cents/kWh)

Year 	PG&E 	SCE 	SDG&E 	LADWP 	SMUD 	BGP 	ESPs 	Other Municipal Utilities
Historical
1980 	4.76 	6.09 	8.43 	5.61 	2.53 	6.72
1981 	6.05 	6.45 	9.36 	6.16 	2.82 	6.48
1982 	6.24 	7.37 	11.26 	6.11 	3.03 	7.60
1983 	6.42 	7.42 	11.66 	5.85 	3.75 	7.48
1984 	7.86 	7.64 	11.80 	6.08 	3.92 	7.79
1985 	8.73 	7.94 	12.84 	6.54 	4.56 	7.81
1986 	8.72 	8.20 	11.66 	6.74 	5.45 	7.65
1987 	7.56 	8.19 	10.42 	7.09 	6.64 	8.22
1988 	7.85 	8.51 	9.82 	7.57 	7.35 	9.05
1989 	8.79 	9.17 	9.51 	8.06 	7.41 	9.50
1990 	9.24 	9.45 	9.22 	8.39 	8.27 	9.82
1991 	9.87 	10.07 	9.36 	8.23 	8.30 	9.91
1992 	10.42 	10.36 	9.47 	8.62 	8.21 	10.34
1993 	10.59 	10.06 	9.89 	9.13 	7.69 	10.96
1994 	10.71 	10.28 	9.69 	9.53 	7.96 	11.49
1995 	9.89 	10.46 	9.67 	9.14 	8.18 	11.43
1996 	10.20 	10.22 	10.36 	9.12 	8.14 	11.36
1997 	10.30 	10.22 	10.70 	9.36 	7.92 	10.51
1998 	9.74 	10.10 	10.16 	9.76 	7.63 	10.95
1999 	9.81 	10.05 	10.16 	9.75 	7.60 	10.96
2000 	9.82 	10.12 	13.72 	9.79 	7.61 	10.97
2001 	11.74 	12.87 	13.66 	9.79 	9.26 	13.57
2002 	12.72 	12.82 	14.45 	9.80 	9.27 	12.72
2003 	13.18 	13.16 	14.26 	9.80 	9.81 	12.43
2004 	12.72 	12.18 	14.55 	9.66 	8.60 	11.88 	6.19 	9.34
2005 	13.07 	12.93 	14.72 	9.31 	10.10 	11.97 	6.44 	9.51

Note: Energy Commission staff estimated these prices using data from EIA, utility websites and submittals during the IEPR cycles.

Utility-Wide Prices - These include prices for residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural customer classes.

BGP - This category includes electricity rates for customers of the cities of Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena.

Other Municipal Utilities - This category includes rates for Redding Electric Utility, Silicon Valley Power, City of Anaheim, Riverside, Roseville, Modesto Irrigation District, Turlock Irrigation District, and Imperial Irrigation District.

ESPs - These rates only reflect the generation portion of the total rate. Other charges such as T&D must be added. ESPs - Energy Service Providers include Arizona Power Service (APS), Constellation New Energy (CNE), Pilot Power Group, Strategic Energy LLC, and Sempra Energy Solutions.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html

Table 5.6.A. Average Retail Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers by End-Use Sector, by State, November 2007 and 2006 (Cents per kilowatthour)

                Residential	Commercial	Industrial1	Transportation	All Sectors
California  	Nov-07 	Nov-06 	Nov-07	Nov-06  Nov-07 	Nov-06  Nov-07  Nov-06 	Nov-07 	Nov-06
California  	14.26  	14.47  	11.94  	12.23  	9.75  	9.66  	7.8  	7.27  	12.23  	12.38

http://www.neo.ne.gov/statshtml/115.htm

 Average Revenue per Kilowatthour by State
(Lowest to Highest Rate as of November 2007)
Rank 	State 	Average Electricity Rate for
All Sectors
(Cents per Kilowatthour)

39  	Maryland 	11.58
40 	District of Columbia 	11.99
41 	Vermont 	12.11
42 	California 	12.23
43 	New Jersey 	12.84
44 	Alaska 	13.12
45 	Rhode Island 	13.55
46 	Maine 	13.66
47 	New Hampshire 	13.68
48 	Massachusetts 	14.71
49 	New York 	14.90
50 	Connecticut 	15.77
51 	Hawaii 	23.67

More info http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricity/index.html#rates

A while back I was considering getting a handgun. I wanted it to be easy to handle for both myself and my girlfriend. I decided on the Beretta 92FS. Actually, the box tells me that it’s a Beretta M9, the same thing with different markings.

I was a little disappointed because although the Springfield XD9 is very sexy, the grip is too large for my dainty woman’s hands. No matter, the Beretta is a fine handgun.

For your pleasure, here’s some links and research I did in buying the gun…

*  Charlotte talked with a very nice female cop, she recommended Glock47, Glock 27, Glock 26. And to check the website for Kahr arms …..LC action drop down menus on weapons….. Weapons for women…..

* Beretta 92FS. $575 The official handgun of the US Armed Forces

* Beretta 92FS Vertec site reads “good for small handed shooters”(?)

* Springfield XD9 4″ $500 grip safety but no thumb safety. Inexpensive, comes with case, 2 magazines. Green bi-tone is pretty.

* Springfield 1911-A1 9 MM. Model PI9134L  Thumb safety, grip safety, more expensive, single stack

* Smith & Wesson 3913 recommended by http://www.womenandguns.com/wfn/somany.html

* Browning HiPower recommended by http://www.womenandguns.com/wfn/somany.html

Other info

At Jackson Arms, Monday night is Ladies Night (1/2 price for Ladies). They have Berretta 92 and Springfield XD9 but they’re both broken :-(. Call back in a few weeks.

Use http://gunbroker.com to figure street price

Maybe buy a gun from On Target Guns & Accessories in Ukiah CA 707-462-8513

Maybe buy a gun bag from http://Tommysgunpack.com. They are often at local gun shows

Maybe call these ranges looking to rent handguns or to shoot at

http://www.corneredcat.com - A great site with info like how to rack a pistol if you aren’t strong and how to dry fire and such. And it’s pink!

http://www.pistolprowess.com/Choosing_a_Pistol.htm Double-action / Single-Action (like on the Beretta 92FS) is bad: “With a DA/SA gun not one but two different trigger pulls must be learned. Novice shooters often pull their first shot low as a result of the heavy DA trigger”

“Typically “single stack”, designs such as the 1911 models work well for shooters with small hands”

http://www.womenandguns.com A good site, check out the forums too.

http://www.sightm1911.com The M9, Beretta 92 F, has the smoothest slide and the lightest recoil spring of any major caliber pistol I know

Good for small hands ParaOrdnance 18-9 (according to: http://womenandguns.servertalk.in/womenandguns-ftopic850-0-asc-15.html)

http://womenandguns.servertalk.in/womenandguns-ftopic850.html

To reduce recoil, don’t get porting; it’s louder and has more flash, which could temporarily blind you consider getting Shok-Buff (http://www.wilsoncombat.com/a_shokbuff.asp) instead

I just took over administrating the QBOX Events mailing list. Laughing Squid is apparently getting out of the Mailman mailing list business.

This from the mailing list itself:

Charles Gadeken charlie@NOSPAMcellspace.org
Wed, 08 May 2002 16:51:13 -0700 (PDT)

• Next message: QBOX Events: QBox Events
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

---

Welcome to the QBOX list. This list is managed by Charlie Gadeken, if you have
any questions about how you ended up on this list feel free to ask me.
charlie@NOSPAMqbox.org If you do not want to be on this mailing list please follow the
link at the bottom of this message and unsubscribe yourself. 

This is the very first mailing for this new list. Many of you were on the My Old
Burningart Presents list, some of you are just my friends, others have requested
to be on this list directly. 

On the list you will hear about Events focused on mechanical, kinetic and
electronic art in the Bay Area. I expect to send out about one or two mailings a
month. All of these posts will be related to performance events, lectures and
gallery shows that support mechanical, kinetic and electronic art in the Bay
Area. I will be sending out an announcement for a show this Sunday "Power Tool
Drag Race after Party" which will follow this message.

Thank you for listening and i look forward to seeing many of you at our upcoming
events. 

charlie gadeken
director: QBOX
http://www.qbox.org

You can subscribe to the list via qbox.org or here.

I just finished reading “Farewell, My Subaru” by Doug Fine.

I don’t like his writing style at all. He mixes exaggeration, humor, and supposed facts such that you can never tell what is true. He’ll be narrating about what he is doing, standing working on a project and then mention someone that has apparently been standing next to him for the last hour, only we did not know.

He throws in these stupid “facts” all over the place in pull-outs that piss me off. For example on page 139 he is talking about that toxic purple PVC cement used to join water pipes and he interjects

A Finnish Company called Uponor makes a piping material called Aquapex that “doesn’t leach toxics into your water”…

That’s wonderful except that the pipes are made with polyethylene which might be less toxic… or not. So he is implying that there is a better, safer product only he’s not using it. He doesn’t explain why.

On page 152 there is another pull-out

Farmers in Virginia are testing poultry waste as a biofuel.

Of course what he is trying to imply is that chicken crap should be used as fuel instead of oil. The trouble is, they can test all they want, until those Virgina farmers make a viable, affordable fuel, he’s not saying anything.

Like most wide-eyed, staunch liberals, he puts a lot of blame on others. He talks at great length as to how WalMart is the enemy but his reasons come down to, “Because it’s WalMart, man!” To be fair, he also talks about the long distances the products travel to market and the Chinese people employed in their manufacture. I’d say that 1-Transportation fuel is currently relatively cheap, otherwise we wouldn’t import from China. 2-All those Chinese would be out-of work if we didn’t buy their products.

I was happy to see that at the end of the book, his suggestions for a better future didn’t come down as if from a manifesto but from a heartfelt desire to do the right thing. He gave some useful, if obvious suggestions to help keep local economies local.

Farewell, My Subaru paraphrased:

Live on a farm, it’ll be an adventure. Drive a vegetable oil powered car, while I know it won’t go too far to saving the world, it’ll be an adventure. If you have the space, getting a solar powered water heater works pretty good (and it’ll be an adventure). Solar electric is expensive but works pretty good. Owning goats and chickens is an adventure. Buy local, make what you can local, you’ll be better for it.

Slightly prettier.

Google Gears helps mitigate the slowness of all the freaking modal windows they keep putting in. Note I say “helps”. Modal windows are bad for performance. This isn’t a heavyweight application, it’s just moving text around. It should be lightning fast. It used to be. :-(

There are changes to how images are uploaded but still no performance improvements. In version 2.3, it took 1 click and 1 drag to insert an image exactly how you want it, in 2.5 and 2.6, you’ve got to jump through several hoops. See here and here. And there is no word on whether Flexible Upload will be getting an update. If I were the author, I would be tired of making updates.

Annoyances:

When writing a post, the title of the post is automatically set the few seconds after you leave the Title window. That makes it a bother to change the title.

Fucking modal windows while uploading images. In version 2.3 you could upload images while writing the post, then drag the image into place. Now it’s a multi-window, multi-step process. This really pisses me off

You must scroll down to the Categories section at the end of every post. Why isn’t it on the right side of the screen where all of this new useless crap is sitting? (I just noticed that the Press This thingamajig uses the old Categories-on-the-side layout)

Feh.

Followup! Arg! The jerks broke WYSIWYG image layout.

Another Followup: In order to be Wordpress 2.6 compatible, I found that my CSS stylesheet has to support alignleft, alignright, and centered. Aparently “align=right” isn’t good enough any more. So I added some image code that I borrowed from the White as Milk 1.8 theme.

Yet Another Followup: Lester Chan is correct in saying that Post Revisions in Wordpress have very little utility and clutter up the database. This very post already has 16 revisions. In other words, the post you are looking at is taking up more space in the database than my previous 3 weeks of blogging combined. That is not right. (one major reason for all the revisions is that in order to view a preview of a post, you have to Save it first).

I have disabled post revisions with Lester Chan’s instructions.

To turn off this feature, add this following code to wp-config.php:

define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', false);

To change the timing (in seconds) WordPress auto saves a post, add this following code to wp-config.php:

define('AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL', 60);

You can also delete all post revisions by running this query in phpMyAdmin:

DELETE FROM wp_posts WHERE post_type = 'revision';

Be sure to backup your database first before performing any queries in phpMyAdmin.

I changed the autosave to 180 seconds so it wasn’t so irritating and got rid of post revisions. Thanks Lester!

over the Fourth of July I was in Vermont with my family. I had not spent time at the house for several years.it is very reassuring that the place is still there. It smells the same as it has for more than 30 years now. Oh my, 30 years.

The best moment I had all week was when Julia and I went on the Bromley slide. We hadn’t really planned on going on the slide, Julia has a hard time getting into new adventurous things. Riding down the longest alpine slide in America at full speed would probably not be at the top of her list… well, read on.

I was surprised that she wasn’t freaked out by the chair lift… I would be. No, that was not an issue. We went up the chair lift saying that we would just “check it out at the top”. The lift operators said that we could go on a “scenic ride”, no problem. Though frankly I was a little worried about getting back on the lift on the way back down. Well, we got to the top and just sat around for awhile. We watched some people go down but not with any intention. I suggested that we go pick flowers at the top of the mountain but she was a little uncomfortable and said “no”. After a few minutes, Julia was ready to go back down the chair lift; we started walking up toward the lift. If I were Julia walking back up toward the chair lift I would have been a little bit unnerved at all of the activity… the people getting off the lift, the people helping, the chairs spinning around. Well, in one movement she turned around and started running back down toward the slide saying that she wanted to go. I grabbed a sled and that was that!

But much much more than that, watch the video.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

When we got down to the bottom, she ran to the chair lift. On the second run, we went down just as fast as we dared!

Look and laugh.

And dispair a little for getting the joke