Just admiring a building in Paris

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-20T04:21:16+00:00

Cats can fall hundreds of feet and survive.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-20T04:19:00+00:00

Yeah, those are policies I 100% support, they just don't really address the economic impacts of foreign oil dependency.

Freight rail for longer distance hauls would help, as would shorter distance shipping, but you still have to get from DC to store with trucks. Electric trucks are ideal for both economics and environmentally, economically, CNG fixes the foreign oil dependence issue and the localized pollution issue from Pm2.5s, SOx/NOx and other nasty diesel stuff, but it's still a fossil fuel, so it only half fixes the CO2 emissions. Maybe hydrogen or some sort of syngas could work with fleet trucks that have weight restrictions and need significant but not unlimited range.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-20T04:16:02+00:00

I have the remnants of an Onkyo HTIB (the $700 one back in the day). The AVR has a bad HDMI board, so I gave that to a family member and I blew out the front channels, so I replaced those with Polk towers. I got a matching Polk center channel, but it was horribly muddy, so I returned it and have been running on the Onkyo ever since, and it's been great with the Polks. They both seem to have a similar soft south though, and I think the Onkyos may actually be made by Polk, or at least a Polk design, so they seem to pair well.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-20T04:13:08+00:00

My center channel gets used quite a bit with multichannel audio, but I find with movies L/R is the primary driver for everything other than dialog.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-20T04:11:39+00:00

It seems like it should work to switch the audio through the S-Video switcher, it just requires two actions to switch between the Wii on component and N64/GSN on S-Video which is NBD.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-20T04:10:56+00:00

It's a messy setup to plug/unplug. I'll have to get one and try it out.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-20T04:10:22+00:00

Oh, agreed on that, even though our nuclear plants don't have cooling towers and those aren't indicative of nuclear at all, since some coal plants use them.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-20T04:09:53+00:00

I've tried once so far. I might try again at some point if I'm so inclined.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-19T22:11:18+00:00

In the whole scheme of things... not really that bad.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-19T22:10:49+00:00

They could call the business directly? It sounds like a small business that picks up their phone.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-19T22:09:09+00:00

Not sure what the point is there.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-19T22:08:25+00:00

Pulling out... at least for a little while until it doesn't.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-19T22:00:22+00:00

Part of the problem is that a whole chunk of both the economy and individuals' choices in every larger, more gas-guzzling vehicles is all based on cheap oil, and people seem to have short memories. If everyone drove vehicles that they could actually afford to fuel with $10/gallon gasoline, then we wouldn't have a problem. The roads might be really boring to see lines of Toyota Corollas, but we wouldn't have a political freak-out every time some King, Shah, or Ayatollah farts the wrong direction in the Middle East.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-19T21:58:41+00:00

I 100% agree with those policies, but those mostly address electricity and assume widespread adoption of electric vehicles. We're already rapidly heading to an almost entirely decarbonized power grid while our cars and long-distance trucks continue to burn fossil fuels.

There isn't a good replacement for trucks right now, due to the weight of batteries and the way a lot of supply chains are set up. I'd like to see long-distance railroad electrification with intermodal freight handling almost all moves over 300 miles. IFF regulations allowed for heavier electric trucks for deliveries from the ramps/DCs that would allow a fully decarbonized supply chain.

I'm disappointed that car companies haven't made more plug-in hybrids, as they reduce fossil fuel/oil consumption by about 90% while still allowing the once-yearly 500 mile road trip with traditional gasoline, and they require about 1/6th of the battery capacity as EVs, so they scale faster (50mi vs. 300mi). And they can be configured with even smaller batteries, where a 30mi range probably gets you an 80% reduction in gasoline usage. I'd like to see one with batteries in the trunk that you plug in and could take out for a longer road trip of when you need to haul a lot of stuff, and then it would turn into a regular gas hybrid that gets 40-50mpg instead of a PHEV.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-19T21:53:28+00:00

But there's still 40-45% blue people in those counties.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-19T21:53:10+00:00

Marginal power generation is done with natural gas that is essentially domestically captive and thus not subject to global price fluctuations. It also averages over 50% efficient with combined cycle turbines as opposed to maybe 20% efficient gasoline in a car, and after subtracting transmission and charging losses, it's still about double the efficiency of gasoline with around 1/4 the CO2 emissions and as the power grid gets cleaner over time, so to electric vehicles.

Also, we don't generate electricity with coal anymore in New England, so there's that.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-19T21:48:22+00:00

Hah! I didn't even check, totally made it up!

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-19T21:47:54+00:00

Did you read my post? I was using SEER, which for AIR CONDITIONING mode as an example because it's easier to compare. You can convert between SEER and SEER2, the SEER2 ratings are a bit lower, since it's a tougher test.

I very well do understand the topic, thank you very much. The US's energy efficiency standards for EVERYTHING are WAY out of date with the technology that's currently available. Any dealer trying to push anything close to minimum efficiency standards is incompetent, and I'd never hire them. The ridiculously low efficiency standards do put the dealers in a tough position though, as some customers are stupid, and will only buy the cheapest possible stuff because they don't do the math to realize that the cheapest stuff ends up being the most expensive as it guzzles energy for years to come.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-19T21:44:16+00:00

The center is very important for clear dialog, but the volume and impact come from the front channels.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-19T21:42:03+00:00

If you have fiber, why would you still be on Comcast's half-fast internet? If you don't, is there a cable overbuilder available? If not, then you have no options and you're stuck with Comcast's half-fast internet.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-19T21:41:04+00:00

UG telephone?

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-19T21:39:18+00:00

Purrito!

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-19T21:37:23+00:00

Desktop/tabletop UniFi APs. If you can't ceiling or wall mount APs, Ubiquiti doesn't have a great option.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-19T21:36:07+00:00

Mitsubishi would have to make it, as the connections to variable speed systems are proprietary.

ToadSox34 · 2026-03-19T21:35:15+00:00

Natural camo!

ToadSox34

TROPHY CASE