It’s Reader Tech Support Happy Fun Hour!

What do you guys know about window air conditioners? I am about to go and buy 3 air conditioners – one 220v and two 120v. My plan of action before consulting google was this: measure the rooms, calculate approximate BTU needed and buy some Panasonic or Fedders brand units and arrange for delivery and professional installation (I’ve installed enough air conditioners myself, and I don’t want to do it anymore now that I can afford it). Well, I searched on the web and in newsgroups a bit and so far my plan is unchanged.

Any better ideas?

Oooomp-acity

I’ve been reading a few books about the US electrical code and such. Here’s a short quiz:
Volt – Voltage
Ohm – Ohmage
Amp(ere) – ???
I used to say Amperage (and the dictionary shows that I am correct), but most books call it Ampacity. Why not Voltacity or Ohmmacity? I have no idea.

Happy Winter Solstice

You know, it’s winter solstice and stuff. So on our lunch “hour” me and my wife went to see the Sun Triangle sculpture in front of McGraw Hill building do it’s thing.

Here’s how it’s supposed to work:

“In winter the Sun’s path across the sky stays low. Its rays align exactly with the lower side of the triangle at noon on the winter solstice (December 21), when the Sun ascends no higher than 23° in the sky. At noon on the spring and autumn equinoxes (March 21 and September 21), the Sun’s elevation is intermediate, aligning exactly with the third (upper) leg of the triangle. No side of the triangle is vertical—for good reason. At no time of day and on no day of the year is the Sun directly overhead in New York City.”

Major disappointment. First of all it was cloudy. Second of all the lower edge of the triangle points directly at an ugly wedding cake skyscraper which name I don’t know.

Besides maybe I got the date wrong. According to most tables I’ve seen solar noon occurs on December 22nd in 2003, but I see a lot of references to it occurring on December 21st.

Beeeep beeeep beeeep beeeep SLAP

Most people I know don’t like their sleep to be interrupted. I, on the other hand, as long as I don’t have to get up right this minute, don’t mind being woke up multiple times.

First of all, the actual process of falling asleep after quieting the harsh beep of the alarm clock is a very pleasant experience. Second, I find that a short series of naps is more refreshing than a long “wow, how long was I out” sleep. I also a series of alarms has a much greater chance of waking me up from an REM state. This is the best way to wake up: the brain is already active and the dreams can be easily recalled.

At some point I wanted to make an alarm clock that would detect either eye movements or the brain waves associated with them and wake me up during REM. Understandably, for the lack of time, skills and gumption I never got further than playing with a basic stamp microcontroller and reading EEG newsgroups. I suck.

Anyhoo, this morning, between the infamous 9 minute alarm clock buzzes, I had 2 dreams.

In the first one, came for a visit to America. We went to explore the power station at Brooklyn College. Tema had a really old looking key that opened the gate. As a side note (not a part of the dream): Brooklyn College has some very interesting infrastructure. There are tunnels connecting all buildings, a power plant, a heat plant and a buncha other interesting things. I’ve heard that there is a linear accelerator somewhere. Right. So we explored the area around the power plant a bit, I pointed out Monk parrots to .

You’d think I went clubbing with in the second dream, but I didn’t. Instead I was still in Brooklyn College. My high school English teacher was giving a lecture standing behind a podium in the middle of the quad. He said: “the time now is [don’t remember] and the temperature is 28 Therms “. I asked him is there is a thermometer on his podium that measures temperature in “Therms” ( I think a Therm is the same thing as BTU). He said that that was the case. For some reason I called him Alex, even though his name is Alan.

Juice!

My electric bill last month was $148.95 . It says there that I’ve used up 797 KWH. That’s 26.6 KWH per day. That means that on the average I consume 1.1 KW. That’s 1100 W every hour, 24 hours a day. It’s like having 36 light bulbs on at the same time. All the time.

The only things that work full time are refrigerator (84 W on the average, lets say 200W while it’s hot), TIVO (40W), aquarium pump (30 W) . One AC was on during the night most of the time, another for a couple of hours in the evening.

I have a suspicion that:
a) my KWH meter is connected to something of my neighbor’s.
b) the old 220V AC is eating an enormous amount of electricity
c) all of the power supplies for cell phones, hubs, router, a/v components are leaching a shitload of juice

I really wish there was a portable KWH meter that I could hook up to any device and calculate the _actual_ energy consumption. But looks like there is no such thing.
Ok, this is pretty idiotic.

I really got to do something about this. Maybe I can get a better rate then 15 -16 c per KWH. Maybe I can find the mooching device that eats all my juice. I need to try and check the readings on my meter myself. Here is how. Neat.

Now, this is pretty idiotic. If not, more idiocy can be found on the other end of the spectrum.

Also, I don’t think I have good surge protection for my stuff, and the wiring quality is pretty dodgy. Which reminds me, my renter’s insurance ran out and I really need to renew it. Crap.

Well, at least this post helped me to get my thoughts in order.