In yesterday’s Open Thread—mkent brought up Ukraine’s home-built drones reaching 300 miles into Russia and blowing up a huge Russian ammunition storage facility.
Here’s a WSJ article (am using the Epic browser to pass the paywall):
Months before President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration in May, he met with Defense Ministry officials who pushed for a fresh round of mobilization to recruit more troops to offset Russia’s losses on the front line in Ukraine…
The exchange highlighted a thorny dilemma facing Putin. While he has resisted a troop mobilization that could come at a political cost, Western estimates suggest Russia is now losing more men on the battlefield than it can recruit to replace them.
Now, Ukraine’s continuing incursion into Russia is further straining Russia’s manpower, underscoring chronic problems and leading the country’s military leaders to press for mobilization again…
Russia is down…time to send the Ukrainians some ‘Steel Toe Boots’ and allow Ukraine to strike further into Russia with the weapons we send them.
The Soviet–Afghan War lasted about 10-years, and Russia lost about 15,000 troops. I don’t see Russia lasting that long with the losses they have taken in Ukraine. Send more help to Ukraine!!!
Deceased WW2 marine married a Japanese woman, who is still alive, in her eighties now.
Through Ancestry dna, another relative was contacted by a young Japanese/Caucasion woman who asked if there was any knowledge of an American Soldier in Japan after the war.
Because of potential emotional distress to surviving Japanese woman, no info has been given.
Another situation involves a happily married woman with two children who gave a baby up for adoption as a teen. Husband has no clue and is not the type to take the info lightly. Woman dreads the phone call, or knock on the door.
Karmi, the best help to give to Ukraine is to vote for Trump. Within one month of his presidency he will negotiate a settlement beneficial to both Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine cannot win this. Napoleon and Hitler learned the hard way. Stop the senseless killing.
The killing is not senseless.
If a win for Ukraine is not possible, then to continue the killing is senseless. Best option for both parties is a negotiated settlement. Ukraine cannot win this no matter how much we may wish so. The Russian way of war is to grind the enemy to dust regardless of how many Russian lives are lost. Ukraine does not have the manpower to continue indefinitely.
X, you can’t negotiate with Putin. Trump can either support Ukraine and continue to send arms, and allow them to be used, or he can abandon Ukraine. You can not trust any agreement that Putin might make.
Funny parody video showing Hezbollah men the day after the pager/walkie talkie attacks:
The mind of a liberal.
Someone I have known only for a short time – he is 78 years old – tells me he is against open borders and against illegals voting.
But he intends to vote for Kamala Harris.
The “logic” used in his decision is beyond my ability to comprehend.
Recall that recently the US House of Representatives voted on a voter ID law; 198 demokrats voted against this bill; only 5 demonkrats supported this bill.
Just another open-thread comment about something I read somewhere else.
We all know that Wikipedia has always tilted left, but it’s now gone so far off center that the spin is close to horizontal. For those who might be interested, here’s another “inside baseball” article on how it happened.
title: How Wikipedia launders regime propaganda: Wikipedia editors churn news articles from an overwhelmingly left-leaning list of “reliable sources” into neutrality-emblazoned fact
Shirehome, Trump can negotiate with anyone. He has the cards. Drill Baby Drill impoverishes Putin. Putin cannot continue the war without high oil prices. With Trump sanctions bankrupt Iran cannot supply Russia with weapons.Trump wins, Iran looses and Russia is forced to the negotiating table. That is one reason of many I am voting for Trump.
so the people who will supposedly conduct this world war trans, (not my word, it’s red diaper baby raskin) are the ones who led to the kabul capitulation the al Aqsa flood, the replacement etc https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1836769685817246036
as john stormer riffing on john dunne ‘we dare not call it treason, unless treason doth prosper how well do you think think this will work, they are at war with our country, on behalf of China and Iran, and every other parlee player we can find, most assuredly Iran wants Harris in place, as they would want a bountiful pistachio harvest https://donsurber.substack.com/p/what-it-takes-to-be-never-trump
no you have to ask them why do reasonable people want more of the same,
so back to the dispatch from oceania on the glorious malabar front, who can bibi trust, not the weasel starmer, who is a committed skydragon worshiper, harris she’s trapped in semiotic yarn, while forgetting where she put her hamas pompoms, sorry islamic resistance movement, it must like that commercial with the indian,(I forget the reason for the ad) as gizmos go splodey all over the levant,
im sure CAIR is giving her an earfull
Someone I have known only for a short time – he is 78 years old – tells me he is against open borders and against illegals voting. But he intends to vote for Kamala Harris.
==
He’s striking poses in his conversation with you. He doesn’t care about open borders or illegal voting.
its not a rhetorical question when the faith of the Salafi, as well as of the Zombie class
seem to predominant not only in the councils of government, but among their adjuncts in media in education, et al
Disappointed to see Powerline spreading FUD about heat pumps today. If I’m more disappointed when right-leaning blogs do stuff like that, it’s because I think better of them. But I guess the temptation to anyone doing commentary is the same, regardless of what political perspective they come from. Other right-leaning blogs did the same about LED lighting ten years ago.
Perfectly fine to point out that heat pumps are not a one-size-fits-all solution. Perfectly fine to say that the government has no business subsidizing them or trying to mandate them. But it’s wrong for Hinderaker to say they’re “absurdly inefficient” and “inferior technology” even when he prefaces his statements with “If you are not sure what a heat pump is, you are not alone. Neither am I.”
For some reason he can’t say “it’s a bad policy to subsidize or mandate heat pumps” without saying that heat pumps themselves are somehow bad. This is the disease we’re all falling into, Left and Right alike.
Not long ago I was reading about electric car fires, and I was wondering why there weren’t any stories about hybrid car fires, which of course have essentially the same batteries. (Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit was the first person I’d heard of who bought a hybrid.)
So I looked it up, and at least by insurance claims and adjusting for prevalence of ownership, normal cars are many more times likely to catch fire than electric cars and hybrids are even more likely than normals cars, about 20% more likely.
So for every article we read about electric cars catching fire, we should be reading 5 or 6 for hybrids catching fire. And we don’t. Because the narrative is based on journalistic cherry-picking. Every electric car fire is national news, but a hybrid catching fire is buried in the police log on page 6 of the Podunk Gazette.
While the media leans left, electric car fires draw eyeballs, and right-leaning media and blogs amplify the signal because electric cars are beloved of Team Blue and we have to hear that electric cars themselves are bad, as opposed to something that’s good for some people and not others and about which the government should butt out.
(Certainly seems true that electric car fires are harder to put out than normal cars, but the same should be true of hybrids, and again, the stories that get amplified are cherry-picked and we should be hearing 5-6 times as many stories about how hard it is to put out a burning hybrid.)
why do we insist on throwing good money after bad, dialing to eleven, because it feels good, we are at loss for that sentiment, ever since the skydragon crusade forced the phasing out of the incandescent bulb for no
good reason,
I noticed a difference immediately. Instead of finishing an answer to a question with a polite “Please let me know if have any further questions,” it ends with a question to inspire further conversation.
However, the real news is that Strawberry is much better at reasoning:
_______________________________________________
OpenAI’s tests point to resounding success. The model ranks in the 89th percentile on questions from the competitive coding organization Codeforces and would be among the top 500 high school students in the USA Math Olympiad, which covers geometry, number theory, and other math topics. The model is also trained to answer PhD-level questions in subjects ranging from astrophysics to organic chemistry.
In math olympiad questions, the new model is 83.3% accurate, versus 13.4% for GPT-4o. In the PhD-level questions, it averaged 78% accuracy, compared with 69.7% from human experts and 56.1% from GPT-4o.
OpenAI seems to have achieved this through smarter programming and training, rather than brute force multiplication of sizes and resources.
Bad news:
_______________________________________________
OpenAI’s new model is better at reasoning and, occasionally, deceiving / Researchers found that o1 had a unique capacity to ‘scheme’ or ‘fake alignment.’
I’m a rank amateur in using AI, but here’s my follow-up to Huxley’s note on the release of “Strawberry.”
For those of you who still believe that AI is a triviality that can be reduced to word-prediction software, maybe now is a good time to start taking a look at some of what’s become freely available to all of us. There are worse ways to spend a little of your time.
For what it’s worth, my bias is that the first obvious economic impacts will be with specialized, rather than general, AI. The first targets will likely by online human assistants in India and the Philippines.
Xylourgos
Ukraine cannot win this. Napoleon and Hitler learned the hard way.
Russia is invading Ukraine, in case you didn’t understand what is happening.
In this case, Russia is learning the hard way…so to speak.
Niketas Choniates, Hinderaker lives in Minnesota, where heat pumps are a poor choice in the winter, which is about half the year up there. I checked the comments, and many were saying the same. Here in central NC, we have a dual heat system, which is heat pump down to the mid-40s and propane heat when it’s colder than that. Neighbors who have only electric heat complain about their electric bills in the winter when we have a cold snap, and they complain their houses don’t stay warm.
I read Miguel Cervantes link about heat pumps and saw Powerlines post about electric heat pumps and found both to be confusing politics with the actual benefit of heat pumps.
I use inverter heat pumps in my rental units and in the home I live in. In terms of efficiency, they are more efficient than resistance heat. In areas with reasonable electricity costs they will save money– and in the case of retrofitting a house using mini-split heat pumps will avoid/eliminate the use of ductwork (which is also the most inefficient part of heating/cooling).
An inverter heat pump uses a multi-speed compressor which allows more efficiency and greater ability to transfer heat. Mitsubishi is the Cadillac of heat pumps and their hyper-heat units maximize heat transfer at 45,000 btu/hr @ 5 degrees F. Some units will continue to transfer heat at temperatures down to -20 degrees F, though at reduced output.
The technology of inverter heat pumps is sound.
I think the argument against heat pumps is political.
I would recommend them in any climate, based on the cost of electricity vs. natural gas. At some point the cost per btu should make the decision obvious. While you have to size your heating appliance for the extreme– both high and low temperatures, most of the heating/cooling season is in between where the savings will be significant.
These are basically the same technology as refrigerators, only they are able to operate in reverse mode to also supply warm air to the house.
By the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (it’s amazing how many times I’ve written about the 2nd here), like all engines, the heat pump must extract (import) energy from a hot(cold) reservoir. The max efficiency of any such device is given by the Carnot equation: 1- Tc/Th, where Th and Tc are the temperatures of the hot and cold reservoirs. Given summer temperatures across the US, heat pumps work at about the same efficiency for cooling the house; maybe a bit less here in the south, but ours does a good job and our highest bill has been around $180. Where the efficiency goes way down is in the northern regions in the winter where the pump tries to heat a home by extracting energy from an air temperature of, say, 20F or even less and put that into a home at 72F. Here in Florida, we rarely get below 40F and the pump works just fine in doing the somewhat minimal heating needed.
There is an alternative by using the hot(cold) reservoirs as the temperature of the ground…so-called geothermal heat pumps. But, as I found out from personal experience, in the north, even the ground temperature can approach freezing in late January and the efficiency of the pump decreases for heating accordingly.
@miguel: Perfect example of what I’m talking about. Cherry-picked stories. Heat pumps are not for everyone, but that doesn’t make them bad. Give you an example: houses where I live usually don’t have any kind of ducting at all, so people put in ductless heat pumps, or they have ducts run through the attic which is much less expensive than the usual ductwork. So if you’re spending a lot on ductwork either your contractor doesn’t know what he’s doing, or he’s taking advantage of you, or you have some rare problem, but in none of those cases are the heat pumps to blame.
@Kate:Niketas Choniates, Hinderaker lives in Minnesota, where heat pumps are a poor choice
You know that and I know that, but Hinderaker does not know that. (I lived a few miles from Minneapolis for a few years, I know about their winters.) He says up front he does not know what a heat pump even is. But he want you to know they are intrinsically bad: “inferior technology” and “absurdly inefficient”. Those things he said are out-and-out lies not excused by Minnesota’s winters.
Kate, inverter heat pumps can continue to transfer heat from outside to inside down to -20 degrees F.
Not all heat pumps are the same.
Some models keep working even below 0 degrees F. Plenty of heat pumps are rated to work in temperatures as low as minus-22 degrees F, and there are plenty of testimonials from people who have found that they can still work fine during brief cold snaps down to minus-30 degrees F.
@physicsguy:By the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (it’s amazing how many times I’ve written about the 2nd here)
Yeah, because it’s surprisingly important!
Where the efficiency goes way down is in the northern regions in the winter where the pump tries to heat a home by extracting energy from an air temperature of, say, 20F or even less and put that into a home at 72F. Here in Florida, we rarely get below 40F and the pump works just fine in doing the somewhat minimal heating needed.
Indeed, they are not a one-size-fits-all solution. In Western Washington our winters rarely get below freezing, our summers are dry and rarely above 90, and many houses have no central heat or air conditioning at all, and so ductless heat pump installations are favored.
There is an alternative by using the hot(cold) reservoirs as the temperature of the ground…so-called geothermal heat pumps.
There were people I knew in Minnesota and Wisconsin who had that, and they certainly work, but the initial cost is very high. Again, not a one-size-fits-all solution.
@Brian E:Kate, inverter heat pumps can continue to transfer heat from outside to inside down to -20 degrees F.
Good point, countered by they don’t repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics so while they do work, your electric bill is getting closer to resistive heating on days like that.
Like I’ve been saying, heat pumps are not for everybody. And people should also know, like you’re saying, that heat pumps are not all the same. (Reinforcing my disgust with Hinderaker.)
@physicsguy:By the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (it’s amazing how many times I’ve written about the 2nd here)
Heat Pumps: I have 2 of them. They do need auxiliary heat to kick in when it’s too cold for the heat pump alone to handle. That aux heat is usually electric, but doesn’t have to be; it can be gas. We have a gas-fired boiler that serves underfloor heating and the hot water heater; it also provides aux heat for one of the heat pumps via a heat exchanger.
In the case of the houses I’ve remodeled/built, I’ve used inverter heat pumps because it was cheaper to install. I installed them and I used an HVAC company to charge the system (the systems come with a pre-charged refrigerant, but the warranty is voided if you don’t use a licensed installer).
Case in point. You can order a 4 zone Mitsubishi mini-split rated down to -13 degrees for $9300. Add another $700 for copper tubing lines/accessories. That’s a 4 ton system for oldtimers.
Anyone with some carpentry experience can do the physical install– then hire an HVAC company to charge the system. Another $500-$1,000.
The benefits of ductless is no energy loss from the ductwork, because each zone is independent you can adjust the temperature in each room and they are very, very quiet.
If you need more than 5 zones, you would add a second compressor/condenser system.
Most of the world uses these systems. One of the problems in gaining acceptance in this country is most HVAC companies have a sheet metal shop that makes and installs ductwork. They are also tied to one of the major traditional companies that do not make the most efficient units.
So a traditional HVAC company is likely going to steer you away from these systems. (There are exceptions).
There is a difference between a heat pump and an inverter heat pump. And it’s a huge difference.
Niketas, yes inverter heat pumps are less efficient at the extremes (below 0 degrees), but most of the heating season is at temperatures where the advantage of efficiency is up to 4:1.
In eastern Washington, we normally get a week or two of -10 degrees lows, but occasionally lows of -20 degrees. It was cheaper for me to install baseboard electric as a backup than using one of the hyper heating units rated down to -20 degrees.
So I actually used the units rated to 5 degrees. Most of the winter it is entirely adequate.
But then I’m doing all the work, so the labor is $0.
As to the Ukraine-Russia war, if Ukraine is on the verge of a breakthrough, why is Zelensky trying to arrange another peace conference that he wants Russia to attend?
Regarding the conversation on heat pumps and the 2nd law of thermodynamics, similar to physicsguy I can’t count the number of times I’ve said, “Commercial energy production is a local problem.”
People so often get into debates about a single form of energy; gas, electric, solar, wind…
If you live in Buffalo, New York hydroelectric makes a lot of sense. If you live in Death Valley, hydroelectric is probably not going to work well for you.
Smart people are able to optimize this in most any jurisdiction if politicians stay out of it. I know Cornflour is fighting a losing battle in his area because his state won’t keep politics out of the discussion.
Fun anecdote: Once I understood LED* lighting and production costs came down I was a huge advocate (still am). However, one day I was reading about their residential use in Finland and Norway. Since LED lighting gives off so much less heat than incandescent bulbs Finns and Norwegians noticed their heating bills going up in Winter when they made the switch to LED and there are areas where that differential makes LEDs less energy efficient due to the need to augment household heating. So even my beloved LEDs and their use are a local consideration and should not be mandated globally, let alone nationally.
Shuji Nakamura has likely done more than any living human to reduce human caused climate change, yet almost no one knows his name or story. Why? Because the narrative is wrong. He’s not a radical environmentalist throwing soup at paintings. Just a brilliant man who toiled thanklessly for years to make an improvement that resulted in tremendous good.
Former President Donald Trump’s scheduled appearance at a kosher deli in Brooklyn on Thursday was canceled after the owner died of a heart attack at age 75.
Trump had been expected to stop by Gottlieb’s, an eatery located in the heart of Hassidic Williamsburg, before heading to Washington, DC, to speak at a “Combating Antisemitism” event.
The deli’s owner Shalom Yosef Gottlieb, 75, contracted pneumonia last week and succumbed to a heart attack earlier today. The deli was founded by Gottlieb’s father, who was a Holocaust survivor, and his son Menashe has run the eatery for the past few years.
I am adopted (1964) and also did my DNA both through Ancestry and 23AndMe. Through it and some genealogy work by my husband, I have found my birth mother and birth father. I decided that I would not be the one to reach out to my birth family in any way since I was adopted at birth. I was 2 weeks old when my adoptive parents received me.
After a little time, a cousin reached out and then my half sister reached out. Both are from my bmom’s side. It turns out that my half sister had no idea that I existed. The cousin had heard from family at one time that my bmom had given birth and had given up the baby but knew nothing more than that. It was the family secret. My sister was shocked to say the least when she found out about me. My bmom is still alive but has dementia and cannot remember or communicate much. I also have 2 half brothers. Actually at first, my sister really had a hard time with everything. My sister asked some of the aunts and they did confirm to her some of what had been not discussed for a very long time.
It turns out that at birth I was named after my bmom’s best friend and in a strange turn of events, my adoptive parents named me a very similar name. It is really odd. At birth, Lauren Elizabeth. At adoption, Lori Alison with Elizabeth as my confirmation name. Strange, huh!?
After a little longer, a cousin twice removed on my bfathers side reached out to me but only wanted access to more of my DNA info. I granted that but that allowed me to also look into his. From the names and some of my non-identifying information from Catholic charities, my husband was able to find my bfather. He is alive and did get married and have children. So, I have more half siblings but again, I am not going to reach out and “rock the boat”.
I have met my half sister (bmom side) but have not met my half brothers. Apparently I look much like my bmom and as kids, my sister and I could have passed as twins. Interestingly, my sister and I are really different people. She is someone that I would be friends (not close friends) with but other than that would likely stay just that. She is nice but that is about it.
My meeting with my sister was not as emotional as was shown in the video since I had known that I was adopted for a very long time and came to realize that my adoptive parents are indeed my parents and that is all I needed. I have never had a need for more family as I already had one. I would meet more birth family if anyone wants to. But from my perspective, its like meeting strangers. As I told my husband, meeting them is fine because we have to see if we can be friends at least. I have not had any other contact with my bfathers side.
Anyhow, thought I would pass along my story on the heels of the video. Choose life!!!
@Rufus: Since LED lighting gives off so much less heat than incandescent bulbs Finns and Norwegians noticed their heating bills going up in Winter when they made the switch to LED and there are areas where that differential makes LEDs less energy efficient due to the need to augment household heating.
This doesn’t hold water. The amount of energy needed to keep the house warm is not changed by the LEDs. The waste heat from incandescent bulbs was part of the electric bill and paid for by the homeowner. After the switch to LEDs, that waste heat was no longer there, which reduces the electric bill to that extent.
The homeowner has to replace the waste heat with something, and if the source is resistive electric heat it’s a wash, because that’s what the waste heat from the incandescent bulbs was: it was in the bill before and it’s in the bill now.
If they had to replace the waste heat with more gas or propane or coal or whatever it is they have, they might have been paying more for (or less) for that different heat source, but they are no longer paying for as much electricity. The source of the “inefficiency” is the substitution of one kind of heating for another kind of heating and has nothing to do with the LEDs’ energy efficiency.
The same thing would result from keeping incandescents installed but not using them as much. In that case there’s no LEDs to blame, but it’s exactly the same thermal physics.
On the flip side, in the summer A/C has to remove the waste heat from the incandescents, and that costs extra electricity: the homeowner is paying for waste heat they don’t need and then paying again to remove that waste heat.
LED lighting is not a one-size-fits all solution to lighting needs any more than heat pumps are for heating. But if some people for some reason make use of waste heat from incandescents, it stands to reason they need to supply that heat from somewhere else. But they won’t be worse off from an energy standpoint by switching to LED. If they are substituting more expensive sources of energy they might possibly be financially worse off. In most places though electricity is not the cheapest source of heat per unit.
Long story short people have to carefully examine their whole energy situation before deciding to make changes. Which you’d think would be trite enough no one had to say that, but here we are.
I have a relative who works for a utility and he continually gets complaints from people who switched from resistive electric heat (which in his area is pretty cheap) to gas that their bill went up and that they thought the gas was more efficient. And he has to patiently explain that it is more efficient, but they are using a more expensive source per unit. They still feel robbed, though.
It’s cue, not queue
I noticed yesterday while wiring an electrical outlet that the silver neutral screw appeared the same color as the brass hot screw under normal residential LED lighting.
Brian E – who said Ukraine was having a “breakthrough”? They’re fighting to the death for their freedom, and doing a great job against the once feared Russian military.
You’re great on workout bikes and split-units, but almost brain-dead on war and politics. 😉
Anyway, my living areas are usually so small that 5-6,000 BTU window or thru wall AC units work fine for my current 320 sq ft (tad less finished) living quarters. Have been looking at the ductless split-units for years now – kits with copper and accessories included. Looks like 9,000 BTU are as small as they get, but probably would work.
Quiet would be nice. Also saw a ceiling ‘Thang but wouldn’t trust possible draining or condensing issues.
Re: what to do with “waste” heat. Should you put your water heater inside or outside your house?
Depends on where you live. In cold climates, the extra heat from them (even highly insulated) is worth the extra cooling load in summer.
@Chases Eagles: I noticed yesterday while wiring an electrical outlet that the silver neutral screw appeared the same color as the brass hot screw under normal residential LED lighting.
Normal residential LED lighting comes in all sorts of color profiles, from 2000K to 5300K. Some of the ones in my house are too blue for the room and I keep meaning to change them out but putting it off. The thing is that my lightbulbs last for YEARS and so if I replace them because I don’t like the color, they’re just going to be sitting in the closet indefinitely….
Karmi, the “breakthrough” I am referring to is the long range missiles fired into Russia that some people think are the next game changer.
Yes, in the east, Ukraine is slowly being ground into dust– though if you look at the cities in recent battles, Russia is changing tactics.
As to the mini-splits, part of the installation includes a condensate line to the outside, along with the copper tubing for the high and low pressure lines.
@Brian E:Should you put your water heater inside or outside your house?
Mine’s in the garage, not sure if that’s the best or worst of both worlds. I’m tempted by the heat pump water heaters but I can hear it inside the house I’ll be cranky. I can’t find one installed in place to find out how noisy it really is… but the garage is really hot in the summer and not that cold in the winter since it’s surrounded on two sides by the living areas of the house.
Now I have my engineer husband looking up inverter heat pumps, which we’ve never heard of before. Interesting discussion.
IAF tempo in southern Lebanon appears to be picking up, with numerous strikes near the Litani river. Still foggy, but signs point to “It’s on”. Lacking? Hezb’s response in kind, the true marker to look for. IRI mullahs may be restraining the Hezb’, not wishing to prematurely waste their hole-card.
Vicious stoogery has been a US strategic commonplace:
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller says that the US would urge Israel to halt strikes on Hezbollah if the terror group stopped launching attacks against the Jewish state first.
“Nasrallah could stop the terrorist attacks across Israel, and I guarantee you, if he did that, we would be impressing upon Israel the need to maintain calm on their end,” Miller says, in a somewhat uncharacteristically frank statement for a State Department spokesperson.
@Kate:Now I have my engineer husband looking up inverter heat pumps, which we’ve never heard of before.
Tl dr they are not just off or on, like a room’s AC. When they’re running at their best they are just barely on. So what you get from your mini-splits, if you’re doing it right, is a barely noticeable stream of room temperature air. You don’t usually feel a blast of hot or cold air, unless you’ve had them off for a long time and the room temperature has changed significantly.
When you’re definitely in a heating or cooling season they sort of dial in how they need to run and stay at whatever speed that is.
When you’re in warm days and chilly nights in spring and fall–in Western Washington this is like 4 months out of the year–I find that I sometimes need to change the mode from heat to cool to keep it at 70F, or I pick one mode and let the heat pumps switch off half the day when the temperature’s wrong for that mode. But in that case there’s little heating or cooling to do.
The inverter technology sounds good for Western Washington.
So, from what I just read, an inverter HP basically tries to eliminate the initial amp surge when the motor turns on by monitoring the house demand and then running the motor at a reduced (some quote 30%) speed and then ramping up the speed when demand increases. I guess I would have to see some numbers which show the time for power used by the motor at reduced rpm compared to the power used to start the motor. ie what is the break even time for the motor?? Also, as the motor ramps back to 100% that takes an increase in power. So I guess I would have to be convinced that a motor cycling rpms for some x amount of time uses less energy than a motor starting up and then stopping and staying off for some y amount of time.
I guess I could do the calculation, but too lazy right now to look up specs etc.
@Kate:The inverter technology sounds good for Western Washington.
It’s good in many other places as well, but it would be foolish to mandate it, or anything else, for the entire country.
What most people probably need more than a different kind of heating or cooling system, is better insulation.
@physicsguy:So I guess I would have to be convinced that a motor cycling rpms for some x amount of time uses less energy than a motor starting up and then stopping and staying off for some y amount of time.
There are nerds in reddit who continuously monitor their heat pumps and graph the energy usage. But maintaining a constant temperature uses in principle less energy than allowing large swings around a constant temperature. In implementation, of course it can be done less effectively than that.
Three or four years ago we put in Mini Splits. Two zones, three units on each zone. Do not remember the BTU’s, but 5 units are the same and the sixth is larger because the room it is in is much larger. We really like them. Can control by the room. Yes, if we turn them off then have to increase the fan speed and temp when turned back one, works for both A/C and heating. We keep the bedroom unit at 67, with fan speed on the lowest setting, except when it is really hot outside and the afternoon sun shines in. Then just up one notice on the fan speed. One “issue” – they stop providing heat at 5 degrees. I am in CO so it does get lower at least for a couple of days in the winter. Then, it is the electric baseboard heat, and I can really tell the difference in the electric bill.
“Perplexity” (perplexity.ai) is a general AI (artificial intelligence) LLM (large language model). I sometimes use “Perplexity” because it’s free, because it has a web interface, because it provides references to the sources used for its answers, and because it provides a short list of suggested follow-up questions.
As an experiment, I asked this question:
What are the climatic limitations for using an inverter heat pump to heat and cool an average family house, in the United States?
If anybody’s curious, here’s a link to the answer:
P.S. I have no idea how long this link will keep working.
When I lived near Seattle, the previous owner of the home I moved into had recently installed a heat pump.
About a year or so after I moved into the home, I had the heat pump removed; it was useless in heating my home.
Go with a natural gas furnace .
Shirehome, the standard Mitsubishi is rated to provide maximum btu output down to 5 degrees.
Their hyper heating models will continue to provide heat down to -13 degrees, though not at the same output.
There are other brands that will do the same. Gree makes a unit that will continue to provide heat down to -22 degrees.
I think a single zone unit would automatically change from heat to cool. It’s my understanding the multiple zones can’t do that since one zone may need cooling and the other zone heating, so that is a small nuisance in the early spring and late fall.
I have a conventional heat pump. Set to heat at 66 (62 at night) and cool at 70. I have a lot of west facing windows so place can get pretty warm on hot days otherwise. Open floor plan with stupidly high ceilings. My garage is piped for hydronic heat but I have never gotten around to finishing it.
@Brian E:I think a single zone unit would automatically change from heat to cool. It’s my understanding the multiple zones can’t do that since one zone may need cooling and the other zone heating, so that is a small nuisance in the early spring and late fall.
There are multizone systems that can do this but I don’t think they’re affordable for residential heating and cooling. You already know, but some of the others might not, that there’s one compressor and it has to decide if it’s heating or cooling, and whatever it does the zone units all have to do.
That said you can have the zones at different temperatures, provided they are all heating or all cooling. You could have say 65F, 70F, and 75F in different zones inside if it was 50F outside or 85F outside, but not if it was 70F outside. You’d either turn off the 65F and set to heat, or turn off the 75F and set to cool.
I prefer the whole house at one temperature, so that’s what I set to.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy calls for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group after a week of escalation that has brought both sides to the brink of war.
“Tonight I’m calling for an immediate ceasefire from both sides,” Lammy tells Reuters after meeting his French, American and Italian counterparts for talks in Paris.
“We are all very, very clear that we want to see a negotiated political settlement so that Israelis can return to their homes in northern Israel and indeed Lebanese to return to their homes.”
Yeah, that’s not happening. Phantom imaginary worlds have overtaken the minds of western elites; they’ve no means of escape. Pity.
BREAKING: Oklahoma officials just announced that they have removed 450,000 ineligible names from the voter rolls, including 100,000 dead people and 15,000 duplicate registrations that somehow got pushed into the system
“Oklahoma ensures only eligible voters participate in elections in part by following voter list maintenance procedures provided in state law. Since January 1, 2021, Oklahoma election officials have removed 97,065 deceased voters, 143,682 voters who moved out-of-state, 5,607 felons, 14,993 duplicate registrations, and 194,962 inactive voters who were canceled during the address verification process.”
I’ve read accounts in which people say how charming Trump can be in person. I’ve mostly seen Trump preaching fire and brimstone, so I didn’t understand.
Just to be clear: this isn’t out of context whatsoever. Here’s the official White House transcript.
The leader of the free world not only has no memory of his own meetings, he’s so confident in his false memories that he’s asserting them in front of the world
Pudding-brain
See link for context
ArmyMom:
Thanks for your honest account. It’s complicated stuff no doubt.
My younger half-sister had half-sisters on my stepfather’s side of the family. I had made attempts to locate them. But geez, the last time I saw those girls was 1962.
However, several years ago those half-sisters felt compelled to track her down and did so the old-fashioned way — a private detective.
My half-sister only lived another five years but it was a blessing for her to connect with that side of her family.
”…the best help to give to Ukraine is to vote for Trump. Within one month of his presidency he will negotiate a settlement beneficial to both Russia and Ukraine.”
Trump has already released his plan, and the Ukrainians have outright rejected it. Putin accepted it, though. He accepted it right quick. It seems he and Trump agree on what should be done to Ukraine.
”Stop the senseless killing.”
The senseless killing is being done by the Russians. They can stop doing that any time they choose and go home. They’ve been asked to stop the senseless killing countless times by us, the Europeans, the international community, and the Ukrainians themselves. They refuse and keep on senselessly killing.
Giving Russia more victims to senselessly rape, torture, and kill is not going to stop the senseless killing. It seems the only way the Russians will stop the senseless killing is for them to die in large numbers. That’s tragic and even sad, but it’s their choice. Just like starting the senseless killing in the first place was.
”Best option for both parties is a negotiated settlement.”
Russia is genociding the Ukraine. The Ukrainians can no more negotiate with Russia than the Warsaw ghetto Jews could have negotiated with the Nazis or current Jews can negotiate with Hamas.
The mystery of D-Veep candidate Tim Walz is coming into better focus. How does a man with enormous simpatico for the Chinese Communist government betray his homeland? This might be the answer.
It seems that during his many years with the Nebraska National Guard, his unit lost a standard operating manual for the nuclear shell capable Howitzer — which itself appears to be copied by China. How about that coincidence!
Another “coincidence” in the man’s biography is that after High School, moving to Houston to attend the University of Houston, which he explains as serving his interests in East Asian Studies and learning Chinese. But at least some catalog documents from this period do not show any such courses offered.
A more comprehensive search is needed to narrow the uncertainty. What equally remains certain is the oddity that he offers that explanation for his perambulating studies while Nebraska Universities did offer these course options.
But while the Nebraska cities had no Chinese consulate back then, Houston did. And during the Trump Presidency this office was forced closed because it was a hive for intellectual property theft.
Alpha News continues the story: FBI pressed for documents on Walz’s ties to Chinese Communist Party..
Walz served 24 years in the National Guard, first with Nebraska and then with Minnesota. Walz joined the Guard in 1981 and retired in 2005, during which time he made multiple trips to China. Now a two-term Minnesota governor and Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Walz’s China ties are under new scrutiny.
Last month, Congressman James Comer, chair of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, requested FBI documents concerning “Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-connected entities and officials Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has engaged and partnered with.” So far, the FBI has not responded.
“The FBI’s silence regarding Mr. Walz’s documented relations with CCP affiliates is inexcusable,” Comer said, giving the FBI until Sept. 19 to respond.
Multiple public figures have begun to express their concerns, including Sen. Marco Rubio, who recently accused Walz of being a Chinese asset, calling him “an example of how Beijing patiently grooms future American leaders.” https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4265939/posts
_________
If this circumstantial evidence is tightened by viable time lines and further scrutiny, then his candidacy could become untenable.
The report said that around 50% of the converts of Hispanic origin at the time were women, and many were choosing to wear head coverings. “The reason I wear the scarf is because I expect to be respected by the opposite gender,” said another Latina convert. “I don’t want to be catcalled and I don’t want to be judged by my appearance. In fact, I want to be judged by my intellect.”
—————————
Kamala Harris threatens to shoot home intruders during event with Oprah Winfrey
‘If somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot,’ she said, before showing off her trademark cackle.
She then expressed regret, similar to how her boss Joe Biden would try to take back foolish statements: ‘I probably should not have said that. My staff will deal with that later.’
The statement made headlines on social media, including an immediately condemnation from the National Rifle Association, who accused her of being a ‘walking contradiction’.
Because she wants to take everyone elses guns away genius
@ Rufus > “Since LED lighting gives off so much less heat than incandescent bulbs …”
There are problems with that heat loss regardless of how it affects home heating bills.
Long time ago, possibly when he was still running his Captain’s Quarters blog, Ed Morrissey noted that when his northern city switched to LED traffic lights the snow began to pile up on the outside of the fixtures, sometimes making it impossible to see what color was lit.
The formerly used incandescent bulbs would melt the snow.
@ David Foster > “New post: Life in the Fully Politicized Society”
An excellent essay, as always. I was particularly struck by your quotation of this excerpt from Jonathan Kay’s story:
“So I folded,” he told me with a sad, defeated air. “I know I’m supposed to stick to my principles. That’s what we tell ourselves. Free association and all that. It’s part of the romance of our profession. But I can’t afford to actually do that. These people control who gets jobs. I’m broke. So now I just go numb and say whatever they need me to say.”
The “reading” for this week’s dialogue between Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn is a short story by Stephen Vincent Benét, from 1937, in which he focuses on a man faced with a similar situation, clearly modeled on the German Nazis or possibly Soviet Russia or both, who makes the opposite choice.
“It is settled?” said the Dictator. “Good. Gregor Malzius, I welcome you to the service of the new state. You have cast your errors aside and are part of our destiny.”
“Yes,” said Professor Malzius, “I will be able to do my work now.”
The Dictator frowned a little.
“You will not only be able to continue your invaluable researches,” he said, “but you will also be able—and it will be part of your duty—to further our national ideals. Our reborn nation must rule the world for the world’s good. There is a fire within us that is not in other stocks. Our civilization must be extended everywhere. The future wills it. It will furnish the subject of your first discourse as president of the Academy.”
“But,” said Professor Malzius, in a low voice, “I am not a soldier. I am a biochemist. I have no experience in these matters you speak of.”
The Dictator nodded. “You are a distinguished man of science,” he said. “You will prove that our women must bear soldiers, our men abandon this nonsense of republics and democracies for trust in those born to rule them. You will prove by scientific law that certain races—our race in particular—are destined to rule the world. You will prove they are destined to rule by the virtues of war, and that war is part of our heritage.”
“But,” said Professor Malzius, “it is not like that. I mean,” he said, “one looks and watches in the laboratory. One waits for a long time. It is a long process, very long. And then, if the theory is not proved, one discards the theory. That is the way it is done. I probably do not explain it well. But I am a biochemist; I do not know how to look for the virtues of one race against another, and I can prove nothing about war, except that it kills. If I said anything else, the whole world would laugh at me.”
“Not one in this nation would laugh at you,” said the Dictator.
“But if they do not laugh at me when I am wrong, there is no science,” said Professor Malzius, knotting his brows. He paused. “Do not misunderstand me,” he said earnestly. “I have ten years of good work left; I want to get back to my laboratory. But, you see, there are the young men—if I am to teach the young men.”
He paused again, seeing their faces before him. There were many. There was Williams, the Englishman, who had died in the war, and little Gregopolous with the fox-terrier eyes. There were all who had passed through his classrooms, from the stupidest to the best. They had shot little Gregopolous for treason, but that did not alter the case. From all over the world they had come—he remembered the Indian student and the Chinese. They wore cheap overcoats, they were hungry for knowledge, they ate the bad, starchy food of the poor restaurants, they had miserable little love affairs and played childish games of politics, instead of doing their work. Nevertheless, a few were promising—all must be given the truth. It did not matter if they died, but they must be given the truth. Otherwise there could be no continuity and no science.
He looked at the Dictator before him—yes, it was a hysteric face. He would know how to deal with it in his classroom—but such faces should not rule countries or young men. One was willing to go through a great many meaningless ceremonies in order to do one’s work—wear a uniform or salute or be president of the Academy. That did not matter; it was part of the due to Caesar. But not to tell lies to young men on one’s own subject. After all, they had called him The Bear and said he carried improper post cards in his brief case. They had given him their terrible confidence—not for love or kindness, but because they had found him honest. It was too late to change.
The Dictator looked sharply at the General. “I thought this had been explained to Professor Malzius,” he said.
“Why, yes,” said Professor Malzius. “I will sign any papers. I assure you I am not interested in politics—a man like myself, imagine! One state is as good as another. And I miss my tobacco—I have not smoked in five months. But, you see, one cannot be a scientist and tell lies.”
He looked at the two men.
“What happens if I do not?” he said, in a low voice. But, looking at the Dictator, he had his answer. It was a fanatic face.
I won’t spoil the ending, which affected me quite strongly, but he didn’t choose to keep the job.
The Dems are circulating that lie, which Harris will mention, about a Georgia woman’s death. It was not caused by restrictive Georgia abortion law. It was caused by the abortion drugs she took. She drove to NC for a scheduled D&C, but traffic made her miss the appointment. The clinic couldn’t fit her in for the procedure when she arrived, so they gave her the two-pill abortion meds and she drove home. She took the stuff at home, and suffered sepsis when the now-dead fetuses (twins) were not completely expelled. She went to a hospital in Georgia, which unaccountably delayed doing the D&C, which was NOT prohibited by law because there was no living child, only dead tissue, and the woman was in life-threatening condition. Sounds like the hospital is trying to avoid malpractice charges.
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In yesterday’s Open Thread—mkent brought up Ukraine’s home-built drones reaching 300 miles into Russia and blowing up a huge Russian ammunition storage facility.
Here’s a WSJ article (am using the Epic browser to pass the paywall):
Putin Is Under Pressure to Call Up More Troops for War of Attrition – ‘The Russian leader earlier this year rebuffed Defense Ministry officials who had tried to convince him they needed more soldiers’:
Russia is down…time to send the Ukrainians some ‘Steel Toe Boots’ and allow Ukraine to strike further into Russia with the weapons we send them.
The Soviet–Afghan War lasted about 10-years, and Russia lost about 15,000 troops. I don’t see Russia lasting that long with the losses they have taken in Ukraine. Send more help to Ukraine!!!
Deceased WW2 marine married a Japanese woman, who is still alive, in her eighties now.
Through Ancestry dna, another relative was contacted by a young Japanese/Caucasion woman who asked if there was any knowledge of an American Soldier in Japan after the war.
Because of potential emotional distress to surviving Japanese woman, no info has been given.
Another situation involves a happily married woman with two children who gave a baby up for adoption as a teen. Husband has no clue and is not the type to take the info lightly. Woman dreads the phone call, or knock on the door.
Karmi, the best help to give to Ukraine is to vote for Trump. Within one month of his presidency he will negotiate a settlement beneficial to both Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine cannot win this. Napoleon and Hitler learned the hard way. Stop the senseless killing.
The killing is not senseless.
If a win for Ukraine is not possible, then to continue the killing is senseless. Best option for both parties is a negotiated settlement. Ukraine cannot win this no matter how much we may wish so. The Russian way of war is to grind the enemy to dust regardless of how many Russian lives are lost. Ukraine does not have the manpower to continue indefinitely.
X, you can’t negotiate with Putin. Trump can either support Ukraine and continue to send arms, and allow them to be used, or he can abandon Ukraine. You can not trust any agreement that Putin might make.
Funny parody video showing Hezbollah men the day after the pager/walkie talkie attacks:
https://instapundit.com/673363/
The mind of a liberal.
Someone I have known only for a short time – he is 78 years old – tells me he is against open borders and against illegals voting.
But he intends to vote for Kamala Harris.
The “logic” used in his decision is beyond my ability to comprehend.
Recall that recently the US House of Representatives voted on a voter ID law; 198 demokrats voted against this bill; only 5 demonkrats supported this bill.
Just another open-thread comment about something I read somewhere else.
We all know that Wikipedia has always tilted left, but it’s now gone so far off center that the spin is close to horizontal. For those who might be interested, here’s another “inside baseball” article on how it happened.
title: How Wikipedia launders regime propaganda: Wikipedia editors churn news articles from an overwhelmingly left-leaning list of “reliable sources” into neutrality-emblazoned fact
author: Ashley Rindsberg
date: Aug 29, 2024
publication: Pirate Wires
link: https://tinyurl.com/2jdpf3fv
Shirehome, Trump can negotiate with anyone. He has the cards. Drill Baby Drill impoverishes Putin. Putin cannot continue the war without high oil prices. With Trump sanctions bankrupt Iran cannot supply Russia with weapons.Trump wins, Iran looses and Russia is forced to the negotiating table. That is one reason of many I am voting for Trump.
so the people who will supposedly conduct this world war trans, (not my word, it’s red diaper baby raskin) are the ones who led to the kabul capitulation the al Aqsa flood, the replacement etc
https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1836769685817246036
as john stormer riffing on john dunne ‘we dare not call it treason, unless treason doth prosper how well do you think think this will work, they are at war with our country, on behalf of China and Iran, and every other parlee player we can find, most assuredly Iran wants Harris in place, as they would want a bountiful pistachio harvest
https://donsurber.substack.com/p/what-it-takes-to-be-never-trump
no you have to ask them why do reasonable people want more of the same,
so back to the dispatch from oceania on the glorious malabar front, who can bibi trust, not the weasel starmer, who is a committed skydragon worshiper, harris she’s trapped in semiotic yarn, while forgetting where she put her hamas pompoms, sorry islamic resistance movement, it must like that commercial with the indian,(I forget the reason for the ad) as gizmos go splodey all over the levant,
im sure CAIR is giving her an earfull
Someone I have known only for a short time – he is 78 years old – tells me he is against open borders and against illegals voting. But he intends to vote for Kamala Harris.
==
He’s striking poses in his conversation with you. He doesn’t care about open borders or illegal voting.
have we already lost the war
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/latinos-convert-islam
its not a rhetorical question when the faith of the Salafi, as well as of the Zombie class
seem to predominant not only in the councils of government, but among their adjuncts in media in education, et al
Disappointed to see Powerline spreading FUD about heat pumps today. If I’m more disappointed when right-leaning blogs do stuff like that, it’s because I think better of them. But I guess the temptation to anyone doing commentary is the same, regardless of what political perspective they come from. Other right-leaning blogs did the same about LED lighting ten years ago.
Perfectly fine to point out that heat pumps are not a one-size-fits-all solution. Perfectly fine to say that the government has no business subsidizing them or trying to mandate them. But it’s wrong for Hinderaker to say they’re “absurdly inefficient” and “inferior technology” even when he prefaces his statements with “If you are not sure what a heat pump is, you are not alone. Neither am I.”
For some reason he can’t say “it’s a bad policy to subsidize or mandate heat pumps” without saying that heat pumps themselves are somehow bad. This is the disease we’re all falling into, Left and Right alike.
Not long ago I was reading about electric car fires, and I was wondering why there weren’t any stories about hybrid car fires, which of course have essentially the same batteries. (Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit was the first person I’d heard of who bought a hybrid.)
So I looked it up, and at least by insurance claims and adjusting for prevalence of ownership, normal cars are many more times likely to catch fire than electric cars and hybrids are even more likely than normals cars, about 20% more likely.
So for every article we read about electric cars catching fire, we should be reading 5 or 6 for hybrids catching fire. And we don’t. Because the narrative is based on journalistic cherry-picking. Every electric car fire is national news, but a hybrid catching fire is buried in the police log on page 6 of the Podunk Gazette.
While the media leans left, electric car fires draw eyeballs, and right-leaning media and blogs amplify the signal because electric cars are beloved of Team Blue and we have to hear that electric cars themselves are bad, as opposed to something that’s good for some people and not others and about which the government should butt out.
(Certainly seems true that electric car fires are harder to put out than normal cars, but the same should be true of hybrids, and again, the stories that get amplified are cherry-picked and we should be hearing 5-6 times as many stories about how hard it is to put out a burning hybrid.)
New post: Life in the Fully Politicized Society
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/71796.html
gresham’s law predominates,
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/09/18/heat-pump-subsidies-never-enough/
why do we insist on throwing good money after bad, dialing to eleven, because it feels good, we are at loss for that sentiment, ever since the skydragon crusade forced the phasing out of the incandescent bulb for no
good reason,
https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1836596841447653825
Re: ChatGPT 4.o1, codename “Strawberry,” is out
I noticed a difference immediately. Instead of finishing an answer to a question with a polite “Please let me know if have any further questions,” it ends with a question to inspire further conversation.
However, the real news is that Strawberry is much better at reasoning:
_______________________________________________
OpenAI’s tests point to resounding success. The model ranks in the 89th percentile on questions from the competitive coding organization Codeforces and would be among the top 500 high school students in the USA Math Olympiad, which covers geometry, number theory, and other math topics. The model is also trained to answer PhD-level questions in subjects ranging from astrophysics to organic chemistry.
In math olympiad questions, the new model is 83.3% accurate, versus 13.4% for GPT-4o. In the PhD-level questions, it averaged 78% accuracy, compared with 69.7% from human experts and 56.1% from GPT-4o.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/09/17/1104004/why-openais-new-model-is-such-a-big-deal/
_______________________________________________
OpenAI seems to have achieved this through smarter programming and training, rather than brute force multiplication of sizes and resources.
Bad news:
_______________________________________________
OpenAI’s new model is better at reasoning and, occasionally, deceiving / Researchers found that o1 had a unique capacity to ‘scheme’ or ‘fake alignment.’
https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/17/24243884/openai-o1-model-research-safety-alignment
I’m a rank amateur in using AI, but here’s my follow-up to Huxley’s note on the release of “Strawberry.”
For those of you who still believe that AI is a triviality that can be reduced to word-prediction software, maybe now is a good time to start taking a look at some of what’s become freely available to all of us. There are worse ways to spend a little of your time.
For what it’s worth, my bias is that the first obvious economic impacts will be with specialized, rather than general, AI. The first targets will likely by online human assistants in India and the Philippines.
Xylourgos
Russia is invading Ukraine, in case you didn’t understand what is happening.
In this case, Russia is learning the hard way…so to speak.
Niketas Choniates, Hinderaker lives in Minnesota, where heat pumps are a poor choice in the winter, which is about half the year up there. I checked the comments, and many were saying the same. Here in central NC, we have a dual heat system, which is heat pump down to the mid-40s and propane heat when it’s colder than that. Neighbors who have only electric heat complain about their electric bills in the winter when we have a cold snap, and they complain their houses don’t stay warm.
I read Miguel Cervantes link about heat pumps and saw Powerlines post about electric heat pumps and found both to be confusing politics with the actual benefit of heat pumps.
I use inverter heat pumps in my rental units and in the home I live in. In terms of efficiency, they are more efficient than resistance heat. In areas with reasonable electricity costs they will save money– and in the case of retrofitting a house using mini-split heat pumps will avoid/eliminate the use of ductwork (which is also the most inefficient part of heating/cooling).
An inverter heat pump uses a multi-speed compressor which allows more efficiency and greater ability to transfer heat. Mitsubishi is the Cadillac of heat pumps and their hyper-heat units maximize heat transfer at 45,000 btu/hr @ 5 degrees F. Some units will continue to transfer heat at temperatures down to -20 degrees F, though at reduced output.
The technology of inverter heat pumps is sound.
I think the argument against heat pumps is political.
I would recommend them in any climate, based on the cost of electricity vs. natural gas. At some point the cost per btu should make the decision obvious. While you have to size your heating appliance for the extreme– both high and low temperatures, most of the heating/cooling season is in between where the savings will be significant.
https://www.mitsubishicomfort.com/articles/keep-warm-this-winter-inverter-technology-for-any-climate
On heat pumps:
These are basically the same technology as refrigerators, only they are able to operate in reverse mode to also supply warm air to the house.
By the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (it’s amazing how many times I’ve written about the 2nd here), like all engines, the heat pump must extract (import) energy from a hot(cold) reservoir. The max efficiency of any such device is given by the Carnot equation: 1- Tc/Th, where Th and Tc are the temperatures of the hot and cold reservoirs. Given summer temperatures across the US, heat pumps work at about the same efficiency for cooling the house; maybe a bit less here in the south, but ours does a good job and our highest bill has been around $180. Where the efficiency goes way down is in the northern regions in the winter where the pump tries to heat a home by extracting energy from an air temperature of, say, 20F or even less and put that into a home at 72F. Here in Florida, we rarely get below 40F and the pump works just fine in doing the somewhat minimal heating needed.
There is an alternative by using the hot(cold) reservoirs as the temperature of the ground…so-called geothermal heat pumps. But, as I found out from personal experience, in the north, even the ground temperature can approach freezing in late January and the efficiency of the pump decreases for heating accordingly.
@miguel: Perfect example of what I’m talking about. Cherry-picked stories. Heat pumps are not for everyone, but that doesn’t make them bad. Give you an example: houses where I live usually don’t have any kind of ducting at all, so people put in ductless heat pumps, or they have ducts run through the attic which is much less expensive than the usual ductwork. So if you’re spending a lot on ductwork either your contractor doesn’t know what he’s doing, or he’s taking advantage of you, or you have some rare problem, but in none of those cases are the heat pumps to blame.
@Kate:Niketas Choniates, Hinderaker lives in Minnesota, where heat pumps are a poor choice
You know that and I know that, but Hinderaker does not know that. (I lived a few miles from Minneapolis for a few years, I know about their winters.) He says up front he does not know what a heat pump even is. But he want you to know they are intrinsically bad: “inferior technology” and “absurdly inefficient”. Those things he said are out-and-out lies not excused by Minnesota’s winters.
Kate, inverter heat pumps can continue to transfer heat from outside to inside down to -20 degrees F.
Not all heat pumps are the same.
https://www.energysage.com/heat-pumps/best-heat-pumps/
@physicsguy:By the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (it’s amazing how many times I’ve written about the 2nd here)
Yeah, because it’s surprisingly important!
Where the efficiency goes way down is in the northern regions in the winter where the pump tries to heat a home by extracting energy from an air temperature of, say, 20F or even less and put that into a home at 72F. Here in Florida, we rarely get below 40F and the pump works just fine in doing the somewhat minimal heating needed.
Indeed, they are not a one-size-fits-all solution. In Western Washington our winters rarely get below freezing, our summers are dry and rarely above 90, and many houses have no central heat or air conditioning at all, and so ductless heat pump installations are favored.
There is an alternative by using the hot(cold) reservoirs as the temperature of the ground…so-called geothermal heat pumps.
There were people I knew in Minnesota and Wisconsin who had that, and they certainly work, but the initial cost is very high. Again, not a one-size-fits-all solution.
@Brian E:Kate, inverter heat pumps can continue to transfer heat from outside to inside down to -20 degrees F.
Good point, countered by they don’t repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics so while they do work, your electric bill is getting closer to resistive heating on days like that.
Like I’ve been saying, heat pumps are not for everybody. And people should also know, like you’re saying, that heat pumps are not all the same. (Reinforcing my disgust with Hinderaker.)
@physicsguy:By the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (it’s amazing how many times I’ve written about the 2nd here)
Queue Homer Simpson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuxbMfKO9Pg
Heat Pumps: I have 2 of them. They do need auxiliary heat to kick in when it’s too cold for the heat pump alone to handle. That aux heat is usually electric, but doesn’t have to be; it can be gas. We have a gas-fired boiler that serves underfloor heating and the hot water heater; it also provides aux heat for one of the heat pumps via a heat exchanger.
In the case of the houses I’ve remodeled/built, I’ve used inverter heat pumps because it was cheaper to install. I installed them and I used an HVAC company to charge the system (the systems come with a pre-charged refrigerant, but the warranty is voided if you don’t use a licensed installer).
Case in point. You can order a 4 zone Mitsubishi mini-split rated down to -13 degrees for $9300. Add another $700 for copper tubing lines/accessories. That’s a 4 ton system for oldtimers.
Anyone with some carpentry experience can do the physical install– then hire an HVAC company to charge the system. Another $500-$1,000.
The benefits of ductless is no energy loss from the ductwork, because each zone is independent you can adjust the temperature in each room and they are very, very quiet.
If you need more than 5 zones, you would add a second compressor/condenser system.
Most of the world uses these systems. One of the problems in gaining acceptance in this country is most HVAC companies have a sheet metal shop that makes and installs ductwork. They are also tied to one of the major traditional companies that do not make the most efficient units.
So a traditional HVAC company is likely going to steer you away from these systems. (There are exceptions).
There is a difference between a heat pump and an inverter heat pump. And it’s a huge difference.
Niketas, yes inverter heat pumps are less efficient at the extremes (below 0 degrees), but most of the heating season is at temperatures where the advantage of efficiency is up to 4:1.
In eastern Washington, we normally get a week or two of -10 degrees lows, but occasionally lows of -20 degrees. It was cheaper for me to install baseboard electric as a backup than using one of the hyper heating units rated down to -20 degrees.
So I actually used the units rated to 5 degrees. Most of the winter it is entirely adequate.
But then I’m doing all the work, so the labor is $0.
As to the Ukraine-Russia war, if Ukraine is on the verge of a breakthrough, why is Zelensky trying to arrange another peace conference that he wants Russia to attend?
Regarding the conversation on heat pumps and the 2nd law of thermodynamics, similar to physicsguy I can’t count the number of times I’ve said, “Commercial energy production is a local problem.”
People so often get into debates about a single form of energy; gas, electric, solar, wind…
If you live in Buffalo, New York hydroelectric makes a lot of sense. If you live in Death Valley, hydroelectric is probably not going to work well for you.
Smart people are able to optimize this in most any jurisdiction if politicians stay out of it. I know Cornflour is fighting a losing battle in his area because his state won’t keep politics out of the discussion.
Fun anecdote: Once I understood LED* lighting and production costs came down I was a huge advocate (still am). However, one day I was reading about their residential use in Finland and Norway. Since LED lighting gives off so much less heat than incandescent bulbs Finns and Norwegians noticed their heating bills going up in Winter when they made the switch to LED and there are areas where that differential makes LEDs less energy efficient due to the need to augment household heating. So even my beloved LEDs and their use are a local consideration and should not be mandated globally, let alone nationally.
* Speaking of LED lighting, I hightly recommend this video on the creation of blue LED light (and, subsequently, “white” LED light): https://youtu.be/AF8d72mA41M?si=BYxSGj3zRmPOyKhb
Shuji Nakamura has likely done more than any living human to reduce human caused climate change, yet almost no one knows his name or story. Why? Because the narrative is wrong. He’s not a radical environmentalist throwing soup at paintings. Just a brilliant man who toiled thanklessly for years to make an improvement that resulted in tremendous good.
Sad news: https://nypost.com/2024/09/19/us-news/trump-appearance-at-nyc-kosher-deli-gottilebs-canceled-at-last-minute-after-owner-dies/
I am adopted (1964) and also did my DNA both through Ancestry and 23AndMe. Through it and some genealogy work by my husband, I have found my birth mother and birth father. I decided that I would not be the one to reach out to my birth family in any way since I was adopted at birth. I was 2 weeks old when my adoptive parents received me.
After a little time, a cousin reached out and then my half sister reached out. Both are from my bmom’s side. It turns out that my half sister had no idea that I existed. The cousin had heard from family at one time that my bmom had given birth and had given up the baby but knew nothing more than that. It was the family secret. My sister was shocked to say the least when she found out about me. My bmom is still alive but has dementia and cannot remember or communicate much. I also have 2 half brothers. Actually at first, my sister really had a hard time with everything. My sister asked some of the aunts and they did confirm to her some of what had been not discussed for a very long time.
It turns out that at birth I was named after my bmom’s best friend and in a strange turn of events, my adoptive parents named me a very similar name. It is really odd. At birth, Lauren Elizabeth. At adoption, Lori Alison with Elizabeth as my confirmation name. Strange, huh!?
After a little longer, a cousin twice removed on my bfathers side reached out to me but only wanted access to more of my DNA info. I granted that but that allowed me to also look into his. From the names and some of my non-identifying information from Catholic charities, my husband was able to find my bfather. He is alive and did get married and have children. So, I have more half siblings but again, I am not going to reach out and “rock the boat”.
I have met my half sister (bmom side) but have not met my half brothers. Apparently I look much like my bmom and as kids, my sister and I could have passed as twins. Interestingly, my sister and I are really different people. She is someone that I would be friends (not close friends) with but other than that would likely stay just that. She is nice but that is about it.
My meeting with my sister was not as emotional as was shown in the video since I had known that I was adopted for a very long time and came to realize that my adoptive parents are indeed my parents and that is all I needed. I have never had a need for more family as I already had one. I would meet more birth family if anyone wants to. But from my perspective, its like meeting strangers. As I told my husband, meeting them is fine because we have to see if we can be friends at least. I have not had any other contact with my bfathers side.
Anyhow, thought I would pass along my story on the heels of the video. Choose life!!!
@Rufus: Since LED lighting gives off so much less heat than incandescent bulbs Finns and Norwegians noticed their heating bills going up in Winter when they made the switch to LED and there are areas where that differential makes LEDs less energy efficient due to the need to augment household heating.
This doesn’t hold water. The amount of energy needed to keep the house warm is not changed by the LEDs. The waste heat from incandescent bulbs was part of the electric bill and paid for by the homeowner. After the switch to LEDs, that waste heat was no longer there, which reduces the electric bill to that extent.
The homeowner has to replace the waste heat with something, and if the source is resistive electric heat it’s a wash, because that’s what the waste heat from the incandescent bulbs was: it was in the bill before and it’s in the bill now.
If they had to replace the waste heat with more gas or propane or coal or whatever it is they have, they might have been paying more for (or less) for that different heat source, but they are no longer paying for as much electricity. The source of the “inefficiency” is the substitution of one kind of heating for another kind of heating and has nothing to do with the LEDs’ energy efficiency.
The same thing would result from keeping incandescents installed but not using them as much. In that case there’s no LEDs to blame, but it’s exactly the same thermal physics.
On the flip side, in the summer A/C has to remove the waste heat from the incandescents, and that costs extra electricity: the homeowner is paying for waste heat they don’t need and then paying again to remove that waste heat.
LED lighting is not a one-size-fits all solution to lighting needs any more than heat pumps are for heating. But if some people for some reason make use of waste heat from incandescents, it stands to reason they need to supply that heat from somewhere else. But they won’t be worse off from an energy standpoint by switching to LED. If they are substituting more expensive sources of energy they might possibly be financially worse off. In most places though electricity is not the cheapest source of heat per unit.
Long story short people have to carefully examine their whole energy situation before deciding to make changes. Which you’d think would be trite enough no one had to say that, but here we are.
I have a relative who works for a utility and he continually gets complaints from people who switched from resistive electric heat (which in his area is pretty cheap) to gas that their bill went up and that they thought the gas was more efficient. And he has to patiently explain that it is more efficient, but they are using a more expensive source per unit. They still feel robbed, though.
It’s cue, not queue
I noticed yesterday while wiring an electrical outlet that the silver neutral screw appeared the same color as the brass hot screw under normal residential LED lighting.
Brian E – who said Ukraine was having a “breakthrough”? They’re fighting to the death for their freedom, and doing a great job against the once feared Russian military.
You’re great on workout bikes and split-units, but almost brain-dead on war and politics. 😉
Anyway, my living areas are usually so small that 5-6,000 BTU window or thru wall AC units work fine for my current 320 sq ft (tad less finished) living quarters. Have been looking at the ductless split-units for years now – kits with copper and accessories included. Looks like 9,000 BTU are as small as they get, but probably would work.
Quiet would be nice. Also saw a ceiling ‘Thang but wouldn’t trust possible draining or condensing issues.
Re: what to do with “waste” heat. Should you put your water heater inside or outside your house?
Depends on where you live. In cold climates, the extra heat from them (even highly insulated) is worth the extra cooling load in summer.
@Chases Eagles: I noticed yesterday while wiring an electrical outlet that the silver neutral screw appeared the same color as the brass hot screw under normal residential LED lighting.
Normal residential LED lighting comes in all sorts of color profiles, from 2000K to 5300K. Some of the ones in my house are too blue for the room and I keep meaning to change them out but putting it off. The thing is that my lightbulbs last for YEARS and so if I replace them because I don’t like the color, they’re just going to be sitting in the closet indefinitely….
Karmi, the “breakthrough” I am referring to is the long range missiles fired into Russia that some people think are the next game changer.
Yes, in the east, Ukraine is slowly being ground into dust– though if you look at the cities in recent battles, Russia is changing tactics.
As to the mini-splits, part of the installation includes a condensate line to the outside, along with the copper tubing for the high and low pressure lines.
@Brian E:Should you put your water heater inside or outside your house?
Mine’s in the garage, not sure if that’s the best or worst of both worlds. I’m tempted by the heat pump water heaters but I can hear it inside the house I’ll be cranky. I can’t find one installed in place to find out how noisy it really is… but the garage is really hot in the summer and not that cold in the winter since it’s surrounded on two sides by the living areas of the house.
Now I have my engineer husband looking up inverter heat pumps, which we’ve never heard of before. Interesting discussion.
IAF tempo in southern Lebanon appears to be picking up, with numerous strikes near the Litani river. Still foggy, but signs point to “It’s on”. Lacking? Hezb’s response in kind, the true marker to look for. IRI mullahs may be restraining the Hezb’, not wishing to prematurely waste their hole-card.
Vicious stoogery has been a US strategic commonplace:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/us-if-hezbollah-ended-cross-border-terror-attacks-wed-tell-israel-to-halt-counter-strikes/
@Kate:Now I have my engineer husband looking up inverter heat pumps, which we’ve never heard of before.
Tl dr they are not just off or on, like a room’s AC. When they’re running at their best they are just barely on. So what you get from your mini-splits, if you’re doing it right, is a barely noticeable stream of room temperature air. You don’t usually feel a blast of hot or cold air, unless you’ve had them off for a long time and the room temperature has changed significantly.
When you’re definitely in a heating or cooling season they sort of dial in how they need to run and stay at whatever speed that is.
When you’re in warm days and chilly nights in spring and fall–in Western Washington this is like 4 months out of the year–I find that I sometimes need to change the mode from heat to cool to keep it at 70F, or I pick one mode and let the heat pumps switch off half the day when the temperature’s wrong for that mode. But in that case there’s little heating or cooling to do.
The inverter technology sounds good for Western Washington.
So, from what I just read, an inverter HP basically tries to eliminate the initial amp surge when the motor turns on by monitoring the house demand and then running the motor at a reduced (some quote 30%) speed and then ramping up the speed when demand increases. I guess I would have to see some numbers which show the time for power used by the motor at reduced rpm compared to the power used to start the motor. ie what is the break even time for the motor?? Also, as the motor ramps back to 100% that takes an increase in power. So I guess I would have to be convinced that a motor cycling rpms for some x amount of time uses less energy than a motor starting up and then stopping and staying off for some y amount of time.
I guess I could do the calculation, but too lazy right now to look up specs etc.
@Kate:The inverter technology sounds good for Western Washington.
It’s good in many other places as well, but it would be foolish to mandate it, or anything else, for the entire country.
What most people probably need more than a different kind of heating or cooling system, is better insulation.
@physicsguy:So I guess I would have to be convinced that a motor cycling rpms for some x amount of time uses less energy than a motor starting up and then stopping and staying off for some y amount of time.
There are nerds in reddit who continuously monitor their heat pumps and graph the energy usage. But maintaining a constant temperature uses in principle less energy than allowing large swings around a constant temperature. In implementation, of course it can be done less effectively than that.
Three or four years ago we put in Mini Splits. Two zones, three units on each zone. Do not remember the BTU’s, but 5 units are the same and the sixth is larger because the room it is in is much larger. We really like them. Can control by the room. Yes, if we turn them off then have to increase the fan speed and temp when turned back one, works for both A/C and heating. We keep the bedroom unit at 67, with fan speed on the lowest setting, except when it is really hot outside and the afternoon sun shines in. Then just up one notice on the fan speed. One “issue” – they stop providing heat at 5 degrees. I am in CO so it does get lower at least for a couple of days in the winter. Then, it is the electric baseboard heat, and I can really tell the difference in the electric bill.
“Perplexity” (perplexity.ai) is a general AI (artificial intelligence) LLM (large language model). I sometimes use “Perplexity” because it’s free, because it has a web interface, because it provides references to the sources used for its answers, and because it provides a short list of suggested follow-up questions.
As an experiment, I asked this question:
What are the climatic limitations for using an inverter heat pump to heat and cool an average family house, in the United States?
If anybody’s curious, here’s a link to the answer:
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-are-the-climatic-limitati-y_oNJmigRf2lhKik3tfyVA
P.S. I have no idea how long this link will keep working.
When I lived near Seattle, the previous owner of the home I moved into had recently installed a heat pump.
About a year or so after I moved into the home, I had the heat pump removed; it was useless in heating my home.
Go with a natural gas furnace .
Shirehome, the standard Mitsubishi is rated to provide maximum btu output down to 5 degrees.
Their hyper heating models will continue to provide heat down to -13 degrees, though not at the same output.
There are other brands that will do the same. Gree makes a unit that will continue to provide heat down to -22 degrees.
I think a single zone unit would automatically change from heat to cool. It’s my understanding the multiple zones can’t do that since one zone may need cooling and the other zone heating, so that is a small nuisance in the early spring and late fall.
I have a conventional heat pump. Set to heat at 66 (62 at night) and cool at 70. I have a lot of west facing windows so place can get pretty warm on hot days otherwise. Open floor plan with stupidly high ceilings. My garage is piped for hydronic heat but I have never gotten around to finishing it.
@Brian E:I think a single zone unit would automatically change from heat to cool. It’s my understanding the multiple zones can’t do that since one zone may need cooling and the other zone heating, so that is a small nuisance in the early spring and late fall.
There are multizone systems that can do this but I don’t think they’re affordable for residential heating and cooling. You already know, but some of the others might not, that there’s one compressor and it has to decide if it’s heating or cooling, and whatever it does the zone units all have to do.
That said you can have the zones at different temperatures, provided they are all heating or all cooling. You could have say 65F, 70F, and 75F in different zones inside if it was 50F outside or 85F outside, but not if it was 70F outside. You’d either turn off the 65F and set to heat, or turn off the 75F and set to cool.
I prefer the whole house at one temperature, so that’s what I set to.
ToI, “Britain calls for immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah“: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/britain-calls-for-immediate-ceasefire-between-israel-and-hezbollah/
Yeah, that’s not happening. Phantom imaginary worlds have overtaken the minds of western elites; they’ve no means of escape. Pity.
https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-promises-next-trump-assassin-will-be-a-woman-of-color
https://x.com/BehizyTweets/status/1836884207324307586
450,000
Is that a lot? That seems like a lot.
Heh
Here’s a surprise:
–“Trump makes first in-studio ‘Gutfeld!’ appearance”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6NAwzGtxAg
I’ve read accounts in which people say how charming Trump can be in person. I’ve mostly seen Trump preaching fire and brimstone, so I didn’t understand.
Yes, he can!
https://x.com/peterjhasson/status/1836900209550365142
Pudding-brain
See link for context
ArmyMom:
Thanks for your honest account. It’s complicated stuff no doubt.
My younger half-sister had half-sisters on my stepfather’s side of the family. I had made attempts to locate them. But geez, the last time I saw those girls was 1962.
However, several years ago those half-sisters felt compelled to track her down and did so the old-fashioned way — a private detective.
My half-sister only lived another five years but it was a blessing for her to connect with that side of her family.
”…the best help to give to Ukraine is to vote for Trump. Within one month of his presidency he will negotiate a settlement beneficial to both Russia and Ukraine.”
Trump has already released his plan, and the Ukrainians have outright rejected it. Putin accepted it, though. He accepted it right quick. It seems he and Trump agree on what should be done to Ukraine.
”Stop the senseless killing.”
The senseless killing is being done by the Russians. They can stop doing that any time they choose and go home. They’ve been asked to stop the senseless killing countless times by us, the Europeans, the international community, and the Ukrainians themselves. They refuse and keep on senselessly killing.
Giving Russia more victims to senselessly rape, torture, and kill is not going to stop the senseless killing. It seems the only way the Russians will stop the senseless killing is for them to die in large numbers. That’s tragic and even sad, but it’s their choice. Just like starting the senseless killing in the first place was.
”Best option for both parties is a negotiated settlement.”
Russia is genociding the Ukraine. The Ukrainians can no more negotiate with Russia than the Warsaw ghetto Jews could have negotiated with the Nazis or current Jews can negotiate with Hamas.
The mystery of D-Veep candidate Tim Walz is coming into better focus. How does a man with enormous simpatico for the Chinese Communist government betray his homeland? This might be the answer.
It seems that during his many years with the Nebraska National Guard, his unit lost a standard operating manual for the nuclear shell capable Howitzer — which itself appears to be copied by China. How about that coincidence!
Another “coincidence” in the man’s biography is that after High School, moving to Houston to attend the University of Houston, which he explains as serving his interests in East Asian Studies and learning Chinese. But at least some catalog documents from this period do not show any such courses offered.
A more comprehensive search is needed to narrow the uncertainty. What equally remains certain is the oddity that he offers that explanation for his perambulating studies while Nebraska Universities did offer these course options.
But while the Nebraska cities had no Chinese consulate back then, Houston did. And during the Trump Presidency this office was forced closed because it was a hive for intellectual property theft.
Alpha News continues the story: FBI pressed for documents on Walz’s ties to Chinese Communist Party..
Walz served 24 years in the National Guard, first with Nebraska and then with Minnesota. Walz joined the Guard in 1981 and retired in 2005, during which time he made multiple trips to China. Now a two-term Minnesota governor and Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Walz’s China ties are under new scrutiny.
Last month, Congressman James Comer, chair of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, requested FBI documents concerning “Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-connected entities and officials Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has engaged and partnered with.” So far, the FBI has not responded.
“The FBI’s silence regarding Mr. Walz’s documented relations with CCP affiliates is inexcusable,” Comer said, giving the FBI until Sept. 19 to respond.
Multiple public figures have begun to express their concerns, including Sen. Marco Rubio, who recently accused Walz of being a Chinese asset, calling him “an example of how Beijing patiently grooms future American leaders.” https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4265939/posts
_________
If this circumstantial evidence is tightened by viable time lines and further scrutiny, then his candidacy could become untenable.
Anyone hear about Comer’s updated deadline today?
From the article linked by cervantes about latinos converting to Islam:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/latinos-convert-islam
The report said that around 50% of the converts of Hispanic origin at the time were women, and many were choosing to wear head coverings. “The reason I wear the scarf is because I expect to be respected by the opposite gender,” said another Latina convert. “I don’t want to be catcalled and I don’t want to be judged by my appearance. In fact, I want to be judged by my intellect.”
—————————
Good luck with that mamacita….
She’s baaAack:
Because she wants to take everyone elses guns away genius
Kamala Harris to Give Abortion Speech Blaming Trump for 2 Deaths in Georgia – deaths of two women – in a state that averaged over 2,000+++ deaths a month of growing humans!?
@ Rufus > “Since LED lighting gives off so much less heat than incandescent bulbs …”
There are problems with that heat loss regardless of how it affects home heating bills.
Long time ago, possibly when he was still running his Captain’s Quarters blog, Ed Morrissey noted that when his northern city switched to LED traffic lights the snow began to pile up on the outside of the fixtures, sometimes making it impossible to see what color was lit.
The formerly used incandescent bulbs would melt the snow.
@ David Foster > “New post: Life in the Fully Politicized Society”
An excellent essay, as always. I was particularly struck by your quotation of this excerpt from Jonathan Kay’s story:
“So I folded,” he told me with a sad, defeated air. “I know I’m supposed to stick to my principles. That’s what we tell ourselves. Free association and all that. It’s part of the romance of our profession. But I can’t afford to actually do that. These people control who gets jobs. I’m broke. So now I just go numb and say whatever they need me to say.”
The “reading” for this week’s dialogue between Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn is a short story by Stephen Vincent Benét, from 1937, in which he focuses on a man faced with a similar situation, clearly modeled on the German Nazis or possibly Soviet Russia or both, who makes the opposite choice.
https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/benetsv-thirteen02-bloodofthemartyrs/benetsv-thirteen02-bloodofthemartyrs-00-h-dir/benetsv-thirteen02-bloodofthemartyrs-00-h.html
I won’t spoil the ending, which affected me quite strongly, but he didn’t choose to keep the job.
The Dems are circulating that lie, which Harris will mention, about a Georgia woman’s death. It was not caused by restrictive Georgia abortion law. It was caused by the abortion drugs she took. She drove to NC for a scheduled D&C, but traffic made her miss the appointment. The clinic couldn’t fit her in for the procedure when she arrived, so they gave her the two-pill abortion meds and she drove home. She took the stuff at home, and suffered sepsis when the now-dead fetuses (twins) were not completely expelled. She went to a hospital in Georgia, which unaccountably delayed doing the D&C, which was NOT prohibited by law because there was no living child, only dead tissue, and the woman was in life-threatening condition. Sounds like the hospital is trying to avoid malpractice charges.