A few weeks from the winter solstice, new challenges arise in using solar compared to summer and fall, some augmented by starting an experiment with what I had, not analyzing and planning to find perfection before starting (starting is the way to find what works best). Days are shorter: I have less time during the day to charge. Days are shorter, part 2: I can’t choose when I charge. Near[…] Keep reading →

I volunteer a lot, so end up talking to organizers of volunteer organizations. Over the weekend I talked to two organizers of food volunteer organizations. One provides meals through a soup kitchen, the other collects food stores would throw away and delivers it to community centers. Both repackage food delivered to them in disposable, single-use plastic containers. I know people were able to deliver food safely before plastic was invented,[…] Keep reading →

About a year ago I started writing the first draft of my next book. If you count earlier iterations that only led to refining the outline and restarting, I probably started six months earlier, not that I kept track. I had finished my first draft a few months later, spring 2021. I knew when I started writing my second non-self-published book, Initiative, that I would write my next book on[…] Keep reading →

I’ve never cared much one way or the other about kombucha. I’ve tasted it once or twice, but it comes packaged, so I avoid it. I’ve been making vinegar for a while from apples and water, sometimes adding sugar, since I have some a neighbor left when he moved. The vinegar tastes delicious and has resulted in a bunch of the yeast and bacteria cultures that grow as I pass[…] Keep reading →

If you believe, as I do, that humans have overpopulated the Earth, there’s a big problem with affordable housing. Every politician promotes building more buildings, and attaching the term “affordable housing” to any project helps it get popular support. I don’t remember hearing anyone oppose “affordable housing.” Before cars overran cities, people didn’t complain about building highways into cities. Few people, maybe no one, anticipated induced demand, where building roads[…] Keep reading →

I’ve asked people lately to come up with examples they consider major advances in life in their lifetime not requiring extracting more fossil fuels. Or even the last century. People come up with antibiotics, but they started long before; solar energy, but it requires fossil fuels; nuclear energy, but it requires fossil fuels; and then start giving up. I can’t think of much either. The Green Revolution fundamentally burns fossil[…] Keep reading →

Months ago I bought a battery (used off Craigslist) to power my apartment. They call them power stations, partly to sound more impressive, partly since they can receive and deliver electric power in many ways. The process started years ago, when I started reducing my electric power demand to where a battery would suffice, and I dropped my demand to a couple dollars worth per month. The other day I[…] Keep reading →