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How I Gave Up Alternating Current

robrhinehart.com

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Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#51

Post by xienze »

condescendence wrote: post #34

As another user hinted at, this article is completely back-asswards. >I have not done laundry in years. I get my clothing custom made in China for prices you would not believe and have new ones regularly shipped to me. Shipping is a problem. I wish container ships had nuclear engines but it’s still much more efficient and convenient than retail. Thanks to synthetic fabrics it takes less water to make my clothes than…

> You haven't done anything but say "okay let's see my most carbon producing areas are," and your only solutions are "let's see if someone else can help me reduce my carbon by taking the responsibility off of my own shoulders"

Well, in a sense I can understand how someone can think this way. The entire notion of reducing a person/company's carbon footprint is based around shifting the dirty work somewhere else. Globally, we impose carbon caps on developed nations and let China do whatever it wants. Ergo, production shifts to China. The pollution is still occurring, but hey, at least _we're_ not doing it. On a smaller scale there's this silliness around buying "offset credits", which smells of a modern day religious indulgence-purchase scheme.

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#52

Post by pje »

condescendence wrote: post #34

As another user hinted at, this article is completely back-asswards. >I have not done laundry in years. I get my clothing custom made in China for prices you would not believe and have new ones regularly shipped to me. Shipping is a problem. I wish container ships had nuclear engines but it’s still much more efficient and convenient than retail. Thanks to synthetic fabrics it takes less water to make my clothes than…

Not to mention this:

> I cannot in good conscience force a fellow soul through this gauntlet [of shopping at an American grocery store]

Followed up by this:

> I get my clothing custom made in China for prices you would not believe and have new ones regularly shipped to me.

Unless this custom Chinese clothing is made by robots and shipped to LA via zero-emission SolarDrones, I'm calling bullshit on your conscience.

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#53

Post by munificent »

placeybordeaux wrote: post #8
ForHackernews wrote: post #3

Is this a parody?

> First, I never cook. I am all for self reliance but repeating the same labor over and over for the sake of existence is the realm of robots. > I have not done laundry in years. One can only hope.

> I am all for self reliance but repeating the same labor over and over for the sake of existence is the realm of robots.

Don't forget the part where he describes his gaming PC for playing Kerbal Space Program and LoL in detail after that.

I also like how he says:

"My home is a place of peace. I don’t want to live with red hot heating elements and razor sharp knives. That sounds like a torture chamber."

But then seems to not find anything risky about having bare wires attached to a fully-charged car battery on his desk.

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#56

Post by 54mf »

"For storage a $65 lead acid automobile battery does the trick. It’s 12V so can be charged directly from the solar panel, and holds 420Wh, way more than I use in a day. That’s $0.15 / Wh so I don’t see why everyone is so excited about Tesla charging $0.43 / Wh for the Powerwall, sans inverter and installation."

I'm not smart enough to take this apart, but my gut tells me the best-in-class engineers and (tens/hundreds of?) millions of dollars in R&D at Tesla aren't going to be outwitted by Mr. I'm-Repulsed-By-The-Idea-Of-Kitchens. Anyone want to take a swing?

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#57

Post by sandworm101 »

Reading this article I half expected the author to forgo vaccines to reduce his water consumption.

This is a hypocritical lifestyle through which the author outsources energy consumption so that he can live a falsely monastic life. A true monk reduces life to essentials but by doing so ends up performing much more daily work. They don't stand around all day enjoying how much less effort it takes to live the simple life. They take on the responsibility of meeting their own needs, usually through physical effort or toil, rather than lay those tasks on others.

This guy is a tourist spouting off about his low-energy hotel while sitting in the first class cabin of a 747. He's not flying the plane. HIS ticket is paid for with eco-bitcoins. We all are the ones killing the planet with our wasteful battery-powered watches.

PS: I hope he has a fuse or two somewhere on that rig. Electrons in combination with lead blocks swimming in acid are not your friends. But maybe he has outsourced that risk via renter's insurance.

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#58

Post by xienze »

ovulator wrote: post #43
condescendence wrote: post #34

As another user hinted at, this article is completely back-asswards. >I have not done laundry in years. I get my clothing custom made in China for prices you would not believe and have new ones regularly shipped to me. Shipping is a problem. I wish container ships had nuclear engines but it’s still much more efficient and convenient than retail. Thanks to synthetic fabrics it takes less water to make my clothes than…

When I got to the washing part (I skipped over the Soylent part because I assumed it was just a paid advertisement), I expected him to talk about using a washing board or something. No, I just buy new clothes. So instead of using a little energy for a spin cycle, I have factories in China spew coal, then have shipping freights (some of the worst environmental offenders) bring it half way across the world for me so I…

> then presumably add it to the land fill.

Oh no, he donates his single use clothes. That gives him yet another thing to feel superior about.

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#59

Post by stephengillie »

ovulator wrote: post #43
condescendence wrote: post #34

As another user hinted at, this article is completely back-asswards. >I have not done laundry in years. I get my clothing custom made in China for prices you would not believe and have new ones regularly shipped to me. Shipping is a problem. I wish container ships had nuclear engines but it’s still much more efficient and convenient than retail. Thanks to synthetic fabrics it takes less water to make my clothes than…

When I got to the washing part (I skipped over the Soylent part because I assumed it was just a paid advertisement), I expected him to talk about using a washing board or something. No, I just buy new clothes. So instead of using a little energy for a spin cycle, I have factories in China spew coal, then have shipping freights (some of the worst environmental offenders) bring it half way across the world for me so I…

Not to mention that the crews of most freight cargo boats aren't much more than slave labor.

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#60

Post by dragontamer »

mcdougle wrote: post #24
jhildings wrote: post #16

>First, I never cook. I am all for self reliance but repeating the same labor over and over for the sake of existence is the realm of robots. Well then he does cooking wrong, he could also try to improve himself but in the craft in itself but also add more creativity to it

He's also the creator/founder of Soylent, and even if he were a good cook, he'd likely continue to live off of his creation if only to say "look, I do this!" which will probably get more people to buy his product.

Ah, the inventor of Soylent.

Makes sense now. It doesn't really speak well for Soylent when his life choices are "Lets go eat out all the damn time" however.

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