A good read from Oil Price. Pretty much a trade publication for the oil and gas industry, it’s definitely a cheerleader for legacy energy industries. But they are business oriented and usually pretty factual.

The Global Energy Shift Is Happening—Quietly but Surely

Yesterday after a visit to the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History, I linked to President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address (1961). There was a specific quote I was thinking of, and I couldn’t find it. I was pretty sure it was in his farewell speech, famous for its coining the phrase “Military-Industrial Complex”. Turns out it was in a different speech. I didn’t realize how quotable Eisenhower was. Didn’t know he was from Abilene, TX either. Maybe the last decent Republican president this country has had. A nice bunch of Eisenhower Quotes. The one I was thinking of is his “Cross of Iron” speech.

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road. the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”

Address “The Chance for Peace” Delivered Before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, 4/16/53

A few weeks back, in the distance from the Costco parking we could see what looked like missiles across the road.. We assumed they were part of the nearby Kirkland Air Force Base, perhaps the front gate. It turned out to be The National Museum of Nuclear Science and History. We went by yesterday and went through the exhibits and the boneyard of old equipment in the yard. It was a sobering experience to think the best minds of several generations put all of their efforts into these weapons. I couldn’t help but think of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address (1961) which is worth a read today.

Funny how a novel written over 200 years ago still captures our imagination. Everyone knows the story. A new version of the movie comes out every few years it seems. I suppose the story of the monster that we create and can’t control (can we really control any of our creations?) is a story that will never get old. An old review from the London Review of Books.

Versatile Monster

We recently moved to Placitas, NM. Everything is great, except due to the location of our house we have some trouble getting local Over The Air (OTA) TV channels. We don’t have cable TV and our service (Sling) doesn’t offer local channels for our area. With a $5 antenna we could could get a few channels, and depending on where I moved the antenna we could get just about everything. But never all at the same time.

I bought a slightly larger antenna for $15 and it was better. Still could only get 3 or 4 of the 5 networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Fox). A friend sent me an old two tuner HDHomeRun box he had sitting around (thanks Ross!) thinking maybe it would have a better tuner and pull in more channels. It is a very cool piece of hardware but it wasn’t an improvement over the Samsung TV tuner.

As a last ditch effort I decided to see if a bigger antenna would help. Found one for $20 at Walmart. I should add I was trying to avoid going outside, mounting something on the roof, run it a wire and drilling holes in the walls. We were so close with a simple indoor antenna.

The bigger antenna was the answer. Had to put it on the far wall away from the TV, because that’s where it worked, facing the broadcast antennas. Didn’t want to run a wire over to the TV so I plugged it into the HDHomeRun box, got a cheap wireless TPLink Ethernet adapter and plugged it into the network.

The app for the HDHomeRun on Apple TV is great. Added it to my Plex server and can watch live TV from there too. Now we can watch and record local TV from any TV, phone, pad or computer in the house. Think we’re done here.

From El Pais (Spain):

Revolution in medicine: A molecule produced by gut bacteria causes atherosclerosis, responsible for millions of deaths

TL;DR:  get panels and a battery and don’t connect it to the grid. From American Prospect.

There’s a Far Cheaper Way to Do Rooftop Solar

Wanted a soft serve ice cream. There is a Baskin Robbins near by but I figured I would Google to be sure. Great! Drove over and the kids behind the counter looked at me like they had never heard of soft serve ice cream. It was half Dunkin and half BR so maybe that was the problem. Was really in the mood for a soft serve. Had a doughnut instead.

From the latest laws at the federal and local level, this may end up being a high water point for Texas. Entrenched oil and gas interests seem to be eliminating this clean, cheap source of energy for the state. Imagine killing off a growing modern business at the behest of a dying legacy business. From PV Magazine.

Solar and wind generated 40.2% of the ERCOT grid’s electricity this year through June. When coal plants shut down for unexpected maintenance, solar and wind stepped in, providing about 50% of generation during peak summer demand in the highest electricity consuming state in the union.

Solar, wind and storage reliably power Texas grid during unexpected coal shutdown