Geography and Sex Offenders

1554 Walnut Avenue Antioch , antioch ca - Google Maps

Hindsight is 20 20 but wouldn't a simple Internet connection and Google Maps combined with the fact that the guy who kidnapped and imprisoned that poor California girl for 18 years was a registered sex offender have enabled the police or other authorities to rescue her sooner?  A Google mashup of locations of registered sex offenders combined with the link above would have shown something fishy going on.  Seems that local building or zoning code enforcement using the Google Maps tool would have revealed some serious code violations.  A GIS map of property lines and the image above would have shown that he was running some sort of illicit activity on part of his property.

70th Wedding Anniversary

8/6/09
The Brown’s are a model for marriage, celebrate 70th
By Chris Bullard

While divorce rates in the U.S. hover around 50 percent, one Clarendon county couple is setting the example of long-term commitment.

Marrying at the ages of 19, Robert and Jeanette Brown will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary on Aug. 9.

How did they do it?

“That’s a question I can’t answer,” Jeanette said. “I guess it was meant to be.”

Growing up in Sumter, Robert and Jeanette met in a high school typing class.

“When we were coming up, people just met at somebody’s house,” Robert said. “The girls and boys went to different schools after a certain grade. I needed a typing class, and it was my job to lead the football team over to the girl’s school for it. We ended up sitting by each other in the class.”

“He was dating someone else at the time,” added Jeanette. “But they broke up, and I mended his heart.”

On Aug. 9, 1939, the two were married in a Lutheran church on the corner of North Washington Street and Hampton Avenue in Sumter, where a Tuomey Hospital parking garage now stands.

“There wasn’t any air conditioning in the church and the men wore white linen suites,” recalled Robert. “I remember it was so hot we were sweating through the suits and one boy had to go home and change because you could see his blue striped shorts.

“They pinned white sheets all over the pulpit and put smilax on there. It was beautiful.”

“That was the trend back then,” added Jeanette.

The couple spent their honeymoon in Washington D.C. with only $100.

CHRIS BULLARD/Manning Times

Robert and Jeanette Brown stand together on the front porch of their home on Lake Marion. The Browns, married at the age of 19, will soon celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary.

“I kept books of our money and we came home with 68 cents,” said Jeanette. “We said we didn’t live on money, but on love. But I learned that wasn’t true.”

As life continued on for the couple, they had one child, Robert Brown III. Jeanette retired from Sumter County Health Department Vital Statistics in 1978 and Robert retired as Vice President of Wachovia Bank in Sumter in 1982.

Robert III, who now lives in West Palm Beach, Fla., sees his parents as a model for maintaining a long-lived relationship.

“Mom and Dad have always enjoyed life and have many good friends in the Manning and Sumter area,” he said. “I believe their ability to enjoy the best in people and to enjoy time spent with good friends has been a part of their long marriage. In these times of marriages that only last a few years, they are a model of what a marriage contract really means.”

“As we aged we’ve gotten into a social group. We go to a breakfast club and a supper club,” said Jeanette. “We love Clarendon.”

“Our neighbors really look out for us and we live in a great community,” said Robert.

To celebrate this anniversary, many of the Brown’s friends and neighbors planned a party.

“We had a big 50th anniversary,” said Jeanette. “For our 60th anniversary there was a banner that said ‘For 60 loving years.’ I told them they spelled love wrong – it should be endure.”

The Browns now also have one grandson and three great-grandchildren. So what’s next for this enduring couple?

“We live day by day,” said Jeanette.

“We’re just going on with our plans,” added Robert. “Why stop?”

The Real Facts on Health Care Reform by AARP

AARP - Health Action Now! : Myths vs. Facts

Don't Let the Myths About Health Care Reform Scare You.

There are special interest groups trying to block progress on health care reform by using myths and scare tactics. Like the notion that health care reform would ration your care, hurt Medicare or be a government takeover. Actually, these are false statements.

All of the health care reform plans currently being debated in Congress would ensure that you and your doctor are the ones making decisions about your health. The majority of working Americans will continue to receive their health care through their employer. In addition, health care reform will strengthen Medicare by eliminating billions of dollars in waste while lowering prescription drug prices.

Throughout the debate on how to fix what's broken about our health care system, AARP pledges to help you cut through the noise and find the facts about what health care reform means for you and your family. When we see special interests using scare tactics, we'll make sure you're given the facts so you can make informed decisions about health care reform.

The following are some of the most common myths being spread about health care reform and the facts that prove them wrong – click here to watch a video by AARP on the myths and facts of reform.

Vacation Mode, August 18, 2009

We were away from home from August 3rd to August 17th. During that period all electronics were unplugged except for two DVRs and the Acer Aspire One netbook that functions as the server for BBBrown.mysolarlog.com. Two inefficient non-Energy Star refrigerators were running as well as the pool pump 5 hours a day. The weather was relatively good for solar generation but the ambient temperatures were high, in the 90s. The jump in percentage generated can be clearly seen in this chart which shows daily percent generated since January 1 of this year, 2009.

Weekly Investor Round Up

Weekly Investor Round Up

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Florida's Solar Incentives NPR Market Place

Solar energy gains ground in Florida | Marketplace From American Public Media

More on Sustainability

Thursday, August 13, 2009

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Solar energy gains ground in Florida

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Gainesville, Fla. is the first city in the country to adopt a new solar incentive program, making it profitable for an average person or business to put up solar panels and begin feeding power back to the grid. Jennifer Collins reports.

Kai Ryssdal: Gainesville, Florida sits right in the heart of the Sunshine State. It's probably best know for its powerhouse college football team, the University of Florida Gators. The city's also started attracting attention for power of a different sort. Solar energy. Panels are popping up all over the city. So are the economic benefits. Jennifer Collins has more from the Marketplace Sustainability Desk.

Plastic and water

Solutions Journal


What a strange concept. Love bottled water? Have you ever thought about the fact that thte bottles are made from oil and the water, in most cases, is just tap water? If it is truly water from distant mountain springs then oil is used to ship it all over the world. Very bizarre.

Curbing Electrical Bills, And Helping the Planet - DrWeil's Weekend Tip

Curbing Electrical Bills, And Helping the Planet - DrWeil's Weekend Tip

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You're Gonna Get Nailed.

Great TV campaign by the State of Tennessee.

V-Bat Vertical Take Off and Landing Aircraft

I Feel Better About Our Computers

I thought we were not the norm with our three desktops and three laptops.  I guess that is not so unusual after all according to this very interesting article at ZDNet:

How many PCs are enough? 5? 10? | Tech News on ZDNet

Despite a PC market in freefall, it seems silicon.com readers are still packing a fair few pieces of hardware.

Asked how many PCs - including laptops, desktops and netbooks - they own, 45 per cent of ZDNet sister site silicon.com readers who responded admitted to having between three and five.

An even more hardware-heavy 32 per cent claimed to have between five and 10 computers tucked away while another six per cent 'fessed up to having more than 10 machines. And presumably very large houses and/or understanding partners.

At the low end, 11 per cent owned up to having a pair of PCs, five per cent said they own just one and a hardware-shunning one per cent said they have no PCs at all (which presumably means they responded to the poll either in the office or on a friend's hardware.)

Monk Parakeets

Last week my granddaughters and I bought two new birdfeeders. One is a hanging feeder and the other a platform feeder. We told the girls that we were hoping the hanging tubular one would attract some parrots. Amazingly, parrots have visited the feeder. Well, to be technically correct parakeets have visited. We have had one Black Hooded Parakeet and three Monk Parakeets. I grabbed my video camera and shooting through the kitchen window and the patio screens got this short video.

See http://invasions.bio.utk.edu/invaders/monk.html for more info on the Monk Parakeet as an invader.

Gambling the Future? Excerpts from Dave Cohen's article on ASPO-USA

Is Business-As-Usual Likely In A Peak Oil Scenario? :: ASPO-USA: Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas

2010-2020 — The Decisive Decade

If the peak oil hypothesis is correct, world oil production will likely be in decline well before 2020. During this same period, the United States may (or may not) implement a cap & trade system to rein in CO2 emissions. The proposed legislation aims to cut emissions 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. Emissions declined in 2008 following on the oil shock of 2007. The financial meltdown in 2008:Q3 guarantees a similar emissions decline in 2009.

As I described in The Reign of Error, Europe already has a cap & trade system in place. Europe’s carbon market, created under the Kyoto Protocol, has not actually resulted in reduced emissions in the Eurozone. This sleight-of-hand is due to allowable offsets whereby a putative reduction outside of Europe (e.g. in Asia, or Africa) is counted as a reduction within Europe. At best, Europe has reduced the carbon intensity of any economic growth that took place since the formation of the carbon market. The proposed cap & trade system in the United States contains the same loophole.

Assuming that peak oil occurs early in the next decade, and the currently envisioned cap & trade system, which goes into effect in 2012, is actually implemented, we can expect an overall decline in carbon emissions in the United States during the period 2010-2020. If growing emissions are a necessary condition for economic growth, as I have argued here and in The Radical Hypothesis, it follows that the American economy will shrink, not grow, in the coming decade.

If world oil production peaks, I predict most people will forget about terrifying business-as-usual climate scenarios. Instead, they will get down to the hard business of replacing oil by any means possible. If the economy is shrinking, any means necessary will be used to jump start growth. I am not so much interested in what should happen. I am interested in what will happen.

Thus, the years 2010-2020 will likely be the decisive decade of the 21st century. We should know by 2020 whether economies can grow as emissions decline. The result will define our response to anthropogenic climate change in all the decades to follow. We will know whether the consensus view espoused by Joe Romm, John Holdren and many others, as I have believed all along, is merely a politically expedient, faith-based “green jobs” guess about how things will turn out. Should that guess be proved wrong, our political leaders will run the other way.


Contact the author at dave.aspo@gmail.com

My friend Troy's Philipine Adventure

Welcome to Troys 2009 Uhaj Native Village Adventure


Rick and Cordella live next door to us and our best friends. They are an extraordinary family who live an intensive life outside their work life which in itself is intense. They travel to Honduras and work at a school for girls with their church. They are involved in a lot of other charitable organizations as well as their church. This summer, their son Troy, traveled to Banaue in the Philippines to study native woodcarving from a master wood carver there. He has documented his adventure with photos and a diary on this website. He will be coming home soon and we all are excited about hearing the details of his summer study adventure in Banaue. Barbara and I believe that this adventure and the experiences he is having are absolutely amazing. Troy has traveled half way around the planet on his own. Lived in a remote village in the Philippines and studied the art of woodcarving with only hand tools for a month. He has also hiked to remote sites and has lived in an area that has farmed the steep hillsides growing rice in terraced fields for centuries. We cannot wait to see him and hear of his adventures and we know he is anxious to return home but will miss the friends that he has made there.

Images of Mass Consumption

There is a strange beauty in these images of mass consumption but also conflicting feelings of horror.  The feelings are like those when you are driving and a bad accident has occurred and you have to drive right by it. You don't want to look but something compels you to.

The Images by Chris Jordan

Leo Uses Audio Boo to talk about China

AudioBoo / Some Thoughts About Censorship As We Fly Home

Florida Alliance for Renewable Energy

About FARE

The Florida Alliance for Renewable Energy “FARE” is a coalition of concerned individuals, businesses, communities, associations, policy makers, non-profits, and renewable energy producers. FARE is dedicated to educating and engaging Floridians on Renewable Energy Dividends. RED's have proven to be the most wide-spread and effective legislation for the promotion of renewable energy. Support FARE today and help secure a future for Florida that includes job creation, energy independence and environmental stewardship.

Weather and NPR

Our weather has been unusually hot. High temps daily in the 90s. That is really unusual for us. Even so, our PV system has been cranking out 35 percent and up of our energy. With the AC running constantly that is not too bad. We still have a lot of work to do on conservation. When our major appliances get old enough we will replace them with Energy Star ones. We have two refrigerators and that alone should save us about 10+ KWH per day. It is more cost effective to replace inefficient appliances than it is to add more solar panels.

A couple of days ago while taking Barbara to the dentist I turned on the radio. It happened to be tuned to NPR and the Dian Rehm show. They were talking about solar energy. It was a good show with a great panel made up of:

Rob Lamkin, CEO, Cool Earth Solar

Rhone Resch, president and chief executive officer, Solar Energy Industries Association

Peter Fox-Penner, principal and chairman emeritus, The Brattle Group, an international economic consulting firm,former Department of Energy official, and author of the forthcoming Island Press book "Smart Power"

Alex Daue, Renewable Energy Coordinator with the Wilderness Society.

Something urged me to call in and boy was I shocked when they took my call. I was so surprised that my thoughts were not as organized as I would have liked them to be. I still managed to convey some of our experiences of living in a solar home and got a nice compliment from the panel. You can go to the Diane Rehm Show website and listen if you want. My call came in about two thirds of the way into the show. Click here to go to the website. The audio links are on the right.

Another Tiny PC

fit-PC2 Wiki

CompuLab introduces fit-PC2 – the smallest, most power-efficient Intel Atom PC to date. fit-PC2 architecture is what sets it apart from other nettop PCs - fit-PC2 is designed around the Intel Atom Z530 1.6GHz and the ultra low power Intel US15W system controller hub, rather than the Atom N270 and 945G used in other nettop-PCs, thereby reducing power consumption by more than two thirds.
US15W incorporates hardware video acceleration. This allows fit-PC2 to run Windows XP or Ubuntu Linux at just 6W and to play full HD 1080p H.264 video using less than 7W.
Unique Features
Size

The most striking feature of fit-PC2 is its size - 4" x 4.5" x 1.05" - smaller than a CD.
Fanless Operation

fit-PC2 is totally fanless - the all-aluminum case dissipates heat. This has two advantages -

*
o fit-PC2 is noiseless, or absolutely silent if used with a solid state disk.
o Increased reliability due to no moving parts.

Wall Wart Computer

Marvell SheevaPlug: $99 Linux PC hidden in a wall-wart - SlashGear

Marvell SheevaPlug: $99 Linux PC hidden in a wall-wart
By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Feb 24th 2009

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+92 [96 votes]

Marvell have been talking up their SheevaPlug reference design, a wall-wart power plug that actually hides an entire Linux PC. Priced at $99, inside the SheevaPlug there’s an ARM-based 1.2GHz Sheeva embedded processor, 512MB of DDR2 memory, 512MB of flash storage, gigabit ethernet and USB 2.0; in fact the development kit is available now.