A lot of people think that we are utterly dependent on burning oil for energy for our modern existence, but this is patently untrue. One example of potential independence is biodiesel. I own two diesels (a car and a truck) and I put biodiesel into them when I can, but it costs significantly more than petroleum diesel. This is due to the tax breaks given to Big Oil, and the fact that no one is paying for the major externality of burning petrofuels, carbon dioxide. The US government proved at Sandia NREL in the 1980s that producing biodiesel from algae grown in open raceway ponds was not only feasible, but that it should be profitable with diesel fuel retailing at $3/gallon.
Do you love Freedom? Do you love the internet? If so, perhaps you should consider the declaration of internet freedom.
A turbocharger is better than an nitrous install because it works better and you don't have to refill it. But that's not all; a turbo also puts less load on the engine for the amount of power you get out.
Every time I get comfortable with a retailer something bad happens. In this case, Newegg is doing Microsoft's work by illegally1 refusing warranty support to a customer who installed Linux on a computer. I submitted a letter about it to Newegg through their system; they gave me back the code #120612-001897.
Lately there has been a lot of nonsense (as I see it, ho ho) going around about the GPL. Perhaps it's just that the people who dislike it are becoming more outspoken, but many people are saying that they have recently come to believe that the GPL must necessarily spell the end of all software companies, the loss of zillions of jobs, and so on and so forth. I believe this is all a lot of hooey. The following material is (currently) the culmination of a long and involved thread on the subject on Google+; I will spare you a link as this is probably the most cogent contribution I made to the conversation anyway. Content after the break.
This is a comment I wanted to leave on Slashdot, but I brought it here instead. It is in response to this particular comment.
Fable III is a cute little game that tries over and over again to sell you stuff. At the same time it tries to train aspies to interact with their fellow humans by vibrating their genitals (the controller is in your lap, right?) when they say nice things to people. It's filled with bugs and glitches and the camera is retarded. At the end, it tries to sell you some more stuff. Two of five stars. Fable II was better in most ways.
The internets are full of people just crying about how the end of Fable 3 is hard and/or takes time to get a satisfactory ending. Didn't they play Fable 2? If you need money you just stop going on story-advancing quests and go make money. Don't be such whiners. I guess this is what happens when you make a game more realistic — a lot of twisted knickers.
With the heat coming on I decided to browse through eBay for A/C compressors, rebuilt or what have you, and found that a new compressor is about the same price as a reman, at least from buyautoparts.com. This is partly due to where I bought it (everyone else seems to want more) but also because it's a common GM axial compressor which is used on many vehicles. It's a really small little sucker that can turn 7,000 RPM, and Mercedes wisely used a V-belt pulley which makes it easy to source.
Well, it wasn't 102 like yesterday, but it was a pretty hot one here at about 96. Around 10 AM, as it really started to warm up, I decided to take on a couple of simple W126 300SD repair tasks: steering damper replacement, and shift bushing replacement. These are both conceptually simple jobs, and replacing the steering damper is even simple in actuality. The shift bushing replacement is a little trickier, but I had purchased a parts kit that made it at least reasonable.