https://theguardiansofdemocracy.com/trump-proudly-declares-he-is-a-nationalist-were-not-supposed-to-use-that-word/

Is objectivity dead? The picture which demonstrates Trump waving something that looks like a Nazi salute clearly biases the information presented.

Of course, that insinuates rational thought processes to begin with, but critical thinking has always been too weird for the masses that want to be in step with the in crowd.

Off The Grid

On Wedensday, August 17, 2016, installation of solar panels began. Three days later installation was complete. This doesn't really take us off the grid, legislation is in place to deny consumers be completely disconnected.

Installation

Some pictures

They informed us that the city would have to inspect, then the electric company would be notified. The switch could not be flipped until they, the electric company, installed their meter to handle Net Metering. They also said the electric company might drag their feet because not everyone at that organization was keen on individual residences generating their own power, and using the grid to store said energy. In fact, someone from the electric company had come by during installation, and my wife was out there. She said he was an asshole, commented he didn't understand why people were adding PVC panels to their houses.

About a week later on Monday the doorbell rang, and a nice woman from the electric company informed me the power would flicker as she installed the final component. Very cheerful, seemed genuinely pleased with our addition. She was just a few minutes, and I flipped the switches as I was instructed.

Immediately all hell broke loose!!! Could not believe the situation I found myself in!!

Actually, nothing happened, or nothing appeared to happen. Got a call from Mike, with the company that installed the panels, NetZero Solar, asking me to verify the correct switches had been properly flipped. 

The day following initial energizing of the system I did some completely unscientific experiments to watch power consumption. We are particularly interested in how the heating elements in the various appliances in the home affect consumption.

Aug 30, 2016

I turned the AC off @ 7:45 and started a load of laundry, just to see what the consumption will be. It's recorded in 15 minute intervals, and the load runs for 48 minutes. I'll start the dryer the same way, and run it for 15 minutes (towels).

From 0900 to 0915 I ran the dryer.

At 0930 I used the microwave off and on for about 10 minutes.

At 1000 I turned the AC on full, to run continuously for at least 15 minutes.

Turned on the pool pump at 1050.
Changed the thermostat from 76 to 78.

At 1400 changed the thermostat from 78 to 81.

September 1, 2016

Ran the coffee pot for exactly 15 minutes starting at 0530. This one doesn't use much at all.

At this point it looks like the hours between midnight and 6am are the most consistent. One day soon I'll have to power everything down besides essentials and monitor how that goes.

Up to this point the focus has been energy consumption, because that is a variable that can be controlled to some extent. From the charts above production, indicated with the light blue bars, is evident. The dip in production in the afternoons has been due to overcast conditions. It will be interesting to see how production is affected in the presence of precipitation in the early afternoon.

Overcast Conditions

Overall, the next graph shows production during daylight hours. The dip is the result of a partly cloudy afternoon.

Sunny Day

The next is production during a completely cloudless day.

Fine Art

Years ago while eating at a restaurant in Tucson, my wife commented on a painting hanging on the wall. She obviously liked it, and asked me to check the placard next to it, see if it had a price.  It did, around $600 if I remember correctly.  I expressed my dismay at the price, not that she would want to buy it, but that someone would part with that much money for seemingly random brush strokes.

This isn't the painting, but it doesn't seem possible the following painting would ever sell.

Springtime in Paris

We discussed the apparent randomness, how hard it would be to duplicate, and whether it was something I could do. We agreed to share the cost of materials and I would try it. This is a first attempt.

It was, of course, more difficult than I imagined it would be, and the result above was very unappealing.

Next step was to scratch everything and consign everything to the trash heap, or try something new. I don't remember what made me decide to do so, but I bought some different colors, read up on a few things, bought some different brushes and more canvases, and tried a few different things, probably with the same result.

The picture above, if it can be called that, sat in the bedroom where I'd set it up, for close to a year, reminding me every day of the failure. Then my wife showed me a picture she wanted me to try, a two dimensional flower pot. Much simpler, it seemed pretty straightforward. 

She was very pleased with the result, so it hangs in the bedroom.

Discovered Wetcanvas.com, Jerry's Artorama, watched some YouTube videos about painting, and moved everything into another room to provide more space. Continued trying more things.

Some friends came over and expressed interest in the pictures above, so I gave some of it away. My brother in Michigan also wanted some things, so I sent them to him. It cleared away some of the things that were building up.

This is what my painting area looked like after a while.

There wasn't a specific moment I made a decision to pursue improvement, and I can't say there's been much improvement, but I've been learning and practicing. I would see things in galleries, on the Internet, on television, and get ideas to try. Some might say inspiration was taking hold, but I hesitate to go that far.

At one point I tried something larger with a yellow background.

My wife saw this and declared it finished, so it hangs in the bedroom.

I kept painting over that original first attempt, and a buddy of mine that was interested in how things were going saw what had become of that. 

It had become a sounding board for various brush and palette knife techniques. It's a relatively large canvas, about 30x40 on a 3/4 inch frame. He really liked this, so I gave it to him and he has it hanging on a wall at home.

This all started with acrylic paints. They are inexpensive and easily dealt with using water for thinning and cleaning, and there's little odor. I didn't use oil because I thought the odor would be too much, and clean-up was more troublesome. When I realized this was not the case, I tried some. They handle differently, take a while to dry, and blending is interesting.

Sometime within the last year or so expansion was necessary. Either that, or the alternative was scrap the whole experiment and give the surplus supplies away. I'd come across a video showing implementation of a cheap wall mounted easel.

https://youtu.be/nqvR0F3UPd0

It was time to provide more space to continue.

It was about this time I came across a video that looked very interesting, and seemed relatively easy. 

https://youtu.be/XosE0p2s8cs

I tried it.

It was fairly simple and very striking. One thing about acrylic and oil, one can paint oil over acrylic, as many canvases are primed using an acrylic based gesso. But it doesn't work if acrylic is painted over oil. (This I haven't verified myself, and probably won't) The painting above is done on a black canvas made using thinned black acrylic paint. I tried another.

I tried to make it more interesting by adding color to the foilage, then somehow came up with the idea of adding texture. The texture is achieved using various acrylic based pastes, pigmented in this case using black paint.

Showed this to some friends, and some offered to buy one. I also tried a blue one, it is popular as well.

I have sold five or six of these, just to recoup the price of the canvas. Completed a few larger pieces as gifts.

I spend a lot of time looking at websites like Etsy, and once while browsing me and my wife were contemplating a bare wall next to some new curtains she had just put up. It took just a few hours to come up with something simple.

Lately I've pumped out some similar abstract stuff.

Some of it is hanging on our walls, some just sitting stacked in the "studio". I have contemplated ending the experiment, as mentioned above, and giving away the supplies, but it hasn't happened yet. Time will tell.

Finished Avogadro Corp. by William Herting yesterday.  Interesting concept an AI that emerges when developers come up with code to make emails easier to write.  The AI never 'talks' to people, but manipulates them through email with self preservation in mind.

The book seems to be written by an office geek.  The breathless accounts of cubicle jockeys racing against time to thwart rogue coding seems way beyond the realm of possibilities.  He does a decent job of it though, enough that it isn't too distracting.  

At once point, the description of the Corporation makes it an obvious Google like company, even including floating data centers reminiscent of those structures that won a Time innovation award in 2008.

Looking up the above link, I see there is a sequel.  I couldn't possibly add another to my list.

Google has made available a way to post Photosphere images, and attach them to Google Maps for viewing by anyone.  This is a very interesting feature, but it is not a straightforward process.

They attempt an explanation over at Photo Sphere tutorial, but it's not as easy as they make it out to be.  For instance, they say sharing is easy from an Android phone, but with the new Google Gallery, or Google Photos apps, sharing to Google Maps is not an option.

I've found a work around that adds this feature, and also adds the ability to take Photo Sphere pictures with your Android phone if it doesn't already do so.

First, you must change a setting, so that your phone will install applications from somewhere other than the PlayStore.  Go to Settings>Security>Unknown sources.  Check the box.















Acquire the GalleryGoogle.apk file.  I downloaded it from Android Central.

If you have ES File Explorer, that will display as one of your choices for download.

Click "Just once", and it will download the file, then take you through the install process.

Once it's installed you will see this icon among your applications.











Opening this application is another way to view pictures on your android device, and there is a camera icon in the upper right corner that will access a camera application that includes the Photo Sphere mode.