The Lance J. Technoweb

I'm sitting at home here looking at my electric bill.  My bill says that electricity costs 21¢ per KWH.  But that's not true. The price of electricity is highly variable.  For me, electricity costs AVERAGE to 21¢ per KWH.  The reality is that some of the electricity is perhaps 5¢ per KWH, and other electricity is $1.23 per KWH, and the nice people at the electric company average it all out for me to 21¢ per KWH. Is my electricity cost really all that variable?  Yes.  Some power plants are super-cheap to own and fuel.  Those plants are used as much as possible, and their electricity is very cheap.  That's like hydro, wind, solar, and nuclear. Other plants, like Oil and old Gas burners, are very expensive to operate.  They only run when there isn't enough of the efficient plants available to service the demand.  The expensive-to-operate facilities might only run for 80 hours a year, but at a whopping $1.23 per KWH.  And since it...

Here are the features I look for in a dishwasher. Food grinder.   A dishwasher without a food grinder has filters that need to be periodically cleaned fairly frequently (YUK!).  Most people never clean these filters, and therefore their dishwasher stops cleaning well.  A dishwasher with a grinder eliminates the filters and associated required maintenance. Quiet Operation.  All dishwashers get noisier over time as their insulation and bearings age with time and use.  Buying a quiet dishwasher out of the gate means that it will be noisier in the future, but not as noisy as a non-quiet model. No Stainless Steel Tub.  A stainless steel tub does not muffle noise, and lasts no longer than a plastic tub.  All things being equal, I'll always go for the plastic tub. Energy Star rated.  I run my dishwasher at least 3 times a week.  I never hand wash, except for the few things that demand it (greasy fry pans and aluminum items).  An energ...

There is a lot of garbage out there in terms of how hot domestic hot water should be.  The standard advice is 120 °F, and I agree with that. Some amateurs are trying to convince people to turn up the heat to dangerous levels, or even to replace their hot water heater due to "Legionnaires' disease".  But legionnaires is all about warm air being blown over an poorly maintained air conditioner's stagnant waste water, and has nothing to do with a very low oxygen environment within an enclosed heated vessel.  Some pundits also claim that minerals at the bottom of the tank will somehow cause legionnaires, unaware that the cold water pipe releases cold water at the bottom of the tank. The short of it is: 120°F is correct. If 120 °F isn't hot enough, then the shower valve hot limit setting is mis-adjusted, or the tank is grossly undersized and cannot properly provide for the home.  A call to the plumber to fix the issue is in order.

So I've been thinking, so I've invented the following: There is a most efficient time to use electricity, and that's when the least efficient power plants are not in operation.  Generally, that's overnight, when demand is low.  At that time, most of the lowest-efficiency power plants are off-line, and only the highest efficiency plants (those that run 24 hours a day) are in operation. In my neck of the woods, I feel that's roughly 1 AM to 5 AM, but there is likely some variability to that based on the details of the local electricity supplier. Given that situation, I figure that there is a best time of day to charge electronic devices, and that's generally very late at night. Therefore, it seems reasonable to put a control (manually or with AI and/or algorithmic decision making) into battery charging devices so that the bulk of their charging is done during the "most efficient" hours.  This time-to-charge feature could use local knowledge of el...

I've needed to do some Mac work lately, so I ended up migrating to an older Mac! This is yet another A1342 MacBook, this time a "late 2009" model.  It's a "Frankenmac" that was partially disassembled when I picked up for free. I'm posting about this Mac because it is VERY sad looking, yet totally usable. First, the good: 8 GB of RAM (upgraded from 2 GB) 1 TB SSD drive (upgraded from 250 GB Hard drive) Runs MacOS High Sierra just great Note that the very cheapest MacBook you can buy new today with matching storage specs costs an incredible $2100... and by design can NEVER be upgraded.  OUCH!  Planned obsolescence in action! Now, the ugly: The LCD enclosure has stress cracks at the hinges (a common issue with these Macs).  It looks like some epoxy was used to prevent the cracks from getting worse. The LCD is wonky, and temporarily freezes if moved the "wrong" way.  It isn't the cable.  I think it's a problem with the LCD...

I have a pair of cycling / spin shoes with "clipless" SPD cleats, but the cleat screws were mangled due to lousy manufacturing. My local shop charges $25 to install cleats.  I don't mind supporting the local shop, but that's ridiculous.  I'll support the local shop with my money when they use expertise and skill, but not for turning less than a handful of 45¢ screws.  And replacement generic screws on Amazon or eBay cost like $10!  Even that is insane.  So I decided that the fastener section of my local hardware store was the solution. The Screws to Buy For SPD Cleats The fastener industry is mature and professional.  They make fantastic products.  Cleat screws are absolutely nothing special. And the local hardware store more than likely carries what I need. That said, it is important to get the right screw.  Using the wrong screw for the given application could cause trouble. In general, in my experience, SPD cycling cleats use the follo...

I was going to buy a new iPhone for myself this year, but I got to thinking... how much does an iPhone depreciate over time? I went to eBay and figured out how much the value of "yesteryear's" unlocked flagship iPhone with a basic memory upgrade falls over time.  For example, we know that a used, unlocked iPhone Z with xx GB of storage has a specific value on the open market.  I plotted the value of all the flagship phones out in order to visualize how much the value of an iPhone decays with time. In short, and very roughly, a new phone's value falls by about a 33% after it's first year, and by about 25% more after it's second year.  After those first two years, phone depreciation seems to smooth out to a fairly steady 10% percent per year. Chart 1: iPhone Depreciation Over Time So the first two years of ownership are the most expensive.  The longer I can hold onto my current iPhone, the fewer "first + second year depreciation events" I...