I think Soylent dude has lost it; now with moar renewable energy inverter talk
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Going full DC is a terrible idea though. It was a bad idea in the 1880s and it is a bad idea now.
Once again, somewhere in the middle probably works. Lights and computer powered off 12V produced locally seems like it would make a lot of sense, as you say.
You can get 12V refrigerators and the like, but they cost a lot more to buy.
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Why would that be illegal???
Oh right, government-enforced monopolies, I almost forgot. They do such a good job of it too...
Here in the Phoenix area it's considered a health-and-safety thing. You cannot live in a residence that does not have power connected. If you cannot afford to connect the power, there are support programs.
Now, there are two power companies in the area. THey don't service all the same areas, but there is quite a bit of overlap.
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@Steve_The_Cynic said:
eat out all the time.
But he said that he only does it to socialize.And I doubt a whole lot of people would invite him for dinner more than once in their entire lives ...
Or when he craves flavor:
I utilize soylent only at home and go out to eat when craving company or flavor.
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he doesn't have electricity as in from the grid. In a lot of places that's actually illegal.
WTF? Where?
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WTF? Where?
Keep reading. Which you will have done by the time you get to this post.
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[quote=WTF Soylent guy]The walls are buzzing. I know this because I have a magnet implanted in my hand[/quote]
I'ma stop right there. I no longer care to know about illegal off-grid electricity.
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To be fair, he says that he's recycling them, but it's a bit unclear what that exactly means. I'd also be curious about how much energy is needed to create a pair of synthetic clothes (and if that's really less than if it's created from natural fibers) ... and if that's less than what would be needed to wash them.
Probably not, especially since many textile manufacturers include a wash cycle in the manufacturing process.
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You are correct, sir. I was gonna put a YouTube of ol' Johnny Carson, but the clip was 6 minute long and I didn't feel like finding the cue.
Wha? This shoots over my head completely... but my belt-onion is tingling... I probably should be getting this.
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I'ma stop right there. I no longer care to know about illegal off-grid electricity.
He's not the first by ten years to do that. I recall reading stories about people who put RFID chips in the back of their hands, unafraid they were giving themselves the Mark of Satan, so they could open their apartment door without needing keys, like animals do.
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Wha? This shoots over my head completely... but my belt-onion is tingling... I probably should be getting this.
Just search YouTube for "you are correct sir johnny carson". It was the punchline to a running gag skit he used to do about a mentalist/mind reader.
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Honestly he's probably fine. He said he lives in an apartment, right? So if the building has power at all, he's probably legal.
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Honestly he's probably fine. He said he lives in an apartment, right? So if the building has power at all, he's probably legal.
Except it might be a lease violation to store the butane or use a butane stove.
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@FrostCat said:
If he could pour his consciousness into a robot he would in half a second, I bet.
So would I. Is there anything wrong with that?
Not unless you want to go hitchhiking.
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Ah! Carnac!
I thought you we're hinting that Carson was somehow famous for not liking his food.
Clearly not an issue for Ed.
TIL Dang - Ed was a Marine Corps spotter plane pilot in Korea...
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Honestly he's probably fine. He said he lives in an apartment, right?
My apartment lease says I'm required to obtain and maintain an electric account. It's been five years, but after I signed up for service I think I had to tell the management what my account # was and who it was with or something; I don't remember for sure.
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It's a uncommon trope in sci-fi that increase cyberneticization of your body decreases humanity. It was especially prevalent in
ShadowrunCyberpunk (2013 and 2020).
I’m going to have to put on my 1995-vintage Unofficial Shadowrun Guru hat now …The original “2013” edition of Cyberpunk introduced the Humanity stat as a balance for characters having too many cybernetic implants — I gather as a last-minute fix after a playtest group had gone to ridiculous lengths with them. My guess is they based their reasoning for implants decreasing humanity on the Obi-Wan Kenobi quote of “more machine now than man”.
Several other cyberpunk-themed RPGs followed this example, but Shadowrun didn’t. It had¹ an “Essence” stat that’s basically magical integrity of the body, which fits the setting because that combines cyberpunk with fantasy. There are a few references to implants decreasing humanity in official material, but those are mostly about social consequences rather than turning into a psychopath á la CP2020.
¹ Or “has” if you’re one of those misguided people who see a need to play the current edition.
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Pendantry denied. I didn't say the game. I was talking about the books, and the last one of those I read was far before 2013, but a number of those had loss-of-humanity as a plot point, and it wasn't just that. At least one book had a character who was...a shaman?...with no power because he'd put in cybernetic implants and those, as a whole, were incompatible with that type of magic. (Similar to one of the old Star Wars novels, that posited that Darth Vader's force powers were drastically reduced when he got delimbed, and a huge portion of what remained was taken up keeping his body functions going.)
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Yes, in Shadowrun implants reduce magical ability, for characters that are magicians. They don’t reduce how “human” the character is — whereas in CP2020, that’s exactly what happens. A CP2020 character can start out as the friendliest, most likeable, most sociable person in the world (Humanity 10) but get enough implants (and so near or to Humanity 0) and he’ll end up a cyberpsycho killing machine who wants to grind everyone’s face into the nearest brick wall. This is in the game rules.
All Shadowrun characters start out with Essence 6, but even at Essence 0.01 (or 0, depending on the edition) his feelings towards his fellow people haven’t changed — at least, not due to the implants as far as the game rules are concerned. You would, of course, be free to play your character as becoming ever more hateful toward other people, but this isn’t in the rules. It may happen in some of the novels, but several of those barely conformed to established concepts of the game world, let alone the rules.
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after I signed up for service I think I had to tell the management what my account # was and who it was with or something
I also had to give them my electricity provider and account number, but I think here it's more of a health/safety thing than anything else. I don't know how people lived here before air conditioning was invented.
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Second, look at how much food is wasted in India because there's so little refrigeration available to tell you why not having a fridge is a silly extreme (especially when he actually still uses one because he eats out all the time).
Besides -- intermittent absorption fridges run quite happily with 0 electricity (they are fuelburners instead, although I've had ponderings about absorption cycles run off of a steam plant -- might be good for retrofitting district steam buildings with central air).
The last couple of apartments I've lived in (VA, TX, maybe FL, but I don't remember), you were required (maybe as part of the lease) to have electricity and water service. It's not uncommon in houses, either--there was a story in the news a year or two back about a woman in central FL who ran afoul of the authorities because she'd turned off all her utilities and was living on caught rainwater, a composting toilet, and solar panels.
In an apartment, sure -- that can be a lease condition, or mandated by city law for that matter. I'm not sure why having central utility provided services should be mandated for a single-family dwelling, though, especially outside a municipality. In fact, most rural houses could be refit quite nicely to run totally "off grid" -- all you need for ongoing maintenance at that point is the occasional vac-u-truck visit to pump out the septic tank, checking the batteries for your solar/micro-wind/micro-hydro system, and testing the well water every so often...(oh, and refilling the propane tank if you insist on having fuel gas)Here in the Phoenix area it's considered a health-and-safety thing. You cannot live in a residence that does not have power connected. If you cannot afford to connect the power, there are support programs.
I'd phrase that law as "does not have an effective means of cooling" -- otherwise, a fuel-burning absorption A/C is prohibited, for instance.Except it might be a lease violation to store the butane or use a butane stove.
I personally would ding it on fire/fuel gas code grounds -- you need an externally venting hood and make-up air supply to run a fuel gas stove indoors, as a practical matter. "Hoods" without an external exhaust duct, or recirculator systems, are a CO hazard...
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his feelings towards his fellow people haven’t changed
There are penalties to social tests for having low essence though. Been a long time since I've played so I don't remember the explanation for said penalties.
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I don't know how people lived here before air conditioning was invented.
They mainly didn't, as evidenced by the surge in population after AC became available.
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@rad131304 said:
Second, look at how much food is wasted in India because there's so little refrigeration available to tell you why not having a fridge is a silly extreme (especially when he actually still uses one because he eats out all the time).
Besides -- intermittent absorption fridges run quite happily with 0 electricity (they are fuelburners instead, although I've had ponderings about absorption cycles run off of a steam plant -- might be good for retrofitting district steam buildings with central air).
But he chose to not have a fridge and instead go out to eat ... which is insane. If he'd picked an absorption or DC fridge that might have been sane (in the "TEOTWAWKI" sence), but he decided "fuck it, I can just eat out".
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But he chose to not have a fridge and instead go out to eat ... which is insane.
Not having a fridge is OK — there are other effective methods to preserve food — but using eating out as a major substitute is nuts. Unless you have more money than sense I suppose, or are a class A1 sponging heel of a leech.
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Didn't he say he only eats out some? The savings from turning off his electricity and other things like that probably covers the food.
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I'm not sure that the energy consumption of a fridge is equivalent to dining somewhere else all the time.
Don't forget, the restaurants have fridges as well and you're paying for the energy as well as the labour cost.
I've got a freezer/fridge combination from Bosch which is supposed to need about 0.30 kWh per day.
1 kWh costs me 0.24€, so getting rid of the fridge would save me a whoppin' 8 Eurocents per day. Also, for cooking and stuff, let's assume that my oven/stove combination runs continuously for 1 hour a day (even though it doesn't). At peak consumption of 1.8 kW, this would amount to another 43.2 Eurocents.So, I'm at half a Euro saved. I don't think that restaurants are only half a Euro more expensive than cooking stuff for myself. And if there are, I'd be loathe to eat there.
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@abarker said:
Here in the Phoenix area it's considered a health-and-safety thing. You cannot live in a residence that does not have power connected. If you cannot afford to connect the power, there are support programs.
I'd phrase that law as "does not have an effective means of cooling" -- otherwise, a fuel-burning absorption A/C is prohibited, for instance.I just did a quick search: no one seems to even offer fuel-burning absorption A/C units in the Phoenix area. Probably in part because not every neighborhood has natural gas supplied, which means that those neighborhoods would require electricity anyway. But you're focusing on just one aspect. What about the smoke detector systems? Homes which are built new, or that are brought up to current code, require the smoke detectors and at least one CO monitor to be centrally wired, including power. The batteries are for backup purposes only. Under these codes, electricity could be specified as "required for habitability". I'm sure there are other justifications, but those are just a couple.
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I think the argument was not based on cost but on resource consumption. While it is true that restaurants will throw away food, operate refrigerators, have AC, it does not necessarily follow that he causes the same amount of resource consumption than if he did all of this himself. Collectively used infrastructure usually fares better when you look at overall consumption.
The energy consumption of modern fridges is negligible compared to the resources required to manufacture them. So when he forgoes having a fridge by eating out more, he will have consumed one less fridge and paid investment of 1% in a restaurant fridge. I think a lot of his arguments would work that way. I'm wondering how the Uber model works out, because the cars have to travel some distance to pick him up.
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I'm not sure that the energy consumption of a fridge is equivalent to dining somewhere else all the time.
Not just a fridge; there's the laundry machine, any heating/cooling, lighting, etc. Going from (say) a gaming tower (which, admittedly, he didn't say he had, but I do believe he said he had a tower) to a NUC could save as much as 300W during gaming, and might be 50-80W during computing, although I admit that might be high. I have an OC i5-3570K, and IIRC, I measured it, during a 4-thread prime95, pulling about 110W via a Kill-A-Watt.
Look, we know that he's not really making a tradeoff. He's just creating externalities he doesn't have to deal with. But also I am pretty sure he said he didn't eat out all the time: for one thing, remember, he doesn't like food per se. (This is implied with his sensory complaints in the article, but clearer if you had followed his Kickstarter last year or whenever it was.)
For him, personally, I am entirely prepared to believe he has less money flowing out of his pocket, but, again, the rest of us can see he's just pushed those costs outward: buying clothes instead of washing them, using someone else's car/public transit, etc., etc.
But if you don't believe him on electricity, consider this: I live in a moderately-old apartment in Texas, and have electric everything. In summer, because the building's not well-insulated, my electric bill can top $300 for a few months (the most recent was $246 or so.) If I averaged it out annually, I would estimate $150/mo, but that's just spitballing.) He claims to get all his electrical needs from one solar panel and one battery. If we set aside the fixed costs of purchasing those, well, that's a meal at McDonald's nearly every day, or, a bit more realistically as far as pricing goes, a burger+fries+a coke+tip at a regular burger joint, 3 or 4 times a week.
His average electricity usage may well have been lower, of course.
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There's all kinds of other things: a couple of dozen lights. Any modern appliances that don't completely shut off: the tv, the cable box, the cable modem, the microwave and stove all pull power continuously, never mind the power they use while "on". It's not a lot but 24/7 it adds up.
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So when he forgoes having a fridge by eating out more, he will have consumed one less fridge and paid investment of 1% in a restaurant fridge.
Well. Except that his apartment almost certainly came with a fridge, so you can't really credit him (in $, that is) for not using it--it's not like he can sell it, because it's not his. Ditto the stove. (Unless he was dealing with an entirely unfurnished apartment, which seems unlikely.)
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Well. Except that his apartment almost certainly came with a fridge, so you can't really credit him (in $, that is) for not using it--it's not like he can sell it, because it's not his. Ditto the stove. (Unless he was dealing with an entirely unfurnished apartment, which seems unlikely.)
The fridge, not necessarily. At least in the Orange County area, I've had several apartments that did not come with fridges (although you could rent one from the property company).
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buying clothes instead of washing them,
And this is where it gets absolutely unbelievable. I've got a very modern washing machine - and this one pulls a measly up to 14 liters of water on a full load. Plus regularly no heating costs since modern detergents work just fine at 20 °C. Granted, sometimes I do a 60 °C (or even 90 °C to desinfect the machine itself) but heating 14 liters of water to that temperature isn't very expensive.
I really don't think that buying a whole new set of clothes can top that. Not by a long shot.
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Except that his apartment almost certainly came with a fridge,
Fair point. Cue him arguing that he didn't want a kitchen in the first place. A lot of things are pointless when an individual does them yet they make sense at scale.
I really don't think that buying a whole new set of clothes can top that.
I'm trying to show how his behavior can be justified rationally here. It would simplify my argument considerably if you didn't mention the parts that don't fit.
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There's all kinds of other things: a couple of dozen lights. Any modern appliances that don't completely shut off: the tv, the cable box, the cable modem, the microwave and stove all pull power continuously, never mind the power they use while "on". It's not a lot but 24/7 it adds up.
The lights could potentially be argued as required for making a place safely habitable. Not so much the TV, cable xo, modem, microwave, or stove.
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The fridge, not necessarily.
I figured someone would chime in.
All I can say is I've never lived in an apartment that didn't have a fridge. I did rent a house once, that, oddly, didn't have one (but it did have a stove, microwave, dishwasher, etc., so honestly no idea what was up with that.)
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Cue him arguing that he didn't want a kitchen in the first place.
Yes, well, that's him, vs, the several million other renters just in that part of the country. He is a stone-cold dipshit on this issue.
If you think a kitchen (I'm generalizing just a bit for this sentence) is a thing of no value, build your own goddamn house, but don't fault "the architect" for putting in something that (approximately) every single other person on the planet wants.
Of course, to do that he'd probably have to move out to Unincorporated, Idaho so he actually could build a house. And guess what? NO MORE TRANSIT, so buy a car, sunshine. Oh, and I hope he's got the money up front, because when you show the mortgage company your plans for a kitchenless house, they're not even going to laugh at you and tell you to get out, they're just going to pull the lever on the trap-door that drops you into a crocodile pit.
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The lights could potentially be argued as required for making a place safely habitable.
Sure, but now we're bikeshedding a bit.
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Homes which are built new, or that are brought up to current code, require the smoke detectors and at least one CO monitor to be centrally wired, including power. The batteries are for backup purposes only. Under these codes, electricity could be specified as "required for habitability". I'm sure there are other justifications, but those are just a couple.
Ah. Well, that's easy enough to run off of an "off-grid" power system...
The lights could potentially be argued as required for making a place safely habitable. Not so much the TV, cable xo, modem, microwave, or stove.
Again, something that can easily be handled on an "off-grid" system.
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but don't fault "the architect" for putting in something that (approximately) every single other person on the planet wants.
The thing I don't understand is why you'd build an entire toilet when all you need is a bucket. He doesn't even need to wash his hands because he lives alone!
Joking aside, having exclusive instances of kitchen and toilet is wasteful. It's just that the alternative requires getting along with other people. And that seems to be right out for most individuals.
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having exclusive instances of kitchen and toilet is wasteful
Somehow I read it as "separate instances" and was wondering whether you're one of those guys who pee in the kitchen sink.
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Been a long time since I've played so I don't remember the explanation for said penalties.
Basically the opposite of CP2020’s Humanity loss mechanic: it’s the people you deal with who may get uncomfortable from sitting opposite someone with featureless chrome eyes, a stainless steel arm, and reflexes good enough to snatch a fly from the air, and that translates into penalties on your rolls.
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Somehow I read it as "separate instances" and was wondering whether you're one of those guys who pee in the kitchen sink.
Oh that's just a fetish
I understand that most guys prefer to have a separate toilet sink to pee into.
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All I can say is I've never lived in an apartment that didn't have a fridge.
I've lived in 3. All in California (the previously mentioned Orange County). It was the norm there.
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Just on this issue?
Well, I can hazard a guess, as I'm sure you can, but I don't know enough to be sure.
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I've lived in 3. All in California (the previously mentioned Orange County). It was the norm there.
Sounds like the California norm is abnormal. Which isn't much of a surprise.
I've lived in apartments in three New England states, VA, SC, FL, and TX.
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Yeah, we came to VA and were kind of surprised that refrigerators came with everything, though I recall my wife being surprised about the state of things in CA.
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If nobody supplies them, it's probably not too bad, but if it were a mix, it would be bad for renters, because what if you bought one, and then moved later into a place that already had one? Plus it's another thing to cart around when you move, etc.
Carnac the Magnificent - Wikipedia
