30 days off-grid episode & slashdot

[bparks]

Wondering if anyone caught the episode of 30 days on FX yesterday, where a couple folks from NY go live on an off-grid commune for 30 days?  I guess overall it was pretty well done.  If you haven't seen 30 days it's a show by the guy who did supersize me, the movie about eating McDonalds 3 times a day for a month.  The 30 days episode last night had some interesting points about solar & nice stuff about bio-deisel, but nothing about wind.  Some of the little sidebars really bugged me.  The one about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles made them sound like a solution to all the worlds problems, while neglecting to talk about the energy required to create hydrogen.  All in all it seemed to over simplify a lot of things, which in terms of alternative energy tends to raise expectations beyond what is reasonable.  The host seems kind of biased to me.  I certainly don't think there is anything wrong with AE, but give the full picture please.

The slashdot link to the otherpower story about our hosts 17' turbine was a frustrating read for me.  The comments about not believing the output results, and the impossibility of building a working generator as a DIY project bug me.  There were a lot of positive comments too, but the uninformed ones bothered me more I guess.  The generalizations about off-grid = unibomber type nut job recluses really pi$$ me off.  

A couple last rants about the 30 days episode.  The commune was pretty extreme, kind of painted the picture of sustainable living = few baths, vegan diet, lots of land to grow a little food, go to town to dumpster dive then leave. When they left, the guy said he'd use some 'compact incandescent' lightbulbs, and maybe use more public transportation.  The girl said she'd try to buy locally grown foods and maybe take the train more.

I think I need a new section, called rambling rants.

[Aoch]

I wouldn't get too angry over Slashdot commentators, They are known for their stupidity and most of them lurk around attempting to "Prove their superior intellect".

[TomW]

HaHa! Can you say "WANABES"?

I quit reading /. long ago for that very reason.

T

[Bruce S]

It used to be that /. was the place for Linux newbies to see and try to decide which distro to use. This was because the original people actually cared about this stuff ( been watching their site since Mandrake 7.1) , but since early 2004, most of the stuff showing up is dribble.

Sure the stuff still there for Linux can be said to be good for finding other links, but that's about all.

Most all of the Linux people have gone over the sourceforge for the real stuff.

/. now just looks like a site USA today type webpage for nerd wannbee's; lots of fluff and looks newsie---- until you dig into the content.

Too bad to, they were going in the right direction...

At least we have this site to get the truth.<:-))

[finnsawyer]

What do you expect when Paul Harvey keeps saying that the fuel cell powered car runs on water.  Gees!

[whatsnext]

What do you expect? I would say the ratio of favorable comments was fairly high considering that most of today's code monkeys get no practical training from whatever university they attend. I see resumes all the time from guys who don't think ANYTHING can work without BlueTooth. Really sad but this is why I, while nearing fifty, get calls from recruiters every week.

John.........

[Experimental]

       Good morning,

     There are an awful lot of people, that think TV, cellphones, microwave ovens and a million other unnecessary items, cannot be lived without -- even for a few hours -- But never make any provisions for a power outage !!!

     But those of us, that have tinkered with solar panels, wind generators and such, learn quickly, that with these devices, power outages really don,t have to happen -- "in our world"..

     Most think the "Whirleygigs", solar panels and such ,we have on our properties, are just Quaint attractions, while many of "us", are thinking, that unhooking from the "grid", is a reality !!

     Carefull use of the power we creat, can make this  a reality and costs of grid power, has made this an attractive alternative !!  Bill H.......

[Big All]

http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=155715&threshold=0&commentsort=3&tid=222&am
p;tid=232&tid=14&mode=thread&pid=13057406#13059922

[Bruce S]

I would say you were a smashing success.

It was very nice reading. Also, looks like you put more than one myth to rest.

Kudos

Bruce S

[ghurd]

I love it!

I was tempted to try to post that none of my biggest successes cost over $10.

Not 17', hardly 2', but they make power just the same.

(It's my failures that cost so much!)

Anybody else ever notice it is always the people who know something about electricity who say [this stuff] can not be done?

G-