This guy in Albuquerque is building a vegetable oil fuel addition for his water heater. Vanessa said they are the bizarro Nathan and Vanessa of Albuquerque you know the opposite of us like, he can build stuff and they do triathlons. I was reminded of this vegetable oil car we saw parked at the tram, which seemed to be having a bad day.
We were watching something on normal broadcast TV last night with commercials (rare for us). It was just incredible how many commercials there were. It seemed like we were running off to do other things during commercials every few minutes. (I mean, who would actually watch the commercials?) I was looking into possible solutions. This indoor HDTV antenna ($38) + this HD to USB adapter ($68) = ghetto HD Tivo solution for about $100. Means just recording HD over-the-air signals to the computer and playing through the PS3. Although I don’t know that we watch enough broadcast TV to be worth it.
I tried Amazon mp3 for the first time. Pretty fun going through my song shopping list and just grabbing them. As people have said before, that Amazon 1-click purchase thing is kinda scary the way you’re spending money by simply clicking a button, so set a limit beforehand. They don’t make it very easy to track how much you’re spending on mp3s. Wonder if they have problems with kids clicking around running up huge bills on their parents. As far as stuff I put on my mp3 player these days, I no longer seem to have the patience for album filler, repetitive rhythmic (techno/ninja tune), or music that is so experimental, it misses the point. Maybe I’ve realized how easy it is to loop a sample for five minutes. You can even have the computer figure out your rhymes for you now. It seems like a song has to have vocals (and interesting ones at that) to keep my interest. They have to do something interesting with their voice or it has to be one with an amazing rhythm. It has to be doing or attempting something imaginative. Of course, “interesting” could just be a euphemism for “me getting older and listening to more pop-like music”. For example, nobody’s ever heard of The Knife, but you have to admit they might be kinda popular if they had more publicity. I have folders for Boring, OK, Good, and now Excellent music. It seems like I just seem to add a new folder every five years or something. Why do I bother to keep the stuff I don’t like anymore?
Anybody know of a good open source Windows video editor with chromakeying?
Hi Nathan, Bizarro Nathan here! The water heater is actually part of the processor, the veggie oil is reacted at ~ 120-130F with a methanol/lye mixture. Ultimately, the fuel can be used to power any diesel vehicle. It’s a good renewable fuel, and is cleaner than petro diesel (no sulfur in veg). Another and potentially more effective way to produce renewable diesel is biomass which has the potential to create more fuel/unit area of land. I’m not an environmentalist exactly, but with soaring oil prices and the ultimate destination of that revenue it makes sense to me to pursue alternatives. Rather than wait for the government, I think I’ll start in my garage. =)