Archive for the ‘Geekiness’ Category
SxSW Day 1
Today was an easy day I only attended two sessions:
The first was on design with Christina Wodtke of Elegant Hack. She was excellent and I have a lot of ideas now to help with an app I’ve been stuck on.
She recommends:
The Art of Game Design
The second was with Jason Silva of Jason Silva
He recommended several books:
Natural Born Cyborgs
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
What Technology Wants
The Denial of Death
What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry
I’ve read Godel and What Technology wants, both were excellent, I’m looking forward to reading the others.
Uppity compiler
Lessons learned from the AC guy
Back home most homes don’t have central air, and most have boilers instead of forced hot air heat. So this central heating and air conditioning is all new to me.
Today ours needed repair and I was able to follow ( stalk ) the repair guy all through and learn about the system.
If you have a built in electrostatic filter there are filters in there that need cleaning quarterly. If you have not cleaned yours Simple Green helps to remove the build up. If you put the filters back while they are wet you will fry the air filter unit.
If you have two units in a two story open home, set your first floor ac 2′ cooler than upstairs in the summer and 2′ warmer in the winter to properly balance the units.
If you use the extra good hepa filters you are probably not getting proper air flow through the system and you are beating the system up. The home ac units are not designed to push through that much material. Use the cheap filters.
A 15 seer is a good solid unit that will likely save 30%-35% over our current 10 seer units. After that energy savings per dollar spent up to 20 seer doesn’t make much sense and the higher the seer the newer and flakier the technology.
A forced air heating and cooling system will last about 15 years with proper care. ( Don’t forget to gently clean the fins on the outside units with a garden hose once a year )
A new system ( 15 seer 3-5 ton units ) will cost about 8k to replace. You need the outside compressor, the condenser in the attic, air filter and heater. If you skip the electrostatic air filter you can probably do it for about 6k.
If you need a good ac/heating guy in North west Houston give Proline a call.
Cool SciFi and Horror Podcasts I’ve been listening to
X Minux One Old sci-fi radio show now available on mp3.
Scott Sigler Several podcasts of his books, good old smash ‘em up, shoot ‘em up science fiction.
JC Hutchins Series of 7th Son science fiction novels of the secret government conspiracy type.
Escape Pod Science fiction shorts
Pseudopod Horror shorts
Craphound Light science fiction as social commentary
