💾 Archived View for 1436.ninja › Phlog › gmi › 20180212.gmi captured on 2023-09-08 at 16:35:01. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-01-29)
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The dotfiles on my thinkpad, which is doing quite nicely as my primary PC, have mutated to be very different from my FreeBSD Raspberry Pi (RPoJ). To such an extent, that even though the laptop started out with a git clone of the Pi's dotfiles, I could not update the repo for fear of screwing with what works on the Pi. So, I have made a new repo and changed the remote origin on the thinkpad. Now I have somewhat more piece of mind...
Last night I also switched from xmms to mpd. Works very nicely. Using a three pane arrangement of uxterms with a curses based mpd client (ncmpdpp), painless music and a feeling of less bloat.
I have also rewritten my phlog engine and my phlog posting/backup script to utilize lessons learned so far from the Project Gutenberg rewrite and to account for changes to SDF's phlog listing. BTW, this phlog is hosted both on RPoD and on SDF for redundancy.
Melton put out some data on energy use and the energy industry [0]. Having been on 1000s of frac jobs in the last 13 years, I honestly do believe frac'ing does cause earthquakes. I wholeheartedly disbelieve however, that oil and natural gas are finite resourses in the way that is popular to believe. Since the 1970s, it has been know that the mantle is constantly producing hydocarbons. It is surely possible out outpace this production, but I do not think it is doable at current extraction rates.
Two more nuggets about frac'ing (I choose to write it thusly due to industry tradition: there is no K in fracture, and we in the energy sector typically identify outsiders by their use of a K in frack'): 1) the water table is not touched. The reason I can say that 99% of oil/gas wells do not harm the water table is pure economics. The oil companies want to sell their product, not give it away into another formation. Casing is firmly cemented to the earth, the entire anulus filled and bonded. Perferations are blasted with shaped explosives thru the casing/cement/formation at the taget depth. This zone is then fractured with cross-linked, sand-laden fluid. The cross-link is then broken and the frac-water recovered from the well. Often this water is reused. This comes back to economics. 2) the price of oil/gas is of course as artificial as the rest of our fractional-reserve/monitized-debt based system. Speculation in all manner of financial devices has a very lot to do with this. On top of this some more facts: were 100% of human to switch to electric cars right now, oil would be extracted at the same rate. All plastic components, tires, and innumerable other portions of thoseclean' vehicles are made from oil. Don't get me started on coal used to produce the steel and cement used in wind-based electricity generation, or lithium strip mining for batteries...
There is definately a better way to power our civilization. This I hold true. But, both sides of the argument have motivations driven by greed, and nothing else. When the majority of old-monied oil tycoons have divested of hydrocarbons and invested in `clean energy,' it is due to a monitary interest, not altruism or the betterment of mankind.
As a long term wage-slave^Wmember of the energy sector, I do not stand by wanton pollution or other greed-based actions on the part of corporations. Corporations are psychopathic by design and the company that has paid me well for over a decade would surely get rid of me at the drop of a hat. However, I admonish you to not fully drink the koolaid on what is clean. There is a lot of coal, oil, and natural gas to be sold in the manufacture of `clean' energy sollutions.
On another note, I truly admire your lifestyle. If I were only courageous enough to make such a leap. I have very much enjoyed reading your phlog for a while now. Thanks for documenting.
PS - what utility did you use to produce that nifty chart?