Technical Difficulties from on Top of the Mountain
2007-03-12
  A little test is better than no test
While we eventually want to get to test first design, we're not there right now. But that doesn't mean I can't do anything. Usually its just proving out an idea, like this, my @tests= ( "a=1,rework=2,z=3", "a=1,b=2", "z=1", "rework=10,a=4", "z=118,rework=50", "rework" ) ; foreach ( @tests ) { my ($rid)= $_ =~ /rework=(\d+)/ ; print "rid $rid\n" ; } So the pattern gets checked out, including the usual suspects of edge cases. Looks good so its into production it goes. Just hope nobody breaks it.

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2007-03-10
  Burning my way towards a better tomorrow
Just managing to crawl out of the hole that is deep winter. No, I haven't got the plasma cutter working yet. I did get a CNC mill, but no, its not working yet either. Sigh.

But the good news is that winter is winding up, and so is my consumption of wood forest products for heating. As with everything around the house, its not a matter of point and click, but of experimentation and adapting to changes in the fuel stream. Yes, even the type of wood pellets matter, and the wrong ones can give you headaches of one kind or another. Take a couple samples from the last few months:

pellet samples

I started out the winter with 80 bags of pellets stockpiled up in the garage, and picked up another 60 or so through some effort at the hardware store, as they only got a delivery in every other Friday, and it didn't last too long. There was even some talk of rationing them (egads, is the planet really running out of vegetation?), but I managed to keep a fair number on hand.

pellet pine

These early pellets were from an Arizona company called forest energy, located only a few hours away from Flagstaff--more good news for the environment (some of the brands I burned last year came from places as far as Canada). These pellets were light in color, probably made from local pine. They handled well, didn't break up in the feeder, and burned nice and hot. But by the end of January I was running out, and needed to restock; so back to the hardware store to see what they had.

To give homedepot credit, they had really turned up the heat, and had a mountain of pellets stacked up, probably 10 pallets wide, 4 deep and 3 high. Tons. They had my usual brand, but the contents didn't look the same. The pellets looked a little green. Now green is a great color for "marketing" your product. Heatrs is even advertised as 100% organic, whatever that means. But when it comes to the fuel itself, green brings to mind wet leaves and anemic fires. So I wasn't that excited about this latest batch. Still I picked some up, as well as a new brand.

At first glance the pellets from Pennington Seed look really nice. The pellets themselves are very hard, look somewhat like red oak--a nice hardwood for burning. Now when picking out firewood, your hardwoods are greatly preferred over softer woods like pine. So initially, I was thinking the red oak pellets would be a better deal than the old pine ones. But unfortunately, the benefit in firewood is that hardwoods are denser, and firewood is sold by volume, usually a cord which is four by four by eight feet. Pellets are sold by weight (like breakfast cerial), so having a denser product wouldn't provide any more heat, just a slightly more compact product.

In the end, I went back to buying Heatrs, because the pennington has a real problem with dust. Its obviously made from very fine waste sawdust, and a significant amount of it ends up in the bag, stuck around the edges in the stove, and in the air around the room. Luckily the mess is mostly contained in the basement, but once its floating around, the next thing that happens is that the fan kicks in and sucks it through the filter (clogging that) and then blowing what got through up into the house.

Anyways, with all that going on, here's the totals for Jan & Feb.

MonthThis year  Last year  
September360-
October1,360-
November1,6401,200
December1,9201,720
January2,3602,000
February1,9201,280
February?1,080

  Still a big jump up from last year, but I was seriously expecting to break the 2 bags a day threshold and just skirted under it by a bag. So why is it not bothering me to be quickly approaching five tons of burnt wood (all of which were loaded into my truck and unloaded into the basement by yours truly)? Guess how many times we've turned on the propane heat in the house this winter? zero. While the forced air frequently came on last winter, and we had to refill over 700 gallons of propane this spring; so far this year the only uses of propane have been for the cooktop and hot water. So we really have gone green, or at least have switched to renewable sources for the bulk of our heat. A good winter in my book.

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Life in the middle of nowhere, remote programming to try and support it, startups, children, and some tinkering when I get a chance.

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Blogroll
Paul Graham's Essays
You may not want to write in Lisp, but his advise on software, life and business is always worth listening to.
How to save the world
Dave Pollard working on changing the world .. one partially baked idea at a time.
SnowDeal
Eric Snowdeal IV - born 15 weeks too soon, now living a normal baby life.
Land and Hold Short
The life of a pilot.

The best of?
Jan '04
The second best villain of all times.

Feb '04
Oops I dropped by satellite.
New Jets create excitement in the air.
The audience is not listening.

Mar '04
Neat chemicals you don't want to mess with.
The Lack of Practise Effect

Apr '04
Scramjets take to the air
Doing dangerous things in the fire.
The Real Way to get a job

May '04
Checking out cool tools (with the kids)
A master geek (Ink Tank flashback)
How to play with your kids

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