Nobrainer’s Think Tank

While trying to figure out why my recently purchased CFLs are failing with exceptional speed, I learned that I must be way behind the curve.
Efficient Lighting Lessons From This Old House TV – Your Fixtures May be Shortening the Life of Your CFL

By now, most of us know these bulbs will burn out quickly if they’re turned on and off too frequently or placed in enclosed fixtures that don’t let heat dissipate. But the same thing can happen if the bulb is installed upside down, with the ballast above the bulb. One theory is that excess heat from the bulb rises, potentially damaging the ballast components. “That’s why many recessed CFL ceiling fixtures are designed with the bulbs oriented horizontally, not vertically,” says Bergman, referring to U-shaped CFLs with prongs instead of screw-in bases.

I had no idea about this. I thought CFLs, aside from not being dimmable, could be used like regular incandescent bulbs. As best I can tell, I can use standard CFLs in only 5 of the 36 bulb sockets in my house, and those 5 don’t even get used very much. Blerg.

Just a blog post though.

There is always some unemployment. Millions of Americans are out of work at any given moment even in the best of times. But the economy is still roughly 10 million jobs short of returning to normal levels of unemployment and labor force participation. That’s a lot of missing jobs.

Some of those losses may be permanent.

Just four years of shoddy job growth. Nothing to see here.

Meh. Doesn’t affect me because I’m not a tax cheat. This sales tax will actually simplify my life.

To be clear, I’m not necessarily accusing the opposition of this to be tax cheats. In Virginia, tax code specifies that a 5% use tax must be paid on untaxed internet purchases. So, since I follow the law, and since I’m not a tax cheat, this internet sales tax is much ado about nothing.

I ws just watching CNN for a bit. And there was big news at the top of the hour! New developments and new information about the bombs and guns used by the Tsarnaev brothers. Paraphrasing, “Our reporter has spoken to law enforcement contacts. Those contacts say the materials for the bombs came from the Boston area. And as for the guns, the contacts say they believe the guns came from somewhere else. Back to you.”

Geez. Thanks CNN for this hard-hitting “news” from your dedicated professional “journalists.”

Let’s say you’re a homebuilder. Let’s say you’re working on a spec build that has busted the schedule and still gone unsold after a few months on the market. What’s your next move?

Why you raise the price of course. Why ask $940,000 when you can ask $967,900?

I’ve been fed up for many months now with Technorati, who, as an organization, seems to be technically incapable of deleting user accounts. Their state of affairs is quite sad for what is ostensibly a tech company. But this morning it occurred to me they have a team of Smykowskis from Office Space.

To request an account deletion, you have to go to getsatisfaction.com, which is basically just a message board. You tell them the username of the account to delete. Then their Smykowskis tell you “we’ll send your request to our technical team.” And that’s all that happens. There is no “satisfaction” to be “got” because after that they just fucking ignore you.

It is completely infuriating that a tech company, who’s entire bread and butter is websites, cannot create an automated process to delete accounts. Even worse, they can’t even make a web submission form for you to fill out to send the request directly to the technical team. No. I have to submit a request, viewable to anyone who wants to look, then someone on their end has to send it to the technical team.

So what exactly are they doing? “Well-well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don’t have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can’t you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?”

Update 2013-04-18 To my great surprise, my latest request was processed in only a few days. Or they finally processed one of the dozens of other requests I made. Nonetheless, they finally closed my account! Woohoo!