KWSN Orbiting Fortress

[Sir Papa Smurph]

$222.00 electric bill this month.......... I am shutting down to save cash.
gonna turn all comps to NNW for now

Sorry Brothers & Sisters.....

Ps: I am sure I will be back....
_________________
a.k.a. Licentious of Borg.........Resistance Really is Futile.......
and a Really Hoopy Frood who always knows where his Towel is...

[Gemjunkie]

$670, I suspended GPU WUs.
_________________




(older, before split CPID)

[Blurf]

Time to start Advertising the team...
_________________

[Clark]

Just out of interest, how many shrubs were there in your shrubbery???
_________________


Badges:

[Sir Papa Smurph]

[Blurf]

Why not just cut down like oh say...down to 1 machine?
_________________

[Gemjunkie]

Hmm, does your neighbor have an outdoor outlet? Do you have a long extension cord?



_________________




(older, before split CPID)

[Killerrabbit]

Blargh, just wait until the weather gets cooler. Or invest in solar panels.

Ni
_________________

[ohiomike]

I've been shutting down for the summer for the last several years now.
I just can't see paying the bill to run the AC to remove the heat from the computers.
The mini-farm does do nice things for my gas bill over the winter however!

_________________

Resident Linux fan and credit ho >My Shrubbers<
Proud member of the "Fry a CPU for breakfast club"

[Clark]

My single shrubber seems to keep my room at a comfortable 74F all year round.
_________________


Badges:

[Grizzly]

[Al Dente]

[Grizzly]

Ni Sir Al !

~£35/Month is of course the yearly average

Elecrickery is only used for the above (plus a few extras like phone charger , battery chargers for tools [rarely], radio [trany] , modems , printer , hoover (as little as I can get away with ) , kettle (Twice a day max ) , lawn mower for a table cloth sized lawn (takes 2 mins once a week in summer) , and ocasionaly a fan in summer to blow air over the rack ) .

Hot water is by gas , central hating ditto , but only ONE radiator usualy required in winter (apart from towel rail) . hob is gas , but as stated above oven is electric (Aga too , so only used once/twice week) . No kids at home now
My second biggest consumer of electrierty is the washing machine twice a week - her resposibility - I'm NOT allowed to touch the thing !! (my night time job is the duty manager for a hotel chain - so food and a certain ammount of laundry (shirts etc) are part of the "perks" ) .

TV is only on for ~2 hours/day (Her indoors ) never on standby setting .
Dvd player ~twice a month ~2 hrs each .

My 3rd bigest consumer is the WashDisher , ~3-4 times a week - . Best small economy model (Bosch) on eco setting .

Now that I have "shared" way to much information , your turn .

By FAR my biggested monthly expenditure is fuel for my 26 ( ) year old Land Rover - 18 gallon [80 litre] tank , once a month , sometimes more often !! (But I am cheaper than HER , ~40 litres/WEEK !! for her car [not saying what it is - but it is a Honda 2.2 multi valve Vtech thingy] . Mine is diesel - HER's Petrol (but it goes like s**t off of a shovel - she won't let me drive it - reminding me that it is not a LR , and other cars won't get out of my way when I come through ) .

Now , prob'ly doing some thing Write regds Electricty N'est pas ? .

Very best Regds Grizz .

PS: Err sometimes we put the biggest radiator in the home on in winter in the conservatory - but easier not to go in there when it is very cold outside

PPS: I raise your one bottle of wine/week (1/2 half bottle of decent malt/month ) to 3 Kegs of real Ale/year !!
_________________
Oh Bugger Forgot again - or is it Oh Father Reboot again ?

Ps Grizz in his second childhood - but not his last !

Edihtor of the KoKC (excused spel;l checher'er)

AND NI !!! Tophat 10e

[img]http://www.katrinashome.com/grizzly_counter.php[/[url=http://www.katrinashome.com/] ][/url]

[Al Dente]

Oh well, it seems it's time to bare all (and I can assure you that's not a pretty sight ).

I'm retired, living on minimum, so parsimoniosity is paramount.

Live in a basic miniscule flat, no gas, so 'leccy is all my energy consumption. Steady through the year, as shrubbers heat the place well enough in winter.

Don't drive any more, failing eyes made it too dangerous; had to give up my luverly ole '80 Merc 300SL (Bright red - a real pimpmobile), so free (bus pass) pubic transport is now my mobility.

Love cooking, wine and eating (in that order; I follow the W.C.Fields philosophy - "I always cook with wine; sometimes I even put it in the food"), so my expenditure is ~30% wine, 25% food, 25% leccy, 20% baccy, phone, interweb, water, O & S, spare.

I smoke. Pubs & restaurants are no longer pleasurable, so don't use 'em. Don't use takeaways as I can cook a (normally) better meal in about the time it takes to deliver, and at ½ the cost.

Wash up when I'm about to run out of something (7-10 days), and spend a lot of the latter part of that time cursing the lack of space in the kitchen.

Hoover just before visitors expected, normally humming "I Want To Break Free". Again pinching someone else's philosophy, this time Quentin Crisp, "after a couple of years you don't notice the extra dirt".

Just had a water meter installed - water rates were £350 pa, I'm expecting that to drop to ~£100. So that's my bottle a week rescued from the 'leccy Co. (It's only right & proper that Yorkshire Water pay for that; most of ends up back in their system.) Trying to get that bill down even further, e.g. using dead bath-water to flush the loo (I can do things like that, living by myself, no-one to moan at me.)

Don't have a TV (or license); no point paying £150 to watch a couple of progs a week (use iPlayer, etc.)

Engage in a bit of model-making, currently in year 4 of a 1/12 scale Tudor dolls house, 70% complete, should fetch 3 grand or so (if and) when finished. Flog occasional bits on e-Bay, hand-carved 4-poster beds average £100.

So that's it. A sedentary, (sometimes) boring, but generally pleasurable life, just doing what I want to do.

Wasn't it Bob Dylan who said "A man can consider himself a success if he wakes up in the morning**, goes to bed at night, and in-between did exactly what he wanted.". Fits me to a T.

Oh, and I occasionally (normally at full moon) spend the night searching for pretty young virgins with delectable necks; unfortunately they're few and far between these days.




** which I consider a success in itself. It certainly gets the day off to a good start!
_________________
Creationists believe they never evolved; I agree with them.

. . My Milestones . . My Full BOINC list

[The Knighty NI]

I dunno Al

Thought you were writing about me until I realized that you used the retired word

The only extra bit I would add is DOM

Oh and just shoved an extra few quid towards my landlady for pay for the extra 16% on the leccy. Grrrrr...what is this world coming to when The un-namable British supposed institution can give themselves a big clap on the back for record profits one day and the next slap us with such a big rise in the cost of energy.

It stinks and would not be surprised if it continues this way that we see more riots here and not just because a cop shoots some innocent.
_________________
What is that in the Shrubbery?

[Gemjunkie]

Planning something, Greg?
_________________




(older, before split CPID)

[The Knighty NI]

Yeah

Making my fortune on FXTrading in currencies. Been studying it for over 6 years and feel its time to take my training wheels off

Oh and continue with my bees. Now the proud owner of 6 hives. Strewth it cost me £160 ($260) for 3 insects to double my hives.
_________________
What is that in the Shrubbery?

[Al Dente]

When I replied to Grizz' post, I wasn't really anticipating a philosophical/political/lifestyle thread, but having consumed a couple of glasses of wine with dinner, then a couple of hours later coming across an interesting-looking recipe and partaking of a few more glasses while trying it out (it was delicious), I find myself in an extravagant and garrulous mood, so.....

The Trouble With England Today (as I see it).

The education system. When I 'twere a lad (Grammar School), beatings/slippering/knuckle-wrapping were common; it taught me to learn, and the subjects taught turned out to be quite useful in later life. Nowadays: no corporal punishment. Teachers scared to critisise pupils. Classes disrupted/ruined by a minority buoyed by their seeming invincibility.

Win#1 for the lefty PC crowd.

The curriculum: back in my day (the glorious 60's) was Maffs, Physic, Kemistri, Histori, Geog, Latin, Frog, Kraut, Eng (lang & lit), with maybe a bit of Art/Musik. Physical jerks were compulsory (no "Please don't let little Johnny play with the rough kids, 'cos he might get hurt." Nowadays, Media studies, IT (but they don't bother to teach 'em how computers work, only something pretty useless like Java or VB, nothing useful like C++). Writing, grammar, spelling, mental arithmetic are non-starters. Kids leaving school today aren't fit for Uni (most Universities have to run catch-up classes so their entrants are in a fit state to start learning), and a large proportion aren't even capable of being a shelf-stacker at Tesco.

Win#2 for the lefty PC crowd.

My solution - back to the 50's/60's creed of (forced if need be) respect for authority. End molly-coddling of brats.

Parenting. Couples are, seemingly, no longer held responsible for the behaviour of their offspring. There are countless examples of kids running wild (12-year olds nicking cars, then torching them/rape of 10/11 yo's; no action taken, etc.) In all these types of case, the parents face no action.
But... Parents are no longer able to thrash their kids when they've done wrong.

Win#3 for the lefty PC crowd.

My solution - make parents responsible for their kids. e.g. if a kid commits an offence requiring a 1-year jail term, then THE PARENTS SERVE IT. That would soon result in an vast improvement in parenting skills. But, in return for this obligation, allow parents to discipline their sprogs as they see fit, without (too much) fear of prosecution.

When in Rome.... I'm fine with immigrants (where would we be without Indian restaurants and Polish plumbers), BUT, as I said in the intro, they should be able to speak and read, if not write, English. My council spends upwards of £5mil a year translating documents so that the immigrant population can understand them. Not acceptable.
Ethnic minorities appear to get preferential treatment, as do sexual minorities, females, etc., under pain of law (no penalty for ageist prejudice, which I've suffered).

Win#4 for the lefty PC crowd.

My solution - English reading/writing/comprehension tests before immigration approved. Treat everyone equally.

Government. A few quotes:
"Hell, I don't vote FOR anyone, I always vote AGAINST" (W.C.Fields).
"Anyone who puts themself forward for election has automatically disqualified themself from holding office."
"A five-minute talk with the average elector demonstrates exactly what's wrong with democracy" (although I can't suggest any better method.)

My solution - Dunno, mate. Possibly make polititions personally responsible for their actions (fraught with problems, but worth a try). Most seem scared to instigate anything useful for fear of upsetting people.

Win#5 for the lefty PC crowd.

The Financial Crisis - Give Scotland, Wales, NI their independence. Saves a vast amount in subsidies. Problem (nearly) solved. (BTW, I'm English, not British).

Religion (rather sticky turf). I'm an atheist/agnostic (too pissed to look up which, but I don't believe in any deity). When, probably 3/4 times a year, evangelists call, my question of them is "When you can tell me why you reject all the thousands of possible Gods in favour of yours, then you'll know why I reject yours as well" Seems to get rid of them quite effectively.
But the serious point is that religion is probably the major cause of violent (i.e. war, etc.) death/genocide, etc. in the history of mankind. (think, e.g. The Crusades, or more recently The Troubles (NI)).
My personal opinion, held for many, many years now, is that the next major global conflict will be (radical) Muslims vs. the rest. The signs are all there that this is building into something quite major, quite soon.
Again, look at the creationist vs. Darwin kerfuffle. 'nuff said. (My sig shows my view on this.)

My solution - No more religious persecution, an end to all bigotry. (The first an actual gain for the loonie left PC's, the second a virtual impossibility.)


So there you have it, my very own take on the world at large (sez he, living in his own little insulated bubble), and my solution to England's current problems.

Sorry if I've offended anyone while propounding this diatribe (my most sincere apologies, I try to be as tolerant as possible of other peoples foibles), and more especially if I've bored any of you, but that's what you get for allowing me to drink a bottle (or so) of wine, then letting me loose on a keyboard.***


So, there you have it. A real can of worms. You're welcome to pick one at random, chop it up, smell it, taste it, even saute it with a little white wine, parsley and cream, and serve it with pickled herring, lutefisch and a sprinkling of finely chopped shrubbery... enjoy.





*** My usual position - "Here I sit, at the threshold of the interweb, a staggering number of eyeballs waiting with bated breath to dissect every nuance of my thoughts; I'm practically drunk with the uncensored freedom and limitless potential. And apparently too inebriated to actually think of anything to say..."
_________________
Creationists believe they never evolved; I agree with them.

. . My Milestones . . My Full BOINC list

[Killerrabbit]

I thought Sir Al Dente was writing a profile for a dating website, soon I would be reading about long walks on the bogs, and driving on the left side of the road.

Ni
_________________

[Mildew]