ChangoLanzao

Um ... my guess is he's having a flashback. You gotta take what he says with a grain of salt. Danny is a card-carryin' Loser.

You're torturing us, you know?

I'm retired. What's your excuse?

How you dooin???

I have to admit that I was inspired by him once.

Dude ... gettin' rid of yer CP isn't going to help you much if you ever happen to get some kind of radiation treatment and have to walk around "hot" for a while

I think it comes mostly from South America and is processed in China. Perfectly safe. My point is - it was already IN the environment - how can it be harming it now? Chemical form, solubility, airborne perhaps, maybe it even finds it's way into the food chain? Edit: Here's a reference for ya

It's just not that simple. What do you think of the discussion HERE?

I think it comes mostly from South America and is processed in China. Perfectly safe.

Like I said before, it totally depends!

You'll get caught, for sure! CLICKY

Also, in Chicago, you're getting virtually all of your electric from nukes. It's probably cheaper than natural gas for heating in terms of $/kWh. Oh yes, ZERO mercury release too

I love living in the country. This is what I do with my yard waste.

Print some out. You can hand them to hot dogs at your DZ whenever they're about to do something really stupid.

These bulbs will eventually be able to do almost everything that current bulbs do. I don't think so. Haven't you heard? L.E.D's Yup. The future is with L.E.D.'s So, you'll really be able to save energy. Of course the light that they put out will be so goddamned depressing that I'll bet the suicide rate wordwide will increase dramatically as a result

Nice graph. Makes everything look nice and simple doesn't it? Yes I've considered that. ALL of the power lighting up those twisty little bulbs is not generated by coal plants. Only about 50% of the US electricity production comes from coal plants. Also ... the entire life cycle of those bulbs needs to be taken into account. Who knows how much mercury is released into the air and water in China during the production of those bulbs?? Edit: Just a scary thought ... ... would you be surprised if, one of these days, a bunch of those twisty little bulbs have to be recalled because high levels of mercury contamination is found on the outside the bulbs in some batches coming off the boat from China?

Not a damned thing! My comment was in reply to Phree's suggestion that, "Having a rating for people working with students on the other hand is not a bad thing." My point was that a coach rating already exists mainly for that purpose, so a new rating should not be necessary. Yup that was my thinking too. For me, that's just a side issue that I find interesting and sometimes amusing For the most part, the important thing for getting tandem vidi's is knowing how to fly the camera safely. Today's cameras are so idiot proof that pretty much any idiot can get usable footage without knowing anything about photography. Like I said, I just find it amusing ... i know of an aspiring vidiot who is wanting to learn how to shoot video, but he's not the smartest kid at the DZ, he has no concept of the basics of photography, and most significantly, certainly does not have the APTITUDE to ever really get it. Someday, he'll have the experience to safely shoot paying tandems. Then the day will come when he adds a still camera to his helmet. He will never read/understand the basics of photography, but he'll get some stills nonetheless. Since he really has no interest in photography, and has no desire to read all that boring technical stuff about photography, I'm sure that he will keep his equipment at the DZ and not experiment "on the ground" with it. Tandem students pay a lot of money for the photography. Should they be entitled to a professionally rendered final product? I think so. Unfortunately, I've seen some real crap delivered to clients at some DZ's. Many clients don't have a clue how much better it could be.

Messy? You call THAT messy?? Gawd!

But how many people will actually bother to find out this information?? I bet most people will just throw them away in the garbage. So yeah, these bulbs may be more energy efficient but not necessarily more environmentally friendly. Unless people actually do recycle them. Yup. Also, they are made in China. The production plants handle LARGE quantities of mercury. They are shipped to us by boats that burn DIRTY fuel oil from China. "envirnmentally friendly" ?? ... whatever ... Incandescent bulbs are made in the midwest and contain ZERO mercury.

Another term in the energy balance equation. Do you think any additional energy will be expended in special disposal processes?

Post it as an attachment and one of us will fix it for you. If it's still too big; email it to me and I'll photoshop it for you. Here is an attachment of a pic that I'd love to put up as an avatar. If anyone can shrink it for me, that would be greatly appreciated. If not, please let me know. Thanks so much

I've heard it said that, "a clean desktop is a sign of a sick mind." You, my friend, have taken this concept to a whole other level!

Oh ... you mean learn as much as you can about the science/art of photography itself? That's a novel concept, indeed!

Fair enough. There are a couple of parameters you've left out. How much energy is used to get the oil from it's source and into all of the homes? If you're going to argue that a central power plant is only thirty percent efficient overall that's correct (I worked in the power industry a while back, so I am fully aware that you are correct in your estimates). However, you also should account for the economy of scale of burning the oil at a central location vs trucking/pumping it to every individual household for burning. I'm also wondering how much more/less energy is used to manufacture/package/distribute those twisty energy-saving light bulbs.

Nope. Not gonna dig them up either. Since most electricity in US is produced by burning things it is impossible to use it to make things warm more efficiently than just lighting the fire in the place you want to be warm. Impossible? I think not! Have you considered all of the energy that is used to move the gas from wherever it came from to the point where it enters your home? When you heat with gas, you generally have to heat the entire house. You use an electric fan to move that gas generated heat around to all the rooms of your home, right?. It uses A LOT of electricity. At least 20% of the heat generated by your furnace goes directly up the flue. All electrical appliances are basically space heaters dumping 100% of the electricity they use into the room as heat. Space heaters allow you to keep your gas thermostat set WAY lower since you can more easily heat just those areas that you are actually inhabiting (or as you said, "lighting the fire in the place you want to be warm."). It may not apply in your case, but I'd say that it's definitely possible to use electricity more efficiently than gas, especially when you take into account the entire fuel cycle for each source.