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Breadcrumbs
Feb. 27th, 2024 10:41 amI’ve gone looking for things recently in my blog only to discover I apparently did not blog about them. *sigh* And then I forget. And that is annoying. So! Here are some breadcrumbs for future me.
GBL
This came up initially as part of the Mediterranean War Universe, which was me attempting to get anything at all historical to stick in my brain that was south of the Mediterranean. We meandered around asking questions about things like, where did the Phoenicians live (Byblos is probably the original GBL, or Gabel or Gobel) and that led to noticing that Gibraltar has the same GBL. Most recently, Elagabalus crossed my path, and that’s another GBL. I persist in believing that Jubilee somehow connects here. There are very, very many GBL place names scattered around the southern Mediterranean.
Fire Blankets
During the earlier battle about batteries for the house, I learned about how battery fires are dealt with by fire professionals: blankets. One of the engineers told me about them and pointed to AVD. But then I found these:
https://bridgehill.com/fire-sails/
I talked to K. at the time, and she says they definitely work for whole-house wildfire protection, which I find amazing, but she would know, given her job.
I’m finally feeling _good_ about the house backup plan. The PV proposal is great — good equipment, warranties, very little projected degradation in performance over 25 years. I still don’t know the details on the generator + batteries part, because that is going to wait on consultation with Enphase, but hopefully tomorrow I’ll hear something or Thursday at the latest. And the proposal supports self-consumption (so we can use our own generated power preferentially and only sell into the grid what we don’t need), microgrid, islanding, etc. There is apparently enough fine grained control of what’s on and what’s not in the app that I won’t need smart panels. All good news; exactly what I wanted.
Apparently a lot of the No Batteries They Are Dangerous is a cascade from a Massachusetts state fire official putting out some kind of thing a few years back that had a pretty high level of fire protection required and nobody wants to do anything because of fear of inspection hassles. The person who told me this did not know about the large scale fire blanket stuff.
I’ve felt bad on and off for the last couple decades about some stuff that I resisted when I was still working because it seemed excessively risky. I really got into it with El Jefe at the time about various things, but obviously, the boss is The Boss. He was right — the risks were lower and more manageable than I had imagined. In one case, we learned so much from making the mistake (this was used books, where the order database struggled in ways that could have been anticipated but were NOT anticipated), that it was actually a great mistake to make. Even before that, had I not consciously lowered the level of risk I was prepared to tolerate, I would never have pursued that job (or accepted it if offered without me pursuing it). I feel bad that I was overly cautious, and I have carefully _maintained the vivid uncomfortable memory_ of being overly cautious, because caution isn’t safe either. Now that the habit of Asking Stupid Questions is more completely ingrained in me, I may let go that uncomfortable feeling of remorse. I think it has served its purpose. I no longer view risk from a binary perspective of, Am I Willing to Take This Risk or Not, Cautious or Not Cautious. The status quo has become one of a sheaf of possibilities, all of which are subjected to pretty persistent poking to make sure I understand the tradeoffs so I can pick outcomes I prefer. Not, How Can I Be Safe, but rather, What Alternatives Are Available. If you assume there is a Safe, you’ve already lost perspective.
Oh, and last bit of construction entertainment: today in the MEPFP coordination meeting, J. (K construction team) asked what we had in mind for internet. I said that before I bought the property, I checked to see what was available at that address and it was basically only Comcast, so I figured that with StarLink as a backup. She was very happy and said that was exactly what she had in mind; they want to get that going so the construction team has internet, which I also anticipated.
GBL
This came up initially as part of the Mediterranean War Universe, which was me attempting to get anything at all historical to stick in my brain that was south of the Mediterranean. We meandered around asking questions about things like, where did the Phoenicians live (Byblos is probably the original GBL, or Gabel or Gobel) and that led to noticing that Gibraltar has the same GBL. Most recently, Elagabalus crossed my path, and that’s another GBL. I persist in believing that Jubilee somehow connects here. There are very, very many GBL place names scattered around the southern Mediterranean.
Fire Blankets
During the earlier battle about batteries for the house, I learned about how battery fires are dealt with by fire professionals: blankets. One of the engineers told me about them and pointed to AVD. But then I found these:
https://bridgehill.com/fire-sails/
I talked to K. at the time, and she says they definitely work for whole-house wildfire protection, which I find amazing, but she would know, given her job.
I’m finally feeling _good_ about the house backup plan. The PV proposal is great — good equipment, warranties, very little projected degradation in performance over 25 years. I still don’t know the details on the generator + batteries part, because that is going to wait on consultation with Enphase, but hopefully tomorrow I’ll hear something or Thursday at the latest. And the proposal supports self-consumption (so we can use our own generated power preferentially and only sell into the grid what we don’t need), microgrid, islanding, etc. There is apparently enough fine grained control of what’s on and what’s not in the app that I won’t need smart panels. All good news; exactly what I wanted.
Apparently a lot of the No Batteries They Are Dangerous is a cascade from a Massachusetts state fire official putting out some kind of thing a few years back that had a pretty high level of fire protection required and nobody wants to do anything because of fear of inspection hassles. The person who told me this did not know about the large scale fire blanket stuff.
I’ve felt bad on and off for the last couple decades about some stuff that I resisted when I was still working because it seemed excessively risky. I really got into it with El Jefe at the time about various things, but obviously, the boss is The Boss. He was right — the risks were lower and more manageable than I had imagined. In one case, we learned so much from making the mistake (this was used books, where the order database struggled in ways that could have been anticipated but were NOT anticipated), that it was actually a great mistake to make. Even before that, had I not consciously lowered the level of risk I was prepared to tolerate, I would never have pursued that job (or accepted it if offered without me pursuing it). I feel bad that I was overly cautious, and I have carefully _maintained the vivid uncomfortable memory_ of being overly cautious, because caution isn’t safe either. Now that the habit of Asking Stupid Questions is more completely ingrained in me, I may let go that uncomfortable feeling of remorse. I think it has served its purpose. I no longer view risk from a binary perspective of, Am I Willing to Take This Risk or Not, Cautious or Not Cautious. The status quo has become one of a sheaf of possibilities, all of which are subjected to pretty persistent poking to make sure I understand the tradeoffs so I can pick outcomes I prefer. Not, How Can I Be Safe, but rather, What Alternatives Are Available. If you assume there is a Safe, you’ve already lost perspective.
Oh, and last bit of construction entertainment: today in the MEPFP coordination meeting, J. (K construction team) asked what we had in mind for internet. I said that before I bought the property, I checked to see what was available at that address and it was basically only Comcast, so I figured that with StarLink as a backup. She was very happy and said that was exactly what she had in mind; they want to get that going so the construction team has internet, which I also anticipated.