I'm on a train!

I'm posting this from a train, using tethering to my Android phone.  Ubuntu just recognised it.

I'm on a train returning from sorting out a crisis for my Partner In Crime.

Thatcher is dead .....

.....  So what?

Has Britain's manufacturing industry been rebuilt?
Have the privatised utilities been renationalised?
Have the shipyards reopened?
Have the coal mines reopened, and the rifts within the mining communities been healed?
Do schoolkids get free milk again now?

A frail old lady has passed away.  Well, wake me up when something interesting happens.  (And I don't mean rioting, looting, damaging property and arson.  I fully expect all that.)

The Sun almost get it right!

After a whole bunch of transphobic screeds in the media, this article is actually pretty benign by the standards of The Sun:  (Yes, The Sun. You have been warned.)

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/lifestyle/4867253/pre-op-transgender-woman-takes-revenge-on-childhood-bully.html

They at least refer to Nicole as a woman throughout the article.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that Nicole is conventionally beautiful and very "passable".

This being The Sun, of course, they manage to turn her into an object, using gratuitous underwear shots to "prove" how feminine she is.  But at least they are objectifying her fully as a woman, rather than presenting her as some kind of freak.  And some would say points should be docked for the gratuitous inclusion of boypix and boyname; but some people are more comfortable than others with mention of their previous lives, and for all I know, maybe Nicole is cool with this.

So, yes, the article is misogynistic -- but it's not particularly transphobic, compared to how it could have been written.  She is only being beaten with one stick, instead of two.  I would love to think this is a sign, however dim, that we should hope for better.

It's the Big Day!

My solar installation team have arrived and now they are getting stuff ready.

(I should have posted this just after 09:00 yesterday, but events sort of conspired against me.)

Anyway, all was up and running by 16:00; and the last couple of hours of daylight produced 0.45 kWh of electricity.

I have also learned that the human eye is utterly lousy for measuring light intensity. But I guess that's why cameras have exposure meters .....

Solar Payback Calculator

The "important solar calculation" below has been turned into a handy online calculator.  You can access it here.

Once you have had your site survey, you will receive a quotation for the installation and an estimated annual generation figure.  The brochures for your panels will include figures for degradation in performance due to ageing.  With these figures, you can determine the system output over its lifetime; and thence the equivalent cost per kWh treating the purchase of the generating system as a single bulk purchase of electricity.

Latest Developments on Solar Project

I now have my Energy Performance Certificate.  Montoya Mansions has earned a "D", 59 points.  Things like "energy saving light bulbs throughout"  (since 1996, for the record -- Ed.)  and "biomass secondary heating"  (my gorgeous log burner in the living room)  helped.  Solid walls, and only 100 mm. of loft insulation under the boards, did not.  Also, not having a room thermostat  (which I could leave cranked up to 30 all the time anyway)  on the  (non-condensing, but pilotless)  combi boiler counts against me, despite there being no suitable location for a room thermostat and all radiators having thermostatic valves -- but this is what happens when you prioritise box-ticking above thinking.

I also have my application forms for the feed-in tariff  (which I will need to send off as soon as I have the installation certificate),  a confirmed installation date for the solar panels, and a mini-statement from the cash machine shows that the cheque with which I paid the deposit has been cashed.  Things are moving forward .....

Solar Power: The Important Calculations

When deciding whether installing solar panels is worth it financially, you need to consider the system as a bulk purchase of electricity:  for the up-front price of the system, you are effectively getting all the electricity that it will generate over its lifetime.

The panels are reckoned to last for 25 years; after which time they will still be producing 0.8 of their rated capacity.  The inverter has no moving parts, so that should also last the 25 years.  Meaning, I will have paid just £5049 for all the electricity I am going to be producing over those 25 years.

Is that going to be worth it, compared to the price of electricity from my supplier?

My installer's  (pessimistic)  estimate is for 1400 kWh per year -- it probably will be more than that, in real life.  So over 25 years, that is a total of 35 000 kWh.  For £5049.  That works out at £0.144257143 = 14.43 p per kWh, which is less than I'm paying right now.  (I could do the calculation accounting for reduction in output, but I know that the installers' estimates are on the low side anyway.  Oh, all right.  At 25 years, the output will be 0.8 of what it is now; 1120 kWh/year.  £5049/25 for 1120 units is £0.180321429 = 18.03 p per kWh.  Due to the way this is decreasing, the most accurate average is the geometric mean -- the square root of the product.  So 16.12p.)

Even if the price of electricity doesn't go up, I am still going to come off better out of this deal :)