I am, in effect, politely, with an auspicious and a dropping eye, with mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, to coin a phrase, dropping my Difficult Client. Long story, but the dropping itself is not related to economy. Not dropping was directly related to absence of remunerative alternatives, but I decided I’d rather lose my house than continue exposure to that particular toxicity. Some day we shall all gather round a flagon and laugh about our respective Difficult Clients. Nevertheless, in some small measure, despicable though it be, a solidly DC can speed the blood and rouse us from the lethargy of regular income.
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Meta
Miracle Space Heaters, Dangerous Cooking
I have spent many an amusing lunch explaining over and over why the “four cellphones and a kernel of popcorn” video is bogus. It’s hard to understand how anyone could think seriously about that video without suddenly slapping his forehead and bursting into laughter. There isn’t even any need for science.
I’ve had even more fun discussing the mysterious super-expensive “infra-red” or “ceramic” space heaters that miraculously transform electricity into heat so much more efficiently than, um, well, uh, er, um, resistors. Folks have a hard time grasping that the only difference in output between one of these heaters and a kilowatt of ordinary light bulbs is that the light bulbs are microscopically less efficient as heaters—they sacrifice what? 1%? of their heat output in the form of visible light. But for $379 you can get this new money-saving “ceramic” heater… The rational mind reels…
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