Disqus - Latest Comments for Garrett

Re: http://www.zunephilippines.com/2006/12/zune-wallpapers.html

Garrett — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:10:54 -0000

I have a site with a devoted page for wallpapers, I was hoping to use these there. I wouldn't charge for them, it's all completely free.

Hope you could check it out.

http://sites.google.com/site/zunebrew/Home

Re: http://igorandandre.blogspot.com/2008/06/tonight.html

Garrett — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 07:46:00 -0000

Dan, your stuff is looking amazing. Keep it up. Miss you and your brother.

Re: New Jose Mourinho Video on Setanta Sports

Garrett — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 08:27:47 -0000

The segment with "Nelson" was hysterical... You Tuuuube. Ha-Ha.

Re: Instant Indie Classic: Picaresque

Garrett — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:50:00 -0000

yo jon nice work. I need to check out the decemberists and you've given me the motivation to actually do it.

good work my friend

party cheetos 4 lyfe

Re: Howard Roark

Garrett — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 13:45:00 -0000

I loved all of Ayn Rand's books, if you haven't read Atlas Shrugged pick it up today, it is a long but definitely amazing read, even more mind blowing than the fountainhead.

Re: Architectural Bliss in Manhattan

Garrett — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 12:41:08 -0000

Seems like the jenga game.

Re: A Whopping 1.5% OF Mcdonalds’ Locations Will Dim Their Golden Arches For An Earth Hour

Garrett — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 23:19:56 -0000

That's .0114% of the year.

When using cynicism, it helps drive your point home if you don't make simple mathematical errors.

Re: Enterprise 2.0 May be Fine for the Business, But What About the IT Department?

Garrett — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 16:05:26 -0000

I think there are a couple issues at work here. First, many IT executives do not understand Web 2.0 tools. I was at an event this week of senior IT executives and none of the people I spoke to were fully using social networking sites. Some had used LinkedIn and then made their judgments about social networking based on that limited experience. We are only at the beginning of the development of these tools and it is unfair to make judgments based on one vendor's platform or the current state of the platform.

Second, IT needs to realize that workers are using Web 2.0 tools in their daily life and will come to demand these tools at work. Much like workers have demanded IM they will also demand social networking. In many cases this is driven by younger workers.

It is about time that IT realizes that technology is changing faster than ever before. It makes no sense to stand in the way of change but rather IT departments should be working to proactively understand new technologies and find the best way to standardize and manage them in the organization.

Re: Wear the Fox Hat

Garrett — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 15:46:00 -0000

See I'm the opposite, for example you are pretty but if you were wearing the fox hat then I would pretty much blow a load in my pants.

Re: A test of my will

Garrett — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 13:14:00 -0000

You should be a model on the Price is Right. Lovely and all of that.

Re: Tropicana.

Garrett — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:37:21 -0000

Interesting. I bought this OJ about a week ago to make mimosas for Easter sunday. I saw the 100% Orange Juice and just grabbed it, I didnt even realize it was Tropicana (i'm not brand loyal when it comes to OJ...im just not).

Anyway, a few days later i noticed the cap was a little orange slice and i thought that was a nice touch, a few seconds later i realized it was Tropicana.

Maybe consumers people just couldnt find the old Tropicana picture with the stipped straw and grabbed the closest thing (Minute Maid).

Re: Howard Roark

Garrett — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 13:45:00 -0000

I loved all of Ayn Rand's books, if you haven't read Atlas Shrugged pick it up today, it is a long but definitely amazing read, even more mind blowing than the fountainhead.

Re: The 6 Ugliest Eco-Cars: Because Green Isn't Always Pretty

Garrett — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:58:01 -0000

That's SIX cars.

And they have yet to make another production car with a coefficient of drag as low as the EV1. Plus it was released in 1996.

Re: World's First Solar Powered Autonomous Snow Plow

Garrett — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 02:41:18 -0000

This looks like it'd work up to about an inch of snow.

And if you've only got an inch of snow, do you really need a robot to scoop it for you?

Re: Microwaves in the Green Kitchen: Efficient Cooking or Weird Science?

Garrett — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:41:30 -0000

Microwaves actually are less energetic than infrared radiation, so are even more harmless.

Re: Think Bottled Water is Bad, Could Bottled Orange Juice Be Even Worse?

Garrett — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:12:20 -0000

Don't scare people off of frozen concentrated juice.

Dealing with frozen juice reduces spoilage - How much energy does that save? - and transportation costs (and CO2 output).

It still uses more energy, but not as much as reconstituted juice, which isn't even mentioned here. Most of the juice sold in the world is reconstituted, so that issue should be the biggest target for reducing CO2, not frozen concentrate.

Read Slate's article on the matter -- at least they don''t compare it to water --

http://www.slate.com/id/2184700/

Re: The Tata Nano, "The People's Car," Launches in India

Garrett — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:16:24 -0000

That's going to be 133500 rupees after they tack on a $670 transportation and processing fee American-style.

Re: Another Way To Hide The Bed: Put It In A Box

Garrett — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:35:29 -0000

Anyone else confused on the whereabouts of the kitchen? They have one pic of the counter, but it shows up in no other pictures. All I see in the other pics is the table or "dining" area, but no kitchen. Unless it's in the same room as the toilet?

Re: Another Way To Hide The Bed: Put It In A Box

Garrett — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:39:13 -0000

Nevermind -- found it.

It's kinda sad it took me that long.

Still seems with that tall of ceilings they're far from utilizing the space.

Re: Would You Travel 20 Light Years for a Habitable Planet if Earth Gets Too Warm?

Garrett — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:34:54 -0000

So far, the fastest man-made object, Helios 2, is said to have traveled 153,800 mph. That's .023% of the speed of light.

20 light-years/.023= about 87000 years.

Would You Travel 87,000 Years for a Habitable Planet if Earth Gets Too Warm?

Re: Swine Flu Reveals: What's Bad for the Environment is Bad for Human Health

Garrett — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:01:57 -0000

Fear-monger much?

From the WHO (World Health Organization) 28 April 2009--The situation continues to evolve rapidly. As of 19:15 GMT, 28 April 2009, seven countries have officially reported cases of swine influenza A/H1N1 infection. The United States Government has reported 64 laboratory confirmed human cases, with no deaths. Mexico has reported 26 confirmed human cases of infection including seven deaths.

The following countries have reported laboratory confirmed cases with no deaths - Canada (6), New Zealand (3), the United Kingdom (2), Israel (2) and Spain (2).

THAT"S SEVEN CONFIRMED DEATHS.

SEVEN.

NOT 150.

I understand that's not the point of your article, but to be so grossly wrong on something so easily looked up from a reputable source casts some serious doubt over any other "facts" you present.

Re: Could You Live Without A Computer at Home?

Garrett — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:20:27 -0000

Why is there not a simple "Yes I could" answer?

Your answers are no, I already do, and maybe.

Re: Metal Roof Saves Money for Grandma

Garrett — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:16:06 -0000

Metal roofs are generally a bad idea in areas that get hail. I'll be surprised if her insurance company will replace it when it gets dented by minor hail.

Re: The Truth Behind Swine Flu: Have Cheap Drugs & Greed Created a Pandemic?

Garrett — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:27:15 -0000

To answer Carol and attack your sensationalist article:

Swine flu is named so because it was originally discovered affecting pigs, and that was 75 years ago.

So are you talking about the questionable agribusiness practices of 1934 in this article? Before even penicillin was mass-produced? And as noted above, that wouldn't have anything to do with this VIRUS anyway.

Get some new writers, or lose some old readers.

Re: Olestra the "Anal Leakage" Fat Gets Alternative Life As Green Replacement for VOCs

Garrett — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:36:38 -0000

Olesta-like molecules ≠ Olestra

Re: Happy May Day, Or If In America, Happy Loyalty Day

Garrett — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:02:37 -0000

Happy Mission Accomplished Day!

Re: One Glass of Orange Juice = 1,050 Google Searches

Garrett — Wed, 13 May 2009 01:13:28 -0000

If it wasn't for incredibly ridiculous articles being written about the absurdly-high CO2 emissions of a single search query they wouldn't need to publish this. See here: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/01/google-global-warming-co2.php

Google's on the defensive because people are idiots and believe anything they read then type up an article about it.

You have no grounds to be snide, Brian.

Re: Awesome! Abandoned Railroad Gets Converted in Biking and Walking Path in Detroit

Garrett — Fri, 15 May 2009 14:32:11 -0000

Looked better before.

Re: Buying Frozen Veggies Versus Canned: Which is Greener?

Garrett — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:52:35 -0000

A can measures by volume, 16 ounces (~450g) corn and water. A bag of frozen corn, 16 ounces, is by weight. That's more corn in a bag than in a can, so your comparisons need to be adjusted considering the weight of water in a can.

Also, everyone's freezer is running anyway whether empty or filled with corn, so that should be taken into consideration.

Re: Four Brands of Organic Booze To Get Your Summer Party Started

Garrett — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:59:21 -0000

I think with products that are distilled -- most several times -- the benefits of going organic are minimized. It makes the cost-to-benefit ratio higher, so without these being priced very closely with conventional competitors, I couldn't personally justify the added cost.

Re: Team Achieves 110 MPG Average In Prius

Garrett — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 09:45:11 -0000

that means they were averaging less than 30 mph. not practical unless you live in a major city.

Re: New High for Bottled Water

Garrett — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 10:51:53 -0000

"Female readers should be proud of Treehugger for not gratuitously using pictures of scantily dressed female bodybuilders from the Oxyshot website."

Why should just the female members be proud? Isn't changing the face of advertising to be less objectifying something we should all strive for? Should it only be women's responsibility?

Re: Zapping Trash With Plasma Produces Clean Energy and Fuel

Garrett — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 00:48:47 -0000

Huh, I thought this sounded kinda familiar:

From the Wikipedia entry for "Flux capacitor"

The Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor is the name of a fictional power source used by the DeLorean time machine in the Back to the Future trilogy. It can be seen towards the end of Back to the Future when "Doc" Emmett Brown pulls into the McFlys' driveway after a trip to the year 2015, and is an obvious parody of Mr. Coffee machines, which were very popular at the time of filming.

The Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor converts household waste to power the time machine's flux capacitor and time circuits using nuclear fusion. (It is thought that this is cold fusion.) In the film, Mr. Fusion allows the DeLorean time machine to generate the required 1.21 gigawatts to travel through the space-time continuum. The energy produced by Mr. Fusion replaces plutonium as the primary power source of the DeLorean's time travel and flight capabilities.

2015 is just around the corner. Y'all think we could be powering our DeLoreans with these by then?

Re: World's Biggest Wind Power Plan

Garrett — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 12:01:43 -0000

On the comment of the 1 trillion for IRAQ also being enough to build enough wind turbines to power the whole US... I believe I read somewhere that 1 trillion is also the amount it would cost to build a 10 square mile solar array in arizona that would power the entire US.. at current, semi-crappy PV technology. And we wouldn't even mess up wind patterns. If only we had the backing of the military industrial complex...

Re: Halifax to Vancouver in a Smart Car

Garrett — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:21:57 -0000

Dear god, if you're all so savvy on the mileage of your VW diesels, why don't you realize that's less than the Smart diesel, and what the story involves is a gasoline.

Learn some math, get over yourselves, read the stats again.. better yet: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bestworst.shtml<br />
and keep it down, we heard you, and you're both wrong and arrogant.

Re: Forest Ethics' "Naughty and Nice" List of Treekillers

Garrett — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 20:27:58 -0000

My fiance and I have actually had quite a bit of trouble with Patagonia's catalog service. We're both ski instructors so we receive a special discount from Patagonia (called a pro-deal). As we live together, we thought it'd be nice to save paper and opt to only receive one catalog. The problem is, you cannot join the pro program without signing up for the catalog.

We also happen to live near a Patagonia outlet store. We'd like to receive email announcements about their sales. You cannot receive email announcements unless you sign up for the *regular* Patagonia catalog. But since we already receive the pro catalog we don't want the regular catalog (they're pretty much identical except for a little slip of paper inserted into the pro catalog).

Due to Patagonia's poorly designed software system (customer tracking system) we'd need to sign up for four catalogs in order to receive all of the information and benefits. No matter how much recycled paper you use the catalog this is still a stupid waste of resources.

Re: Survey: Should Cyclists Be Allowed to Go Through Stop Signs?

Garrett — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:36:11 -0000

Since I started commuting more often by bicycle, I've been considering this question lately. My conclusion is that if bicycles want to be treated as vehicles, with the right to ride on street without danger from cars, then they should be subject to all of the same traffic laws as the other vehicles on the road. This includes licensing and registration (while cyclists don't impact the road way as much as cars, those roads don't get paved & maintained for free). Fees don't need to be as high for cyclists and there should be exemptions for kids on bike paths or residential streets.

If cyclists want to be treated as vehicles on the road then they need to act like it.

Re: 5 Ways the NYT Science Columnist Distorts the Facts

Garrett — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 01:41:47 -0000

Oh huh, I just realized that the y-axis on the chart up top is in Gal/mile. That's kinda an odd unit to use. When I first glanced at it, it looked like it said that driving with the windows up and no AC was the least efficient.

As is the choice of kph instead of mph for the x-axis. Yes, I realize that most of the world goes by kph but to combine "gallons per mile" with kilometers is a bit strange.

Re: Enforcing Traffic Fines for Idling

Garrett — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 02:22:42 -0000

California has additional restrictions on idling for on and off-road heavy diesel vehicles. This is to reduce the amount of diesel particulate matter (linked to asthma, cancer, global warming, heart disease, etc) and nitrogen oxide (one of the components of smog)

On-road heavy diesel vehicles include things like school buses, garbage trucks, and semi-trucks. If I recall correctly, school buses are not allowed to idle anywhere there are children present, garbage trucks are not allowed to idle in residential areas and semi-trucks are not allowed to idle for more than 5 minutes except in a few limited circumstances (for example, queueing to receive a load, operating a power take off [PTO], etc).

Off-road heavy diesel vehicles include things like construction equipment (loaders, excavators, etc) and the vehicles that move cargo containers around ship yards. These vehicles are limited to 5 minutes of idling except in limited circumstances. Unfortunately, I don't believe these rules apply to agricultural or logging operations.

California is also working on or has already passed laws regulating locomotive and ship idling.

Most of these laws are fairly new and are not being heavily enforced. The California Air Resource Board has a pretty limited enforcement staff but they say they will investigate complaints of over idling. If you live in California and have diesel vehicles that regularly idle for long periods outside your house or business (especially your house, the rules tend to stricter in residential areas) it might be worth it to complain and see if anything happens.

Re: Less Is More: Hot Water Bottles

Garrett — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 02:24:56 -0000

The favorite way for my wife to warm up is to use a rice bag.

Pour 5lb or so of rice into a some sort of bag, heat in the microwave and you're good to go. They stay hot for hours.

My mom taught me this trick. She actually makes nice rice bags with fuzzy covers and velcro so they can be strapped to your body. We just use an old pillow case with a know tied in the end.

My wife said she's seen corn bags also (not popcorn). I suppose pretty much any grain would work.

Re: Last Report of a Crackpot: How Much Energy to Use the Toilet?

Garrett — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:10:07 -0000

Some friends of mine did the thermostat chicken thing one winter. They were living in a house near Donner Lake in Truckee. Donner as in Donner Party.... It gets pretty cold here. Not as cold as Maine but that winter we probably had +40' of snow.

My friends were renting a big, old mountain house. It had little to no insulation, giant single pane windows and high ceilings with no ceiling fan. Heating was with natural gas central air or a hugely inefficient fireplace (the kind that is more for looks than heat). After the natural gas tank ran out, the roommates got in an argument over paying for the next truck load of gas so they stopped using the central air. The fireplace was on the second floor and the wood was stored outside on the ground floor, so they stopped using the fireplace. I visited a few times and mostly everyone just sat around the house wrapped in 0degF sleeping bags and watched TV or they went out. You could easily see your breath sitting in that house. It was cold but I think they saved quite a bit of money that way.

Re: BNA refuses to modernize

Garrett — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 23:48:20 -0000

In other news, I think I may need to update my OpenID stuff.

I guess I better make sure all my batteries are charged before I fly outta there in late September!