FloatyBoaty

Btw, I did this in the middle of the night. Now that I look at it, it's kinda random.

I'm not sure if this was your point or not, but one of my pet peeves about feminism and its invasive status in most elements of modern life is that it is basically a pseudoscience, a set of beliefs held mostly because people believe them, like the old comic-opera song that goes "we're here because we're here because we're here because we're here..."

It is a very powerful thing, myth. The genius of feminism has long been its ability to inject false and unsupportable claims into popular culture in the guise of common knowledge, ie "everybody knows women get paid less, abused more, are better caregivers, etc." Once these ideologies become acceptable as truths they are self-perpetuating with no further requirement that they be verified or corroborated by evidence.

You have shared with me privately an interest in alternative technology, and I applaud your efforts and enthusiasm as well as caution you about the mythology and the propaganda you will have to navigate in order for those ideas to take root among the public. Passive solar is the one area I know anything about in that realm, and it is really little more than observing and respecting the flow of air enough to first overheat some of it in a space and then be sure and design an air flow scheme that moves warm air in a direction it is bound to go anyway, either up or toward cooler air. But the myth that destroyed the massive gains for passive solar during the Jimmy Carter years was that it just made houses too hot and too brightly lit by unwanted sunlight, and all during the 80s and 90s I watched and participated as well in the dismantling of one passive solar system after another, because people were so ready to believe the myths and take the easy way out and install central HVAC systems instead of do a little head-scratching and figure out what air does. If you want to understand solar energy just fly over the West on a sunny day after a snowstorm. The sun warms where it can reach, and spaces just adjacent that are still in shade stay deadly cold.

Once I thawed out pipes on the east end of a house after a bitter cold New Mexico night, and a day where all the areas in shade were still frozen rock solid, and meanwhile the west end of the house was in full sun that melted eight inches of snow in two hours and there was oozing mud on the ground. I just removed one piece of skirting under the sunny side of the double-wide (the landlady thought I had gone crazy) and put a fan in the opening, pulling the warm air toward the cold. The frozen pipes were thirty feet back under the house but they thawed out in minutes, and the water came back on inside.

So many problems have obvious, easy solutions just waiting to be implemented, and the technical side is rarely the obstacle. It is usually getting the wax out of folks' ears and arguing past the bullshit they believe without question that presents the real challenge. With that I wish you all the best. I haven't a doubt in the world that the energy in water is more than enough to fuel all kinds of motors, but whether you can get past a petroleum-obsessed culture of absolute dunderheads and sell it to them is another matter. It's not unlike telling folks that married women taking the kids and running away to Mom's is child abuse.

No lets stick with science and leave mumbo jumbo to others.

Quote from Neil Spencer

No lets stick with science and leave mumbo jumbo to others.

I don't know whom that comment was aimed at, but is it called for?

Quote from dinohip51

So many problems have obvious, easy solutions just waiting to be implemented, and the technical side is rarely the obstacle. It is usually getting the wax out of folks' ears and arguing past the bullshit they believe without question that presents the real challenge. With that I wish you all the best. I haven't a doubt in the world that the energy in water is more than enough to fuel all kinds of motors, but whether you can get past a petroleum-obsessed culture of absolute dunderheads and sell it to them is another matter. It's not unlike telling folks that married women taking the kids and running away to Mom's is child abuse.

Dude, it may seem obvious to you, but I think I'll stick to compliance auditing.