Heating Update

We have a lovely large pile of firewood outside, mostly oak.  So we can use that when we have energy to build a fire again.

Today someone arrived from a different heating/cooling company.  He said he'd be here on Sunday at 1:30 and it was literally 1:30 when he called to tell us he'd arrived.  Color me impressed.  He took measurements to see about replacing the piece of shit heat pump etc. with something better.  So we're considering options for that.  Also I got to spend an hour playing carpenter's helper while we measured the inside of the house to estimate square footage and discussed possibilities.

He mentioned having a laser measuring tape that he didn't have with him, which sent me into at least five minutes riffing on what could be done with that.  The hardest thing about that tech is just making something that will measure distance with light.  I looked these up and discovered that most of them just measure one line of distance, although there are laser levels with XYZ capability.  The higher end models will do calculations for area/volume, which is what I was thinking as useful.
What they need to do is add the XYZ feature, so that you have a handheld light-driven geometric computer.  You should be able to, for example, wave it at a furnace and get the dimensions of that device, wave it at a house and capture that volume, then correlate with stored parameters of available hardware to spit out which units would fit.  *wistful sigh*  In T-America, the simple laser measures are handed out like penlights as promotional swag.  Professionals can get the geometric version at a reasonable price.

Anyhow, for whomever has been reminding  the Universe to take care of the bard: thank you, it seems to be helping.  <3

Standing Rock VICTORY!!!

President Obama has denied the DAPL easement.  Read a statement from the Standing Rock Sioux.

My inner Indian is yelling and running in circles.  :D  

Well, that buys us a couple of months.  I'll take what I can get.

Poem: "Make Their Own Boxes"

This poem is spillover from the November 8, 2016 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from jtthomas, librarygeek, and ng_moonmoth. It also fills the top row (threats from outside, generalization / specialization of members, generations, failures) in my 9-2-16 card for the Worldbuilding 4x4x4 Fest. This poem has been sponsored by ng_moonmoth. It belongs to the series An Army of One.

Warning: This poem touches on some sensitive and controversial issues. Highlight to read the warnings, some of which are spoilers. There's a lot of cute kid stuff, but the adult emotional plane includes some miserable stuff. There is homesickness, hatred of current location, extreme discomfort, near-total dissatisfaction with family life, relationship issues, lack of accommodation for needs, which makes it incredibly obvious how little the neurotypical officers cared about their neurovariant staff, post-traumatic stress, questions about family, general criticism of unsupportive societies, family planning, challenges of social engineering to fill gaps in necessary services, and other issues. On the bright side, Armelle is finally starting to think about how to make Sargasso Station more livable. If these are uncomfortable considerations for you, please think about your tastes and headspace before clicking through.

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Poke a Bigot in the Eye: High School Students Synthesize Daraprim

Just to make it obvious that Shkreli is a giant douche who only wants to hurt people, the cost was about $15 in materials or $2/pill.