Solar panels are looking better

[livingdeb]

At craft night I learned that micro-inverters let you install a solar panel system where when one panel is shaded it does not reduce the effectiveness of the other panels. This changes everything.

And apparently I am not the only home owner who has decided that I would rather have trees than solar panels. Now you can have some of both.

I don't have the energy/time right now to look into this again, but it's on my list for later.

Language-learning video of the day - How to Talk Minnesotan. I bet you thought this was going to be about Spanish, eh? But, no, I am a complex and unpredictable individual! Occasionally.

This video is almost thirty minutes of fake-retro amusing deadpan instruction which has the feel of even being sort of true. By which I mean I actually do feel like I could blend in a little better than I normally would.

From Lesson One: "These three workhorses of Minnesota conversation will carry you through your first scary hours. In fact, they should be good for a week, if you only speak if spoken to, which is always a good idea anyway. Memorise them. Work on them at home with your family. Repeat them until they're second nature. They're the building blocks of all dialog." He's talking about these sentences:
* You bet.
* That's different.
* Whatever.

As I commented in the post that introduced it to me: "Learning a bit more about how to speak Minnesotan wasn’t too bad. I’ve laughed less."

Comments

[texpenguin.livejournal.com]

Someone's calling to talk to Todd about solar on Tuesday. I'll let you know if he finds out anything useful. Here, they use satellite imagery to determine if your house is situated in the right direction to make optimal use of solar energy and if you have too many trees to work around. And they've worked the price of the panels into their energy cost so you don't have to fork over a lot of money at the start. Which probably means you'll pay a lot more for the panels overall, but if my energy bill is still significantly less than what I'm paying now, I might still be ok with that.

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Cool. Satellite imagery used for good!

[(Anonymous)]

If you're offered the Norwegian taco salad, refuse a fourth time.
-Sally (never a Minnesotan)

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Ha! Does it involve some sort of fish product?