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Generators and The World of Tomorrow

One day I’ll have a whole house generator. I’m thinking one of those automatic devices that runs off the natural gas line and engages itself when the power goes out. Or maybe I’ll have battery banks installed. And maybe satellite internet. Because our wired infrastructure here at Easement Acres is getting increasingly unreliable.

Lights Out

Some of it may be due to hurricanes. Or, most recently, because a friggin truck snagged the power line and ripped the utility pole down. Of course, whenever it’s windy the power flickers in and out, too. And when it’s hot out. Or if someone walking through the neighborhood gives off bad vibes. The power goes out with with an annoyingly increasing frequency, is my point.

Then I stumbled upon something rather obvious in retrospect: companies that make battery-powered tools also make power inverters for their own batteries. So like, I can plug an AC device into the battery. Duh. Seems obvious now.

So when the power went out due to the aforementioned truck incident, I was able to power a nice bright table lamp in the kitchen and continue drinking without interruption, while charging phones in the process. But unfortunately it was limited to one battery, which didn’t generate enough total wattage output to power the garage door opener. That in itself wasn’t a major problem. It’s always the refrigerator that poses the most immediate concern. Based on past experience, I can get up to 6 hours before it reaches unsafe temperatures…if no one opens it and it’s already at ideal temperature.

But then this came to my attention:

If anyone here’s played any of the Fallout games, I think you can agree that this totally looks like a generator from that franchise. Or one of the many fusion batteries seen hooked up to mobile equipment scattered throughout the DC metro. It even has that green nuclear glow, which I’m sure was intentional designing by the manufacturer. I’ll admit, it looks cool. And it can power the refrigerator, for quite a while it seems. Idle, the power usage estimate was a couple days. When the compressor kicked it, it dropped to 12-18 hours, which is still impressive. So I’m guessing that as the fridge cycles on and off, this would give us about a day with my mixmatched set of amp-hour batteries. I’d buy some 12AH batteries, but they cost as much as the inverter itself. We’ll see where my needs take me.

It’s impressive what modern battery technology can do. It brings promises of The World of Tomorrow, but unfortunately I’m currently having to use it for more of the Fallout-type scenarios.

–Simon

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Garden: Summer of 2026

A momentary pause in drama gives me an excuse to post garden pics. Nice, peaceful garden pics. No drama here.

Herbs
Squash, corn
Indeterminate tomatoes
Cucumbers, garlic, determinate tomatoes
Rhubarb

I do enjoy the transition from June to July. The gardens show promise of harvests to come, before the plants begin to turn ratty.

–Simon

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Deck Lattice

Today’s entry for boring project announcement is the installation of deck lattice! Yay!

I didn’t post about this, but the deck had been recently painted. Originally the goal was to strip and re-stain the deck, which Liz contracted out due to the time and effort investment which was lacking in-house. But project companies and their sub-contractors never seem to get along. For some reason, there’s always a disconnect between the 22 year-old blonde marketing major who promises everything in a job quote, and the grizzled old Mexican migrant workers who actually do the work. Becky may have some experience in stripping, but I’d guess it’s of a different type.

In the end, Liz settled for paint instead of stain. But not after a lengthy back and forth discussion to confirm colors and timing and price adjustments. Were the goal to only paint, that would have remained in-house. We should have canceled outright on principle, but this wasn’t my project. In the end, Becky got her pay day, and we got an overpriced paint job. But it does look nice, I’ll admit.

The final stage, which we did not outsource, was the lattice. The original lattice was that cedar stuff commonly sold for cheap at every hardware store. 10 years of removal and re-installation for each deck staining had left them in a sorry state. They also wouldn’t match the new paint without painting of their own. Not worth the effort. So we replaced them with vinyl.

Just one more improvement to Easement Acres. I don’t anticipate them keeping the groundhogs out, but maybe the skunks will be deterred.

–Simon

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FICO U

When I was a child, I had the credit score of a child. Now that I’m grown, I see through an iPhone darkly. Because it was in night mode. I was also squinting angrily in frustration.

One friggin point from maximum? That hardly matters, but it’s taunting me simply from an OCD standpoint.

As one with years in the credit industry, I’m very familiar with peoples’ delusions about their own credit worthiness. Underwriting for the mass public, especially in the retail credit realm, is telling. Most people are either largely ignorant or completely lacking self-awareness. The number of times “I have perfect credit!” was shouted at me from someone with a FICO in the 300s was disturbingly common. So common that it became a meme amongst my call center cohorts.

Fortunately I’ve moved on from customer-facing roles. And in the interim, a number of governmental regulations have been implemented that force additional transparency for the consumer. So I hope that the confused masses are taking opportunities from the present availability of information to better understand their own credit scores.

Still though, even as one associated with the industry, the scoring model remains mystical. So naturally, I consulted AI. Here’s what it had to say:

If your credit score is one point below the maximum (for example, 849 instead of 850 on many FICO models), it’s usually because the scoring model has found some tiny imperfection or simply because the algorithm doesn’t hand out the absolute maximum very often.

Common reasons include:

  • You still have active credit accounts. Oddly enough, having and using credit perfectly can sometimes score a point or two lower than having an idealized profile.
  • One inquiry in the last year or two. A recent mortgage, auto loan, or credit card application can shave a few points.
  • A non-zero balance reporting. Even if you pay cards in full every month, one card may report a small balance before the statement closes.
  • Credit mix isn’t mathematically perfect. The model may prefer a certain combination of revolving and installment accounts.
  • Average age of accounts. Even excellent profiles can be a point or two shy if some accounts are relatively newer.
  • Model quirks. Credit scores are statistical models, not grades. Sometimes two nearly identical consumers will differ by a point or two for reasons that aren’t obvious.

In conclusion, it would appear that a perfect credit score is nearly impossible to achieve. So it is with much regret that I must say to all my former interlocutors in consumer credit that, unfortunately, it’s unlikely that you ever had, or ever will have, perfect credit.

But I’m close!

–Simon

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Mushrooms (Part 5)

AI does not like to identify mushrooms. Mushrooms are difficult to identify, so I get it, but I’m also a 90s kid who saw playground equipment removed from schools and warning labels applied to coffee cups. I suspect that AI could give a probable identification, but doesn’t want the responsibility of someone poisoning themself if the identification were incorrect. So alas, despite my curiosity with this kingdom of lifeforms, I can’t fully catalog them.

But I can photograph them! Here’s some more from Easement Acres:

Hopus lionus (I hope this is the Lion’s Man I inoculated into this stump earlier this year).
Schizophyllum commune?
I know this one, because I seeded it! Stropharia rugosoannulata
Galerina marginata? AKA Funeral Bell. Might be Desarmillaria tabescens, but I’m not going to try eating them.
Some form of Crepidotus

Lots of rain bringeth lots of mushrooms. Don’t eat them, or at least don’t blame AI if you do and die.

–Simon