short takes

[cellio]

Lately the humidifier in the basement has been pulling 2.5 to 3 gallons of water a day out of the air. (It would probably do more, but it doesn't do its thing when the tank is full and awaiting emptying.) I realize that's only about 1.5 toilet flushes or a quarter of a shower or something, but I still find myself wishing for an easy way to feed the collection back into our water system. (Not for drinking or cooking, though.)

The National Council of Churches is unwisely spamming people on a roughly-weekly basis. (I report 'em to SpamCop each time it happens, but it hasn't stopped the messages yet.) They should work harder on demonstrating values consistent with their presumed beliefs (like the golden rule).

Speaking of losing points by spamming, an anti-Bush group calling itself BushFIlter has been spamming me every few days. SpamCop reports have been more effective there; it's been a week or two since they've successfully gotten through. But I imagine that there are people out there who haven't thought about the election much, aren't going to, and are annoyed enough by spam to let it sway their vote; the spammers are making a mistake by discounting that effect. It's really only different in degree, not form, from sending out lots of spam advertising your competitor's URL. (Hmm... nah, I don't think the Kerry folks are that weasely.)

What is the derivation of the word "asshat", which I have been seeing increasingly in the last year or two? It seems to be a synonym for "asshole", but I'd always assumed that if you had to make that word more "gentle" or "polite", it'd be the first syllable you'd have to modify. What gives?

Comments

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

Well, there are grey-water systems for watering the garden... presumably you could find some way to set one up, and then position the humidifier high enough so gravity feeds water through a hose from the water collection thingy to the grey-water barrel...something like that, maybe?

[cellio]

Hmm, interesting idea. We don't have a sprinkler system or anything like that, but maybe there's a way to use this to feed the outside spigot. We actually hire a service to keep the lawn from dying or overgrowing and taking over the neighborhood, so I don't know how much they water things versus letting nature do its thing. We turn on the spigot for them in the spring and turn it off in the fall. :-)