October 21, 2007

Billy's Little Trip · Post by **Billy's Little Trip** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 3:50 am

Spud wrote:
jolly roger wrote:I'm not willing to put in the effort to fill up the tub...
I was amazed by this statement. Doesn't the plumbing do most of the work? Or are you hand pumping it? Carrying buckets? Seems like you have to turn the handle either way...

Kids

Hoblit · Post by **Hoblit** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 6:29 am

Billy's Little Trip wrote:
Spud wrote:
jolly roger wrote:I'm not willing to put in the effort to fill up the tub...
I was amazed by this statement. Doesn't the plumbing do most of the work? Or are you hand pumping it? Carrying buckets? Seems like you have to turn the handle either way...
Kids

No doubt... you turn the handle...and while the bathtub is filling up with water...you go fix a drink, light the incense, and start the Floyd. However, I suppose it's easier to just stay on the couch and continue playing Halo (version number here).

{/stereotype}

j$ · Post by j$ » Mon Oct 22, 2007 7:29 am

Is Floyd good bathtub music? I wouldn't put on Floyd for a soak unless I had some razors and intended it to be the last bath I ever took ....

Even then you would have the dirty underwear syndrome to cope with - would you want people to know you had floyd in your collection, let alone went out to it?

then again 'Wish You Were Here' has good ironic suicide potential ...

Reist · Post by **Reist** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 11:40 am

I like Floyd - I don't think it has bathtub potential though.

Hoblit · Post by **Hoblit** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 11:59 am

jolly roger wrote:I like Floyd - I don't think it has bathtub potential though.

The Final Cut
Animals
Atom Heart Mother
Wish You Were Here
Darkside of the Moon
...

great relaxing albums for the tub.

Paco Del Stinko · Post by **Paco Del Stinko** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 12:18 pm

You could almost line those album titles up in a suicide sequence for the Last Splash Tour.

Hoblit · Post by **Hoblit** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 12:33 pm

Paco Del Stinko wrote:You could almost line those album titles up in a suicide sequence for the Last Splash Tour.

There is nothing THAT depressing about those albums...excepting The Final Cut of course. (which would have to be moved to the 'last' position in this scenario.)

Caravan Ray · Post by **Caravan Ray** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 1:31 pm

sausage boy wrote:Around here, if you run a bath, 12 burly men in suits come and beat you senseless with iron pipes while howling their battle cry "WATER RESTRICTIONS!!!".

Yes - where are all these bastards getting all this water from that they can actually take a bath in it?!? Level 6 restrictions here - about to go onto Level 7. The rainy season is due to start in the next month or so - but if it doesn't come this year, Brisbane will be well and truly rooted.

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 2:03 pm

How are you supposed to bathe, then? I thought a typical shower actually took more water than a bath.

Caravan Ray · Post by **Caravan Ray** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 2:34 pm

fluffy wrote:How are you supposed to bathe, then? I thought a typical shower actually took more water than a bath.

No - baths use much, much more water than showers. The Brisbane City Council has just sent everybody little 4 minute egg-timers to time our showers.

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 2:38 pm

4 MINUTES?! What kind of a shower is that?!

("a short one" duh)

sausage boy · Post by **sausage boy** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 5:45 pm

yeah, we have a bucket in our shower, and it catches about 90% of the water that comes out of the shower head. It takes about 4 minutes to fill up, the total time either of us spends in the shower. That bucket would in no way fill the bath tub. Where we live, the main bedroom has an ensuite, so the other bathroom is hardly ever touched. I mainly use it for photographing various objects, as the bathroom window is frosted and diffuses the light really well.

For those interested, the bucket water goes out on the garden. Because if you get the hose or the sprinkler out, more burly men come.

Billy's Little Trip · Post by **Billy's Little Trip** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 5:50 pm

Caravan Ray wrote:
fluffy wrote:How are you supposed to bathe, then? I thought a typical shower actually took more water than a bath.
No - baths use much, much more water than showers. The Brisbane City Council has just sent everybody little 4 minute egg-timers to time our showers.

I thought you lived on the Coast. I don't understand why desalinization isn't in full use. The precess of removing mineral from water is such a simple task.

No Horse Town · Post by **No Horse Town** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 6:02 pm

Water conservation is (supposed to be) pretty big in New Mexico, too, tho there's not really any regulations or laws governing it. I think the one thing they've done is told restaurants not to give out glasses of water without people asking. Rather stupid, considering we waste tons of water for gov't buildings' / fancy new development's expansive green lawns which no one uses. An average shower for me is prolly not too much more than 4 minutes. However, I do drink a lot of water.

Up in Santa Fe I think they take it more seriously... there's a huge hippie/yuppie community there. It can be kinda gross, tho, to walk into a public restroom and gag on the smell of like 20 people's urine which, for the sake of water saving, hasn't been flushed. And gawd knows what's in that hippie pee. More than just patchouli, I'm sure.

anti-m · Post by **anti-m** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 7:25 pm

Billy's Little Trip wrote:
Caravan Ray wrote:
fluffy wrote:How are you supposed to bathe, then? I thought a typical shower actually took more water than a bath.
No - baths use much, much more water than showers. The Brisbane City Council has just sent everybody little 4 minute egg-timers to time our showers.
I thought you lived on the Coast. I don't understand why desalinization isn't in full use. The precess of removing mineral from water is such a simple task.

Don't be fooled -- Desalination is not the silver bullet that one would hope -- whaddya do with the resulting brine? (Brynne?)

Fluffy, now that you live in the bay area, don't be too surprised if the egg-timer shower police come after you too! I don't think Cali has quite the water reserves that we've got up here in the PNW!

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 7:47 pm

There's a lot of PSAs about the california water crisis, yeah, but I'm still taking 20-minute showers (decadent, I know!) and my water bill is still tiny. I figure that if they want to conserve water they'll do it by raising the rates. Supply vs. demand and all that.

Billy's Little Trip · Post by **Billy's Little Trip** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:26 pm

We get the water conservation thing in So Cali about every 5 to 7 years it seems. They generally penalize over users. I personally feel it's just a way to rob people, like most of the So Cali laws and regulations.

Em, as far as the remaining salt, why can't it be returned to the O'chin? That's where all the water ends up going back to anyway, right? It's not like water is leaving the Earth, it's just ending up in some other part of the world, but eventually ends up in the ocean for the most part.

Rabid Garfunkel · Post by **Rabid Garfunkel** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 9:20 am

I'm oversimplifying here, but have you ever been to Mono Lake?

Billy's Little Trip · Post by **Billy's Little Trip** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 9:34 am

I have not, as far as I can remember.

Lord of Oats · Post by **Lord of Oats** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:46 pm

I may be oversimplifying here, and I also have no idea what I'm talking about, but water is not the only commodity to reap from the sea! When we do desal, instead of polluting our water source by oversalting it, why don't we simply sell the salt!? Salt is a more valuable product than water, anyway! There was a time, (before desal technology), when the only commercial use of sea water was evaporating the water to get to the salt! But that's still done! Unrefined sea salt is totally healthier than salt from a mine, anyway! So why isn't the salt ending up on supermarket shelves instead of back in the ocean!? If the technology doesn't allow for this, somebody needs to get on it, because then desalinization would be the perfect technology, providing two very important products, both necessary for sustaining human life.

Billy's Little Trip · Post by **Billy's Little Trip** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 1:28 pm

Yeah, I thought of that too. Plus chlorine is made from salt (sodium hypochlorite). There are a number of uses for the remaining salt, but I think there should be some sort of eco formula for knowing how much salt to put bach in the ocean.

Caravan Ray · Post by **Caravan Ray** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 2:09 pm

anti-m wrote:
Billy's Little Trip wrote:
Caravan Ray wrote:No - baths use much, much more water than showers. The Brisbane City Council has just sent everybody little 4 minute egg-timers to time our showers.
I thought you lived on the Coast. I don't understand why desalinization isn't in full use. The precess of removing mineral from water is such a simple task.
Don't be fooled -- Desalination is not the silver bullet that one would hope -- whaddya do with the resulting brine? (Brynne?)

Desalination is very energy intensive - you would need to build several coal-burning power plants to supply water for Brisbane. There is a plant under construction at the moment at Surfers Paradise - but it is small, insignificant and expensive. It is not a good solution (that is not a pun). The discharge of brine can have localised impacts on ecosytems - but in the big scheme of things, they are impacts that can probably be managed fairly easily.

The key (as with most things) is conservation and recycling. 4 minutes really is plenty of time for a shower. We are finnally starting to build sewage recycling plants so we can drink poo water. This should have been done years ago - but the government always backs off to public pressure because stupid people are afraid of it (every drop of water on earth has been recycled at some time people).

And home harvesting. I had my home water tank installed last week! And I am renovating a house in inner city Bris where we will be moving to soon that will have a big-arsed underground tank to supply all of our non-potable water needs. We will also be gereating our own electricity with rooftop photovoltaic cells.

Lord of Oats wrote: Unrefined sea salt is totally healthier than salt from a mine, anyway!

WTF? I think you'll find that is nonsense. NaCl is NaCl.