Blackout

The storms of last friday, which the meteorologists are gleefully bubbling about, successfully convinced a large tree to launch itself across the neighborhoods power lines, severing both high voltage and local loops, and left us and about 3 quadrillion other people in the dark. It turns out that not having electricity gets annoying pretty fast in the modern world. It's worse than simply not having the Xbox work, no internet, and all the food in the fridge go bad. Those are all pretty easy to deal with. The part that is really miserable is that that a modern house becomes nearly unbearable without active climate control mechanisms. They become hot, dark, and stuffy fast, especially in the absence of a breeze. If the blackout was a permanent thing, our place would be worthless. I am surprised at how poorly it adapts to a dark world. Everything seems wrong. Their are too few windows. The ceilings are too low. There is too little porch, and the eves don't reach out far enough.

I now have some new insights about design and architecture. If you could build a house that could be livable without electricity, it would be cheaper and more efficient to live in by default. This is not obvious when energy seems free.

Time to go back to the dark.