Doug Hilton's Blog

CVS to SVN Conversion

John and I have been using SVN for a while for a joint project, and I finally decided it's time to switch my repositories for my personal projects. I got SVN and CVS2SVN installed easily, thanks to portage, but it was getting SVN set up that was a challenge. I found the documentation left something to be desired, and my big issue was attempting to use SSH to connect to the repository. For some reason, SSH wanted me to log in three times, which is fine (but annoying) for command line interaction, but I want to use Subclipse with Eclipse, and this was not possible. I did some poking around google and found this link that talks about setting up a permenant connection via SSH to SVN so you don't have to log in multiple times. Seemed to work for me, and now I am off to some coding.

Another ANWR Victory

Yesterday, Representative Charles Bass of New Hampshire successfully penned a letter that caused the removal of the provision that would allow for drilling in ANWR from the House version of the budget bill. This was the first thing that I heard this morning on NPR when I got in my car, and really started my day off on a high note. I was so excited about this, that I wrote him an email thanking him and his colleagues for his efforts. Below is a copy of that email.

Here are also a few links to his press releases about the issue:
http://www.house.gov/bass/pr_110805.html
http://www.house.gov/bass/pr_110905.html

Email:

Representative Bass,
I am writing to personally thank you for your efforts to preserve the Artic National Wildlife Refuge and to keep oil and natural gas companies from being allowed to drill there. As an avid environmentalist, the preservation of the ANWR is my top political concern, and I am elighted that there are consciencous representatives out there such as yourself that realize that the answer to our oil and gas problems is not to drill new wells, but to move away from oil and gas completely. I have been following this story for some time now, and it sickens me to believe that there are people out there that would rather take the easy way out and drill, rather than support initiatives for alternative fuel sources, which is the right thing to do. I guess money drives a lot these days.

I would like to congratulate you and your supporters on your victory. I know the fight is not over, but hopefully there are more representatives out there like you and the other 25 members that signed your letter. With your continued support, we can defeat this and move forward. Please pass along my sincere thank you to the other 25 memebers that signed the letter, and feel free to share my sentiments with the rest of the House and Senate.

Thank you!

More green for me and the environment

With the anticipated spike in home heating costs this winter as well as my general desire to both screw the oil companies and help the environment as much as I possibly can, I have taken a few steps to improve the efficiency of various appliances in our house as well as reduce the amount of waste that we produce. The More Hip Than Hippie podcast has had numerous ideas, some of which I have adopted and implemented, and some that I have on my list of things to do. This past weekend, I took a trip to our local Lowes and began my quest for a greener wallet and a greener earth. Below is a list of those that I would like to do, and completed ones are marked as such.

• Insulate my hot water heater. I bought the blanket, and hopefully today I will wrap it.
• I have switched from reusing and recycling plastic water bottles to an aluminum bottle with a water based coating. Reusablebags.com has a great selection of SIGG bottles.
• I am beginning to refuse to take bags when going to the grocery store for only a few items such as our lunch trips. I have thought about switching to paper, but these actually take more energy to produce and recycle than the plastic ones. (ref) I find it better to just not take a bag. I also carry a small cotton bag that I got from the NWF that I will occasionally use.
• John and I have been commuting to work which we figure saves about 2 gallons of gas a day. We both work for at the same place, and he drives up the same highway that I take, so we just meet at a park and ride, and commute the rest of the way.
• I switched over to a programmable thermostat that will allow me to set different temperatures for both heat and cold for different times of day. This way, we can turn the heat or A/C down during the day when noone is home, and also at night when we are sleeping and under blankets. The EPA has estimated that turning your thermostat down 10 degrees for 8 hours a day can save about 33% in energy costs for a year.
• Switching to CFL (Compact Flourescent Lights) bulbs. I have switched a few of the more commonly used lights in the house to the new CFL bulbs. It will take some time to get used to the new light, as CFL's throw a much harsher and cooler (bluer) color to them than regular incandescent bulbs by anywhere from 2500-7500K depending on the wattage. These bulbs are significantly more expensive, but will last an average of 8000 hours as apposed to about 1000 hours and use far less energy.
• Re-weatherstripping my three outside doors. Even though our house is only 3 years old, the builder did a terrible job putting insulating tape around the door jams. There are gaps at the bottom of all three of the doors that lead to the outside in our house.
• Hanging heavy curtains at our windows. Right now, we only have thin paper "blinds" up that are only meant for temporary use. That temporary has turned into three years now. I'm sure we are loosing a lot of heat (and getting a lot in the summer) through our "blinds".
• I'm looking into the possibility of running bio-diesel instead of gas in my car. Now, my current car won't do this, but eventually I will need to purchase a new car, and it will either be a hybrid, or a diesel in which I will run some formulation of bio-diesel. There is one fueling station in Manheim that sells B-5, and it is fairly easy to produce your own. It is something I will definately have to look into.
• Composting - I have signed up for a composting workshop to be held at our local community building in the spring. Our neighbors behind us have a compost pile, and I want to talk to them about it, but just have not seen either of them outside when I have been out.

It won't amount to any earth shattering savings, and I don't expect it to. That is not the main reason I have decided to make these changes. As I said before, I'm tired of supporting the oil and gas companies when they jack their rates because of the hurricanes and a supposed shortage, and still manage to show record increases in profits by upwards of 80%! This is just my way of doing what I can to help the greater cause.