That's amazing about the time zones-- during DST, there are more people in Florida than in the mountain time zone!

Arizona still doesn't switch?

Oh! I saw the pictures of my sister. Nice (like real nice) before pictures of an eerily flat stomach (interestingly enough (to me) her stomach looks much more toned than mine, but my abs kick the ass of her abs...anyway, this is hardly the time and place for that), and pictures of her in her gown ready to go for surgery and then boom! External womb! After I got back down off the ceiling, there's a bowl full of fibroids. I have NO idea where the fuck she was tucking those, unless she lacks a small intestine.

But thank goodness they are out of there!

External womb! After I got back down off the ceiling, there's a bowl full of fibroids. I have NO idea where the fuck she was tucking those, unless she lacks a small intestine.

Yikes.

ION, some really awesome, incredibly NSFW AIDS-prevention ads from France: [link]

ita, tell your sister to take it easy. If she strains now, it makes her recovery MUCH longer. She needs to do as little as possible right now

and i'm mad that she got to see her fibroids. they didn't save mine for me.

hivemind, I need some electronics help. I am going insane having to switch video cables on the back of my tv every few days (game console, dvd player) and I think it will only get worse once I get the TIVO up and running. Does anyone know of cables that have receptors on the other end that I could swing around to the front of my TV? or what they are called?

Well, Vortex, had you had the surgeon who wanted to take photos of your womb outside of your body I bet you would have seen your fibroids too.

Liese: One way to define sufficienctly is to use the European standard for "passivhaus" which is generally 80% or lower consumption than U.S.

But another is simply how much you are going to use the radiant system. If you have longer than a three week period where the radiant system will run every day, then you need two tankless heaters. If your other systems mean your radiant system will only be used occasionally, except for a really short period, than you can get by with one. At any rate there is no reason to get a tank system. If you are going to get a second tank eventually for a second bathroom that is not there yet, you might get by with one tank for the moment and adding a second later. In terms of compatibility of tanks with passive solar homes there are ways this can work. It works routine in "passivhaus" designs in Germany, but these are heavily insulated, R40 or better walls, R7 or better windows, R60 or attics, R30 or better floors (below the thermal mass of the floor in your case). Also complete avoidance of thermal bridges, well sealed homes with once through ventilation via a heat exchanger. You have to avoid indoor air pollution for this to work which would mean any wood stove would have to be external combustion. (air intake and outake for stove both being the ouside.)

For homes not built on this principle there are still probably ways around it. For example to deal with the problem of "wasted" stove heat, simply make sure you have enough thermal mass to deal with both the solar gain, and gain from the radiant heating. So extra heat lets you simply turn on the radiant heater later at night. (You have the pluses and minuses of having increased your thermal lag.) Also put the radiant heat in the ceiling instead of the floor. That does not eliminate the problem, but it reduces it. A lot if this depends on the specifics of your house. Do you have an engineer you are working with? I'm taking off now, but my profile addy is good. Email me if you want to discuss this more, and I'll reply later.