Good Morning, RVA: It’s that middle-of-the-week kind of hot

I’m fine with this kind of heat on the weekends, but dang Wednesday.

August 5, 2015; 6:57 AM • by Ross Catrow

Photo by: sandy’s dad

Good morning, RVA! It’s 75 °F, and today’s another hot one. Like yesterday, expect sunshine, highs in the mid-90s, and the constant thrum of air conditioners whenever you go.

Water cooler

Yesterday, I kicked off our new series explaining the Bus Rapid Transit system that’s coming to town. A couple of times each week, we’ll answer a bite-sized question about the GRTC Pulse (that’s what our BRT is called). With any luck, by the time the thing opens in fall 2017, we’ll all be super familiar with each and every nook and cranny.

Every once in a while someone dies from a crazy bacteria or virus they caught after swimming in the river. The subsequent headlines (and conversations in our office) are predictably loud, alarmist, and punctuated with exclamation points. To settle things once and for all, Susan Howson talked to a real, live medical professional and got the dirt on what your chances are of catching a fatal bug from the James River (spoiler: super, super low).

Brandon Fox at Style Weekly takes a peek behind the renovations at Balliceaux–reminding us all that yes, the restaurant (which closed for the summer back in April) will reopen. This is great news as Balliceaux has become an important part of Richmond’s live music scene.

Headline of the day (and funny story) from WTVR: “Former NFL star Chad Johnson accidentally flies to Richmond.” Remember how when Chad Johnson played in the NFL he only ate McDonald’s?

P.S. We just announced RVANews Live #004. It’s maaaaaybe our best one yet, and tickets are on sale now.

Sports!

• Squirrels picked up a win against against New Hampshire last night. Tonight at 7:05 PM and tomorrow at the same time are your last chances to see the Squirrels in the Diamond until August 14th.
• Nats broke their five-game losing streak with a 5-4 win over the Diamondbacks. They’ll try to do it again tonight at 7:05 PM.

This morning’s longread

How I Gave Up Alternating Current

From the dude who brought you Soylent, comes this…troll? Sales pitch? Forward-looking manifesto? I’m not sure what it is, but I read the entire thing so that’s something.

Now I don’t need any of them. I am electrically self reliant. My home life runs comfortably on a single 100W solar panel, which cost $150 and was available on Amazon Prime. I tracked down a few manufacturers in China who all said it costs around $40 to make. The US for some reason leverages massive tariffs on Chinese solar panels, so they ship them through Malaysian customs. Why do the politicians even bother?

For storage a $65 lead acid deep cycle battery does the trick. It’s 12V so can be charged directly from the solar panel, and holds 420Wh, way more than I use in a day. That’s $0.15 / Wh so I don’t see why everyone is so excited about Tesla charging $0.43 / Wh for the Powerwall, sans inverter and installation.

This morning’s Instagram

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August 5, 2015 6:57 AM 0