(backdated)
The obscure US Holiday of Evacuation Day dates from November 25, 1783, to commemorate when the British left the USA on that date in 1781, marking a final end to the Revolutionary War.
The 225th Anniversary of Evacuation Day was in the news locally in New Jersey this month, since NJ was a crossroads of the American Revolution, and to this day, there's several "George Washington Slept Here" historical homes in the area, as well as his HQ for Jockey Hollow, the 1779-90 Winter Bivouac for the Continental Army.
Upon reading of this local history of how the local hilltops were used to light fires to serve as communication (warning) beacons for an impending British attack, we were debating if on the night of the 25th we could find a few hours venture out a dozen miles down the road to Fort Nonsense in Morristown, where the newspapers were reporting that there would be a modern beacon lit to commemorate.
Naturally, we didn't make a more proximate connection. The name of the housing development that we live in is ... Beacon Hill.
Yes, there was another one of the 23 known hilltop signals located at the top of the hilltop ridge that we live on. It was restored last year by Denville Boy Scout Troop 118.
Its yet another surprise discovery of local history ...
-hh
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
It done burned down
(backdated)
Dateline: Tanzania
Some of our time this month was spent on Safari in southern & western Tanzania.
While at Ruaha National Park, we spent some time chatting with the camp manager, who had previously been working at Mikumi.
We found that a controlled fire ... done poorly ... last season had burned out of control and up over the hilltop where a camp that we had previously stayed at, destroying all of the facilities.
Thus, this Banda - it done burned down:
Great views, great memories ...
Fortunately, word is that the Foxes do intend to rebuild the camp; it will just take some time.
-hh
Dateline: Tanzania
Some of our time this month was spent on Safari in southern & western Tanzania.
While at Ruaha National Park, we spent some time chatting with the camp manager, who had previously been working at Mikumi.
We found that a controlled fire ... done poorly ... last season had burned out of control and up over the hilltop where a camp that we had previously stayed at, destroying all of the facilities.
Thus, this Banda - it done burned down:
.jpg)
Great views, great memories ...
Fortunately, word is that the Foxes do intend to rebuild the camp; it will just take some time.
-hh
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Iranian photoshop manipulation? An illustration
There's been media reports (eg, NY Times) this week about Iran's missile test ... and how the images distributed very well likely might have been faked - - a Photoshop manipulation.
I'm sure others have already done this, but I didn't notice any examples, so I've put one together quickly for anyone else looking for the same: here's a very simple Photoshop overlay of the two ("4 missiles" and "3 missiles") photographs, so that people can decide for themselves how suspicious they are of if this is (or isn't) a manipulation.
In other words, 'decide for yourself'.
(you can click on the image for a larger version)
-hh
I'm sure others have already done this, but I didn't notice any examples, so I've put one together quickly for anyone else looking for the same: here's a very simple Photoshop overlay of the two ("4 missiles" and "3 missiles") photographs, so that people can decide for themselves how suspicious they are of if this is (or isn't) a manipulation.
In other words, 'decide for yourself'.
(you can click on the image for a larger version)
-hh
Monday, July 7, 2008
Green Snake Oil?
In the news today: Toyota is planning on putting a solar panel on their Prius.
Sounds good, doesn't it? An electric hybrid that's able to be partially powered by the sun.
Well...
How are we sure that its not essentially just a clever sales gimmick?
Here's one take on the "Reality Check" of physics.
A conventional solar panel (Mitsubishi; Sharp) provides 185W of output, and is 65" long x 33" wide: call it roughly 5ft x 3ft. Let's assume no sunroof, so you can install two of them on the roof of a car like a Prius.
Those two panels result in roughly 370W of power under ideal conditions. Let's assume that there's another 10% of roof real estate available and round up the number to a conveniently easy to work with 400W of output.
The article (see link) reports that the A/C system needs up to 5kW of power. Standardizing units, that's 5,000W.
Thus, the panel can provide (400W/5,000W) = 8% of the A/C system's peak demand.
Thus, you can run your A/C "totally on solar" if you only run it at ~8% of its capacity. That doesn't sound like all that much cooling capacity to me.
Okay, let's look at things differently: let's assume that the solar panels can charge the battery pack, even though this isn't mentioned in the article. While we're also at it, let's be an irrational optimist and assume that this storage will be 100% efficient and has no other trade-off factors (such as needing a bigger battery).
So how much power can we store? Classically, solar systems are discussed and designed around the time of day which results in roughly 80% of the total daily collection. This is commonly defined as 10AM-3PM, which is a period of 5 hours. True, there is solar gain before 10AM and after 3PM, but generally it isn't planned for too much, as the sun angle, strength and shading factors are some of the factors for why the panels run at below their ratings and all of these other hours of daylight only collect around ~20%. This is classical Pareto Principle.
So in those 5 hours of good gain, the panels will run at their rating, so this sytem will generate 5hr * 400W =2,000W-Hrs.
Continuing to assume that idealized 100% efficient storage battery, this means that the system can provide 0.4 hours (24 minutes) worth of full A/C per day. For a to/from work commute, that's 12 minutes each way...assuming that you park your car in the sun at work and don't go out to lunch.
Okay, it is better than nothing, but do keep in mind that those panels aren't free. Their retail price is around $2,000.
And more importantly, they aren't weighless. In standard trim, they're just over 35lbs each. Figure that with packaging economies, they can be reduced from 70lbs down to around a 50lb increase in vehicle curb weights. Now ask yourself: an increase of 50lbs in the vehicle's weight hurt the car's fuel economy by how much?
And ditto for that idealized 100% efficient battery. To do 2000 W-hr worth of power storage, you're roughly going to need a battery roughly the size/capacity of a standard automotive Lead-Acid battery. In NiMH, I'd SWAG it at another $500 and 25-30lbs increase in curb weight.
This is just a quick "back of envelope" system analysis, but it looks like at least a 50% salesmanship snake oil for a 'Green' product to me at this point. I'd personally like to see a more comprehensive one done with real values, to specifically include how much the vehicle's cost goes up, weight goes up and MPG goes down (because of that higher weight).
Don't hold your breath.
-hh
Sounds good, doesn't it? An electric hybrid that's able to be partially powered by the sun.
Well...
How are we sure that its not essentially just a clever sales gimmick?
Here's one take on the "Reality Check" of physics.
A conventional solar panel (Mitsubishi; Sharp) provides 185W of output, and is 65" long x 33" wide: call it roughly 5ft x 3ft. Let's assume no sunroof, so you can install two of them on the roof of a car like a Prius.
Those two panels result in roughly 370W of power under ideal conditions. Let's assume that there's another 10% of roof real estate available and round up the number to a conveniently easy to work with 400W of output.
The article (see link) reports that the A/C system needs up to 5kW of power. Standardizing units, that's 5,000W.
Thus, the panel can provide (400W/5,000W) = 8% of the A/C system's peak demand.
Thus, you can run your A/C "totally on solar" if you only run it at ~8% of its capacity. That doesn't sound like all that much cooling capacity to me.
Okay, let's look at things differently: let's assume that the solar panels can charge the battery pack, even though this isn't mentioned in the article. While we're also at it, let's be an irrational optimist and assume that this storage will be 100% efficient and has no other trade-off factors (such as needing a bigger battery).
So how much power can we store? Classically, solar systems are discussed and designed around the time of day which results in roughly 80% of the total daily collection. This is commonly defined as 10AM-3PM, which is a period of 5 hours. True, there is solar gain before 10AM and after 3PM, but generally it isn't planned for too much, as the sun angle, strength and shading factors are some of the factors for why the panels run at below their ratings and all of these other hours of daylight only collect around ~20%. This is classical Pareto Principle.
So in those 5 hours of good gain, the panels will run at their rating, so this sytem will generate 5hr * 400W =2,000W-Hrs.
Continuing to assume that idealized 100% efficient storage battery, this means that the system can provide 0.4 hours (24 minutes) worth of full A/C per day. For a to/from work commute, that's 12 minutes each way...assuming that you park your car in the sun at work and don't go out to lunch.
Okay, it is better than nothing, but do keep in mind that those panels aren't free. Their retail price is around $2,000.
And more importantly, they aren't weighless. In standard trim, they're just over 35lbs each. Figure that with packaging economies, they can be reduced from 70lbs down to around a 50lb increase in vehicle curb weights. Now ask yourself: an increase of 50lbs in the vehicle's weight hurt the car's fuel economy by how much?
And ditto for that idealized 100% efficient battery. To do 2000 W-hr worth of power storage, you're roughly going to need a battery roughly the size/capacity of a standard automotive Lead-Acid battery. In NiMH, I'd SWAG it at another $500 and 25-30lbs increase in curb weight.
This is just a quick "back of envelope" system analysis, but it looks like at least a 50% salesmanship snake oil for a 'Green' product to me at this point. I'd personally like to see a more comprehensive one done with real values, to specifically include how much the vehicle's cost goes up, weight goes up and MPG goes down (because of that higher weight).
Don't hold your breath.
-hh
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Customer Service in the Internet Age
The above links to an MSNBC article of the title:
"Complaining Couple Banned from Cruise Line".
Briefly, the article discusses how a cruise line (Royal Caribbean) chose to permanently decline the business from a particular customer (that sounds nicer than "ban"). Apparently, they had found reason to complain ... and apparently ask for meaningful financial compensation ... over 80% of the time (5 out of 6 cruises).
There's a few interesting points in this topic.
First, there are most definitely consumers (such as the Morans) who will frequently exploit any excuse to forcibly leverage a cost concession. In this regards, Royal Caribbean is better off without them and does have the right to decline their business.
However, there is the issue with 'freedom of opinion' on discussion groups. It is safe to say that literally no discussion group has been free of pressure from special interests to delete or amend existing comments, which frequently leads to censorship issues.
There is an old saying that the Internet interprets censorship as network damage and routes around it
In general, this potential problem rapidly becomes a slippery slope when the Message Board is being hosted by the company...a case of where Marketing trumps ethics and fear of "Brand Damage" is more important than hearing real consumer feedback (in order to improve the Brand): it is a manifestation where the corporation reveals a lack of confidence in the strength of their Brand.
A few years ago, I was a reader of just such a group that was hosted to benefit Divi Resorts (a Timeshare company) and there rapidly became a zero tolerance ... enforced through censorship ... for any and all possible criticism from their customers. As such, the group was a sham: nothing more than a marketing mouthpiece, not a source of honest, balanced information, or for frank consumer/supplier dialog... something that would be more expected when one has spent $10K+ for a timeshare. And what was the fate of property that Divi had rejected years worth of customer 'feedback' about? Its death spiral continued until it was shut down in 2006. Glad I'm not a big investor in Divi Resorts, as any company who clearly chooses to ignore repeated warnings about their product's shortcomings is not going to be particularly successful in the long run.
Thus, the general conclusion that I have come to is that the only discussion groups that can be functionally trusted are those upon which censorship is impossible, which is USENET, or a Message Board whose official published policy is that all discord will be discussed fully in the open for the public to witness firsthand (good luck finding one of these).
But there is good news for this for consumers in that the Internet - - despite its shortcomings - - has been a resource that has restored some power back to the consumer, for previously isolated individuals can now communicate, and it is common to compare the company's response. It used to be that a company could merely tell 50 customers, "Gosh, you're the first one that this has ever happened to!" to try to smooth things over and to minimize financial recompense, but today, that claim is far more likely to get caught and thus revealed as a lie.
Since its only a fairly small percentages of consumer who have caught on to this information sharing, and that information is still dispersed across the 'Net, a businesses' tactics to use 20th Century spin-doctoring will still work 80% of the time. However, the downside risk is that when it doesn't fly, that business gets hit hard because their claims get destroyed by these collaborative power of 21st Century communications, and then they get nailed a second time ...even harder... for having flat-out lied to multiple customers.
This is not the case here with Royal Caribbean, but the amazing part is that a surprising number of companies still "Don't Get It". Here, RC was in a pattern of responding to individual complaints - - they didn't see the pattern until it was pointed out to them by other consumers.
And for the Morans? The Internet revealed their pattern of behavior, which in this case is now helping a business to avoid future complaints from them. Yes, its a two-way street: they made their bed, so now they have to lie in it.
-hh
"Complaining Couple Banned from Cruise Line".
Briefly, the article discusses how a cruise line (Royal Caribbean) chose to permanently decline the business from a particular customer (that sounds nicer than "ban"). Apparently, they had found reason to complain ... and apparently ask for meaningful financial compensation ... over 80% of the time (5 out of 6 cruises).
There's a few interesting points in this topic.
First, there are most definitely consumers (such as the Morans) who will frequently exploit any excuse to forcibly leverage a cost concession. In this regards, Royal Caribbean is better off without them and does have the right to decline their business.
However, there is the issue with 'freedom of opinion' on discussion groups. It is safe to say that literally no discussion group has been free of pressure from special interests to delete or amend existing comments, which frequently leads to censorship issues.
There is an old saying that the Internet interprets censorship as network damage and routes around it
In general, this potential problem rapidly becomes a slippery slope when the Message Board is being hosted by the company...a case of where Marketing trumps ethics and fear of "Brand Damage" is more important than hearing real consumer feedback (in order to improve the Brand): it is a manifestation where the corporation reveals a lack of confidence in the strength of their Brand.
A few years ago, I was a reader of just such a group that was hosted to benefit Divi Resorts (a Timeshare company) and there rapidly became a zero tolerance ... enforced through censorship ... for any and all possible criticism from their customers. As such, the group was a sham: nothing more than a marketing mouthpiece, not a source of honest, balanced information, or for frank consumer/supplier dialog... something that would be more expected when one has spent $10K+ for a timeshare. And what was the fate of property that Divi had rejected years worth of customer 'feedback' about? Its death spiral continued until it was shut down in 2006. Glad I'm not a big investor in Divi Resorts, as any company who clearly chooses to ignore repeated warnings about their product's shortcomings is not going to be particularly successful in the long run.
Thus, the general conclusion that I have come to is that the only discussion groups that can be functionally trusted are those upon which censorship is impossible, which is USENET, or a Message Board whose official published policy is that all discord will be discussed fully in the open for the public to witness firsthand (good luck finding one of these).
But there is good news for this for consumers in that the Internet - - despite its shortcomings - - has been a resource that has restored some power back to the consumer, for previously isolated individuals can now communicate, and it is common to compare the company's response. It used to be that a company could merely tell 50 customers, "Gosh, you're the first one that this has ever happened to!" to try to smooth things over and to minimize financial recompense, but today, that claim is far more likely to get caught and thus revealed as a lie.
Since its only a fairly small percentages of consumer who have caught on to this information sharing, and that information is still dispersed across the 'Net, a businesses' tactics to use 20th Century spin-doctoring will still work 80% of the time. However, the downside risk is that when it doesn't fly, that business gets hit hard because their claims get destroyed by these collaborative power of 21st Century communications, and then they get nailed a second time ...even harder... for having flat-out lied to multiple customers.
This is not the case here with Royal Caribbean, but the amazing part is that a surprising number of companies still "Don't Get It". Here, RC was in a pattern of responding to individual complaints - - they didn't see the pattern until it was pointed out to them by other consumers.
And for the Morans? The Internet revealed their pattern of behavior, which in this case is now helping a business to avoid future complaints from them. Yes, its a two-way street: they made their bed, so now they have to lie in it.
-hh
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Election Politics for the "bad-at-math" taxpayer (and Journalists)
In the news today is that our esteemed political leaders want to suspend the current Administration's practice of adding to the USA's Strategic Oil Reserve.
The argument being promoted is that those 70,000 barrels/day are part of the reason why gasoline is approaching $4/gallon.
Well, let's apply some classical "Supply & Demand" examination of this claim:
As per the US DOT (URL above), the amount of crude oil imported in 2006 (the 2007 numbers will be updated in June 2008) was...
10,118,000 barrels/day
And US Net Petroleum Imports were:
12,390,000 barrels/day
Plus there was also U.S. Crude Oil Production:
5,102,000 barrels/day
So we're asking about the significance of 70,000 barrels/day in the contect of (12.39 million + 5.1 million) used per day:
70,000 / (12,390,000 + 5,109,000) = 0.004 = 0.4%
Assuming that the difference results in a linear cost savings,
0.4% of $4 is a whopping 1.6 cents per gallon.
Why gosh! I'll only need to buy ~200 gallons of gas in order to save all of $3.
If $3 is going to make/break your life in 2008, drop me an email explaining how: I'll consider sending you $5 and you can name your children after me and make me your write-in candidate in November. At least McCain's and Hillery's "18 cent Fed Tax" moratorium was willing to spend all of $30 in their attempt to buy your vote.
So the conclusion is here that the math shows that the crude oil deposits into the Strategic Oil Reserve is a non-issue in the marketplace: the total change potential is for less than one half of one percent. Thus, this is simple election year wrangling in the form of a "Strategic Political Topic Reserve", which the Lawmakers will use to make themselves look like they're busy working hard for you, the common taxpayer.
But unfortunately, as the saying goes, don't confuse Activity with Progress.
And let's not forget our Journalists out there: how many of them are bad at math and won't think to run the numbers?
-hh
The argument being promoted is that those 70,000 barrels/day are part of the reason why gasoline is approaching $4/gallon.
Well, let's apply some classical "Supply & Demand" examination of this claim:
As per the US DOT (URL above), the amount of crude oil imported in 2006 (the 2007 numbers will be updated in June 2008) was...
10,118,000 barrels/day
And US Net Petroleum Imports were:
12,390,000 barrels/day
Plus there was also U.S. Crude Oil Production:
5,102,000 barrels/day
So we're asking about the significance of 70,000 barrels/day in the contect of (12.39 million + 5.1 million) used per day:
70,000 / (12,390,000 + 5,109,000) = 0.004 = 0.4%
Assuming that the difference results in a linear cost savings,
0.4% of $4 is a whopping 1.6 cents per gallon.
Why gosh! I'll only need to buy ~200 gallons of gas in order to save all of $3.
If $3 is going to make/break your life in 2008, drop me an email explaining how: I'll consider sending you $5 and you can name your children after me and make me your write-in candidate in November. At least McCain's and Hillery's "18 cent Fed Tax" moratorium was willing to spend all of $30 in their attempt to buy your vote.
So the conclusion is here that the math shows that the crude oil deposits into the Strategic Oil Reserve is a non-issue in the marketplace: the total change potential is for less than one half of one percent. Thus, this is simple election year wrangling in the form of a "Strategic Political Topic Reserve", which the Lawmakers will use to make themselves look like they're busy working hard for you, the common taxpayer.
But unfortunately, as the saying goes, don't confuse Activity with Progress.
And let's not forget our Journalists out there: how many of them are bad at math and won't think to run the numbers?
-hh
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Psystar Mac clone could save me all of $18!
Here's an interesting confluence of observations:
Despite what Ben Charny (Dow Jones Newswires) claims:
... the facts are that the MSRP on the basic Apple Macintosh mini is $599.
Not 4 x $400 = $1600. A wee Journalistic 'Oops'.
So the difference isn't that dramatic.
But what's also been quickly lost in the noise is that the $400 price being thrown around for the Psytar Macintosh clone doesn't include Mac OS, for which they want an additional $155 for Leopard (10.5), which brings its real (honest) price to $554 total.
So the difference is: $599 - $554 = $45.
$45 is less than a 10% difference, yet people are so excited over it with this new clone.
But this $45 difference is before one even start to look for deals on the Apple mini, such as if one is eligible for a discount (such as EDU). Well, as a Federal Employee, it turns out that I can buy the base mini from Apple for $563, so the price difference for me is a whopping $18.
So if I'm willing risk IP/EULA issues, as well as not have a functional Apple 'Software Update' feature to maintain the system, I can save all of $18?
Thanks, but no thanks.
-hh
Despite what Ben Charny (Dow Jones Newswires) claims:
"At $400, the Psystar box is a quarter of the cost of Apple's Mac Mini, the Apple computer most like Psystar's."
... the facts are that the MSRP on the basic Apple Macintosh mini is $599.
Not 4 x $400 = $1600. A wee Journalistic 'Oops'.
So the difference isn't that dramatic.
But what's also been quickly lost in the noise is that the $400 price being thrown around for the Psytar Macintosh clone doesn't include Mac OS, for which they want an additional $155 for Leopard (10.5), which brings its real (honest) price to $554 total.
So the difference is: $599 - $554 = $45.
$45 is less than a 10% difference, yet people are so excited over it with this new clone.
But this $45 difference is before one even start to look for deals on the Apple mini, such as if one is eligible for a discount (such as EDU). Well, as a Federal Employee, it turns out that I can buy the base mini from Apple for $563, so the price difference for me is a whopping $18.
So if I'm willing risk IP/EULA issues, as well as not have a functional Apple 'Software Update' feature to maintain the system, I can save all of $18?
Thanks, but no thanks.
-hh
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