A lot of buildings around where I live have steam coming out from underneath them -- I'm not sure why but its a huge electricity waste. As it turns out, there's ways to recover that which I hope to propose to the building owners.
Monday, October 06, 2008
Motorized bicycle
A guy who's working on setting up his bike for motorized capabilities (and car-replacement). Pretty amazing how far this stuff has come. One thing important to note about this is that this setup will do pedal-assist work for you -- its not just a glorified mini-motorcycle.
Gay marriage isn't new
I always thought that gays were older than humanity while the idea of gay marriage was new. Nope.
The magic of video
An anti-McCain video but not in a stupid or pandering way. Its also a bit slow, involving a lot of fact checking.
Recommend skipping to about 2:30 into the video as the initial arguments aren't very interesting or compelling.
Reasons to drive slower (using physics)
The physics of moving objects certainly apply to your car, although the math varies greatly depending on the type of car you drive. The work a moving object does to overcome air resistance increases in a cubic relationship to increases in speed. This means that when speed doubles, air resistance increases by a factor of 8 (= 2^3). So it takes 8x more energy to push your car through air at 80 mph than it does at 40. That's 64x more energy than at 20 mph!
This explains why you should (where possible) keep your windows down in town but roll them up on the highway and use your air conditioning system instead.
Going faster is more dangerous because the the energy is a product of half its mass times its velocity squared (e = 1/2m * v^2). So if you double the speed, the energy that must be dissipated to stop increases by a factor of four (because velocity is squared).
So using the example above, your car has 4x more energy at 80 mph than it does at 40. That means your brakes are less effective if you have to slow down rapidly to avoid an accident and if you don't avoid it, your car will have to dissipate 4x the energy.
Loosely speaking, this means that 80 mph accidents are 16x more dangerous than accidents at 20 mph.
Related:
This explains why you should (where possible) keep your windows down in town but roll them up on the highway and use your air conditioning system instead.
Going faster is more dangerous because the the energy is a product of half its mass times its velocity squared (e = 1/2m * v^2). So if you double the speed, the energy that must be dissipated to stop increases by a factor of four (because velocity is squared).
So using the example above, your car has 4x more energy at 80 mph than it does at 40. That means your brakes are less effective if you have to slow down rapidly to avoid an accident and if you don't avoid it, your car will have to dissipate 4x the energy.
Loosely speaking, this means that 80 mph accidents are 16x more dangerous than accidents at 20 mph.
Related:
Menthol cigarettes not as bad, cigarettes still horrible
Two of my friends insist on smoking and, worse, insist on smoking menthols. I thought they were worse than regular cigarettes but when I looked into it, here's what I found. Essentially: they ARE worse but "far worse" isn't accurate.
In related news:
In related news:
"In my professional experience, dying from emphysema -- which is almost always caused by smoking -- is probably the worst way possible to die."
"It takes a long time and you're constantly gasping for breath. You tend to get pretty miserable emotionally and often take it out on those who love you, which doesn't help."
(source)
Mint.com Review
mint.com : Really glad I set up this site to keep track of my finances. Really frees you up from using just one bank and sets up alerts and budget stuff. A great first step towards getting your finances in order.
How to cook in jail
Not a joke -- I found everything this woman had to say fascinating. I've watched like 10 of her videos so far.
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Garbage disposals bad for the environment?
Good article that points out the necessity of compost heaps.
CLEP Exams to save money
I wish I'd known more about this a few years ago -- would have saved me big money in college. Rundown on CLEP testing, a few free online tests. For the math portion, you even have online classes. I hope education keeps going in this very positive direction.
People's Guide to Mexico
Found a very, very old copy of this. Glad to see its still around. The whole thing on Google Books, the website, and where I'll probably buy it from.
Stallman vs. Cloud Computing
Richard Stallman recently made some harsh comments (slashdot.org) on cloud computing:
Some thoughts ...
Stallman is concerned that you are *especially* un-free with your software an applications when they reside entirely on someone else's server. His concern is that you have almost no rights whatsoever; Google holds all the cards from beginning to end. If they lose every mail you've ever sent and document you've ever published, you have no way to get it back. If Google suddenly sets up their previously free service as for-pay where it costs $1,000 to get your e-mail, documents back, etc? Tough -- pay or don't pay, Google doesn't care. If Google turns out to be handing out your data like candy, you have no power to make them stop. Read the terms of use agreement which takes away any rights you *thought* you had.
So for Stallman, cloud computing is the ultimate black box. But cloud computing can be useful, especially when it saves your files locally (as can be done with Google Gears). Having just dealt with a horrible experience of the latest Microsoft Word document on the latest edition of Vista completely losing someone's document the other day (and 5 hours of work), PCs are still quite stupid. Cloud computing has some real advantages by keeping every change you make almost every step of the way. Even if your computer disappears, you didn't lose any of your work.
As far as the privacy problem, its a small piece of what your ISP can do. One method around this is dummy traffic, where you regularly get and send fake e-mail messages and searches (kind of like TrackMeNot, although Schneier doesn't like it http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/08/trackmenot_1.html). Its possible to work just a few minutes a day to get and send fake e-mail by just cutting and pasting random stuff you find on the web to a dummy address. Your privacy is not preserved, but the capability to categorize you by your surfing, e-mail, and other habits is damaged.
Some thoughts ...
Stallman is concerned that you are *especially* un-free with your software an applications when they reside entirely on someone else's server. His concern is that you have almost no rights whatsoever; Google holds all the cards from beginning to end. If they lose every mail you've ever sent and document you've ever published, you have no way to get it back. If Google suddenly sets up their previously free service as for-pay where it costs $1,000 to get your e-mail, documents back, etc? Tough -- pay or don't pay, Google doesn't care. If Google turns out to be handing out your data like candy, you have no power to make them stop. Read the terms of use agreement which takes away any rights you *thought* you had.
So for Stallman, cloud computing is the ultimate black box. But cloud computing can be useful, especially when it saves your files locally (as can be done with Google Gears). Having just dealt with a horrible experience of the latest Microsoft Word document on the latest edition of Vista completely losing someone's document the other day (and 5 hours of work), PCs are still quite stupid. Cloud computing has some real advantages by keeping every change you make almost every step of the way. Even if your computer disappears, you didn't lose any of your work.
As far as the privacy problem, its a small piece of what your ISP can do. One method around this is dummy traffic, where you regularly get and send fake e-mail messages and searches (kind of like TrackMeNot, although Schneier doesn't like it http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/08/trackmenot_1.html). Its possible to work just a few minutes a day to get and send fake e-mail by just cutting and pasting random stuff you find on the web to a dummy address. Your privacy is not preserved, but the capability to categorize you by your surfing, e-mail, and other habits is damaged.
Note about Palin and History
Everyone has this conception that no candidate for president should be too intelligent -- the phrase "out of touch" has been used in this election frequently. Palin was selected to help make the Democrats appear elitist, despite Obama growing up poor.
This seems absurd to some but there's a history lesson that invokes this. The Republican party is reacting to a president who has low ratings and scandal just as the Democrats did this with Woodrow Wilson in the early part of the century. Wilson was clean, clean, clean and probably would not have been elected if the other side wasn't divided.
Wilson was brilliant but totally unconnected and made one of the worst decisions of any president when he refused to compromise and get the Treaty of Versailles passed in the Senate. He was a staunch idealist and made a decision that might have been a big reason for WWII.
The problem with a candidate that's on the other side of Wilson's brilliance is that, while they might be in touch, they are inevitably either going to be puppets of their advisers. This happened to Wilson's successor Harding, who was not qualified for the office and let his friends and his party make his decisions and run his office.
Its clear that Palin is far from Woodrow Wilson but, should she come to power, let's hope will be both in touch and choose good advisers.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Dehumidifier for A/C?
Along the same lines as the "running without A/C" post, I looked around for information on whether a dehumidifier would save me money since dry air feels much cooler than hot air (as with Houston versus Arizona).
Sadly, the answer looks like a big no. Dehumidifiers are not energy saving, only energy efficient. This means that one costs less at the end of the day and the other merely costs less than other similar devices. In other words, you should only purchase one if your house is unusually humid, having a noticable problem with mold, or if you have bad allergies. If from allergies, you should probably rent one first to see if its useful. Dehumidifiers help reduce dust mites, which you might not be allergic to.
Dehumidifiers are not energy efficent because the device works as both a cooler and a heater. It cools air so that water condenses and then heats it again to get it to drip into a container or down a tube and into a nearby drain. This process uses more electricity than your existing air conditioning system, which (as I understand it) only needs to cool the air and uses the warm air outside to draw the water away.
So ... hope that helps someone.
Sadly, the answer looks like a big no. Dehumidifiers are not energy saving, only energy efficient. This means that one costs less at the end of the day and the other merely costs less than other similar devices. In other words, you should only purchase one if your house is unusually humid, having a noticable problem with mold, or if you have bad allergies. If from allergies, you should probably rent one first to see if its useful. Dehumidifiers help reduce dust mites, which you might not be allergic to.
Dehumidifiers are not energy efficent because the device works as both a cooler and a heater. It cools air so that water condenses and then heats it again to get it to drip into a container or down a tube and into a nearby drain. This process uses more electricity than your existing air conditioning system, which (as I understand it) only needs to cool the air and uses the warm air outside to draw the water away.
So ... hope that helps someone.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
