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Was poking about BestBuy online and wanted more info before making a purchase, was promised chance to get more info, and then boomo, you've bought a computer under terms you don't want. I believe this is illegal in California. The dude in India who said there would be no restocking fee for returning it to a store (70 miles away) refused to send a confirming email. He said he was doing it, he had the email addy on his screen, the same one they used send me the order confirmation, but nothing came from him. I sent that addy several emails and they came through just fine. He was lying, or they have a wierd delay. I asked for his email as an agent of BestBuy. He refused to give it, or a name, or even and employee numbers. Worst online buying experience EVER !
I sent the following on to BestBuy, but only after having several emails containing the word "cancel" mysteriously crash my machine.
"I have spent over three hours attemting to reach someone on the phone to s t o p an order that I inadvertantly would up placing after being promised a chance to check everything out. I had several unanswered questions, and had no intention of completing the transactions without getting answers to those questions. I would up talking to somebody in India through a bad connection who was no help at all, who claimed to have sent me an email when he hadn't, who refused to indetify himself by either name or employee number, who refused to even give me an email address to communictae with him on that level. No wonder this country's got problems. Bring the jobs home please. If you cannot find an American human who can talk deals, understands both your retail and credit sides, then please d e l e t e, c*a*nc*e*l the order immediately. My cell phone is....
I wonder if the script running this email input form doesn't just cause my computer to freeze. I am making copies of this before I hit transmit (submit) I guess I'm going to need a lawyer the way things are going. I will also send a copy via certified mail to the physical addy on the website."
Friday, August 18, 2006
Stereotyping: Simple Answers for Simple Minds
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Stereotyping: Simple Answers for Simple Minds....in a very complex universe.
If one example of A does B, then all examples of A do B.
This is especially true if I already like A and B, and even more so true if I dislike A and B.
This kind of thinking allows people who don't like school teachers to now conclude that all school teachers molest children, a la JonBenet Ramsey.
A more honest depiction would be, "Karr, who occasionally made money teaching school, did blah-blah-blah."
When we go for the shortcuts of stereotyping, our view of reality winds up a bloody mess.
Occupations, religions, political view points, actions, evaluations of those around us, all go into giving the complex definition of who we are, but no one of them by itself rules the roost. They have to be looked at as a constellation, a being made up of many (hopefully) bright points, which are only whole when taken in together.
Stereotyping: Simple Answers for Simple Minds....in a very complex universe.
If one example of A does B, then all examples of A do B.
This is especially true if I already like A and B, and even more so true if I dislike A and B.
This kind of thinking allows people who don't like school teachers to now conclude that all school teachers molest children, a la JonBenet Ramsey.
A more honest depiction would be, "Karr, who occasionally made money teaching school, did blah-blah-blah."
When we go for the shortcuts of stereotyping, our view of reality winds up a bloody mess.
Occupations, religions, political view points, actions, evaluations of those around us, all go into giving the complex definition of who we are, but no one of them by itself rules the roost. They have to be looked at as a constellation, a being made up of many (hopefully) bright points, which are only whole when taken in together.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Coffee Filter Folderover Solution + Bad Pun
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We've owned a very nice Italian Delonghi coffee maker for years. For years, on an intermittent basis, the coffee filter would fold over, the grounds would, in a minor case get into the pot, with weaker coffee, or in a major case, all over the kitchen counter. About two years ago I discovered that cutting off a thin edge from the top of the paper filter solved a lot of these problems. But occasionally, the grounds would still go on the warpath.
Now I've hit upon an even simpler solution. Wet the filter and conform it to the coffee filter holder before adding the grounds. A simple thing, and a switch from my save the world solutions, but it works.
What do angry intersteller space craft equipped AmerIndians do ???
They go on the Warp Path !
Another bad pun from the warp-ped mind of Douglas Keachie
Der Tag of the day: StarTrek
We've owned a very nice Italian Delonghi coffee maker for years. For years, on an intermittent basis, the coffee filter would fold over, the grounds would, in a minor case get into the pot, with weaker coffee, or in a major case, all over the kitchen counter. About two years ago I discovered that cutting off a thin edge from the top of the paper filter solved a lot of these problems. But occasionally, the grounds would still go on the warpath.
Now I've hit upon an even simpler solution. Wet the filter and conform it to the coffee filter holder before adding the grounds. A simple thing, and a switch from my save the world solutions, but it works.
What do angry intersteller space craft equipped AmerIndians do ???
They go on the Warp Path !
Another bad pun from the warp-ped mind of Douglas Keachie
Der Tag of the day: StarTrek
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Frustration with Blogger and Pinging to Technorati
Technorati Profile
I don't seem to be able to get listed in Technorati any more recently than 42 days ago. I followed all of the instructions at Technorati.
One last try. I will put the following in this post, post it, and then click on it. this is therefore a wasted post for everybody else.
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
Keachie
I don't seem to be able to get listed in Technorati any more recently than 42 days ago. I followed all of the instructions at Technorati.
One last try. I will put the following in this post, post it, and then click on it. this is therefore a wasted post for everybody else.
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
Keachie
The Strength of the USA
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The Strength of the USA is lies our abilities to live and let live, to learn that their are areas where we we never agree, but that those areas do not preclude us from cooperating and enjoying one another's company in areas where we do agree. Again, "Why can't we just all get along ?" This is probably nearly as profound as Martin Luther King's, "I Have a Dream," speech.
Unfortunately, we don't always practise this philosophy the way we profess. We have wasted 1/3 rd of $1,000,000,000 (that's one billion dollars) on military personnel fired because they prefer the same sex for partnering. We lost 55 good translators of Arabic this way, according to CNN today.
But, in general, this ability to tolerate diversity, plus adequate lebensraum (quality land on which to live and grow food, and plenty of wild open wilderness spaces, for mental/physical relaxation/spiritual explorations), allows us to get along most of the time.
Contrast this with Ahmadinemed, the president of Iran, who seems to be following in Hitler's footsteps, promising economic growth to the poor, and saber rattling in the international scene. I would like to know where the factory is that makes the Katyuska rockets, and I would like it bombed to extinction. Now he even has a blog, I may have spelled his name wrong in the last part.
I expect that rockets will again fall on Israel, as the Arabs have no clue, insisting that the Lebanese and U.N. forces "not look for rockets and weapons caches." I'm suprised the Israel hasn't at least bombed Syia and Iran, let alone nuked them. I don't like nukes, but if it's going to be brought to, "us or them," I vote for nuking them first.
Tags bomb
The Strength of the USA is lies our abilities to live and let live, to learn that their are areas where we we never agree, but that those areas do not preclude us from cooperating and enjoying one another's company in areas where we do agree. Again, "Why can't we just all get along ?" This is probably nearly as profound as Martin Luther King's, "I Have a Dream," speech.
Unfortunately, we don't always practise this philosophy the way we profess. We have wasted 1/3 rd of $1,000,000,000 (that's one billion dollars) on military personnel fired because they prefer the same sex for partnering. We lost 55 good translators of Arabic this way, according to CNN today.
But, in general, this ability to tolerate diversity, plus adequate lebensraum (quality land on which to live and grow food, and plenty of wild open wilderness spaces, for mental/physical relaxation/spiritual explorations), allows us to get along most of the time.
Contrast this with Ahmadinemed, the president of Iran, who seems to be following in Hitler's footsteps, promising economic growth to the poor, and saber rattling in the international scene. I would like to know where the factory is that makes the Katyuska rockets, and I would like it bombed to extinction. Now he even has a blog, I may have spelled his name wrong in the last part.
I expect that rockets will again fall on Israel, as the Arabs have no clue, insisting that the Lebanese and U.N. forces "not look for rockets and weapons caches." I'm suprised the Israel hasn't at least bombed Syia and Iran, let alone nuked them. I don't like nukes, but if it's going to be brought to, "us or them," I vote for nuking them first.
Tags bomb
"It's all about ME ! (and maybe You too)
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Loony Tunes ! They don't hate us. They love Tom and Jerry. Hollywood is safe.
"Look at me," is a very basic human need.
The Islamo Fascists (Hamas, Hezbollah, Wahabi's, and Al'Kaieda) all have a remarkable serious case of this need. Almost as bad as the various religious groups in the USA who are forever trying to get people to convert to whatever their "One True Faith in this Universe and all Universes Beyond," happens to be.
"Look at my rockets!" is more of the same. I once heard that the goal of the terrorists is not to be as "happy" as we, but rather to make sure we are as unhappy as they. Since the Iranians are not stupid nor ill equipped, they will soon have the Bomb. We will live in interesting times, and having a supply of iodine on hand would be a good idea. Small doses will prevent the body from absorbing a radioactive relative of iodine.
The Xerox machine and the VCR brought the communist system to its knees, but then most of the people in Russia (CCCP) were not communists in their hearts at all. With the indoctrination of kids so young that 5 year olds want to blow themselves up in their "Holy" war, we are looking at an entirely different critter. However, more free tv beamed down might help, as well as as much connection to the net as is possible. We should all know how to aim and peak a two way Internet satellite dish, even here, and maybe especially here, in the USA. It's amazing what comes from the Wild Blue Yonder !
Frankly, I'd go for tons of LSD in the water and air and a complete disarmarment of the Middle East as soon as possible. It's very hard to plant and set off an IED if you are stoned like a Berkeley hippy. Your timing is shot and you get distracted by spinning hubcaps. Doing it sector by sector (one mile square or so in rural areas, about one quarter that in town) would reduce the loss of life, and greatly reduce the loss of life which will happen without a doubt if they get nukes from anywhere.
WildBlue
Happy Birthday coming up soon !
You are smart enough to know this, and glad you are following through.
Loony Tunes ! They don't hate us. They love Tom and Jerry. Hollywood is safe.
"Look at me," is a very basic human need.
The Islamo Fascists (Hamas, Hezbollah, Wahabi's, and Al'Kaieda) all have a remarkable serious case of this need. Almost as bad as the various religious groups in the USA who are forever trying to get people to convert to whatever their "One True Faith in this Universe and all Universes Beyond," happens to be.
"Look at my rockets!" is more of the same. I once heard that the goal of the terrorists is not to be as "happy" as we, but rather to make sure we are as unhappy as they. Since the Iranians are not stupid nor ill equipped, they will soon have the Bomb. We will live in interesting times, and having a supply of iodine on hand would be a good idea. Small doses will prevent the body from absorbing a radioactive relative of iodine.
The Xerox machine and the VCR brought the communist system to its knees, but then most of the people in Russia (CCCP) were not communists in their hearts at all. With the indoctrination of kids so young that 5 year olds want to blow themselves up in their "Holy" war, we are looking at an entirely different critter. However, more free tv beamed down might help, as well as as much connection to the net as is possible. We should all know how to aim and peak a two way Internet satellite dish, even here, and maybe especially here, in the USA. It's amazing what comes from the Wild Blue Yonder !
Frankly, I'd go for tons of LSD in the water and air and a complete disarmarment of the Middle East as soon as possible. It's very hard to plant and set off an IED if you are stoned like a Berkeley hippy. Your timing is shot and you get distracted by spinning hubcaps. Doing it sector by sector (one mile square or so in rural areas, about one quarter that in town) would reduce the loss of life, and greatly reduce the loss of life which will happen without a doubt if they get nukes from anywhere.
WildBlue
Happy Birthday coming up soon !
You are smart enough to know this, and glad you are following through.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Gates and Clinton and the Unknown Muslim Informant
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Gates and Clinton and the Unknown Muslim Informant.
These are my selections so ar this year for Person of the Year or the Nobel Peace Prize. The first two for their efforts to fight AIDS and other diseases, the latter for saving at least two thousand lives and the general emotional tone of the world. Without the Unknown Muslim Informant, the Brits wouldn't have had a clue.
Tags: Heathrow, terrorists, airlines, airplanes, liquid bombs, Great Britain, England, Pakistan, Hezbollah
Gates and Clinton and the Unknown Muslim Informant.
These are my selections so ar this year for Person of the Year or the Nobel Peace Prize. The first two for their efforts to fight AIDS and other diseases, the latter for saving at least two thousand lives and the general emotional tone of the world. Without the Unknown Muslim Informant, the Brits wouldn't have had a clue.
Tags: Heathrow, terrorists, airlines, airplanes, liquid bombs, Great Britain, England, Pakistan, Hezbollah
Voye Yes on 87
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It's funny how opportunity comes your way.
The oil companies don't want to pay a tax for drilling for California's oil.
They sell gasoline by the octane rating. According to Dr. Bill Wattenburg (Wattenberg?) a talk show host of radio station KGO, a double PhD, there is no reason to burn any higher octane gas than 87.
Thus at the gas pumps there sits a wonderful opportunity for a bit of sticky label tagging, just above where it states the octane rating for proposition 87.
For example:
Tired of getting ripped off ?
Vote Yes On
and then of course the number 87 is already there. If every voter does this just once, even if they are picked up on video, it will make a marvelous mocery of 30 million dollars the oil companies have already spent to defeat prop 87. If everyone does it to the tune of the number of labels on one sheet of Avery labels, we will have the vox populi heard again over the roar of insane oil profits...
It's funny how opportunity comes your way.
The oil companies don't want to pay a tax for drilling for California's oil.
They sell gasoline by the octane rating. According to Dr. Bill Wattenburg (Wattenberg?) a talk show host of radio station KGO, a double PhD, there is no reason to burn any higher octane gas than 87.
Thus at the gas pumps there sits a wonderful opportunity for a bit of sticky label tagging, just above where it states the octane rating for proposition 87.
For example:
Tired of getting ripped off ?
Vote Yes On
and then of course the number 87 is already there. If every voter does this just once, even if they are picked up on video, it will make a marvelous mocery of 30 million dollars the oil companies have already spent to defeat prop 87. If everyone does it to the tune of the number of labels on one sheet of Avery labels, we will have the vox populi heard again over the roar of insane oil profits...
Fear and Its Offspring
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philosophy
religion
prostitution
Winston Churchill said, "the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself."
I beg to differ.
Most people have concerns about what happens after ones molecules refuse to cooperate with one another, which usually happens by age 110 or sooner.
Most people are afraid of other people who behave differently than they do.
Consequently a great many religions have sprung up to make sure various groups feel that they have "The Handle on Truth." It usually includes some notion of an afterlife, or at least a reason for no afterlife.
Unfortunately too often an opinion about something we really have no clear handle on, say, the way we are familar with water makes us wet, is used as an excuse to destroy or shun those who happen to have a differing opinion. Those that are gone (dead)or pretend gone (shunned) cannot interfere with your particular prejudices about post body experiences, which is often used as a foundation for general social behavior.
I guess that it is reassuring to believe that you've got the one and only answer, and all who don't think your way, are just a source of fear that You May Not Have The Right Answer. You simply cannot cope with ambiguity, so hi ho, off to church, temple, mosque you go. And some use such religious centers to launch rockets at pregnant women and small children. All in the name of a diety who is probably not very impressed.
On a lighter note, maybe we should pay Nevada's best to go put on their finest performances as virgins and keep the Arab males a wee bit less warlike. If the government were to put billions into sexual substitute bots, it just might defuse some of the tensions around the planet. Or maybe the government should offer training to young males in what they can do to be more attractive to the opposite sex, actually a much better route to a more humane world.
philosophy
religion
prostitution
Winston Churchill said, "the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself."
I beg to differ.
Most people have concerns about what happens after ones molecules refuse to cooperate with one another, which usually happens by age 110 or sooner.
Most people are afraid of other people who behave differently than they do.
Consequently a great many religions have sprung up to make sure various groups feel that they have "The Handle on Truth." It usually includes some notion of an afterlife, or at least a reason for no afterlife.
Unfortunately too often an opinion about something we really have no clear handle on, say, the way we are familar with water makes us wet, is used as an excuse to destroy or shun those who happen to have a differing opinion. Those that are gone (dead)or pretend gone (shunned) cannot interfere with your particular prejudices about post body experiences, which is often used as a foundation for general social behavior.
I guess that it is reassuring to believe that you've got the one and only answer, and all who don't think your way, are just a source of fear that You May Not Have The Right Answer. You simply cannot cope with ambiguity, so hi ho, off to church, temple, mosque you go. And some use such religious centers to launch rockets at pregnant women and small children. All in the name of a diety who is probably not very impressed.
On a lighter note, maybe we should pay Nevada's best to go put on their finest performances as virgins and keep the Arab males a wee bit less warlike. If the government were to put billions into sexual substitute bots, it just might defuse some of the tensions around the planet. Or maybe the government should offer training to young males in what they can do to be more attractive to the opposite sex, actually a much better route to a more humane world.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
"The Needs of the Many......."
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If it hasn't happened already, a secret excutive order will be out soon. The U.S. should not offer an easy shot at another 9/11 (September 11, 2001) Operation Broken Wing sounds about right.
Since most aircraft can fly themselves pretty well once they are upstairs, and usually have good fuel reserves, it makes perfect sense to have a "bail out" button. The pilot presses the heavily fortified button, and the plane takes over the controls, until it receives an over-ride from a nearby fighter jet, which can either control the passenger jet, or return control to the pilot.
It is true that the terrorists could kill everyone on board, or even blow the plane up in mid air, but they would no longer have control of a flying bomb of hundreds of thousands of pounds moving at 500 mph and under their control. They would be flown to a remote air force base and the plane landed.
Yes, the passengers and crew are expendible in this scenerio, but it also means that they have the right to pig pile the terrorists much as appears to have happened on Flight 93, with "let's roll." Beamer and your fellow passengers, we all salute you one more time. Next time, knowing how Fight 93 worked, the passengers might win, and this would be one more reason for the terrorists not to try it. Terrorists are basically cowards.
Of course, for this autopilot bailout button to work as a deterrent, the terrorists need to know about it ahead of time. Of course, that will not meet the needs of money losing airline corporate America, so I guess it will have to happen at least once before we all find out about this, if we ever do.
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few..."
Spock of StarTrek
If there is enough fuel on board, and the terrorist have already killed the pasengers and crew, perhaps sending the plane in the direction of the Middle East would be a fitting solution, aim it at a Wahabi Mosque somewhere. Preferably one with Osama Bin Ladin in it.
If it hasn't happened already, a secret excutive order will be out soon. The U.S. should not offer an easy shot at another 9/11 (September 11, 2001) Operation Broken Wing sounds about right.
Since most aircraft can fly themselves pretty well once they are upstairs, and usually have good fuel reserves, it makes perfect sense to have a "bail out" button. The pilot presses the heavily fortified button, and the plane takes over the controls, until it receives an over-ride from a nearby fighter jet, which can either control the passenger jet, or return control to the pilot.
It is true that the terrorists could kill everyone on board, or even blow the plane up in mid air, but they would no longer have control of a flying bomb of hundreds of thousands of pounds moving at 500 mph and under their control. They would be flown to a remote air force base and the plane landed.
Yes, the passengers and crew are expendible in this scenerio, but it also means that they have the right to pig pile the terrorists much as appears to have happened on Flight 93, with "let's roll." Beamer and your fellow passengers, we all salute you one more time. Next time, knowing how Fight 93 worked, the passengers might win, and this would be one more reason for the terrorists not to try it. Terrorists are basically cowards.
Of course, for this autopilot bailout button to work as a deterrent, the terrorists need to know about it ahead of time. Of course, that will not meet the needs of money losing airline corporate America, so I guess it will have to happen at least once before we all find out about this, if we ever do.
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few..."
Spock of StarTrek
If there is enough fuel on board, and the terrorist have already killed the pasengers and crew, perhaps sending the plane in the direction of the Middle East would be a fitting solution, aim it at a Wahabi Mosque somewhere. Preferably one with Osama Bin Ladin in it.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Privacy and the Shotgun Approach to Databases
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About a week ago I got a letter addressed to me, from some distant purveyor of goodness knows what. The odd thing was that my current addy was correct, but it had the addition of Apt 4. This used to be the case when I lived in San Francisco, but out in the foothills of the old west, I am located on a ranch I own, no apartments here at all, just a ranch house.
Today I got a letter addressed to;
Alicia Freeman Lewin
(my rural address)
It was for a high school reunion, at a high school I'd never heard of in Southern California.
Now my ex wife of 32 years (Alicia Freeman), who's charming second husband Ronald Lewin died about six years ago, does exist, but never at this address.
Somewhere along the line some programmer rigged the system to find the faintest sort of connection possible, and then issued a letter. For all I know all her ex byfriends and goodness knows who else got invites as well. I would say that this kind of data mining as gone a bit too far...
About a week ago I got a letter addressed to me, from some distant purveyor of goodness knows what. The odd thing was that my current addy was correct, but it had the addition of Apt 4. This used to be the case when I lived in San Francisco, but out in the foothills of the old west, I am located on a ranch I own, no apartments here at all, just a ranch house.
Today I got a letter addressed to;
Alicia Freeman Lewin
(my rural address)
It was for a high school reunion, at a high school I'd never heard of in Southern California.
Now my ex wife of 32 years (Alicia Freeman), who's charming second husband Ronald Lewin died about six years ago, does exist, but never at this address.
Somewhere along the line some programmer rigged the system to find the faintest sort of connection possible, and then issued a letter. For all I know all her ex byfriends and goodness knows who else got invites as well. I would say that this kind of data mining as gone a bit too far...
Plantronics Solar Photovoltaic Installation
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Hmmmn, this one is hard to publish. Is there some secret code that says I cut and pasted a big chunnk ?
The largest solar power system in Santa Cruz County sits atop the roof of Plantronics Inc., the headset company based in Santa Cruz.
The 262 kilowatt system is four and a half times larger than the previous largest, a 57 kilowatt system installed by West Marine in 2003. Construction finished last week on the massive Plantronics project and the system will start capturing the sun’s rays June 5….
And getting a hold of that many solar, or photovoltaic, panels was not easy, he said. Solar Technologies bought the panels from Schott Solar, a German company with offices in Rockland.”There’s a worldwide shortage of photovoltaic products,” Denault (the designer) said. “It was like a major international intrigue to get all the panels together for this project.”
As big as it is, the system will only provide about 20 percent of Plantronics’ energy needs….
The project cost more than $2 million, but with all the rebates available from the state, the company only had to pay about 25 percent of that, Denault said. And with the money it will save in PG&E bills, Plantronics will pay off the system in about five years, Denault said….
Ron Swenson, owner of ElectroRoof, said “Plantronics was very visionary to do a project like this, and we were glad to provide a solution.”
This article tells us a number of interesting things about the alternative energy market:
1. Even with today’s oil prices, unsubsidized solar would take 20 years to pay off - not yet a rational business move.
2. And this is in sunny Santa Cruz, California - where the economics of solar power should be at their strongest.
3. However, interest is strong enough to make it difficult to obtain enough panels for a large project.
4. Still, today’s adopters are “visionaries.”
We can then extrapolate a few other nuggets:
1. Given that solar power is a silicon technology, it will get cheaper in future iterations.
2. The strong demand is likely to result in new investments, which will increase capacity and also lower prices.
3. Oil prices are likely to continue rising for several years if only because it takes that long to develop alternate technologies.
If oil rises to $100 (42 percent from current levels) and solar power costs are cut in half over the next five years (both of which seem to us to be within the range of reasonable expectations) the payback on solar power systems will be 7 years without subsidies. At least in places like Santa Cruz. And that kind of potential is what keeps venture capital dollars flowing.
I am still working on finding the base numbers to truly understand the economics of solar power, but this analysis is interesting. You non-believers, nuke choir members, have to ask yourselves, "Why are the otherwise intelligent folk at Plantronics wasting their money on this non nuke boondoogle ?"
Now I'm supposed to remember the whole html phrase for inserting a tag, bother! back in a minute....
Hmmmn, this one is hard to publish. Is there some secret code that says I cut and pasted a big chunnk ?
The largest solar power system in Santa Cruz County sits atop the roof of Plantronics Inc., the headset company based in Santa Cruz.
The 262 kilowatt system is four and a half times larger than the previous largest, a 57 kilowatt system installed by West Marine in 2003. Construction finished last week on the massive Plantronics project and the system will start capturing the sun’s rays June 5….
And getting a hold of that many solar, or photovoltaic, panels was not easy, he said. Solar Technologies bought the panels from Schott Solar, a German company with offices in Rockland.”There’s a worldwide shortage of photovoltaic products,” Denault (the designer) said. “It was like a major international intrigue to get all the panels together for this project.”
As big as it is, the system will only provide about 20 percent of Plantronics’ energy needs….
The project cost more than $2 million, but with all the rebates available from the state, the company only had to pay about 25 percent of that, Denault said. And with the money it will save in PG&E bills, Plantronics will pay off the system in about five years, Denault said….
Ron Swenson, owner of ElectroRoof, said “Plantronics was very visionary to do a project like this, and we were glad to provide a solution.”
This article tells us a number of interesting things about the alternative energy market:
1. Even with today’s oil prices, unsubsidized solar would take 20 years to pay off - not yet a rational business move.
2. And this is in sunny Santa Cruz, California - where the economics of solar power should be at their strongest.
3. However, interest is strong enough to make it difficult to obtain enough panels for a large project.
4. Still, today’s adopters are “visionaries.”
We can then extrapolate a few other nuggets:
1. Given that solar power is a silicon technology, it will get cheaper in future iterations.
2. The strong demand is likely to result in new investments, which will increase capacity and also lower prices.
3. Oil prices are likely to continue rising for several years if only because it takes that long to develop alternate technologies.
If oil rises to $100 (42 percent from current levels) and solar power costs are cut in half over the next five years (both of which seem to us to be within the range of reasonable expectations) the payback on solar power systems will be 7 years without subsidies. At least in places like Santa Cruz. And that kind of potential is what keeps venture capital dollars flowing.
I am still working on finding the base numbers to truly understand the economics of solar power, but this analysis is interesting. You non-believers, nuke choir members, have to ask yourselves, "Why are the otherwise intelligent folk at Plantronics wasting their money on this non nuke boondoogle ?"
Now I'm supposed to remember the whole html phrase for inserting a tag, bother! back in a minute....
Tagging for Dummies
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It used to be that simply blogging something got all the words in each blog piece indexed in technorati. A brief experiement seems to indicate that now to ever get listed you have to use "tags."
A long time ago, in 1973 to be exact, I came into contact with this process at ERIC, the Educational Research Information Center, an off-shoot of the moon shot's technology. They indexed all the technical articles for the moon shot and made it possible to search by "key words" (tags). As a proof of benefit of the space program to the earth bound, they applied the same technique to everything in written in the field of education. I used it to generate instant bibliographies for each of my college students at SFSU, crossing their individual area of specialty with technology and education. I have to wait a week for the stack of printouts, which were about 4 inches thick. My students and myself were blown away by the process, now taken for granted as a Google type search.
helicopter
Back to the future:
Keachie
this is the current model for do it yourself indexing. It is not clear to me just what to put where, so I shall experiment. For my first experiment, I have replaced tagname with the word "helicopter," dumping the brackets. This will probably fail, but the technorati instruction were not step by step.
Actually, the instructions are there:
"The [tagname] can be anything, but it should be descriptive. Please only use tags that are relevant to the post. You do not need to include the brackets, just the descriptive keyword for your post. Just make sure to include rel="tag"."
This last I read to mean, "Your religion is 'tag'."
It used to be that simply blogging something got all the words in each blog piece indexed in technorati. A brief experiement seems to indicate that now to ever get listed you have to use "tags."
A long time ago, in 1973 to be exact, I came into contact with this process at ERIC, the Educational Research Information Center, an off-shoot of the moon shot's technology. They indexed all the technical articles for the moon shot and made it possible to search by "key words" (tags). As a proof of benefit of the space program to the earth bound, they applied the same technique to everything in written in the field of education. I used it to generate instant bibliographies for each of my college students at SFSU, crossing their individual area of specialty with technology and education. I have to wait a week for the stack of printouts, which were about 4 inches thick. My students and myself were blown away by the process, now taken for granted as a Google type search.
helicopter
Back to the future:
Keachie
this is the current model for do it yourself indexing. It is not clear to me just what to put where, so I shall experiment. For my first experiment, I have replaced tagname with the word "helicopter," dumping the brackets. This will probably fail, but the technorati instruction were not step by step.
Actually, the instructions are there:
"The [tagname] can be anything, but it should be descriptive. Please only use tags that are relevant to the post. You do not need to include the brackets, just the descriptive keyword for your post. Just make sure to include rel="tag"."
This last I read to mean, "Your religion is 'tag'."
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
A Tea Cozy for the Space Shuttle
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Maybe a two part foam cover for the shuttle would increase the safety of the space shuttle launchings.
If you made a heavy outer foam dome, and whisk it away at the last minute via helicopter, you would reduce the weight of the remaining foam, thus lessening the potential for accidents, and you would increase the payload of the shuttle by a few pounds. My understanding a while back was that it cost about 1 million dollars for each usable pound thrown into either earth orbit or landed on the moon, I don't remember which, but in any event it would certainly allow for one more high school science experiment to go into space.
The only design problem would be the two layers sticking together, and I would solve that with a radial array of compressed air tubes that could be expanded with a blast of compressed air, provided by the helicopter.
Dear NASA, sorry to be so late in offering a solution, but you've got 16 more flights to go, so maybe it can be used for them.
sincerely,
Doug Keachie
Maybe a two part foam cover for the shuttle would increase the safety of the space shuttle launchings.
If you made a heavy outer foam dome, and whisk it away at the last minute via helicopter, you would reduce the weight of the remaining foam, thus lessening the potential for accidents, and you would increase the payload of the shuttle by a few pounds. My understanding a while back was that it cost about 1 million dollars for each usable pound thrown into either earth orbit or landed on the moon, I don't remember which, but in any event it would certainly allow for one more high school science experiment to go into space.
The only design problem would be the two layers sticking together, and I would solve that with a radial array of compressed air tubes that could be expanded with a blast of compressed air, provided by the helicopter.
Dear NASA, sorry to be so late in offering a solution, but you've got 16 more flights to go, so maybe it can be used for them.
sincerely,
Doug Keachie
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Papparazzi, Movie Stars, and Cameras
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It amuses me to no end to watch Bruce Willis or Britney Spears gripe about papparazzi photographing them inside their cars.
It amuses me to no end to watch Bruce Willis or Britney Spears gripe about papparazzi photographing them inside their cars.
If the celebs were serious, they'd simple rim the roof line of their cars with fast recycling strobe lights, which would trigger and fire during the same instant a papparazzi's camera fires. The resultant flash would wash out the photos the papparazzis' are trying to get. The technology's been around for 40 years, so the stars really do want their pictures taken, despite their protests to the contrary.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
The Economics of Electric Cars & Solar Power
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The Economics of Electric Cars & Solar Power
One might think that there qould be 1,000's of listings for each of these. There are eight for one and ten for the other.
I was curious to find out the answer to the following question:
If the government were to 100% subsidise the installation of solar panels on houses with the primary purpose of charging a set of batteries for an electric car purchased by the home owner, how much of a reduction in dependence on foriegn oil would this buy, given today's prices for solar panels and today's efficiencies for electric cars? I am assuming that the car is designed for two sets of batteries, one to stay at home charging, while the other is out driving, which strikes me as the only sane way to go about this situation. The panels would hav e to be cabable of fully recharging the batteries for 120 miles of travel in one moderately sunny day.
This turns out to be information which is hard to find, but I will work on it.
technorati tags: solar electric cars government subsidy economics panels
The Economics of Electric Cars & Solar Power
One might think that there qould be 1,000's of listings for each of these. There are eight for one and ten for the other.
I was curious to find out the answer to the following question:
If the government were to 100% subsidise the installation of solar panels on houses with the primary purpose of charging a set of batteries for an electric car purchased by the home owner, how much of a reduction in dependence on foriegn oil would this buy, given today's prices for solar panels and today's efficiencies for electric cars? I am assuming that the car is designed for two sets of batteries, one to stay at home charging, while the other is out driving, which strikes me as the only sane way to go about this situation. The panels would hav e to be cabable of fully recharging the batteries for 120 miles of travel in one moderately sunny day.
This turns out to be information which is hard to find, but I will work on it.
technorati tags: solar electric cars government subsidy economics panels
Sunday, June 11, 2006
A CongressPerson's Time is Valuable, Let's Share !
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It's no secret that money talks and BS doesn't make it into the parking lot, when it comes to the time of your CongressPersons. The House of Representatives and the Senate are the true capitalists' marketplace, with admission by campaign donations, or private wealth, and often both.
Now I think that 1/2 of the time a CongressPerson spends should be with people of "their own choosing.," i.e., the campaign donors.
The other half of available time should be up for auction, on a site like Ebay. What's more, the initial ownership of a month's worth of available time (remember, 1/2 of the time the CongressPerson spends with people beyond their staff and other members of Congress), should be split up among all registered voters by lottery. The units could be as small as 1/1000th of a month, and scheduling would be lots of fun, with watchdogs and rules to make sure the CongressPerson didn't try "ditching" a legitimate owner of time. Our lobbiests deserve what they pay for, we deserve to know about our lobbiests' activities in detail.
The initial owner of a given CongressPerson's time would probably reap at least $100,000 for the month, and the options could be tracked just like the stock market, giving a simple number or two showing who really has the power in Congress, just like the stock market. Congress minute ? Nah, too short a time. I think 20 minutes would be a minimum, and this would vary, depending on how available a CongressPerson was (some make more time available than others). It would make for 1/2 hour appointments, with 10 minutes of review, relax, and prepare time.
The owners and eventual users of all units of time would be public record, as would the names of all the rest of the people a CongressPerson sees (of their own choice, times), other than directly related family members. All of this data comes with complete with names, times and dates, and is posted on the web within a week of completion.
Just a little accountability, some spreading of the wealth (since we've given up on democracy as a marketplace of ideas), that's all I ask. As usual, much more thought and discussion is needed to work out the fine points.
It's no secret that money talks and BS doesn't make it into the parking lot, when it comes to the time of your CongressPersons. The House of Representatives and the Senate are the true capitalists' marketplace, with admission by campaign donations, or private wealth, and often both.
Now I think that 1/2 of the time a CongressPerson spends should be with people of "their own choosing.," i.e., the campaign donors.
The other half of available time should be up for auction, on a site like Ebay. What's more, the initial ownership of a month's worth of available time (remember, 1/2 of the time the CongressPerson spends with people beyond their staff and other members of Congress), should be split up among all registered voters by lottery. The units could be as small as 1/1000th of a month, and scheduling would be lots of fun, with watchdogs and rules to make sure the CongressPerson didn't try "ditching" a legitimate owner of time. Our lobbiests deserve what they pay for, we deserve to know about our lobbiests' activities in detail.
The initial owner of a given CongressPerson's time would probably reap at least $100,000 for the month, and the options could be tracked just like the stock market, giving a simple number or two showing who really has the power in Congress, just like the stock market. Congress minute ? Nah, too short a time. I think 20 minutes would be a minimum, and this would vary, depending on how available a CongressPerson was (some make more time available than others). It would make for 1/2 hour appointments, with 10 minutes of review, relax, and prepare time.
The owners and eventual users of all units of time would be public record, as would the names of all the rest of the people a CongressPerson sees (of their own choice, times), other than directly related family members. All of this data comes with complete with names, times and dates, and is posted on the web within a week of completion.
Just a little accountability, some spreading of the wealth (since we've given up on democracy as a marketplace of ideas), that's all I ask. As usual, much more thought and discussion is needed to work out the fine points.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Time to kill Spam and Identity Theft
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The current social security numbering system sucks. We need a much larger supply of numbers, so that you can change yours as easily as you can change a PIN. As soon as you leave a company, drop a bank account, etc, you should be able to go to a new number. The Feds need a master database of alias's for you, one which will continue to recognize you for record keeping purposes, so that a company or bank account can still do any financial reporting, but one where any accounts opened under your "old" number after the date you've retired it, would immediately show up as bogus the first time the bank or employer getting that "old" number sees it and tries using it at the state for federal level. yes, it is national id forever, but that's better than the current cost of identity theft.
Well SPAMMERS, I've had to retire my email of eight years, because the ratio of good to bad was getting past one good email for every 50 bad ones. Net result, I have a ton of new email addies, most of them custom to one institution or person. In addition, I've added in "2006" to most of the names, a subtitle hint that in 2007 the mail name will no longer be valid. By setting my email to sort by the name the mail is addressed to, I get all my mail from a particular person in one box.
Other stuff which is from official looking Ebay or whatever goes straight to the junk filter, where I verify it as bad. Of course I shouldn't be getting any other stuff, and when I do, I look to see which email addy has been compromised. I change the addy and relay the change to the appropriate sender, and I am done. bye bye SPAM.
This is inconvenient, but it works for me. Downloading email now takes seconds, instead to minutes. The time saved more than justifies the time spent updating addies. Business cards are easy to reprint, and lasting relationships get custom addies as soon as they are needed.
The current social security numbering system sucks. We need a much larger supply of numbers, so that you can change yours as easily as you can change a PIN. As soon as you leave a company, drop a bank account, etc, you should be able to go to a new number. The Feds need a master database of alias's for you, one which will continue to recognize you for record keeping purposes, so that a company or bank account can still do any financial reporting, but one where any accounts opened under your "old" number after the date you've retired it, would immediately show up as bogus the first time the bank or employer getting that "old" number sees it and tries using it at the state for federal level. yes, it is national id forever, but that's better than the current cost of identity theft.
Well SPAMMERS, I've had to retire my email of eight years, because the ratio of good to bad was getting past one good email for every 50 bad ones. Net result, I have a ton of new email addies, most of them custom to one institution or person. In addition, I've added in "2006" to most of the names, a subtitle hint that in 2007 the mail name will no longer be valid. By setting my email to sort by the name the mail is addressed to, I get all my mail from a particular person in one box.
Other stuff which is from official looking Ebay or whatever goes straight to the junk filter, where I verify it as bad. Of course I shouldn't be getting any other stuff, and when I do, I look to see which email addy has been compromised. I change the addy and relay the change to the appropriate sender, and I am done. bye bye SPAM.
This is inconvenient, but it works for me. Downloading email now takes seconds, instead to minutes. The time saved more than justifies the time spent updating addies. Business cards are easy to reprint, and lasting relationships get custom addies as soon as they are needed.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Net Neutrality, WeSaySO Corporation Hates It !
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In a threat to American ideals far worse than 9/11, Biggie Communication Corporations of America have gotten the House to pass a COPE bill which gives them the ability to kill three birds at once.
It allows them to charge a premium for Americans to communicate via the Internet. basically giving Biggie Corp the fast lanes on the Net, and even freezing out ma and pa radical on their soapbox, and slowing down class neutral family relations stuff. They are already making money through phone bills and the like. Those rates are under the control of Public Utility Commissions, and this bill would by pass that, and make new rates for data transmission.
In addition, apparently the would be in a censor's position of deciding who can even send anything. If you say "ATT sucks," ATT doesn't have to send it. This is in total violation of the principle of free speech. Even the Christians are up in arms about this, as it would allow for the institution of a state controlled, consumer boost-up church, dedicated to passive, "buy, buy, buy, don't rock the boat, don't believe anything that might wreck the money making machines of the already rediclously rich folks."
The third part of the this nastiness is an effort to void out locally produced shows from getting air or cable or dish time on the Big Boys' equipment, effectively shuting down Nevada County's NCTV's local Nevada Union football, Christian, political, nature, and music shows, all locally produced and currently carried by the cable co. Why attack them ? The same reason as everything else, in California and elsewhere. The rich view the rest of us as consumers to be harvested of dollars. Local access does not generate dollars in their pockets, and so out it goes. In fact, if people watch ad-less local access television, they are not watching Biggie's Corps shows and sponsors.
No corporation should ever be allowed to pay for lobbying once it gets to $100,000,000 a year in gross income ( a lower figure might be "even better"). It is just absurd that we allow these mega giants to run our lives, even after they've obviously gotten a good return for their investors.
One very obvious effect will be to shut up Americans, from the far left, to the loony bin, to the far right. None of this "waste of time" would be encouraged, as corporate American has figured out that people blogging and trading pictures, and talking politics, are not people paying attention to their advertising and watching mainstream tv. I'm sure UTube was the last straw for corporate America.
I have donated $9.11 to www.savethenet.org. I strongly recommend that you all do the same.
Here's a joke for astronomers and the like:
"What a big, dangerous, reptile that flies through space and carefully plots its course as it goes ?"
"An Astro-gator"
In a threat to American ideals far worse than 9/11, Biggie Communication Corporations of America have gotten the House to pass a COPE bill which gives them the ability to kill three birds at once.
It allows them to charge a premium for Americans to communicate via the Internet. basically giving Biggie Corp the fast lanes on the Net, and even freezing out ma and pa radical on their soapbox, and slowing down class neutral family relations stuff. They are already making money through phone bills and the like. Those rates are under the control of Public Utility Commissions, and this bill would by pass that, and make new rates for data transmission.
In addition, apparently the would be in a censor's position of deciding who can even send anything. If you say "ATT sucks," ATT doesn't have to send it. This is in total violation of the principle of free speech. Even the Christians are up in arms about this, as it would allow for the institution of a state controlled, consumer boost-up church, dedicated to passive, "buy, buy, buy, don't rock the boat, don't believe anything that might wreck the money making machines of the already rediclously rich folks."
The third part of the this nastiness is an effort to void out locally produced shows from getting air or cable or dish time on the Big Boys' equipment, effectively shuting down Nevada County's NCTV's local Nevada Union football, Christian, political, nature, and music shows, all locally produced and currently carried by the cable co. Why attack them ? The same reason as everything else, in California and elsewhere. The rich view the rest of us as consumers to be harvested of dollars. Local access does not generate dollars in their pockets, and so out it goes. In fact, if people watch ad-less local access television, they are not watching Biggie's Corps shows and sponsors.
No corporation should ever be allowed to pay for lobbying once it gets to $100,000,000 a year in gross income ( a lower figure might be "even better"). It is just absurd that we allow these mega giants to run our lives, even after they've obviously gotten a good return for their investors.
One very obvious effect will be to shut up Americans, from the far left, to the loony bin, to the far right. None of this "waste of time" would be encouraged, as corporate American has figured out that people blogging and trading pictures, and talking politics, are not people paying attention to their advertising and watching mainstream tv. I'm sure UTube was the last straw for corporate America.
I have donated $9.11 to www.savethenet.org. I strongly recommend that you all do the same.
Here's a joke for astronomers and the like:
"What a big, dangerous, reptile that flies through space and carefully plots its course as it goes ?"
"An Astro-gator"
Monday, June 05, 2006
Lowell Sesquicentennial Banquet
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Oh My, Do I Feel Guilty !
I've never gotten around to putting up the images and such for this post, and I spelled sequicentennial wrong. BTW, the blooger spell checker doesn't know this word, I had to check it in Word.exe. Anyway, as soon as it is raining hard or snowing hard I will get around to fixing the missing stuff. In the meantime, fire prep and mining take precedence. written 2007 10 28.
Went to it Saturday night and had a wonderful time !
Great chance to see in person many of the great people I worked with at Lowell, as I did my part to bring the oldsters kicking and screaming into the Internet Age, and basically kept the road plowed so that the youngsters could charge forward, my own daughter included. I met students now in their 30's, well into successful careers, like a programmer turned Rederal Reserve watchdog. I met teachers still negotiating/battling recalcitrant impoverished taxpayers and their henchpersons, the Fortress Franklin administration.
I met my fellow retirees, most of whom are still very active, often doing volunteer work, like Ed Lehman, who tenderly puts microscopes back into working order for the Exploratorium and the California Academy of Sciences. I missed seeing Holly Giles and a bunch of others, but was once again in the august presence of Maud Pearson-Green. I really wish I had had triple the time to talk with everyone. I even met one of KK's sixth grade teachers, who was thrilled to learn what she was up to.
I was greatly entertained by Flossie Lewis and Michele Winters, truly incredible and humorous teachers, and listened to yet one more sterling performance by the American Idol ready group of students in music and drama. The food was excellent, the parking superb, and the roads between here and their are in far worse condition than I remembered. I'll probably post some pictures/videos soon. Hat's off to Terry Abad, Jack Anderson, Paul Lucey, Pete Dahl, and all the rest who made it possible !
Oh My, Do I Feel Guilty !
I've never gotten around to putting up the images and such for this post, and I spelled sequicentennial wrong. BTW, the blooger spell checker doesn't know this word, I had to check it in Word.exe. Anyway, as soon as it is raining hard or snowing hard I will get around to fixing the missing stuff. In the meantime, fire prep and mining take precedence. written 2007 10 28.
Went to it Saturday night and had a wonderful time !
Great chance to see in person many of the great people I worked with at Lowell, as I did my part to bring the oldsters kicking and screaming into the Internet Age, and basically kept the road plowed so that the youngsters could charge forward, my own daughter included. I met students now in their 30's, well into successful careers, like a programmer turned Rederal Reserve watchdog. I met teachers still negotiating/battling recalcitrant impoverished taxpayers and their henchpersons, the Fortress Franklin administration.
I met my fellow retirees, most of whom are still very active, often doing volunteer work, like Ed Lehman, who tenderly puts microscopes back into working order for the Exploratorium and the California Academy of Sciences. I missed seeing Holly Giles and a bunch of others, but was once again in the august presence of Maud Pearson-Green. I really wish I had had triple the time to talk with everyone. I even met one of KK's sixth grade teachers, who was thrilled to learn what she was up to.
I was greatly entertained by Flossie Lewis and Michele Winters, truly incredible and humorous teachers, and listened to yet one more sterling performance by the American Idol ready group of students in music and drama. The food was excellent, the parking superb, and the roads between here and their are in far worse condition than I remembered. I'll probably post some pictures/videos soon. Hat's off to Terry Abad, Jack Anderson, Paul Lucey, Pete Dahl, and all the rest who made it possible !
Thursday, June 01, 2006
New Game, at least for me.
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If you could bring back to life 4 people, from this century, at age 21, with all their facilities intact, or improved beyond original factory specs, and memories, regardless of when they died, who would you pick ? No family members for round one.
John Denver
Laurie H. Glass (personal friend, probably not on net anywhere)
John F. Kennedy
Issac Asimov
If you could bring back to life 4 people, from this century, at age 21, with all their facilities intact, or improved beyond original factory specs, and memories, regardless of when they died, who would you pick ? No family members for round one.
John Denver
Laurie H. Glass (personal friend, probably not on net anywhere)
John F. Kennedy
Issac Asimov
As Robots Improve, will we need Immigrants ?
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Currently we seem to need immigrants to do physical labor, clean houses, etc, because "Americans" won't. I wonder if that's because physically we're getting to weak (seems unlikely, plenty of American workers in the well paid, physically demanding, trades) or because the upper classes in this country feel that they are "entitled" to cheap labor in their second homes up at Tahoe ? Why should the lower classes (former middle classes) have to foot the additional bill for special Spanish High School diplomas for the illegal serfs working to clean the Tahoe McMansions ?
American corporate farmers also feel they are "entitiled" to cheap farm help too.
Frankly, as a member of the non-noble class in the USA (any family with less than $200,000/year income or less than $1,500,000 net worth), I feel I'm "entitled" to a real person on the other end of a phone line when I calll up a business which gets more than $50/month from me for any service. Fat lot of good it does me.
I think it would do the world a lot of good to shut down the borders and kick out anyone who doesn't pick up English within two years after that, and then only open the borders to those who do speak English. A major reason for this nation's success over the last two hundred years has been the standardization on one language.
Yes, food prices would go up......for a while. The Japanese, however, are making great strides in building robots which can do independent jobs, and the military has already shown us robot planes being controlled from 1/2 way around the world.
Give me a tactile sensitive robot that can examine and pick grapes, instead of targeting bombs, under the control of a moderately trained "American" human of whatever race, and I'll show you a 24/7/365 work force based simultaneously in Alaska and Florida, etc., picking grapes part and full time. The robots work the 24/7/365. The humans trade off the robots to other humans when they need to go change a daiper or whatever, while working from home, or at worst in an air-conditioned building near their place of residence. Farmer workers will work just like the Indians answering phones in India, or Maybe we'll just let the "guest workers" stay in Mexico, and pick food via remote control from there.
Digging ditches and pruning hedges can be handled the same way.
Currently we seem to need immigrants to do physical labor, clean houses, etc, because "Americans" won't. I wonder if that's because physically we're getting to weak (seems unlikely, plenty of American workers in the well paid, physically demanding, trades) or because the upper classes in this country feel that they are "entitled" to cheap labor in their second homes up at Tahoe ? Why should the lower classes (former middle classes) have to foot the additional bill for special Spanish High School diplomas for the illegal serfs working to clean the Tahoe McMansions ?
American corporate farmers also feel they are "entitiled" to cheap farm help too.
Frankly, as a member of the non-noble class in the USA (any family with less than $200,000/year income or less than $1,500,000 net worth), I feel I'm "entitled" to a real person on the other end of a phone line when I calll up a business which gets more than $50/month from me for any service. Fat lot of good it does me.
I think it would do the world a lot of good to shut down the borders and kick out anyone who doesn't pick up English within two years after that, and then only open the borders to those who do speak English. A major reason for this nation's success over the last two hundred years has been the standardization on one language.
Yes, food prices would go up......for a while. The Japanese, however, are making great strides in building robots which can do independent jobs, and the military has already shown us robot planes being controlled from 1/2 way around the world.
Give me a tactile sensitive robot that can examine and pick grapes, instead of targeting bombs, under the control of a moderately trained "American" human of whatever race, and I'll show you a 24/7/365 work force based simultaneously in Alaska and Florida, etc., picking grapes part and full time. The robots work the 24/7/365. The humans trade off the robots to other humans when they need to go change a daiper or whatever, while working from home, or at worst in an air-conditioned building near their place of residence. Farmer workers will work just like the Indians answering phones in India, or Maybe we'll just let the "guest workers" stay in Mexico, and pick food via remote control from there.
Digging ditches and pruning hedges can be handled the same way.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Deal, Or No Deal, USA and Mexico
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Been busy lately, working with special kids with extreme problems, which make my day to day issues pale by comparison, thus not much blogging.
It seems to me that with Mexico's President Vicente Fox touring the U.S.A. and the hassles with energy we are all facing, that perhaps the two countries can work together.
It's obvious that the increasing demands for gas will not be met, as China and India, rich with USA dollars from outsourcing and Walmart Schlocking, will, with six citzens for every one American, continue to buy more gas guzzling mopeds, cars, and yes, even SUV's. Soon we will hit a point world wide where the price of electricity is lower than gas, and the electric car will come onto the stage. As the USA has never done for solar energy, what it did to build the Atomic Bomb and then to do the Moon Shot, i.e., spend billions of federal dollars to make it happen, we will ramp up nuclear power plants.
But we have a problem with the waste, a NIMBY problem. Nevada took tons of money from the Feds to build a storage site north of Las Vegas, and then voted not to let the Feds use it.
Mexico, on the other hand, seems to want the USA to educate, medicate, and employ rather large numbers of its people. And a great many of the citizens of the USA don't exactly think it's fair, considering that USA citizens can't work in Mexico and can't own real estate there, under current laws. In fact, said citizens are getting mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore.
Now Mexico has vast regions of very low population, safe from earthquakes, and relatively close to the USA border. What if Mexico were to trade some land, and a rail corridor, in exchange for similar USA land and access. The USA could store spent fuel and maintain control, and Mexico could "retake" some relatively worthless part of the USA, of the same acreage, excluding the rail line.
As a second condition to continue to allow the on-going "re-taking" of California, Mexico would have to adopt English as its official second language, much as French is recognized in Quebec, so that USA employers and schools won't have to bear so much of the burden of training these people who want to reconquer the Southwest. It should be required that a minimum of 1/2 hour per day in school at all levels be devoted to learning English. Of course the USA will have to help pay for these educational moments. I think the USA should trade the right to work and own property in Mexico for making Spanish the official second language of the USA.
Now don't get all hot and bothered ! Is this a good idea or what ?
Been busy lately, working with special kids with extreme problems, which make my day to day issues pale by comparison, thus not much blogging.
It seems to me that with Mexico's President Vicente Fox touring the U.S.A. and the hassles with energy we are all facing, that perhaps the two countries can work together.
It's obvious that the increasing demands for gas will not be met, as China and India, rich with USA dollars from outsourcing and Walmart Schlocking, will, with six citzens for every one American, continue to buy more gas guzzling mopeds, cars, and yes, even SUV's. Soon we will hit a point world wide where the price of electricity is lower than gas, and the electric car will come onto the stage. As the USA has never done for solar energy, what it did to build the Atomic Bomb and then to do the Moon Shot, i.e., spend billions of federal dollars to make it happen, we will ramp up nuclear power plants.
But we have a problem with the waste, a NIMBY problem. Nevada took tons of money from the Feds to build a storage site north of Las Vegas, and then voted not to let the Feds use it.
Mexico, on the other hand, seems to want the USA to educate, medicate, and employ rather large numbers of its people. And a great many of the citizens of the USA don't exactly think it's fair, considering that USA citizens can't work in Mexico and can't own real estate there, under current laws. In fact, said citizens are getting mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore.
Now Mexico has vast regions of very low population, safe from earthquakes, and relatively close to the USA border. What if Mexico were to trade some land, and a rail corridor, in exchange for similar USA land and access. The USA could store spent fuel and maintain control, and Mexico could "retake" some relatively worthless part of the USA, of the same acreage, excluding the rail line.
As a second condition to continue to allow the on-going "re-taking" of California, Mexico would have to adopt English as its official second language, much as French is recognized in Quebec, so that USA employers and schools won't have to bear so much of the burden of training these people who want to reconquer the Southwest. It should be required that a minimum of 1/2 hour per day in school at all levels be devoted to learning English. Of course the USA will have to help pay for these educational moments. I think the USA should trade the right to work and own property in Mexico for making Spanish the official second language of the USA.
Now don't get all hot and bothered ! Is this a good idea or what ?
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Qualcomm's Eudora has Problems
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I wrote this on the "unmoniotred forum at Qualcomm in response to another user who had a suspiciously similar experience.
In Box Blown Away twice in Two weeks
I know the feeling. I'm in paid mode, have what they described as the "most stable version, 6. something or other, and two weeks ago the entire previous six months of the IN Box just vanished. I frantically tried to call tech support, waited over 20 minutes for "4 calls ahead of me," called in again, finally got person who said "no problem," and then shifted me to the "leave a message" line. I've seldom been madder in my life. I gave up on those messages, concluded that maybe 2,400 was too many, and started anew. It just happened again. In Box Blown Away this evening, for the second time in two weeks.
Given the tech support quality, and the magnitude of the error, I will be going back to Outlook or something else. Eudora does not deserve it's rep in the modern world. I use ZoneAlarm and a full copy of CA ETrust, both updated daily. The rest of my Eudora boxes are still there, but I have no idea for how long. Any ideas of other alternatives to Eudora and Outlook, I'd like to hear them.
D. Keachie, Paid owner, 256 megs Ram WIN 98 release 2, all upgrades in place, Sony Vaio F520
I wrote this on the "unmoniotred forum at Qualcomm in response to another user who had a suspiciously similar experience.
In Box Blown Away twice in Two weeks
I know the feeling. I'm in paid mode, have what they described as the "most stable version, 6. something or other, and two weeks ago the entire previous six months of the IN Box just vanished. I frantically tried to call tech support, waited over 20 minutes for "4 calls ahead of me," called in again, finally got person who said "no problem," and then shifted me to the "leave a message" line. I've seldom been madder in my life. I gave up on those messages, concluded that maybe 2,400 was too many, and started anew. It just happened again. In Box Blown Away this evening, for the second time in two weeks.
Given the tech support quality, and the magnitude of the error, I will be going back to Outlook or something else. Eudora does not deserve it's rep in the modern world. I use ZoneAlarm and a full copy of CA ETrust, both updated daily. The rest of my Eudora boxes are still there, but I have no idea for how long. Any ideas of other alternatives to Eudora and Outlook, I'd like to hear them.
D. Keachie, Paid owner, 256 megs Ram WIN 98 release 2, all upgrades in place, Sony Vaio F520
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Air Ambulances, and other Emergency Problems
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On Tom Sullivan, KFBK, 1530 AM dial, the other day, he was discussing the use of air ambulances (helicopters) in urban areas, and the difficulties.
Accident happens
Emergency crew or CHP arrives
Determine need.
Call
Figure out where to land. Clear area of unneeded people.
Have land ambulance bring patient to chopper
Land and go.
The last part is great.
The rest of it can take forever.
The cost is amazing, $10,000 and up per flight, even if it is not needed, and you are not that hurt, you get stuck with the bill. I feel like posting a sign saying the fear of paying $17,000 will kill me.
To speed things up I'd make an ambulance that has a detachable, hoistable, patient care box. My younger daughter informs me that often you need technicians at all times with a critically ill patient. If personnel from the chopper were needed below, they could rappel down to the ground and take over from the EMT's.
The advantage is that the chopper does not have to land, thus saving a ton of time, and the patient does not have to be transferred.
A second issue came up when a battalion chief from Sacramento was on the air, and this issue amazes me.
PEOPLE WILL NOT GET OUT OF THE WAY FOR AN EMERGENCY VEHICLE ANYMORE!
This could be changed by mounting forward facing video rigs in the emergency vehicles, and then later going through the tapes and sending all registered owners warnings. The second time the same car (or a different car, same owner) shows up not pulling over, the car is impounded for 30 days, or a fine of $2,000.00 is paid, or both.
When I called in with the suggestions, the screener refused to give me air time, admittedly she did have some excellent people in my place.
On Tom Sullivan, KFBK, 1530 AM dial, the other day, he was discussing the use of air ambulances (helicopters) in urban areas, and the difficulties.
Accident happens
Emergency crew or CHP arrives
Determine need.
Call
Figure out where to land. Clear area of unneeded people.
Have land ambulance bring patient to chopper
Land and go.
The last part is great.
The rest of it can take forever.
The cost is amazing, $10,000 and up per flight, even if it is not needed, and you are not that hurt, you get stuck with the bill. I feel like posting a sign saying the fear of paying $17,000 will kill me.
To speed things up I'd make an ambulance that has a detachable, hoistable, patient care box. My younger daughter informs me that often you need technicians at all times with a critically ill patient. If personnel from the chopper were needed below, they could rappel down to the ground and take over from the EMT's.
The advantage is that the chopper does not have to land, thus saving a ton of time, and the patient does not have to be transferred.
A second issue came up when a battalion chief from Sacramento was on the air, and this issue amazes me.
PEOPLE WILL NOT GET OUT OF THE WAY FOR AN EMERGENCY VEHICLE ANYMORE!
This could be changed by mounting forward facing video rigs in the emergency vehicles, and then later going through the tapes and sending all registered owners warnings. The second time the same car (or a different car, same owner) shows up not pulling over, the car is impounded for 30 days, or a fine of $2,000.00 is paid, or both.
When I called in with the suggestions, the screener refused to give me air time, admittedly she did have some excellent people in my place.
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