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Technical Adventures
Here’s the sequence of events
- My CD burners stops working (not really a big deal at this point)
- Some drive starts making a weird clicking sound (no other side effects).
- I incorrectly assume that the clicking noise is coming from the inoperative CD burn
- My computer starts to freeze for tiny periods of time, in rough accordance with the clicking noises. I also acquire a need to burn a CD, I decide to fix the problem.
- I got to Comp USA at Lenox to get a new CD Burner but their power is out and I can’t buy the one I wanted, so I head to Circuit City.
- While on the way over there a guy runs into me (very lightly). Happily no harm done to either of us or our cars, so I continue on my journey.
- At Circuit City I get a new CD Burner one that does dual layer DVDs as well, which is pretty cool. I also get a new “quiet” case fan.
- Once home I install the fan and the Burner, the fan does not work (is there some secret to installing a fan besides plugging it in?
- I also discover that the problem drive is not the broken burner, but my main data drive
- Which leaves me moving data from one drive to another before the drive dies entirely. I also must re-activate windows and redo all of my drive letters. This is an annoying way to spend a Sunday evening.
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Wow
This is very interesting
But will the History Channel revise their documentary?
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Yet more things that annoy me
I was listening the ever earnest radio program Democracy Now on the way from my the guitar lesson and I heard for the third time today the phrase “Oil driven inflation”.
Inflation is a general rise in prices, which is the same thing as a decline in the purchasing power of the dollar (or whatever currency). A rise in the price of oil does not cause this. If it did then wages would be increasing due to the oil price increase as well. It is a transfer of wealth from oil-consumer to oil-producer, which is not inflation.
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Tuesday rapid fire
I suppose it’s Wednesday
- Chris Nolan has some good thoughts on the Cindy Sheehan business, dubbing her the Terry Shiavo of the left. This whole matter has gotten sordid faster than I thought it would. On the whole Nolan does fine media criticism.
- A well written (for the genre) analysis of Google Search mechanisms.
- An interesting post on making the word contextual via applied technology (my phrase not theirs) at DefenseTech.
- “the law of averages catches people at the worst times, and survival favors the protected.” and more insight, particularly about IEDs from Michael Yon. The photography is particularly good.
- Articles such as “Officials: Inmates used cell phones to coordinate riots” and many others like tend to confirm the Global Guerillas blog notion of disruption and Open Source warfare
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More on the magic car
Asymetrical Information has an average post (which for them is of high quality) on the article on hybrid cars I mentioned yesterday. However the really interesting part is in the comments. That site really does have the best and most reasoned commenters.
One thing the blogosphere has left unsaid so far is: What changes can we expect with a year or two of gasoline at $2.50 a gallon? Presumably it won’t stay that high for much longer, but if it did, how much more bottom-up innovation becomes feasible?
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Cool and needed
I came across an interesting article on Fox News
Experimental Hybrid Cars Get Up to 250 Mpg
It looks like a typical Toyota Prius hybrid (search), but in the trunk sits an 80-miles-per-gallon secret — a stack of 18 brick-sized batteries that boosts the car’s high mileage with an extra electrical charge so it can burn even less fuel.
Gremban, an electrical engineer and committed environmentalist, spent several months and $3,000 tinkering with his car.
Like all hybrids, his Prius increases fuel efficiency (search) by harnessing small amounts of electricity generated during braking and coasting. The extra batteries let him store extra power by plugging the car into a wall outlet at his home in this San Francisco suburb — all for about a quarter.
He’s part of a small but growing movement. “Plug-in” hybrids aren’t yet cost-efficient, but some of the dozen known experimental models have gotten up to 250 mpg.
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University of California, Davis engineering professor Andy Frank built a plug-in hybrid from the ground up in 1972 and has since built seven others, one of which gets up to 250 mpg. They were converted from non-hybrids, including a Ford Taurus and Chevrolet Suburban.
Frank has spent $150,000 to $250,000 in research costs on each car, but believes automakers could mass-produce them by adding just $6,000 to each vehicle’s price tag.
Instead, Frank said, automakers promise hydrogen-powered vehicles hailed by President Bush and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, even though hydrogen’s backers acknowledge the cars won’t be widely available for years and would require a vast infrastructure of new fueling stations.
“They’d rather work on something that won’t be in their lifetime, and that’s this hydrogen economy stuff,” Frank said. “They pick this kind of target to get the public off their back, essentially.”
Curiously missing from this article is any mention of a break-even point. Namely that at some price per gallon a $3,000 add-on is well worth the expense. Granted, it comes on top of an already high hybrid price, but a back of the envelop calculation would be welcome.
It sounds very intresting, though I am a bit dubious about the “quarters worth of electricity” bit. If true, that is just staggering.
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Happy 32 Mr Leland
I just got back from dinner with the House of Leland (celebrating Adam’s recent birthday) at Manuel’s Tavern. I had a nice time. Upon my return through the ever-flooded Dekalb County streets I find that Drex has torn down more of the blinds. Oh well.
Here are the photos I took
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Friday rapid fire
- A super sonic blaster in Los Angeles (and Iraq)
- Cool military gear
- Practical and unsubsidized solar power
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Found some old photos from 2001
I was looking for another file and stumbled across these two photos. Add in that new Photoshop action and you get one cool image. These photos were taken from Bishop Street in Midtown, and the subject is what is now Atlantic Station.
and
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My favorite commies and the Blasters
Out soon
- 4-11-44 by the Blasters will soon be released ! Their first studio album (with both Dave and Phil Alvin in decades)
- Freedom and Weep by the Waco Brothers (my favorite left wing band who sadly only makes it to Atlanta every 5 years or so) is finally putting forth another new record.