Re:Interview with Howard Dean
on
Saving the Net
·
· Score: 1
Update:
Dean loves us nerds, but having done the Lessig blog, is probably going to do some other things before cycling back. The man does have a few things on his plate at present...
Re:Interview with Howard Dean
on
Saving the Net
·
· Score: 1
My college roomate and best man is involved with the Dean campaign (I think he's the energy, environmental, interior, and transportation coordinator). I will ask...
I have a hand-me-down Samsung I300, which I really like. The only thing I would change would be to add a keyboard (and do something about the insanely short battery life). I really like having an integrated phone/PDA- I really don't need yet another thingy that needs synching.
So the Treo looks great to me. Yeah, it doesn't have a lot of memory, and the 160x160 is a little weak, but it looks like a well-balanced compromise between size and functionality (and yes, I have smallish fingers).
The last paragraph alludes to this scheme, with its 1 meter resolution, completely replacing a mailing address. But how would it handle PO Boxes, which can have a density of > 1 per sq. meter? Or how about a suite in an office building (where you might want the address to be a mail room, not your office's front door)?
Otherwise, sounds like a clever idea that I'm pretty sure will never take off, for reasons of varying 'legitimacy' (perhaps too hard to remember/resistance to change/the mark of the beast crowd).
Actually, extra weight on the front wheel isn't so bad, if it's low enough. On a normal bike, most of the weight is on the rear, so it's actually preferably to add anything additional to the front. Sure, the steering feels a little heavier, but it's no big deal.
300 watts is enough for getting around town at 20+ mph. And if you pedal, your combined power is close to Lance Armstrong's- so you should be able to do 30 + mph (if you're aero).
You're right- the spokes look tangential to the hub, which is what you want for torque transfer, but the spoke-rim connection angle looks scary. You'd need to come up with some funky rim drilling to make this work.
If this engine isn't an emissions disaster, and isn't too loud, it may be very cool.
I have an electric power-assist (Currie) kit for my commuter bike. I use it for my 2 mile commute to work, and for running errands in a ~5 mile radius.
It's great- I can pedal hard if I want to, or take it easy and cruise at 17-18 mph if I don't want to sweat (like on my way to work in the summer). I'm not lazy- I run marathons and stuff- but I find that I use the bike more often for errands than I used to, pre-motor.
One of the only drawbacks is that the battery pack is heavy and awkward to haul up to my office to get charged every day. If I could get a kit with a *clean* gas engine, I'd be interested. But I have my doubts about this. For now, I'll stick with the clean electric (yeah, I know there are emissions associated with my bike's electricity consumption, but we're talking about 1 kWh per day).
The gods will probably smite me for bragging, but my company gave me a bonus that's 1/3 of my salary (the bonus is based, equal parts, on personal performance and company profitability), plus some pens engraved with my initials.
It's nice to work for a company that rewards its employees for their hard work. I consider myself phreakin' lucky.
I differ with your conclusions, though- $0.23/kWh is expensive relative to utility power, but it seems incredibly cheap given the small scale of the unit. If you can do $0.23 without trying too hard, I'm guessing that there is room for improvement.
Also consider that you don't need to necessarily feed it food-grade sugar...
If someone doesn't pay for something, does that mean they don't value it?
Does a car thief not value his quarry (think chop-shop, not joy ride)?
(Yeah, I know, copying a tune isn't like stealing a car; I'm just pointing out that what we pay for something represents a minimum of how much we value it)
There's a variable not much discussed here- good vs. bad management.
For my work, I've spent time observing warehouses for a number of different companies. The nature of the work varied little across the facilities that I've seen, but the cultures varied dramatically- workers in some facilities hated life, and in others were fulfilled and happy (of course, I am dramatically simplifying here).
The difference? Whether management viewed and treated their employees like robots, or like experts who knew the job better than they (the management) did. In the latter case, management could and would call on floor workers to help improve business processes, making the company more efficient- and guess what, one benefit of increased efficiency is that you can pay a higher wage (and will, because you want to retain your trained workers).
I realize that this sounds like a fairy tale, but I have seen it and it's real. It's the exception rather than the rule b/c it's hard to manage with this philosophy, and requires something that few managers have- humility.
For an example of what I'm talking about, read about Paul O'Neill's days at Alcoa (Jan 13th article in the NY Times Magazine- apparently not free online). For the theory, read about W. Edwards Deming, or the book Lean Thinking.
I disagree. In fact, just a couple days ago I plunked down $80 or whatever to get Win4Lin, which let me install W98 on the Linux side of my dual-boot computer at home.
The reason? My work requires that I use Outlook and Office for lots of things, and there are a couple other Windows apps that I use regularly. And my wife needs to use Windows for now, too. But, I do all my email and fun stuff on the Linux side.
So sometimes, *it's really nice to switch between KDE and Windows frequently*, and the usual reboot cycle is just too damn slow. Now, I boot up Linux, fire up fwin when needed, and occasionally resort to booting Windows (Win4Lin is good, but has some disappointing limitations- no DirectDraw support for e-Row
(http://166.82.35.96/concept2/c2web/switchboard. as p?chapter=0&article=92), for instance).
So far, I consider it money well spent - as others have noted, it's a nice migration path.
So I think that running Windows and Linux simultaneously is not such a useless thing.
An electric vehicle or hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle doesn't just displace pollution from the tailpipe to the smokestack- power plants tend to be more efficient than internal combustion engines (the real strength of the latter IMHO is the ability to easily produce variable power), and depending on the plant and energy source, may have lower emissions per unit energy produced, so there are some real environmental gains to be made.
And b/c you aren't tied to petroleum as an energy source anymore, you can go really green and produce your electrical power or hydrogen (apply the former to water to get the latter) or boron hydrides using wind or solar energy- wind energy is economically competitive with the fossils today.
SO as much as boron hydrides seem to have better energy density that today's batteries, I'm intrigued.
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Update:
Dean loves us nerds, but having done the Lessig blog, is probably going to do some other things before cycling back. The man does have a few things on his plate at present...
My college roomate and best man is involved with the Dean campaign (I think he's the energy, environmental, interior, and transportation coordinator). I will ask...
Am I the only one who likes this thing?
I have a hand-me-down Samsung I300, which I really like. The only thing I would change would be to add a keyboard (and do something about the insanely short battery life). I really like having an integrated phone/PDA- I really don't need yet another thingy that needs synching.
So the Treo looks great to me. Yeah, it doesn't have a lot of memory, and the 160x160 is a little weak, but it looks like a well-balanced compromise between size and functionality (and yes, I have smallish fingers).
Katy was Miss Vermont in 1999, and Miss Vermont USA in 2001, apparently - watch carefully while watching the intro to her site.
Please keep your pageants straight, gentlemen...
The last paragraph alludes to this scheme, with its 1 meter resolution, completely replacing a mailing address. But how would it handle PO Boxes, which can have a density of > 1 per sq. meter? Or how about a suite in an office building (where you might want the address to be a mail room, not your office's front door)?
Otherwise, sounds like a clever idea that I'm pretty sure will never take off, for reasons of varying 'legitimacy' (perhaps too hard to remember/resistance to change/the mark of the beast crowd).
I can't ditch Office (2k) yet (and survive professionally), but I'll be psyched if I can start by ditching Windows.
Yes, yes, yes. Mod parent up, please!
Let's see, in 20 miles I can...
get to the train station, the supermarket, the bakery, the video store, work, my gym, my 2nd favorite bakery, downtown, the bike store, the bank...
I may be the minority in the U.S. but I spend most of my day-to-day within a 5 mile radius...
Actually, extra weight on the front wheel isn't so bad, if it's low enough. On a normal bike, most of the weight is on the rear, so it's actually preferably to add anything additional to the front. Sure, the steering feels a little heavier, but it's no big deal.
300 watts is enough for getting around town at 20+ mph. And if you pedal, your combined power is close to Lance Armstrong's- so you should be able to do 30 + mph (if you're aero).
You're right- the spokes look tangential to the hub, which is what you want for torque transfer, but the spoke-rim connection angle looks scary. You'd need to come up with some funky rim drilling to make this work.
If this engine isn't an emissions disaster, and isn't too loud, it may be very cool.
I have an electric power-assist (Currie) kit for my commuter bike. I use it for my 2 mile commute to work, and for running errands in a ~5 mile radius.
It's great- I can pedal hard if I want to, or take it easy and cruise at 17-18 mph if I don't want to sweat (like on my way to work in the summer). I'm not lazy- I run marathons and stuff- but I find that I use the bike more often for errands than I used to, pre-motor.
One of the only drawbacks is that the battery pack is heavy and awkward to haul up to my office to get charged every day. If I could get a kit with a *clean* gas engine, I'd be interested. But I have my doubts about this. For now, I'll stick with the clean electric (yeah, I know there are emissions associated with my bike's electricity consumption, but we're talking about 1 kWh per day).
The gods will probably smite me for bragging, but my company gave me a bonus that's 1/3 of my salary (the bonus is based, equal parts, on personal performance and company profitability), plus some pens engraved with my initials.
It's nice to work for a company that rewards its employees for their hard work. I consider myself phreakin' lucky.
Needless to say, it's a private company.
Nice calculation.
I differ with your conclusions, though- $0.23/kWh is expensive relative to utility power, but it seems incredibly cheap given the small scale of the unit. If you can do $0.23 without trying too hard, I'm guessing that there is room for improvement.
Also consider that you don't need to necessarily feed it food-grade sugar...
Does a car thief not value his quarry (think chop-shop, not joy ride)?
(Yeah, I know, copying a tune isn't like stealing a car; I'm just pointing out that what we pay for something represents a minimum of how much we value it)
Now what am I supposed to do with my clone?
There's a variable not much discussed here- good vs. bad management.
For my work, I've spent time observing warehouses for a number of different companies. The nature of the work varied little across the facilities that I've seen, but the cultures varied dramatically- workers in some facilities hated life, and in others were fulfilled and happy (of course, I am dramatically simplifying here).
The difference? Whether management viewed and treated their employees like robots, or like experts who knew the job better than they (the management) did. In the latter case, management could and would call on floor workers to help improve business processes, making the company more efficient- and guess what, one benefit of increased efficiency is that you can pay a higher wage (and will, because you want to retain your trained workers).
I realize that this sounds like a fairy tale, but I have seen it and it's real. It's the exception rather than the rule b/c it's hard to manage with this philosophy, and requires something that few managers have- humility.
For an example of what I'm talking about, read about Paul O'Neill's days at Alcoa (Jan 13th article in the NY Times Magazine- apparently not free online). For the theory, read about W. Edwards Deming, or the book Lean Thinking.
Although not Japanese myself, I'm pretty damn offended by this remark.
Of my many concerns about global security, laser-wielding Japanese are pretty low on the list.
I disagree. In fact, just a couple days ago I plunked down $80 or whatever to get Win4Lin, which let me install W98 on the Linux side of my dual-boot computer at home.
. as p?chapter=0&article=92), for instance).
The reason? My work requires that I use Outlook and Office for lots of things, and there are a couple other Windows apps that I use regularly. And my wife needs to use Windows for now, too. But, I do all my email and fun stuff on the Linux side.
So sometimes, *it's really nice to switch between KDE and Windows frequently*, and the usual reboot cycle is just too damn slow. Now, I boot up Linux, fire up fwin when needed, and occasionally resort to booting Windows (Win4Lin is good, but has some disappointing limitations- no DirectDraw support for e-Row
(http://166.82.35.96/concept2/c2web/switchboard
So far, I consider it money well spent - as others have noted, it's a nice migration path.
So I think that running Windows and Linux simultaneously is not such a useless thing.
An electric vehicle or hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle doesn't just displace pollution from the tailpipe to the smokestack- power plants tend to be more efficient than internal combustion engines (the real strength of the latter IMHO is the ability to easily produce variable power), and depending on the plant and energy source, may have lower emissions per unit energy produced, so there are some real environmental gains to be made.
And b/c you aren't tied to petroleum as an energy source anymore, you can go really green and produce your electrical power or hydrogen (apply the former to water to get the latter) or boron hydrides using wind or solar energy- wind energy is economically competitive with the fossils today.
SO as much as boron hydrides seem to have better energy density that today's batteries, I'm intrigued.