I've moved !
Please update your links and bookmarks...this blog will remain active as an archive, but all new posts as of October 3rd will appear at:
www.wattsupwiththat.com or wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com
My new blog location will allow me to provide better service to my readers, and richer content of postings.
Thanks !
Anthony
I mentioned some months ago that I had to purchase Microsoft Vista, preinstalled on a laptop, against my better judgement. You can read about that experience here.
Recently, I had to give a presentation to about 50 climate scientists at UCAR in Boulder on my findings related to weather station placement, their measurements, and how it can impact climate change by creating an impression of a signal when it may be simply encroachment and bias. It was the most important presentation I was ever to give, so I left nothing to chance. That included leaving my Windows Vista based laptop at home, because I needed a backup in case their presentation system was also Vista based or Mac based. The presentation software I use is the same I used for live TV weather, and blows Powerpoint out of the water, but like many programs, it won't run under Vista. So I took my older XP based laptop with me just in case I needed it.
Even though my older laptop has less features, less CPU speed, only one CPU core, 512MB RAM, slower IDE hard disk, it still ran circles around my Vista based laptop with dual core CPU, 2GB RAM, SATA drive, and better graphics. I had forgotten how I had begrudgingly slowed my own perceptions to match that of Vista.
For example, here are couple of benchmarks:
Creating new blank email in Outlook Express- Vista:20-30 seconds XP: less than 1 second
Fully booting up from power off- Vista 4-5 minutes XP: 1-1:30 minutes
Running Microsoft Office 2007- Vista won't do spell check XP: with office 2003 ll works fine
Microsoft Frontpage 2003 crashes under Vista - Microsoft aware but offers no fix. Works on XP fine
Running programs- Vista: maybe, not likely if program more than 1 year old XP for certain
Background Processes - Vista: hundreds XP: dozens
and the list goes on and on...bear in mind the XP machine used to get those numbers above is older, slower, with less memory, and slower hard drive.
Yesterday, after quietly tolerating Vista's slowness and incompatibility, I learned that Microsoft had pushed back the first Vista service pack release until the first quarter of 2008. Originally I'd heard of releases before Christmas, so that millions of people wouldn't be disappointed in Vista's lackluster performance. Learning that was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.
So yesterday evening, I purchased a new SATA laptop drive for my new Vista laptop. I pulled out the old Vista drive after backing up a few files, and installed the new one. I installed a fresh copy of XP and then proceeded to try locating drivers. Not so easy, because Microsoft pushes hardware vendors to push Vista. For example, XP drivers for the nVidia Go 6150 graphics chip are mysteriously missing from key places. Fortunately tech blogs tracks and archive these things so with a little hunting I had all my drivers burned to a CD ready for install.
I have my once Vista enabled laptop now fully upgraded to a stable and functional operating system, Windows XP Professional. The Vista loaded drive will stay on the shelf until Microsoft pulls their head out of the sand and starts making an OS that isn't crippled.
Take my advice: dump Vista, "upgrade" to XP...and do it soon, as Microsoft says (in yet another brilliant marketing move) that Windows XP will no longer be available after January. I predict there will be a last minute rush and hoarding of Win XP because Vista, to put it simply, just plain sucks.
And it's not just my opinion. here's another blog that was so frustrated by Vista that he posted a video telling why he dumped Vista and upgraded back to XP
Now if I can just get the ER to dump "Moveable Type" used to create this blog, we'll really have something.
I don't know what they are watching in Tunisia as shown above, but if places like that can be going to net TV it begs the question; Will 2008 be the year we can finally drop our expensive cable bills? It's sure looking like it.
Joost is constantly adding content, ABC and CBS announced they will stream shows in HD, and media boxes such as the Apple TV becoming popular. Television networks finally seem willing and ready to distribute their TV shows on the web, and hardware manufacturers are finally making easy-to-use media boxes that will bring the web to the living room. There's also TV sets emerging like the Sylvania combo TV that has a built in Linux based streaming video player along with regular, HDTV, TV, CATV and video inputs.
Do you think we're finally there, the Internet-based TV-on-demand? If so, local TV stations like KHSL, KNVN, and KRCR had better get with the program soon or miss the boat. Maybe they can show Dave Vanore's pig, Winnie, 24/7 as some porcine reality TV.
I'm proud to have made the very first live Internet TV system in Chico, which has been used now for over a year to broadcast City Council, School Board, and Planning commission meetings via the web. Its free, try it out sometime at this link If you have DSL or a Cable modem it will work well for you. It may not be as interesting as Tunisia TV, but maybe some city councilors could be convinced to liven up the show a bit.
BTW if you want to watch the Tunisia TV channel as shown above, here is the free Internet TV player you can download.
I swung by the new offices of Computers for Classrooms today to get a quick tour of what they are doing with their brand new facility. Pat Furr, the director, was kind enough to show me around. I must say I was impressed. I've always been a fan of this organization, as they supply schools and low income families with thousands of computers each year. What is even more impressive - they do it by recycling old computers.
One of the problems with the process is making sure any donated or scrapped computer hard drives don't retain any personal data. To do that, they have a nifty NSA rated disk wiping program that will do 20 drives at once to ensure that whatever they send back out could not possible have anybody's data.
But what about the hard disks that fail? They can still be taken apart, repaired and data recovered. To solve that problem, CFC now has a hard disk degausser, seen at left. Basically its a device that stores up electrical energy, then releases it in a huge magnetic pulse onto the hard drive inserted into it. The pulse not only destroys the data on the drive, but is strong enough to warp the magnetic platters and the drive heads, making it completely unusable ever again.
And they'll do it for a $5 donation for anyone that has a hard drive they want destroyed. They'll even give you a certificate of destruction. It also works on magnetic video and audio tape, Zip disks, portable hard drives, floppies, and anything else that uses magnetic media to store data.
So if you have some incriminating, embarrassing, or sensitive data files, or maybe some old Nixon tapes, take them on down to Computers for Classrooms and tell Pat Furr I sent you. They are located at 315 Huss Dr., Chico, CA 95928 (see map) phone 895-4175 or email cfc@digitalpath.net
While you are there, you may want to help a needy family get a computer. They have complete systems available to the public for around $100 preloaded with Windows XP and Microsoft Office.
The LA Times reports that California is seeing a big drop off in rebate applications for solar power systems. It seems that to get a rebate you have to also switch to a time of use rate with your utility.
The math of economics is not working out for many, especially for smaller systems that don't fully cover use during peak hours. The result: homeowners are reluctant to go with solar energy because its starting to become economically unfeasible.
The difference between peak and off-peak rates is particularly large in the 11 counties of Central, coastal and Southern California, where CalEdison provides electricity service to 13 million customers. CalEdison charges summer time-of-use rates that range from 29.7 to 35.9 cents per kilowatt-hour between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays. It drops to a range of 16.3 to 18.6 cents per kilowatt-hour from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. weekdays and all weekend days and holidays, according to documents filed with the PUC.' There is likely an optimal system size for the smaller consumer of electricity that reduces consumer costs, but with so much in flux in today's solar power market its hard to pin down the numbers, as it becomes a moving target.
Another factor is the strong worldwide demand for solar panels, almost to the point of shortages. In such a market driven economy, when a product is in high demand, there is little flexibility on price and often contracts take a long time to fill to completion just waiting for panels.
I have a new toy. Its one of the Global Climate Models that is being used to predict the future of Earth's climate and the effects of global warming.
Originally developed by NASA Goddard in New York its simply called "model E" Its the same GCM used to prepare the IPCC report. You can learn more about it yourself here.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/
By today's computer standards, this program is rather crude, as it has a lineage that goes back almost 30 years. It was written in FORTRAN. But, despite the old school mainframe programming language, it does represent a mountain of work and knowledge.
My intent here is to learn as much as I can about it, so that I can more intelligently comment on climate change predictions. I also plan to try some baseline tests with it to see if it models true when known parameters are kept static. By doing this, I'll be able to see if the climate system calculations are bias free for a variety of parameters.
I've already done my first global climate change model run, and it took almost two days for the calculations to complete from years 1958 to 2058. So it will be slow going since I don't have a Cray supercomputer at my disposal.
I can tell you that I've already found one big surprise, the CO2 and solar insolation datasets inlcuded only go to 1998, but much has been made of the last 9 years of "record high" global temperature observations by global warming proponents. I am in contact with the authors to see if I can get the datasets updated.
I'll keep you updated on what I learn.
In my last entry I raised three questions about Compact Flourescent Light bulbs aka CFL's
1) What about regular fluorescent tubes? They have mercury too, and sometimes in greater quantity.
2) How do you dispose of these bulbs in they have mercury in them. If you put them in regular trash are you guilty of a crime?
3) Has the hazmat materials response to mercury gotten out of hand?
An astute reader pointed out that for questions 1 and 2, there indeed is a problem. Apparently CFL's are categorized "universal waste" and shouldn't be thrown away in the
regular trash under a 2004 state law.
Here's a list of things that the state doesn't want you to throw away in your regular trash:
http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/HHW/Info/default.htm
But there is some ahem, "good" news, and that is that you can take your CFL's and flourescent tubes out to the hazwaste disposal site at the airport. Like many "household hazardous waste" materials (now including
batteries), Butte County takes bulbs at its recycling facility at the
airport, details here: http://www.recyclebutte.net/hhw.html
Given that disposing of CFL's requires special handling, I think high efficiency LED bulbs are the answer, I don't want to put my family in the position of breaking a law for accidental disposal in regular household trash
How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent lightbulb? About $4.28 for the bulb and labor — unless you break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be looking at a cost of about $2,004.28, which doesn't include the costs of frayed nerves and risks to health.
The details of this really expensive light bulb are here from Financial Post
I like CFL's, I've replaced almost every one of the conventional bulbs in my house with CFL's
This story raises three problems:
1) What about regular fluorescent tubes? They have mercury too, and sometimes in greater quantity.
2) How do you dispose of these bulbs in they have mercury in them. If you put them in regular trash are you guilty of a crime?
3) Has the hazmat materials response to mercury gotten out of hand?
I think high efficiency LED bulbs are the answer...because as much as I like CFL's, I don't want to be put in the position of dealing with the mercury (even though I don't worry about its safety, I've handled mercury before) I don't want to put my family in the position of having a hazmat response or fines for accidental disposal.
About two weeks ago I published this story about the loony idea that was proposed by some researcher in Europe about "cell phone radiation may be killing bees". I pointed out that it was garbage then, as it is now. Here's a portion of the original post I made:
There's an article on UK's The Independent website about a most unusual scientific theory: "Cell Phones kill bees."
Well today in the LA Times, it seems that UC San Francisco researchers have uncovered what they believe to be the real cause, and its not loony ideas like cell phones. Its fungus.
From the article:
A fungus that caused widespread loss of bee colonies in Europe and Asia may be playing a crucial role in the mysterious phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder that is wiping out bees across the United States, UC San Francisco researchers said Wednesday.
Researchers have been struggling for months to explain the disorder, and the new findings provide the first solid evidence pointing to a potential cause.
Other researchers said Wednesday that they too had found the fungus, a single-celled parasite called Nosema ceranae, in affected hives from around the country — as well as in some hives where bees had survived. Those researchers have also found two other fungi and half a dozen viruses in the dead bees.
The researchers caution that the results are preliminary, and data sampling represents just a fraction of hives, but they are encouraged by the findings. Hopefully they'll be able to come up with a solution.
Yet it appears that the "Cell Phones kill bees" lunacy has caught on, since there's a comment today in the ER's "Tell it to the ER" that furthers that nutball idea. What a public disservice that column is.
Thanks to Lon Glazner for the tip.
In Today's Chico News and Review, the cover story is about Internet Radio and all the trouble the Copyright Royalty Board recently caused with a draconian ruling on the cost to Internet Radio Stations. Regular over the air broadcasters don't have such limits because they are seen to "promote the music industry" Its an alliance as old as payola.
But good news comes today. A bill introduced in Congress today could nullify the new rates set by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) which advocates say would put Internet Radio webcasters out of business, such as our own local Radio Paradise.
Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Rep. Don Manzullo (R-IL) have presented the "Internet Radio Equality Act" which aims to negate the controversial March 2nd decision which puts royalty of a .08 cent per song per listener, retroactively from 2006 to 2010 on internet radio.
Advocates of Internet Radio have dreaded the CRB ruling, which they say could raise rates between 300 to 1200 per cent for webcasters. Earlier this month, the CRB threw out an appeal by commercial webcasters, National Public Radio and others to review the new rates and postpone a May 15 deadline for the introduction of the royalty schedule.
If passed, today's proposed bill would set new rates at 7.5 per cent of the webcaster's revenue — the same rate paid by satellite radio. Alternatively, webcasters could decide to pay 33 cents per hour of sound recordings transmitted to a single user.
This bill is a critical step to preserve this new growing medium, and would present a level playing field where webcasters can compete on the same royalty terms with satellite radio. It would also reset royalty rules for non-profit radio such as NPR. Public radio would be required present a report to Congress on how it should determine rates for their internet streaming media.
I hope this passes, not so much because local radio needs more competition,
but because this insane CRB ruling makes it nearly impossible for local broadcasters to
compete on the Internet at all. This would give everybody a fair chance and at
the same time bring in millions, perhaps billions in royalties for artists.
For those of us that hate having Winnie the pig presented to us as part of our local weather report, I'd like to offer this solution that cuts all of us annoying weather middlemen and weather forecasting pigs right out of the picture and give you total control over your weather report.
Its called the ViziFrame - now you can program your own local weather channel at home, or at the office, or at the marina, or the golf course, your school, a truck stop, gas station, or wherever there may be an interest in weather to make a go/no go decision. You can view it on your own terms, and unlike the Weather Channel, you don't have to wait a half hour to get the info you need.
And the graphics, look at good as anything on TV. For those of you with a profit in mind, it can have advertising and other information too. Its way cool, inexpensive, and trouble free. It works with any TV, big screen, or computer monitor. It updates its information via WiFi or a regular Internet cabled connection to a home DSL/cable router or T1 router.
The Chico Chamber of Commerce is going to put a bunch of them (the premium model that also does video and audio clips with touch screen interactivity) around town at hotels, restaurants, city hall and other public places that cater to visitors. Local artist Gregg Payne worked out a cool design for the front fascia that looks like the Hooker Oak tree...a concept view is below along with the current weather page and forecast...which are live content links soon to be on the Chamber of Commerce web page. Kris Koenig and Anita Berkow of Interstellar Studios are doing the interactive kiosk presentation for it. Look for these around town soon!
Note the current conditions page - it has solar irradiance on it - I figured if we were going to become a solar powered city, getting a real-time indicator that people can use to calculate solar panel efficiency would be a good first step, so I invested in the equipment to do that. I'll have an entire blog entry on this service later.
The graphics are made in my rendering system as weather data arrives at my office here in Chico, there's actually about a hundred plus graphics that are available.
But you can get a weather channel for your home or business too. See www.viziframe.com I've sold several of these already and people at home just connect them up to a spare video port on their big screen TV, and when they want weather, just switch to it. No waiting, no pigs, no hassle.
There's an article on UK's The Independent website about a most unusual scientific theory.
"Cell Phones kill bees."
From the article: Some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail. They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world — the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. They say the cell phone emissions cause the bees internal navigation systems to go haywire and they can't find their way back to the hive.
Ok, just two problems; Bees navigate by the sun. You can watch a video of how this works here. And, we've had cell phones since the late 80's, microwave radiation of all kinds since the 40's, and worldwide radio emissions of all sorts and frequencies since about 1920. So why is this "problem" showing up just now?
More likely this has to do with the fact that domesticated honeybees, the kind we have in California are quite inbred compared to wild bees. Domesticated bees are being raised to survive a shorter off-season, to be ready to pollinate once the almond bloom begins in February. That has most likely lowered their immunity to disease and parasites. This can happen in any kind of biological population that is artificially isolated from natural selection, which allows the strong to survive and propagate. In the case of domesticated bees, they are packed together in boxed clusters, which makes disease and parasites spread very quickly. In nature, hives are well separated.
In fact, there are two types of parasitic mites, introduced into the USA in the 1980's which are believed to be responsible for this epidemic. Here's a letter to Congress from May R. Berenbaum, Head of the Department of Entomology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign that describes the problem in-depth and concludes: "That honey bees are experiencing losses on an unprecedented scale, however, was essentially predicted by the report—over-reliance on one managed non-native species is inherently unstable."
In insects, which have short generation lifespans measured in days or weeks, dilution of strong traits to disease and parasite resistance can happen fairly quickly. What's needed is some new breeding programs and better isolation methods, not cell phone panic.
The offspring of the bees that survive this epidemic will do far better.
This seems reminiscent of the artificial worry about a cell phone tower at the Hooker Oak park. Some people just have to paint technology they don't understand as the boogieman. I can visualize some panic driven loony legislation about cell phones and bees to hit our state legislature soon.
But to point out just how silly this is, I work at radio station KPAY-AM 1290 which has its offices on Cramer Lane. Right next door, no more that 500 feet from the powerful 5000 watts radio transmitter is a man who keeps bees. Bee hives are scattered all over his property. I'd think that if there was a radio energy to bee death link, this fellow would have been pounding on our doors long ago.
The "research" that cell phones kill bees is just junk science. Next I expect we'll hear about cell phones and talk radio stations being linked to global warming for "heating up the atmosphere".
Thanks to my lovely wife Stacey, for helping me out with this article.
Now here's something I can get behind.
The X Prize Foundation, which spurred innovation by offering $10 million for the first privately built spacecraft plans to offer millions for the
first practical car that increases mileage five-fold. The specs for the competition are out in draft form and call for cars in two categories that are capable of 100 MPG in tests to be run in 2009. The categories are:
4-passenger/4-wheel; and 2-passenger/unspecified wheels.
The cars must meet manufacturability requirements, and not be "science projects". The prize is expected to top $10 million. The X Prize Foundation says that so far it has received more than 1,000 inquiries from possible competitors.
I'm hopeful Chico State will get their engineering department involved. They have a shot.