For those who don’t know.. As a nation we have essentially decided to give up our manned space program. While NASA has done amazing things with robots and satellites in space the one aspect that really captivates is manned exploration. As with most huge projects, things haven’t exactly gone as planned with the shuttle or space station over the last 30 years. But now as reality sets in and we see the ending of the shuttle program it strikes me as a milestone that the United States will not have a way to get people into space forcing us to rely on the cooperation of others (who are not our friends) to do so. I wanted to share a few things for those who are interested.
How GM “Lied” About The Electric Car
Wow… what were they thinking. In summary… it seems the claims that GM has been making for years about the design and performance of the Volt were just out and out lies. They claimed it was a serial hybrid.. meaning the gas engine was just acting as an electrical generator and that the electric motors drove the wheels. That’s a lie. They claimed it would get 230 mpg in city driving and have an initial electric range of 40 miles to cover the average commute.
Netezza illegally and hastily reverse-engineered IISi’s code (targeting software) to deliver a version that produced locations inaccurate by up to 13 metres. Despite knowing about the miscalculations, the CIA accepted the software, court submissions indicate.
I have a theory… or perhaps this should be another of those rules to live by.
For every 1 billion the federal government spends we (90 million who actually pay federal taxes) will get a bill for $11.11. That’s pretty easy math.. so for instance the additional 57 billion of new ‘stimulus’ last week cost us about $633 each. How much did you earn last week? If they were honest about what they were doing they would send out invoices to all taxpayers every month to cover the new ‘stimulus’.
I’ve heard some… odd comments on the new Chevy Volt and just wanted to point something out. The above line ’40 miles to the charge’ is being said with a negative connotation… even suggesting that the battery should be the backup to the gas engine. The average commute is 20 miles.. and this was the target for the battery capacity… so lets do a little back of the envelope math.
So our illustrious Charlotte city council last night voted to take 25 million of federal money to start a new uptown street car boondoggle.. er I mean transit system. To avoid confusion with the multitude of pet rail projects around here they decided to end service on the uptown trolley that has been in operation for the last two years.. and which we spent a whopping 40-60 million to create and operate. The real numbers there are a little hard to come by but we know it was at least 40.. and 60 is more likely. This “free” federal money for the new street car will be paired with at least 12 million of local money that is going to come not from the 1/2 cent transit sales tax.. but from the general fund.. aka property tax which they promised never to do by the way.
I’ve been using a mac laptop as my primary system for about 5 years now. I’ve had this particular system for over two years and never had a problem until last week. I use this system both at home and at work so it gets a good workout and is pretty important to what I do. I had some sort of power issue last week that required some new hardware internally.
It was 62 days ago that I ask the city of Charlotte to take back their RFID tagged recycling bin. I’m not going to play their game… which if you didn’t know involves tracking your participation in their money losing recycling program… and eventually fines.. and re-education about how to be eco friendly. No thanks little brother.
Back when I first posted about this on May 6th (and scooped Taras army of research interns) I also filled out the form on the city web site to take the bin back.
Since this is the season around here for frequent thunderstorms.. I thought it might be interesting to look at what a typical storm cloud might ‘weigh’. These things are floating above our heads.. and it’s just not something most people ever think about. They are all unique of course.. so here are some baselines.
A storm cloud that is 1 sq/mi and 33k feet tall (medium height for what we get this time of year) with an average density would hold about 563 million pounds of water.
