I saw a presentation of geothermal power the other night that reminded me how attractive this technology is. Geothermal has been around for almost a century - this technology produces cheap power with near-zero environmental impact, and the supply of geothermal energy sources in the U.S. is high. That’s why the U.S. has the largest installed base of geothermal power in the world. But the techology stagnated for two decades before starting to heat up again recently.

Here is a very nice slideshow introduction to geothermal energy:

geothermal energy slide show

Along with two videos that explain the basics:

Here is a quick overview of the advantages:

Five Advantages of Geothermal Energy

The advantages of geothermal are:

1) Lack of pollution

2) Large supply, especially in the U.S.

3) Small size and easy siting (see the slideshow for example examples of geothermal power plants stuck in tiny places)

4) Reliability

5) Low cost

The cost can be low. According to this page, the cost is “5.5 and 7.5 cents per kilowatt hour, with cost estimates under 5.5 cents per kilowatt hour relying on lower than average upfront financing agreements.” It makes you wonder why there isn’t a lot more happening in the gothermal sector.

See also:

What Geothermal Energy Could Do for Consumers

How Geothermal Energy Works

Produced in 1958 for a TV show called “The Bell Telephone Hour”, this film shows that the basic idea behind global warming has been around for 50 years:

If you have ever wanted to see a list of the best selling video games for the major consoles, along with the exact sales numbers, this site is for you:

1) The best selling games for the 360

2) The best selling games for the PS3

3) The best selling games for the Wii

Scroll down for the lists. You can also try different query options to customize the list.

This web site is interesting for two reasons:

The Ron Paul Blimp

First it is interesting because it shows how innovative grass roots campaigns can get. But even better is the second reason: it explains how to rent a blimp! Here’s the core idea:

We have researched three airship/blimp companies and believe that we have found the best short term deal with an option to extend.

Two of the three airship companies we contacted had 3-12 month minimum contracts at a range of $225-$350K a month for various different features and blimps. Many airships only seat 3-9 people plus the pilots.

We contacted Airship Management Services and the president/owner, Mr. George Spyrou, enthusiastically returned our call and turns out to be a supporter of Ron Paul and wants to help us spread the word!

So, after much research on these companies we have settled on the Skyship 600 from Airship Management Services as the best airship for the Ron Paul grassroots supporters. Sporting a 12 seat gondola w/restroom and 2 porsche engines the SKYSHIP 600 measuring in at over 190 feet long & 60 feet tall is sure to grab the imagination and awe of all who lay their eyes upon it!! It also happens to be one of the largest airships in the world!! Nearly 2/3’s of a football field and almost as long as Boeing 747 this is the world’s largest flying billboard and can be seen from over 3 miles away!

Also:

For $350,000 we will receive a fully operated Skyship 600 for 1 month that is fully inclusive. A 20 person ground crew. This includes the artwork (normally extra of $50,000-$100,000). We will have a 1 month lease with the option to extend if this PR stunt is successful. Again, all airship companies have a minimum lease of 3 months and Mr George Spyrou is willing to do this for just 1 month with an option to extend because he supports Ron Paul!

Most importantly we will receive millions of dollars worth of advertising. How much does a super bowl commercial cost?

Where will this fly? Wherever it is needed the most. The Skyship 600 has a max speed of 65 mph and since it is helium it is very costly to deflate and transport therefore it will need to fly everywhere it needs to go. We will receive 100 flying hours for the month and we must strategically plan the most effective flight. Also weather forecasts will affect the route therefore the route will need to be dynamic. Overall we will seek direction and suggestions for the route at RonPaulForums.com.

The blimp is currently on contract with the United States Navy until December 1st and then it returns to its home base at Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Most likely we will fly it in South Carolina to begin with.

Clearly the Ron Paul folks are getting a deal here. But what it shows is that, if you have a spare $1 million, you can own a blimp for three months. For more info see How blimps work and this video:

[Go to previous on advertising]

“The” way vs “a” way (Japan v China dept)

[See previous MYT]

Or, if you are going to jump off your balcony, take lessons from people like these:

[See previous PSA]

Exceptional trees - the second photograph really surprised me.

Online library offers 1.5 million works and counting - “The Universal Digital Library, a book-scanning project backed by several major libraries across the globe, has completed the digitization of 1.5 million books and on Tuesday made them free and publically available.”

U.S. may phase out incandescent light bulbs in favor of energy-efficient lighting products - “The Energy Committee of the U.S. Senate is drafting a bill that would phase out the use of incandescent light bulbs in the United States. Incandescent bulbs, the same type of light bulb first developed by Thomas Edison, produce light by forcing an electric current through a thin filament. This filament is heated up and, as a consequence, emits light. These bulbs are incredibly inefficient, however, and up to 90 percent of the energy put into them gets released in the form of heat rather than light.”

Electric smart cars on the road to London - “The smart car is set to go even more green, as Daimler makes plans to bring out an electric version sometime around 2010. Before this, though, London will get its hands on 100 prototypes for use in a huge four year trial. ”

Fuzzy picture for Apple TV - “And a virgin Apple TV is designed to only get paid video from the iTunes Store or free video from YouTube. There are a lot of popular shows and movies on the iTunes Store, but there are also lots of other sources of video on the Internet. Apple TV doesn’t come with a browser, and high-definition shows aren’t offered at the iTunes Store. You can hack it to run Mac OS X, and therefore lots of other applications, but most people aren’t going to do that.”

The Secret to Raising Smart Kids - “Our society worships talent, and many people assume that possessing superior intelligence or ability—along with confidence in that ability—is a recipe for success. In fact, however, more than 30 years of scientific investigation suggests that an overemphasis on intellect or talent leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges and unwilling to remedy their shortcomings.”

A Big List of Sites That Teach You How To Do Stuff - The title says it all.

Southwest Engine Failure - at the bottom are pictures showing what happens when a modern jet engine blows up during flight.

Price drops ahead for solid-state drives - “Micron will start mass-producing solid-state drives in the first quarter of 2008. The first drives will hold either 32GB or 64GB of memory. While that’s less than half the capacity of the average notebook drive today, it’s actually more storage than most business users need, said Dean Klein, vice president of memory system development at Micron. Plus, solid-state notebooks can come out of deep sleep or launch applications far more rapidly.”

Is Ted Turner playing cowboy or hogging land? - “Turner has amassed 2 million acres over the past two decades to become the largest private landowner in the United States. He owns land in at least nine states, with most of his holdings in New Mexico, Nebraska, Montana and South Dakota, and is restoring buffalo, cutthroat trout, wolves, black-footed ferrets and other flora and fauna that filled the Plains before the West was won.”

Ethanol Craze Cools As Doubts Multiply - “Ethanol prices peaked at about $5 a gallon in some markets in June 2006, according to Oil Price Information Service. The price soon began to slide as the limited market for gasoline containing 10% ethanol grew saturated. New plants kept coming online, increasing supply and dropping prices further. Today, the oil refiners that purchase ethanol to blend in need pay only about $1.85 a gallon for it.” [ Wouldn’t it seem that if Ethanol really is priced at $1.85 per gallon, while gasoline is $3.00 per gallon, that some part of the capitaliztic system would take advantage of that disparity?]

Photo in the News: Hi-Res Antarctic Map Unveiled - The new map is more than a pretty picture—for one, it will help researchers plan better scientific expeditions to the remote landscape. Scientists will also rely on the high-resolution data to study changes in land elevation and to map various rock formations. Even the public can explore the polar region via a public-access Web portal found at http://lima.usgs.gov.

Computer Simulation by UCR Physicist Predicts Voyager 2 Spacecraft Will Reach Major Milestone in Space in Late 2007 or Early 2008 - “Using a computer model simulation, Haruichi Washimi, a physicist at UC Riverside, has predicted when the interplanetary spacecraft Voyager 2 will cross the “termination shock,” the spherical shell around the solar system that marks where the solar wind slows down to subsonic speed.”

Google Highly Open Participation Contest: Horrible Name, Good Idea - “Google has announced the “Google Highly Open Participation Contest,” a new contest that aims to introduce secondary school and high school students to open source software development.”

Google’s Goal: Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal - “Google aims to make electricity derived from the wind and sun and other renewable sources of energy cheaper than burning coal, and the Web search giant has pledged hundreds of millions of dollars toward the effort, including tens of millions in 2008. It didn’t release specific figures, but it did set the goal of producing enough electricity to power San Francisco in “years not decades.”"

10 reasons we are doomed - “The following gadgets and gimmicks, featured in the Holiday 2007 SkyMall catalog, prove without a doubt that the human race is going straight to Hell”

[See previous IR]

…is made obvious in this article:

Are your sleep habits making you fat, nasty and dumb?

In fact, a good chunk of your weight gain, moodiness and brain-fog may be due to your sleep habits. For more than 60-million Americans, there is a relentlessly powerful evil force at work in their lives. Something that, altered just a bit, could help you drop weight, improve your mood, be healthier, live-longer and excel at work…and there’s be nothing to buy. Only something to do.

It also has some nice tips on getting to sleep, and here are some others:

For more info see: How sleep works

There are two ways to think about backing up your PC’s hard disk. You can back up your data files, or you can try to create a complete image of your hard drive (including the OS, all installed applications, device drivers, etc.). This article talks about a free tool for hot imaging your hard drive:

Hot Image Your PC’s Hard Drive with DriveImage XML

This hasn’t been a great week for Microsoft’s Vista operating system. First it was disclosed that Windows XP is now twice as fast as Vista:

Windows XP Service Pack 3 Trounces Vista In Speed Tests

Then there was the CNET Top Ten Terrible Tech Products award:

Top ten terrible tech products

Its incompatibility with hardware, its obsessive requirement of human interaction to clear security dialogue box warnings and its abusive use of hated DRM, not to mention its general pointlessness as an upgrade, are just some examples of why this expensive operating system earns the final place in our terrible tech list.

OK, so Vista is bad. Microsoft will have to work on a new operating system. What is it that we are all looking for? Microsoft should use this as the blueprint for its next OS:

If they delivered that, everyone would be happy.

PS - Apparently Leopard is no better: Leopard is the New Vista, and It’s Pissing Me Off

Chef Kin Jing shows how to make dragon beard noodles:

The same kind of technique makes Dragon Beard Candy, which is a little like cotton candy.

See also part 1

For more info see: How do they make cotton candy?

Actually it is hilarious in places. And it fits in with today’s prediction theme. It is a list of predictions made in 1901 by “the wisest and most careful men in our greatest institutions of science and learning.” These men were asked to make predictions for the next century.

What may happen in the next 100 years

[See previous Funny]

A Working Brain Model

From the article:

An ambitious project to create an accurate computer model of the brain has reached an impressive milestone. Scientists in Switzerland working with IBM researchers have shown that their computer simulation of the neocortical column, arguably the most complex part of a mammal’s brain, appears to behave like its biological counterpart. By demonstrating that their simulation is realistic, the researchers say, these results suggest that an entire mammal brain could be completely modeled within three years, and a human brain within the next decade.

Learning more about the brain:

Flying through one column of neurons in the Blue Brain project:

If you are walking along and you see a wallet or purse lying on the ground, you should return it to police immediately. Here’s why:

Dragnet That Ensnares Good Samaritans, Too

One purse was found just sitting on a display shelf in the shoe department at Macy’s. Another one turned up downstairs, in Macy’s Cellar. Yet another rested on a chair in a Midtown McDonald’s, left by a woman who had stepped into the restroom.

In fact, all three items had been planted by police officers in plainclothes during the previous six weeks. And the three people who picked them up were arrested, and now face indictment on charges that could land them in state prison.

In another sting operation:

Shopping bags, backpacks and purses were left around the subway system, then stealthily watched by undercover officers. They arrested anyone who took the items and walked past a police officer in uniform without reporting the discovery.

An interesting experiment:

[See previous PSA]

…here is another one we can check in a few weeks:

Dead Man Debating

But make no mistake — no matter how polished and presidential he looks on that stage tonight, Rudy Giuliani’s days as a serious contender are almost certainly over. He’s a dead man debating.

He hedges with the phrase “almost certainly”. But this is a pretty strong statement:

That’s the question Rudy is likely to be asking as the story gets bigger and bigger. And the answers won’t be pretty, because the rats are going to flee this sinking ship. And finally, in a week or two, Rudy is going to have to decide whether he wants to pull out before Iowa, and save what little dignity he has remaining, or risk polling below Ron Paul in every primary.

The reason this prediction is interesting is because it’s so testable. In just a couple of weeks we will know - is the prediction right or wrong?

Why am I so interested in predictions right now? I can think of two reasons. First, there was this article written in 2001: Here’s Why Apple Stores Won’t Work. It was completely wrong.

Second, the kids and I are reading a book about Albert Einstein right now. Einstein came up with theories, and then he made predicitions from those theories that completely defied the conventional wisdom. What is so interesting about Einstein’s predicitions is that some of them could be tested (for example, by waiting for a total eclipse of the sun). Then they turned out to be correct, proving his theories to be true. There is something incredibly powerful about that. Einstein had no need to hedge with an “almost certainly”. If the predictions didn’t come true, Einstein’s theories were dead. He had a lot on the line.

So in the case of Rudy, a person with a big audience is making a testable prediction based on his theory of politics. We can see how his theory stacks up.

Here is a reputable person in a very reputable magazine making an amazing, unequivocal prediction about the stock market:

Recipe for a meltdown by Shawn Tully in Fortune Magazine

Here are two quotes that summarize Tully’s prediction (boldface is mine):

There’s just one way for equities to get their lustre back — their prices have to fall substantially so that investors can harvest attractive returns from the modest profit growth that’s in the cards. Like the biblical sheik who hastens to Samarra to escape death, only to find death waiting for him there, stocks have an inescapable appointment with a withering fate.

Investors can’t get fat returns from profit growth. But they can get good returns from a combination of far higher dividend yields plus modest profit growth. And for dividend yields to rise, prices have to drop. That’s the inexorable math we now see playing out. Forget the chatter, ignore the headlines, and follow the math. Prices will get a lot more attractive. The process is underway. All investors have to do is wait.

The article was published on the morning of November 28, 2007. For the record, the Dow Jones Industrial average closed at 12,743 on November 26 and closed at 12,956 on November 27. So if we beleive Tully’s prediction, the market is going to go down - in his words there will be a “massive, irreversible revaluation of stocks” - from here.

The last time we saw a big “revaluation” like this, the Dow fell from a high of 11,750 in January, 2000 to a low of 7,197 in October of 2002. In other words, it fell 4,552 points, or 38%. [Note that the NASDAQ was even worse. It fell from 5,132 in March of 2000 to a low of 1,108 in October of 2002, or 78%] And in Tully’s opinion, 38% wasn’t enough. He says, “The problem with equities is that the repricing following the bubble of the late 1990s never fully played out.”

Therefore, Tully must believe that the Dow is going to fall below 7,000. That would be a 50% drop from the Dow’s peak last month of 14,198. And he must also believe that the NASDAQ will fall below 1,100, or 60% below its peak of 2,861 last month.

That, in a nutshell, is Tully’s Prediction.

Now, here is reason for taking the time to call out Tully’s Prediction. I think that Fortune magazine is being completely irresponsible when it publishes a piece like this. Here’s why.

First, if you read the entire article, you will see that Tully never states how far the market will fall. And he never states when it will get there. His is a completely nebulous prediction, and therefore Tully is completely unaccountable. The editors at Fortune should have said to him: quantify your prediction, and justify it. Tully should have been forced to say something concrete like, “The Dow will fall below 7,000 by October of 2009, and the NASDAQ will be at 1,000.” There is no reason why the editors should have allowed him to be totally nebulous.

Second, the editors should have asked Tully to put his money where his mouth is. If Tully believes what he is saying, Tully’s portfolio should reflect that. He should be completely in shorts or long term put options right now. If his prediction is true, he is going to make a massive amount of money that way. Based on his prediction, what is Tully doing with his money? If he is not doing anything with his personal money, then that means his prediction is crap and it should not have been published. If he has acted on his convictions in his personal portfolio, with all of his money, then we know that Tully will be punished if he is wrong.

Third, Fortune has some obligation to tell the rest of us what to do. Fortune’s editors must believe this prediction is valid. If not, they shouldn’t have published it (or it should be published with a disclaimer). I trust Fortune magazine, and Tully is speaking unequivocally. He does not say, “based on the data, there is a 75% chance that the market will go down.” He says:

That’s the inexorable math we now see playing out. Forget the chatter, ignore the headlines, and follow the math. Prices will get a lot more attractive.

“Prices will get a lot more attractive” - What an amazing euphemism for a disaster. If the market really is going to fall 50% (or more) as Tully seems to believe, that means that millions of American families who have their retirement savings and college funds in stocks should absolutely get out of the market. Tully should be required to say that. Tully’s article should say in no uncertain terms: “If you have money in stocks right now, you should take all of it out of the market because you will lose 50% over the next two years.” Or something along those lines.

Why? Imagine that a scientist stood up and said, “That’s the inexorable math we now see playing out. Forget the chatter, ignore the headlines, and follow the math. There will be a tsunami that wipes out half of Los Angeles in the next 12 months.” If the math is inexorable, then other scientists would agree and we should take action. Shouldn’t we start the process of evacuating Los Angeles right now? Shouldn’t we declare a national emergency? Millions will lose their houses and the insurance industry will collapse - don’t we have some obligation to address that?

If the stock market falls 50%, it means that the NY Stock Exchange (”with a total market capitalization of over 12 trillion dollars” [ref]) is going to lose $6 trillion. So we should act, and Fortune should lead the way.

Fortune could actually do these things now. The magazine could post a follow-up that includes:
1) Tully’s concrete prediction about how far the market will fall and when. The math is inexorable, so please do the math and publish it.
2) A statement of Tully’s actions in his personal portfolio to show that he has put his own money on the line in concert with his prediction.
3) An action plan for American families so that they are not financially ruined by the imminent collapse of the American markets.

Let’s see what Fortune does.

This is an interesting article demonstrating a number of visual and psychological techniques that advertisers, film makers, etc. use to trick people:

Introduction: What Happens Behind the Scenes

The tricks described in the article include:

- Trick #1: Forced Perspective (the Disney castle example is hillarious)

- Trick #2: Illusion of More

- Trick #3: Sell air for big profit

- Trick #4: Altered Versions of Familiar Items

- Trick #5: Product Placement

- Trick #6: The Audience Plant (Audience Stooge)

- Trick #7: Sell the Sizzle, Not the Steak

- Trick #8: Art of Hiding

- Trick #8: Use the Power of Suggestion

See also the home page for the site.

Emma Clarke is the “voice” on the London subway system. She posted a collection of spoof announcements on her web site:

Spoof London Underground Announcements

She got fired, and a lot of publicity:

End of line for London Tube announcer after spoofs

Her web site went down at one point from the traffic. You can watch what happens next here:

Alexa graph for EmmaClarke.com

Thermite, a combination of aluminum powder and iron oxide:

[See previous FWC]

[See previous Funny]

Yes, skyscrapers are amazing, and bridges are amazing, but there is something truly amazing about the structures we build for amusement. Here are five that blow me away:

Bearfire resort - It is a snow and ski resort built around a gigantic man-made mountain. The amazing part (besides the size of the mountain they plan to build) is the fact that they are building it in Fort Worth, TX. It will be a combination of plastic snow (outside) and real snow (inside the mountain). It is still on the drawing board, but the web site has lots of pictures and drawings. See also here.

Ski Dubai - Following the ski theme we have Ski Dubai - a gigantic indoor ski resort located in the desert. According to the web site: “An amazing 22,500 square metres (242,000 square feet or 5.5 acres) covered with real snow all year round.” There are five ski runs, up to 400 meters long.

Ocean Dome - an immense indoor beach under glass in Japan. More pictures are available here.

The Freedom of the Seas cruise ship - the world’s biggest cruise ship. It comes complete with an ice skating rink, water park, rock climbing wall, Flowrider surfing pool and a shopping mall.

San Alfonso del Mar resort - home of the world’s largest swimming pool - an artificial lagoon that is about one kilometer long. The web site is very cool, including 360 degree panoramas etc., but it can also be really slow. If you don’t want to wait you can find pictures here (scroll down to get past the ads).

See also: The architecure of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China

A long and boring story… but one that maybe helps someone else…

Over Thanksgiving break I had a hard disk problem. While trying to solve this problem I ended up looking at hundreds of pages on the web where kind, dilligent people tried to help each other with their problems. There are millions of problems and solutions floating around the web in various knowledge bases, forums, blogs, etc. My goal here is to simply document what happened to me and how I fixed it so that anyone encountering the same sort of problem might have an easier time.

All that I wanted to do was add a second hard disk to my PC. My machine is a HP Pavilion desktop which I bought about a year ago. It is running Windows XP SP2 and all current updates. It came with a 300GB hard drive which is now full kid photos, kid videos, kid TV shows (it is a media center machine), and so on. I purchased a Seagate 750GB drive to add.

In my dream world last Friday, here is what I thought would happen:

1) I would add the new drive in 5 minutes. It’s a SATA drive, so all you have to do is plug in 2 cables and turn four screws.

2) I would clone the currrent boot drive to the new drive (takes hours, but it can run overnight). The new drive came with a CD to do the cloning.

3) I would wipe the current boot drive and use it for extra storage.

Total estimated time: 20 or 30 minutes plus the overnight cloning process.

Here’s what happened instead:

I turn off the machine, take off the cover and plug in the new drive. This took literally 5 minutes. I turn the power back on and check the BIOS. The new drive has been auto-recognized and the BIOS is completely happy with it. I let the machine the boot. The Windows XP boot screen (with the little flashing bar) appears and then… nothing. The machine simply hangs with the little blue bar flashing.

I turn it off and back on. Same thing. The machine will not boot. When I unplug the new drive and try again, the system boots fine. When I add the second drive, it will not boot.

To fix this, I tried the following:

1) I tried different SATA cables.

2) I tried swapping the two drives/cables, and tried different SATA ports and combinations.

Same thing.

At this point I sent email to both HP and Seagate tech support. HP did get back to me in less than 12 hours with a couple of simple suggestions (like swapping cables). Seagate never responded.

3) Maybe the drive is bad? Seagate provided a CD with diagnostics, But this CD assumes that the machine will boot. Since I happened to be at Best Buy that night, I purchased another Seagate SATA drive (300GB) that they had on sale for $60, just in case. When I put this new drive in the machine and tried it, I got the same thing - won’t boot.

4) I tried the new drive with and without the 1.5 Gbps jumper. No change.

5) Disconnecting the old boot drive, I tried to do a system restore onto the new drive (using DVDs containing an image of the OS and applications that came on the machine when I purchased it). That works. Which tells me that the second drive and its cable etc. works. I can boot up with that new drive, and it boots fine. But when I plug two drives into the motherboard and boot from the old boot disk, the machine will not boot.

6) HP suggested clearing the CMOS RAM. I tried that, but no effect.

7) I tried to boot with a single drive, with the second drive powered up but not connected, then tried to hot-connect the second SATA cable once XP is running. The new drive never shows up in the disk manager.

I found an older Seagate Diskwizard CD that will boot from the CD. Both drives are visible. I tried to clone old drive to new using this CD (a 10-hour process). That doesn’t work - the new drive will not boot.

9) On that Seagate CD there are drive testing tools. The testing tool can see both drives and they both test out fine, but after running the testing cycles, the machine will not boot with both drives connected.

10) The motherboard has two pairs of SATA ports. I can disable either pair of ports in the BIOS. I tried that with no effect.

So at this point I wrote to all my tech-savy friends to see if they had advice. They had ideas like reflashing the motherboard BIOS, adding an IDE hard drive to see what happens, etc. I scoured the Web some more. and discovered that the motherboard comes from ASUS, but it’s not really a model that ASUS supports. So…

I abandoned the idea of trying to clone the old boot drive onto the new 750 MB drive, and I tried this: I restored XP onto new drive, hooked it up by itself and went through the XP config process. Then I booted from this new XP image on the 750GB drive. That works. Then I plugged in the second new Seagate 300GB drive I purchased, and everything worked fine. The computer booted up with 2 drives with no problem.

So it would seem that one of two things happened. Either:

1) The hard disk drivers in the image of XP on the old boot drive were somehow corrupted. Creating a new image of XP solved the problem. Or,

2) The old hard disk and the new Seagate drives had some kind of SATA conflict. That seems weird but I should probably test that.

With a clean version of XP I was back at square one. That means I had to:
0) Reinstall the drivers for things like the graphics card, printers, etc.
1) Re-install the 79 updates from Microsoft that had accrued in the last year
2) Re-install all of the applications (a total pain)
3) Set up all of the accounts (6 of them) and migrate settings
4) Reload the backup of all the data files into all of the accounts (about 200GB, taking about 4 hours)
5) Get Media Center set back up
6) Get email set back up (Arg)
Etc.

Total time to do something that should have taken 20 minutes? At least a dozen hours, probably more.

On the good side, I made some changes. With two hard disks available, I put the paging file on the second hard disk (I am under the impression that this makes things a little faster). I also loaded all of the applications onto the second hard disk (to save room on the 750GB drive). I also set up Media Center to save the majority of its files on the second hard disk (although there appears to be no way to get it to put all its files there (why not?)). There had always been some kind of problem with the printer that prevented me from sharing it. In this new install it works fine, so now five out of six of the computers in the house can print over the network rather than using sneaker net.

As of tonight, 6 calendar days later, I think I am done.

Conclusion? It would be nice if you could have all of your applications and data on the Web, in a secure place, and you never had to install anything on a machine. You could sit down anywhere on any machine and do your thing. The problem is that right now:
1) That would not work when disconnected from the internet (not so bad with a desktop machine, but problematic on a laptop)
2) It definitely would not work on an airplane
3) I don’t see how it would be possible to do heavy duty stuff like video editing or Dragon Naturally Speaking in that scenario.

How to make clear ice cubes:

Here is a another way to do it to make ice sculptures:

For more info see: How water works

[See previous DIY]

If this article is true and not an April Fool’s joke, it could have huge ramifications a year or two from now. Verizon is claiming that it will open its cell phone network to any device:

Verizon opens up, will support any device, any app on its network

From the article:

All applications, operating systems, and runtime environments are supported so long as the devices connect properly to Verizon’s CDMA network (they can make use of either the company’s cellular and PCS bandwidth). The fee for certification of devices will be “surprisingly reasonable,” we’re told, and the program will be open to anyone. One Verizon exec went so far as to say that if someone builds a device in their basement on a breadboard, Verizon will test it and activate it. Smaller players will definitely be able to get in on the action, something that hasn’t previously been possible.

According to Verizon, the move is driven by two things: more sophisticated customer needs and an explosion in innovation. Verizon, which has traditionally certified all devices and apps that run on its network, increasingly finds itself unable to market devices to appeal to every customer niche. While it will primarily remain a full-service carrier that sells subsidized handsets directly to customers, Verizon is adding this second connectivity option for customers who want it.

John Stratton, Verizon’s chief marketing officer, noted that Verizon will support far more than simply handsets, and it hopes that the move to open its network will unleash an explosion of wireless innovation. Everything from wireless water meters to digital cameras to game devices can feature Verizon connectivity without needing a Verizon-built or approved device. The only limits will be “subject to the imagination of the marketplace,” said Stratton.

In the past, you had to buy a device from Verizon to use their network. Now, in theory, you would be able to buy a device from anyone and connect. The mind boggles at all the devices that would become available if Verizon actually allowed this sort of freedom.

The article mentions at the end that Verizon has not set up a pricing model, but that has the potential to be a fly in the ointment. Right now, if you buy a Verizon phone and you want to use it both for voice and for data (e.g. cabling it to your laptop to connect to the Internet), you are going to pay a minimum of about $100 per month - $40 for normal cell phone calls, and $60 for connection to their data network. The $40 for voice gives you 450 minutes (900 minutes costs $60), and $100 for the data connection is monitored so you do not use more than 5 gigabytes of bandwidth per month (and may also throttle bandwidth, and you will get disconnected if you use the connection for certain things like hosting a website, etc.). If a device is really compelling it might be worth $100 or $120 per month to connect, but that is a pretty steep price. (you can look up Verizon’s current pricing models here)

It would be nice if this price could drop to $40 per month total. Why $40? Because you can connect an iPhone to AT&T’s network and get both voice and data for $60 per month, and we know that $18 of that fee is a kickback to Apple [ref]. It would also be nice to have a $1 per month connectivity option for things like “wireless water meters” that use very low amounts of bandwidth. Watching Verizon price its open network should be fascinating.

Assuming that Verizon moves forward as stated and that the prices to connect are reasonable, the wireless marketplace will be completely different a year or two from now.

[See previous Funny]

The name itself is numbing. It is called the “Subprime Mortgage Crisis”. It is hard to think of a less sexy name. Yet this crisis is all over the news right now and it is having a big effect - on the stock market, on home prices, on the ability of people to get mortgages, etc. How big of an effect? According to the Wall Street Journal:

The property value of U.S. homes will fall by $1.2 trillion, and “at least” 1.4 million homeowners will lose their properties to foreclosure in 2008, according to a study released Tuesday by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Council for the New American City.

The study, prepared by forecasting firm Global Insight Inc., predicts a widespread and deep economic impact from ongoing housing market problems, which many expect to stretch through next year. [ref]

That is a big effect. Although it is not quite so portentous as it sounds. This has been building for quite some time, as you can see in this post from a year and a half ago. Also note that there were 1.2 million forclosures in 2006 [ref] and we survived that without any major problems. So 1.4 million in 2008 is not going to kill us. The difference is that, right now, the “crisis” is getting a huge amount of press.

Where did this crisis come from? The name, unsexy as it is, says it all. The word subprime refers to a type of borrower. A person who has been categorized as subprime is someone who has an imperfect credit history. For example, the person may have had a problem with missed payments, or a prior foreclosure or bankruptcy. This leads to a low credit score, generally below 630. In other words, this type of borrower is considered be at a higher risk for defaulting on a loan.

So a subprime mortgage is a mortgage given to a subprime borrower. The general idea in a subprime mortgage is that, because the person is a higher risk, the person will be charged a higher interest rate. There are a number of ways to charge a higher rate, some of them rather uncomfortable. For example, the person might be given an adjustable rate mortgage that has a low rate initially and then adjusts much higher.

That doesn’t sound so bad. The thing that caused the subprime mortgage crisis is the fact that the people who give out mortgages went nuts. They started giving gigantic mortgages to higher risk borrowers who couldn’t possibly pay them back. How nuts did they go? This article gives a little insight into the problem:

Citigroup Feels Heat To Modify Mortgages (also available here)

From the article:

Ana Cecillia Marin, a 36-year-old single mother of three, owns a 20-year-old ranch house on a dusty, garbage-strewn acre in Palmdale, Calif. She says she earns $34,000 a year managing flower sales at a Los Angeles food store and selling clothes on the side. She bought her house in 2005 for $385,000. By taking out a first and second mortgage, she was able to buy it for no money down.

Do the math and you can see the problem:

1) If Ana Cecillia Marin had gotten a normal 30 year fixed mortgage at 6% on $385,000, her monthly payment would have been $2,308 [ref].

2) If you make $34,000 per year, you are only making $2,833 per month (ignoring taxes, FICA, etc.)

So obviously this mortgage was absolutely ridiculous from the start. And since she was subprime, she would not have gotten a 6% interest rate. Obviously she is going to default on the loan and go into foreclosure. Multiply that kind of ridiculous mortgage across millions of people and you understand how the subprime mortgage crisis works.

The big question you might have is: why did this happen? What happened to the old guidelines that would have prevented this? For example, if you look at this site, it says:

Lenders use many factors to determine how large a mortgage you can obtain. For example, lenders generally prefer that your housing expenses (including mortgage payments, insurance, taxes, and special assessments) do not exceed 28% of your gross monthly income. Other debt added to your housing expense should not exceed 38% of your gross monthly income. Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) mortgage loan percentages may vary.

What happened to that 28% limit, which would have capped Ana Cecillia Marin at a mortgage payment of $793?

Those limits went out the door. OR, they were bent by “teaser rates”. Mortgage lenders would put together a package that included an interest-only loan at a low introductory rate of, say, 4%. After 2 or 3 years that “low introductory rate” would evaporate. But the idea was that, at that point, you would re-finance into another loan, which would restart the “low introductory rate” clock.

That is a great idea until either:

a) housing prices start falling instead of rising, or…

b) interest rates go up, or…

c) the excesses get to be so great that regulators finally start sniffing around (followed by the press), or, in the worst case…

d) all of the above.

Then you have millions of people who can’t refinance their way out of huge mortgages, and these people are prone to defaulting on loans anyway, and the whole thing blows up.

That’s where we find ourselves today. It would appear that a group of mortgage lenders found a way to bend the rules, and no one was regulating them to prevent it, and they made a huge amount of money in the process. Unfortunately, the actions of these lenders will lead to millions of foreclosures and will have many other long-term effects on the economy as a whole.

It is also interesting to ponder the 7,000 different ways that this same information could be presented…

For more info see: How Chocolate Works

Make your own home made rocket fuel from sugar and potassium nitrate:

If you have never seen it before, it seems weird to make rocket fuel out of sugar, but it is actually a respectable hobby:

- Rocket food

- Candy Propellant Experiments

- Making Rockets That Really Fly

- Sugar shot to space - “The first amateur rocket with amateur propellant to reach space.”

[See previous FWC]

Just about any store you go into right now is pushing gift cards. Why? Because gift cards are GREAT for retailers. But they aren’t very good for anyone else. For example, here’s a Consumer Alert from the Federal Trade Commission about gift cards:

Buying, Giving, and Using Gift Cards

Here’s a Consumer Advisory from the Comptroller of the Currency:

Consumer Advisory

When you give someone the gift of money (rather than an actual gift), you have two choices: a gift card or cash. Here, in a nut shell, are the problems with gift cards:

1) Unlike cash, gift cards often have fees, which can include: purchase fees, monthly fees, inactivity fees, transaction fees and other random fees that retailers make up out of the blue like balance inquiry fees, etc.

2) Unlike cash, many gift cards have expiration dates.

3) Unlike cash, gift cards restrict where you can use the card. And if you want to turn the card into cash so you can eliminate this restriction, many gift cards will either blow you off or charge a fee.

4) Unlike cash, gift cards can become worthless if the retailer goes out of business or changes the rules.

5) Unlike cash, gift cards are prone to scamming.

6) Unlike cash, gift cards are easy to lose. When a person sees cash, he/she KNOWS it is cash. It goes in the wallet and it gets spent. Of if a person sees a check, he/she KNOWS it is a check, and cashes it at the bank (or if not cashed, the gift giver keeps the money). With a gift card, it is a little piece of plastic (often with cutesy pictures on it) that may be lost, misplaced or thrown out because it may not be obvious that it is important.

In addition, gift cards offer none of the protections offered by many credit cards. If you give cash and the recipient purchases with a credit card, those protections are in place.

With all of these potential headaches and pitfalls, why would anyone give a gift card? There is not a single good thing about a gift card compared to cash.

See also:

- Why Gift Cards Are Evil - “A gift card is great. But every moment you don’t use it, Wal-Mart or some other giant retailer is collecting interest on the giver’s cash. When you go to redeem it, chances are you’ll end up spending some of your own coin. And it probably reflects the giver’s implicit criticism of your poor taste and untrustworthiness.”

- Congress Considers New Gift Card Rules - “American Express told me that if they refunded a $50.00 gift card, I would have to pay a $10.00 fee,” Rosalind said. “They sold a card that is not valid where American Express is accepted and now they want to keep 20% of the value because I can’t use the card.”

- ‘Tis better to give, get a gift card with no expiration - “A gift card from your employer is a thoughtful gesture, but it’s also taxable. Gifts of turkeys, hams and umbrellas featuring your company logo aren’t considered compensation because they have minimal value, says Donna LeValley, contributing editor with J.K. Lasser’s Your Income Tax 2006. A gift card, though, is the same as a cash bonus. Whether the card is for $5 for $500, it’s considered income, and you’re expected to pay taxes on it.”

- Gift card scams and Gift card hack

Just say NO to gift cards.

[See previous PSA]

The x-ray images in this article are amazing. It is like you can open up the body:

Scanner provides inside knowledge

This press release offers more details and several more images:

New generation of multi-channel CT scanners brings diagnostic power and speed

The images are made possible by new high-resolution CT scanners. The basic idea is to shoot a beam of x-rays through the body with a rotating scanner, as shown here:

A computer looks at all of the samples from a “slice” and reconstructs what is inside the body. By speeding up the scans and getting making finer and finer detectors, the resolution has become phenomenal, hence the quality of these images. The quality is having a big impact according to the press release:

A complete chest scan used to include about 100 to 200 slices and take about 30 minutes, Vannier said. “Now we typically collect ten times as many slices in less than half the time.”

It has also changed the way radiologists look at CT scans. Prior to the introduction of multi-detector CT scanners, doctors examined individual slices. “Now we look at reconstructed three-dimensional views,” Vannier said, “and the doctors who send us patients insist on reconstructions. They won’t tolerate a collection of slices anymore.”

“This new generation of scanners is going to revolutionize the way we detect and diagnose heart disease,” said Dianna Bardo, M.D., assistant professor of radiology at the University of Chicago. “We have already become reliant upon to these images in working up children with congenital heart disease, and multi-detector CT scans of the heart are increasingly being used instead of angiograms to detect clogged arteries in older patients.”

…

In fact, these scanners have already provoked “turf” battles between radiologists and the cardiologists who perform diagnostic angiograms — until now the gold standard for assessing the coronary arteries. The best multi-detector CT scans can rival angiography for detail and are quicker, more convenient, less expensive and safer than an angiogram, as well as exposing the patient to less radiation.

For more info see: How CT Scans Work