Top 6 percent baby!

Check this out, apparently I'm in the minority of bloggers; I don't primarily preen rhetorically for my electric audience. You could say I'm a bit political (though my contributions are so often lame, I excuse myself from this class). That puts me firmly in the technology and spirituality sections, making up 6 percent of all bloggers. The top 6 percent, of course.

Materazzi

By now everyone knows and has spouted off on how the World Cup ended: Zidane is insane, Italy won but must now face charges of scandal and what exactly did Materazzi say? But what no one has mentioned, and which I guess doesn't make much of a news story, is that Materazzi was the key Italian player in every one of the three major events in the final: he "fouled" a French player to set up Zidane's penalty, he leaped over Vieira to head one into the net and, of course, he managed to get under Zinedine's skin, possibly winning the game for Italy by sidelining the legend just before penalty kicks. To my mind it's crazy that one guy had so much impact on the game in such disparate and unlikely ways.

(Update: Someone else did notice.)

jEdit, force quit and the world's most advanced operating system

Recently I've been looking for a good text editor on OS X (as XCode just didn't seem to cut it), specifically to write numerical simulations in Fortran. Since this isn't one of the mainstream languages for computer programmers, and I like a usable GUI, it was a bit difficult to find a really suitable one. It had to have customizable syntax highlighting, but beyond that I didn't need much. Browsing the ol 'net I found jEdit, a sleek Java based text editor that claimed to work with Fortran and also be customizable. From the beginning it worked great on my Mac (OS 10.3.9), except for one simple but really annoying bug, which I will get to in a minute. jEdit works great with Fortran, is simple but meets my needs, looks and works the same across platforms (since it is Java based) and has numerous plugins. My favorite is jDiff, which graphically compares two files and shows the differences.

The bug, however, still remained. What would happen is this: after using jEdit for awhile, with the Mac OS plugin installed and set to put the jEdit menu bar in the OS X menu bar (as is usual with Mac applications), the menus would cease working, essentially disabling the program (I hear jEdit might work from the command line in this state, but that's still not acceptable behavior). I would have to force quit and relaunch the program, with the potential for losing some work. But, through the magic of the internet I found a solution. It turns out the problem is not jEdit but OS X. The world's most advanced operating system (at least version 10.3.9 with Java 1.4.2) has a bug in Java. Turning off the option to put jEdit menus in the Apple menu bar seems to fix everything, and I'm back in love with jEdit. A simple fix, but to me, a mere engineer with little real programming knowledge, it was a bear to find.

Quote of the day 2

Bob Lutz (once more cribbed from AUTOEXTREMIST) in response to a recent Thomas L. Friedman New York Times column (which politely starts: "Is there a company more dangerous to America's future than General Motors?"):

"In an email to The Detroit News, Bob Lutz, GM Vice Chairman, said that Tom Friedman, 'is so 'over the top' that it borders on psychosis.' Lutz said his hope 'is that the majority of Americans, not being extreme liberals, and harboring a deep-seated distrust toward the media, will see his piece for what it is: the product of an unusual, but not altogether well, mind.'"

Quote of the day

"...and others of his ilk who share Friedman's laughable, Detroit=Bad, Toyota=Good mantra, and who would have us all driving flatulence-powered clown cars made out of balsa wood, hugs and a smile, if they had their way - with Toyota emblems on them, of course."

The AUTOEXTREMIST himself, Peter M. DeLorenzo. Who else?

"...an entire herd of reindeer was rendered sterile."

You learn basically nothing about the Bugatti, but this is the best review I've read yet.

Taxing "excess profits": bad

Check out this argument for not applying an "excess profits" tax to oil companies. I'm no economist, but the points made seem reasonable and dovetail with my initial reaction. Moreover, despite being economically unsophisticated, it seems I had some idea of "user cost" rattling around my head. Truly I have a dizzying intellect.

"...there is not a sniff that the goalkeeper can do..."

Who says "useless theoreticians" never produce practical work?

Strategic Oil Reserve

No, not that one. Which not filling, by the way, seems a little disingenuous considering that during the last gas price "crisis" just a year or two ago, President Bush said that tapping the strategic petroleum reserve would do no good in lowering prices. Unless oil goes in much faster than it comes out, I don't see what has changed. But I digress...

My real point is about ANWR and any oil that may be had off our continental shelf. Many (generally on the right) have called for drilling in one or more areas to help ease our reliance on foreign oil. This would supposedly bring prices down and national security up, all with a minimal sacrifice in caribou. Now, I'm all for low prices and high security, but I wonder if the caribou lovers haven't done us all a favor by thwarting any attempt at harvesting these oil reserves. I'll try to explain.

Currently, gas is cheap in the US. Relative to previous years, that statement is absurd, but relative to the rest of the world and in the grand scheme of things, it's painfully obvious. One need only take in the proliferation SUV's to see that the screw of gas prices isn't too tight on most of us yet. Moreover, until recently we had much of the oil market to ourselves. If we wanted oil, there it was getting dusty on the shelf just waiting to be bought. There were few other major oil buyers (Japan, sure, but let me get to my point...), so OPEC could cut production to get at us (in turn cutting their sales), but that was about it. Now, we're faced with two giants in the marketplace, India and China. All of a sudden it's like the day after Thanksgiving at Best Buy. If the oil supply had risen and become more secure, maybe our old habits could have continued in the face of these behemoths, but it hasn't and they can't. Thus we come to our current rising prices and tenuous national security.

So how does caribou hugging help us here? I submit that the current time, and certainly the preceding time, are not as bad oil wise as what is to come. In fact, I expect they are a brisk walk on a cold day compared with the mountaineering that is to come later. India and China's economies are only going to up-shift as time goes by, and though India seems pleasantly friendly and may work with us on energy policy, China is a polite acquaintance at best (though one we do an amazing amount of business with, but again I digress). Had we tapped into our local oil deposits previously, or if we do so now, they'll be used up quite fast. Our current oil use is astounding, and I believe these deposits are not much in the face of the American consumer. Once they're gone, what then will we have to fall back on? Running the last major oil deposits we have dry to keep gas at $2.50 a gallon so we can have our 12 mpg SUV and flat screen TV is not intelligent. In fact, buying all the cheap oil we can from whoever is selling it now (while still minimizing our use, by the way) almost seems brilliant, if it weren't inadvertent.

Why so brilliant? Because we invested on the ground floor, and now we have the ability to get out: advance our technology and cut our oil consumption. India and China are looking at serious problems if their oil consumption ramps up as expected because they'll be denied the cheap energy we've feasted on for so long. We won't ever be able to fully cut our oil use (at least not soon enough for my crystal ball to see), but we will reduce it. And, if the oil supply finally ends up in the hands of nuclear mullahs and South American communists bent on our destruction, that oil reserve under the caribou's feet is going to look pretty good.

The one problem with my plan for world domination? Timing. It's not like the two tanks in your SUV; we can't just switch from one oil source to another with a quick turn of a knob. Harvesting this oil takes years of planning and preparation, and not knowing the quality and quantity of the oil there makes planning for its use even harder. Still, I think we may be glad at our "fortune" if we find ourselves really in need. I'm sure if the time comes, many politicians will take credit for this ingenious move, and if any have already that's news to me and I'd love to know about it. But, though I love to be right, I hope an energy crisis never descends that causes us to see this "strategic oil reserve" the way I've been advocating. Here's to hoping...

"...because it is Iran."

My thoughts exactly. Not that military intervention is the right path right now, but equating the US, France, Israel and, yes, even India having Nuclear weapons with Iran possessing them is quite nearly suicide.

(via Sullivan)

Iran, the Bomb and the End of the World

I can't believe what I read in this article, though it seems to come from a reputable source. Does Iran (their government, in any event) really want to end the world? Are they really preparing for the downfall of the US, stopping at nothing until the "West" is annihilated? If so, that turns every idea of engagement with this regime on its head. Now, I do suppose if we made life in Iran good enough, there wouldn't be anyone left to support a radical government, but that's just a nice way of implementing regime change.

I must say though, as a point of confession, that it gave me a twinge of pride when President Bush was described as an "aberration" to be waited out so Iran can continue on it's path down Armageddon Lane. Our President may hire clods for FEMA posts, but at least he has done something right to garner that kind of response. I hope the next president continues in this tradition (and guts FEMA). Right now, my money is on McCain to fill this vacancy, but there's still a lot of time before that die is cast.

Ha Ha!

Monkeys! Ha Ha!

(Merry April Fool's Day ya'll.)

Dust to Dust

Finally, a study that looks at the overall environmental impact of automobiles has surfaced. (Thanks to Autoblog for dredging it up.) This article seems to confirm my hunch that hybrid environmental savings aren't all their touted to be. However, as some commenters at autoblog have noticed, these environmental costs will change as demand for hybrids increases. I agree it is likely that soon the environmental costs of hybrids will be essentially equal to their less technologically savy brethren. But only equal? That doesn't sound like the hybrids the world has come to know and love. I thought these things were supposed to be saving the earth.

Yeah US Diesels!

I'm sure GM's diesels are safe now since Oldsmobile is dead. Even better, look at what's being done with diesel engines these days. A diesel station wagon (clearly the coolest car on the planet) that suits my tastes can't be far away. Hope springs eternal...

To boldly go ..

...where everyone else is going. That sums up, at least partly, our moon mission plans; we can't neglect the night sun when India and China are charging full bore toward it. If they're hopping around and hitting 3000 yard drives onto the fairway by the Sea of Tranquility, we can't be sitting at home talking trash about how well our IRA is performing (invested in unmanned space exploration of course, as great as that may be) and how we'll take that lunar vacation just as soon as we reach our next savings goal. Nonetheless, those investments are much more important scientifically than redoing what was done thirty years ago (as a friend quite rightly pointed out since my last comment on this). Thankfully, according to this article there is more to the plan than that. The long haul is expected to be difficult, and the technology we have now is not expected to take us on the real vacation we're penny pinching for: Mars. The old-technology, hop around on the Moon trips are exploratory, to be followed by more advanced missions aimed at setting up a base on the Moon, almost as a dress rehearsal for Mars. Now my friend certainly wouldn't change his tune due to this article; he thinks it is technologically the wrong time to take this trip. I agree with this in part; some of the technology isn't ready for sure, but some needs to (and will only) be developed by actually going somewhere in space. Moreover, I think the politics, however unfortunately, are important and need to be addressed. There are real economic and, quite frankly, prestige issues with India, Japan, China, Russia and anyone else doing manned exploration of the moon while we have almost no one (perhaps the ISS) in space. That just won't cut it in the eyes of the people of the world if we want to consider ourselves a (the) leader in space exploration. However technologically backward it seems for the moment, putting people back on the moon is a good idea and will pay off in the long run.

Muslim convert to Christianity may be executed

I had to read this story at least twice before I could believe it. The man was "caught" while trying to reunite his family, and he was turned in by some of his own relatives. If nothing else, this makes me glad to live in a country like the United States; I think it's still legal to change religions here.

I am encouraged that some countries (US and NATO allies, Canada, and others) are pressuring Afghanistan to do the right thing and release the man. However, I'm afraid it won't be enough. Pray for the man (Abdur Rahman), that his life will be spared and that he'll gain his freedom. Also pray for his family; clearly he wants to reunite with his daughters.

The world is insane.

UPDATE (3/26/2006): He is to be released! Hallelujah! Afghanistan still has a long way to go, however, before it can be said to support religious freedom.

You too could write the SOTU

Write a speech for our Commander in Chief.

Watch your step.

These are not your ordinary sidewalk chalkings.

In Defense of Saab

Check out this editorial for a little perspective on Saab's predicament. I'm not sure Saab would even exist without GM's patronage, and though clearly there are ways to improve the General's handling of the brand, many of their steps have been good ones (e.g. Biopower and the SportCombi). Saab is in a good position to become a coveted "green" company, with environmentally responsible cars that also feature performance and top of the heap safety. With that, I don't think it'll take much of a push to really get them in business.

Putting a man on the moon: Priceless?

According to the assumptions of this article, the Dawn mission is part of the price of going back to the moon. Currently, I'm a believer, but in practice an agnostic, in NASA's new overriding mission. On the one hand, can anyone really foresee a future without men exploring space? And if, as I expect, you can't imagine people not roaming ever further in space, shouldn't the U.S.A. be on the forefront of this exploration? With China, Japan, and who knows who else re-engaging a space race, now is the time for us to go as well. On the other hand, I wince every time a credible and important space mission has to be scrubbed due to funding, and the linked article provides just such a mission that came under the axe due to NASA's reorganization. Perhaps in reality the cost overruns and technical difficulty would have scrapped this work anyway; it doesn't really matter. Missions like this will be canceled so men can stretch their legs on Lunar (and hopefully Martian) soil, so the message is the same regardless of the details. I'm still a believer, but the costs, both financially and to scientific advancement, are not negligible.