Small Streams

Clear the Decks

We're done decking the halls here on Fairmount Street. I'm now picking through and throwing away. At least I'm reading about it. Websites like Organized Home.

I also thought I saw something on 43 Folders about how to clean a room. Can't find the link and have spent too much time looking for it. The short description is this: Look at the room you want to clean up. What's the first thing you notice? Sock on the floor -- pick it up. What's the next thing? A book to be shelved -- shelve it. And so on.

I am, however, less interested in organizing and cleaning than I am in just flat out throwing things away. I've got a big cardboard box and a whole bunch of trash bags in the basement. So I hope to go into the New Year without about eight or ten bagfuls of trash, or maybe eight or ten bagfuls of stuff that I can shine up and give to other people.

Here some links on media clutter:

Seattle Times article on the interruptive nature of technology.
Too much of a good thing
Less stuff more happiness?

Some Other Things to Think About

I try to remember a lot of things, but just as likely I'll forget, and it's a good thing because forgetting is a great defense mechanism. But here's a bit of reblogging in case I forget some of my current fascinations.

No doubt we'll see a lost of "Best of . . ." lists at the end of the year. This list attempts to compile the greatest equations ever. I'm not sure if there's a certain snobbery embedded within the idea, a certain elitism, that if something can't be expressed mathematically, that it can't be encoded and decoded by an elite, it shouldn't be worth considering. But some of the equations like "1 + 1 =2" are simple enough, and simplicity and practicality were some of the considerations that Robert Crease makes for in this Physics Web article. He also mentions the "sunrise equation" which I hope to include in a blog pilgrim entry.

Roger Bailey nominated the "sunrise equation" cos(time) = -tan(lat) x tan(dec), which identifies the time of sunrise or sunset as a function of latitude and solar declination. This, he pointed out, is "fundamental to our sense of time" and it "fits on a T-shirt".

A Boing Boing entry on logic gates built with legos somehow seems useful, but I'm not sure why.

I was looking up other things, when I found this link on 18th Century hacking. Apparently postage was relatively expensive and the cost was borne by the receiver of the message. The workaround was for the sender to somehow send a coded message to the receiver, and the receiver could refuse the letter, and still receive the message. They didn't have Captain Crunch whistles back then but the same ideas applied.

If you like the idea of extreme recycling, check out this Mother Earth News article.

I got listed among other Pittsburgh bloggers on Three Rivers Online. What I like best is that my weblog is categorized as "Personal Science." I'm still getting my head around that. Even though I'm not sure what it means, I will aspire to it.

Pay Per Click

Here's a think piece by John Battelle in Technology Review. The internet, he says, provides an opportunity to change the advertising equation among publishers, advertisers, and readers.

Because an Internet-based ad is already a little piece of software, it can be tagged with information about its target audience, how much the advertiser is willing to spend to reach that audience (and how much each click will cost), what kind of websites are acceptable or forbidden (such as porn sites), and any number of other attributes. Most important, each ad could communicate with a “home” application that tracks its progress and status.

Battelle goes on to say that publishers can pick and choose among these little bits of software (ads), paste in the ad, check in with the advertiser, and then decide when the campaign is finished. That might seem not-too-much-different until Battelle intends the message for bloggers, that is, you and me, and you begin to realize how much easier it will be to go from being a reader to a publisher, a publisher to an advertiser. It might even be like playing rock, paper, scissors with perfect information. You know so and so's throwing a rock, you better throw some paper. Personally, the arguments and the ideas are a little esoteric. As democratic as it sounds, I don't know anyone who advertises on their site. I don't know the mechanics of it, nor the law of it, nor the accountancy of it. I'll be checking out blogads and other sites and come back to the subject later.

It's Time, Tom Murphy

Sixteen years ago I knocked on doors for Candidate Tom Murphy, when he lost in his first bid for Mayor of Pittsburgh. I did even more work for him 12 years ago. Tom Murphy seemed to be a blend of community-minded and progressive, the fiscally conservative and the genuinely visionary. He wasn't even sworn in before I realized that on issue after issue Murphy had shown himself to be divisive, arrogant, and dogmatic. Tom Murphy announced yesterday that he won't be mayor for much longer.

For someone like myself who had worked in community groups, I'd seen first hand, second hand, and third hand, the enmity he had for those in community organizing. As soon as he'd gained office, Murphy made it a habit to tell community groups that they were failures and that they didn't think big enough. Within a few years, the Murphy administration knee-capped the URA's Housing Recovery Program, which had been partly responsible for the revitalization of my Pittsburgh neighborhood, Friendship. Murphy instead concentrated his efforts on the big deals like the stadiums, the convention center, Lazarus, Lord & Taylor, Summerset, and South Side Works. All projects that have or had little to no connection to where and how Pittsburghers live, shop, and work.

So I haven't been a big Tom Murphy fan for the past 11 years, but my sentiments aren't going to build a stick or polish the chrome of the Pittsburgh to come.

So, what to do?

1) A little judicious pruning, persuading the geniuses of the present administration that their services are best used elsewhere.

2) A determined but sunny attitude that things can improve would be helpful. Some might say that attitude doesn't matter, but results are what count. Obviously, they haven't observed the results of Tom Murphy's lousy (insert stronger modifier, if desired) attitude.

3) Do our homework and make sure we make good decisions in May and November (I'm not counting out a Republican or a Democrat running as a Republican). Myself, I'm going for the man or woman who has a lot of humility, who likes to not only listen (which I admit Mayor Murphy did a lot of) but hear what people have to say (which Mayor Murphy didn't do a lot of), someone who can spend time reviewing numbers (I got the impression that Mayor Murphy had a distaste for actual numbers), who can still project a vision for the city, and who can claw out favorable agreements between the state legislature, the Act 47 board, the oversight board, the powers-that-be (all of whom I imagine to number in the hundreds) and the 330,000 citizens of Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh has plenty of assets and plenty of potential, and becoming the Mayor of Pittsburgh is still a desirable pursuit. I'm looking forward to seeing some promising candidates emerge. Of course, don't trust me to pick the right one. I was an early Tom Murphy backer.

Don't Panic

If you're at the Tropic of Capricorn the Sun will be directly overhead today. But if you're here in Pittsburgh at approximately 40.5 degrees north latitude, you'll see the sun much farther down in the sky, and you'll only get about nine hours and fifteen minutes of sunlight — that is if it's not too cloudy, which it is.

The precise moment of the 2004 solstice was at 7:42 A.M. EST.

According to the Candlegrove site, the Earth leans slightly on its axis at 23 degrees and 27 minutes off the perpendicular to the plane of orbit. The variations in the angle in how the earth is pointed toward the sun, is, as you know, what causes the seasons. The winter solstice marks the shortest day and the longest night of the year.

Information Please provides the following:

The sun appears at its lowest point in the sky, and its noontime elevation appears to be the same for several days before and after the solstice. Hence the origin of the word solstice, which comes from Latin solstitium, from sol, "sun" and -stitium, "a stoppage." Following the winter solstice, the days begin to grow longer and the nights shorter.

Some man-made objects, including old ones like Maeshowe in the Orkney Islands and new ones like James Turrell's Roden Crater in Arizona, illustrate and celebrate this celestial event.

I See by the Papers . . .

that those old 20th century German scientists, Albert Einstein and Kurt Gödel used to be great chums. The Chronicle article is an interesting, if somewhat choppy read, by Palle Yourgrau. The gist of the article is that Einstein and Gödel used to walk home together from work, and if only we were a little bird following along on the conversation, we'd be much more enlightened about the nature of time.

The P-G's Gretchen McKay writes about new and used vintage appliances. The emphasis is more on buying than on recycling, remaking, or hacking, so I'm not sure if the story is more counter-revolutionary than revolutionary.

Speaking of counter-revolutionary, establishment spokesman Christopher Hitchens reviews books on the history of hippies. Given that he was reviewing three books and only had a couple of thousand words to work with, I shouldn't have been surprised that he gave short shrift to the subject. But the time Hitchens spent making snarky asides and talking about corrupt communes could have been better spent outlining some of the challenges that the people formerly known as hippies faced — and still face.

Of course, the true revolutionaries are in the White House and are putting together the modern day equivalent of street theater. The P-G's Ann McFeatters, who's usually fairly even-handed, has a blistering criticism on what some might call — me included — an attempt to swindle the American public.

Extreme Finger Counting

Here's a semi-useful bit of knowledge that might prove to be more useful later on. Intuitor's site on binary counting has information on how to count with your fingers not only to ten but to 35, 99, 255, and even 1,023. It took me a while to get a hang of the system. The key is to change the base. In a decimal system (base 10), you only have room for one placeholder, ten digits represent ten units. In binary, you've got ten placeholders. Each finger by being up or down can represent a one or a zero.

As you might have figured out, four, 20, and other numbers are relatively not safe for work.

Just remember that each increase in a place holder is an increase in magnitude, and you've pretty much got it down. Here are the orders of magnitude in binary finger counting:

right pinky, 1
right ring, 2
right middle, 4
right index, 8
right thumb 16
left thumb, 32
left index, 64
left middle, 128,
left ring, 256
left pinky, 512.

To figure out what a big number is, just check to see whether a finger is up or down, zero or one, on or off.

(512 x 1) plus (64 x 1) plus (32 x 1) plus (1 x 1) equals 609. Rock on, or as we say in the binary finger counting world, "585."

Whatever Floats Your Boat

Actually what they show are rafts at Floating Neutrinos. Boats need a hull displacing water to remain floating, while rafts can float by themselves. Something I never thought about until I saw the Floating Neutrinos site. Plenty of good pictures, instructions, and philosophy by Poppa Neutrino. My friend, Mark, turned me on to this after he saw this way out recycled boat in Key West that had floatingneutrinos.com painted on the side. The site exhibits a sensibility for the new millenium, or at least it makes me want to put together a raft that I can float down the Allegheny.

I've Got the Music in Me

This article in the New York Times reports on nanotechnology expert James Gimzewski who has been recording yeast cells.

He discovered that a yeast cell produced about 1,000 vibrations a second. When he amplified the signal, a musical hum filled the room. ''It wasn't at all what I expected,'' he recalls. ''It sounded beautiful.''

Writer Clive Thompson says that this might have implications for the study of human cells. For instance dying or cancerous cells might have different sounds. In any case, even when I'm quiet my whole body has a jam session going on. For all I know, there really might be a party in my pants.

Just Messing Around

I found the VGA function on my camera to make stop-action movies. Check it out here.

Get Your Engines Running

The next time I get stuck — can't think of anything, can't write anything —maybe I'll think about one of these two methods.

One is from Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit, who occasionally brings up anger as a good motivator:

The tantrum, judiciously applied, is a great wake-up call to get people to do something. It's the same for you when you're alone and scratching for an idea. Throw a tantrum at yourself. Anger is a cheap adrenaline rush, but when you're going nowhere and can't get started, it will do . . . When you're scratching for an idea, you don't need to think ahead. You have to trust the unconscious rush and let it hurtle forward unedited and unencumbered. Let it be awful and awkward and wrong. You can fix the results later, but you won't generate the ideas at all if you cool down the white hot pitch.

The other is from the story "Westbound Tanker," from The Most of A.J. Liebling. In it Liebling describes the tanker's steward, who had once been a gymnast.

He spent a good deal of time composing letters to English and American girls on a portable typewriter he had in his cabin, and when he was at a loss for an English phrase he would get up, face his berth, and jump high in the air, twisting in time to land in a sitting position. Usually three or four jumps would bring him the phrase he wanted and he would return to his typewriter.

Union Orthotics

My son pulled a tendon in his foot, and needed to get an orthotic boot a couple of weeks ago. We went to Union Orthotics and Prosthetics, a wonderful workshop on Liberty Avenue by the Iron City Brewery. On the wall are a collection of photos, a succession of storefronts, since the turn of the last century. I went back to take pictures of them yesterday.

I spoke with a man there who said they do some work with hammers, tongs, and anvils, and some work with micrometers and digital readouts. Union Orthotics concentrates on the patient care aspect of the business, most new technologies are developed elsewhere, but I still consider this one of those places in Pittsburgh where important things are made.

Infographic Treats

Just found out about Funnel Inc. from Kottke. Funnel has loads of ways of looking at things that simplify, collate, illuminate how things are made, how things work, how to show detail in a map, how web sites are designed, and how people can work together.

Fill 'Er Up

A smaller version of this story appeared in the November 25th City Paper:

After 16 years of selling thousands of gallons of gasoline a day, Chuck Wichrowski sells soybeans five gallons at a time -- as biodiesel fuel. Wichrowski, 55, of Greensburg, left what he calls the "loss leader" business of selling gas to run Baum Boulevard Automotive in North Oakland.

But now he’s back in the business, selling fuel made of soybeans, one hundred percent biodiesel that, while little different than vegetable oil, requires no changes or adjustments for most diesel engines.

"The customers I have are mainly concerned with saving the planet," says Wichrowski, but he sees interest in biodiesel growing. "We’re trying to get a larger tank and a pump. CMU has expressed an interest in using biodiesel for its fleet. They already have purchased biodiesel for emergency generators."

The use of biodiesel is nothing new. Back in 1895, Rudolf Diesel developed his first engine to run on peanut oil. Although fossil-fuel based was cheaper, Diesel harbored the desire that vegetable oil would make its return. "Such oils may become in the course of time as important as the petroleum and coal tar products of the present time," said Diesel in 1912.

Overall, biodiesel can reduce the amount of pollutants expelled from diesel engines. Producing and using biodiesel is carbon-neutral, meaning it takes as much carbon from the atmosphere as it gives, not contributing to greenhouse gases. With federal mandates to reduce sulfur in diesel fuel, biodiesel blends will be in demand to reduce sulfur and substitute its lubricating capacity.

Biodiesel America, an organization "whose mission is to change 100,000 diesel school buses to biodiesel by 2010," outlines biodiesel’s advantages in emissions:

There are no sulfur dioxide emissions from biodiesel, since biodiesel does not contain sulfur. Soot emissions from biodiesel are 40-60 percent lower. Carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions are cut by between 20 percent- 60 percent. Vehicles running on biodiesel still emit the same amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) as they did while running on diesel fuel. The difference is that the CO2 from burning biodiesel will be captured in the next batch of crops grown to make biodiesel. Then it will be emitted and captured again and again ad infinitum. The key here is that no new carbon dioxide is added to the Earth’s atmosphere.

Dick Morchesky of Export Energy, a biodiesel supplier in Export, PA, says that the typical blend is 20 percent biodiesel. Export Energy supplies the Pennsylvania Turnpike with biodiesel and says that they use a 20 percent blend. Morchesky says that the goal in the next few years is for biodiesel to capture 20 percent of the 15 billion gallon market.

"I don’t think you can grow enough soybeans to replace all fossil fuels. If you can replace 20 percent that’s the goal." In addition to soybeans, though, other agricultural products — rapeseed, hemp, sunflower, mustard seed, and algae among them — can be used to make biodiesel. Even some of the three billion gallons of waste vegetable oil generated annually is harvested from McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and other fryers to make biodiesel.

“No additions, no subtractions, no changes to the engine,” says Morchesky. “If you have an older car you’ll have to replace the rubber seals. But today’s engines don’t have natural rubber seals.

“I’m 75 and I’ve been in business my whole life. Once in a while there’s a snake oil salesman who will try to sell you on a new carbeuretor or an additive that will upset the whole industry. This is not any snake oil. It does work, and will work. It’s an attempt by the country to try to lower dependence on foreign oil sources.

As one source put it, “No one died defending a soybean field.”

According to Biodiesel America, the price we pay at the pump for gas is not a true reflection of the actual cost of petroleum.

To remedy the situation, biodiesel producers and consumers will soon receive a boost. On October 22, George Bush signed the JOBS act. As of January 1st, the act specifies that for each percent of biodiesel gas sold producers will receive a one cent tax incentive, meaning BD100 (one hundred percent biodiesel) will receive a one dollar tax incentive.

José Ernesto Mieres, 36, of Squirrel Hill, has been using biodiesel in his car for three years now, and has seen its availability slowly increase. He first bought biodiesel mail order, and has been an online advocate for biodiesel on a few websites, including biodieselnow, and last year gave a presentation at CMU's Energy Expo on biodiesel.

"We first began to buy it from a place in southeast Ohio, then from Export Fuel. I was their first customer," says Mieres. Mieres recently bought recycled vegetable oil from Duff Science Company in central Pennsylvania. Chemist Keith Duff sells about 120 gallons a week, currently priced at $2.05 per gallon, and is looking to increase production capabilties to a half million gallons by first quarter 2005.

Mieres says that one of the obstacles to biodiesel's use is the unavailability of cars that run diesel.

"But everything else — construction vehicles, trains, big rigs, farm equipment, power generators, and ships — run on diesel. Your mind flies. We’ll no longer have to be slaves to the petroleum industry. But it will take money to liberate us to the possibilities."