Along with poisoning pigeons in the park, thoughts of the end of "home heating season" with its attendant high fuel bills run rampant in my now-thawed capital unit. Here in the Northeast the typical home is heated with oil, whose price was up by about 50% over last year. It could have been worse - gas heating was up even more. My own personal response to this increase was to turn the thermostats down a bit, wear a clothing item that I am told is called a "hoodie" over my T-shirt, and remit the money I have saved on gasoline for my hybrid Prius to the heating oil supplier. Not a terribly satisfying outcome, but I survived, as did almost all of my neighbors. To put a brighter outlook on it all, spring is here!
Looking back on "home heating season," however, I realized that the whole concept needs rethinking. When I turned the thermostats down, the house didn't complain that it was cold. It needed no "hoodie." Hice, it seems, are quite stoic. Unless you abuse them with an overabundance of snow, they are content to bear the chill as well as or better than the trees and mined refractory substances whence they came. Unlike their occupants, they are not whiners! Bearing in mind the squeaky wheel principle, if they're not complaining, why heat them? Why not heat just the occupants?
Richard, that's stupid! You have to heat the house to keep the occupants warm, don't you know that?" (No I don't, I reply both parenthetically and petulantly.)
Consider the cup of hot chocolate in the microwave oven. Turn on the microwave, the hot chocolate gets warm. The microwave oven remains cool, as does the air within. Considering my diet and the well-known percentage of water that we all are, how do I differ from a cup of hot chocolate? Well, I'm surrounded by skin instead of a cup, and there are few solid bits in there, but there isn't that much difference. Why not heat the "house" with microwaves? The occupants would remain warm without wasting energy on the uncomplaining ottomen.
Richard, that's worse than stupid, it's lethal. Don't you know that microwaves cause cancer, make your eyeballs explode, and cause your offspring to grow wings?
Sez who? Do you know anyone whose eyeballs have exploded? (And, just speaking aesthetically, are wings such a bad thing? At least they'd leave the nest early!) In fact, we (and Science, too) are largely ignorant about what would happen if we tried to heat people with microwaves. For example, large numbers of studies have been performed to determine whether low-power (but almost touching the head) cell phone microwave energy has any deleterious effect on the brain. Disregarding the obvious effect on the voice — making it much too loud — the studies have yet to find any provable dain bramage. What about whole body microwave irradiation? The answer is simply unknown. By placing the microwave source far enough from the occupants so that no point received more than "warming" energy, it might be possible to save an enormous percentage of the home-heating bill.
Of course some home heating is necessary, lest the pipes freeze or you find that you can't get up after watching The Sopranos. But the mathematical equation that dictates the amount of energy needed to heat a home shows that even a small decrease in the temperature demanded results in a large saving. If it's 30 degrees (F) outside, it takes much less than half the energy to heat the house to, say, 50 degrees, than it does to heat it to 70. Can we make up the energy with microwave people warmers? Maybe!
I'm not suggesting that you try this at home, at least not until you're beyond reproductive age. Even so, it would be nice if there were a feasibility study, perhaps funded by the appliance folks. People are warmed by radiation every day. We call it sunlight. We call it infrared*. Sitting in front of the fireplace is nothing more than being heated by really tiny microwaves. Let's not let our automatic panic at such seemingly bizarre notions prevent us from at least exploring the possibility of this novel home heating plan.
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*Infrared, which is almost certainly safe, is not out of the question, either. It would require aiming, but that's fairly easy. Maybe I should invent the "homeostat."
07 August 2007
Calibrating Risibility
Mr. Skilling remarked that he wouldn't recommend the Raptor plan "except for the fact that it allowed him to circumvent the accounting rules." Mr. Glisan said Mr. Lay "giggled" at the plan — though he later conceded it might have been more of a chuckle. (Wall Street Journal, 25 March 2006, reporting on the trial of Enron's Lay and Skilling.)
You might guffaw at at the defense's attempt to draw the concession from Glisan. But Skilling and Lay are on trial and the jury's decision may hinge on whether it was a "giggle" or a "chuckle." If they walk on a "chuckle" the effort will have been worth it. (I suspect that if Lay had "cackled" it would be "life without possibility of parole.")
The Inuits, who used to be Eskimos, have a bunch of words for "snow." I wonder if they snicker at us when they realize that we only have one, and skiers have to use those silly adjectives. Or, do they crow* when they realize that we have no idea how many words they have for snow and have to say "bunch" instead of doing research.
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"Crow" doesn't really fit. I got it from a thesaurus, but I think "crow" is more of a mental than audible expression of mirth, verging on an English equivalent to schadenfreude.
You might guffaw at at the defense's attempt to draw the concession from Glisan. But Skilling and Lay are on trial and the jury's decision may hinge on whether it was a "giggle" or a "chuckle." If they walk on a "chuckle" the effort will have been worth it. (I suspect that if Lay had "cackled" it would be "life without possibility of parole.")
The Inuits, who used to be Eskimos, have a bunch of words for "snow." I wonder if they snicker at us when they realize that we only have one, and skiers have to use those silly adjectives. Or, do they crow* when they realize that we have no idea how many words they have for snow and have to say "bunch" instead of doing research.
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"Crow" doesn't really fit. I got it from a thesaurus, but I think "crow" is more of a mental than audible expression of mirth, verging on an English equivalent to schadenfreude.
Powers of Ten - Part 2.003
What's wrong with this item?
NASA fired three microsatellites into space over the Pacific Ocean Wednesday morning to study the earth's magnetic fields, a week after a planned launch was scrubbed due to a technical malfunction. The 55-pound (24.75-kilogram) ST5 satellites, which will test new technologies for future science missions, were carried aloft from Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard a Lockheed L-1011 jet... (CNN 22 March 2006)
No two things that couldn't be fixed easily if CNN weren't innumerate. Not that I mean to double out CNN. Show me a news outlet that doesn't make this sort of mistake on a daily basis and I'll show you a weekly publication. (Sound familiar? See this less-than-a-week-ago blogentry.)
To begin with, let's type "55 pounds in kilograms" into the Google search engine. It returns the following: "55 pounds = 24.9475804 kilograms." So our first discovery is that CNN has deficient multiplication skills, or perhaps simply ignored the "94" after the decimal place. Am I saying, then, that they should have used that unwieldy number in their parenthetical translation? No: It should have read "The 55-pound (25-kilogram) ST5 satellites..." The reason is not that 55 pounds isn't 24.9475804 kilograms. It's that, even though the weight of the satellites came from NASA, they truly didn't weigh 55 pounds. NASA, despite some English/Metric lapses in the recent past, presumably does know the weight of the satellites to the nearest gram or so. But they also know that nobody cares, and so they delivered a reasonable approximation to the media. Fifty-five pounds means "closer to 55 than to 54 or 56." Nobody old enough to disclose his weight gives it or even knows it to the nearest ounce. Likewise, when NASA approximated the satellites' weight only to the nearest pound, there was no justification for giving it to the nearest 10 grams, i.e., less than half an ounce, in the metric translation.
I often puzzle over these frequent blunders and wonder why they continue to make them. The only plausible explanation is that they are doing it to irritate me.
This has been part 2.003. I'm sure there will be more, probably soon.
NASA fired three microsatellites into space over the Pacific Ocean Wednesday morning to study the earth's magnetic fields, a week after a planned launch was scrubbed due to a technical malfunction. The 55-pound (24.75-kilogram) ST5 satellites, which will test new technologies for future science missions, were carried aloft from Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard a Lockheed L-1011 jet... (CNN 22 March 2006)
No two things that couldn't be fixed easily if CNN weren't innumerate. Not that I mean to double out CNN. Show me a news outlet that doesn't make this sort of mistake on a daily basis and I'll show you a weekly publication. (Sound familiar? See this less-than-a-week-ago blogentry.)
To begin with, let's type "55 pounds in kilograms" into the Google search engine. It returns the following: "55 pounds = 24.9475804 kilograms." So our first discovery is that CNN has deficient multiplication skills, or perhaps simply ignored the "94" after the decimal place. Am I saying, then, that they should have used that unwieldy number in their parenthetical translation? No: It should have read "The 55-pound (25-kilogram) ST5 satellites..." The reason is not that 55 pounds isn't 24.9475804 kilograms. It's that, even though the weight of the satellites came from NASA, they truly didn't weigh 55 pounds. NASA, despite some English/Metric lapses in the recent past, presumably does know the weight of the satellites to the nearest gram or so. But they also know that nobody cares, and so they delivered a reasonable approximation to the media. Fifty-five pounds means "closer to 55 than to 54 or 56." Nobody old enough to disclose his weight gives it or even knows it to the nearest ounce. Likewise, when NASA approximated the satellites' weight only to the nearest pound, there was no justification for giving it to the nearest 10 grams, i.e., less than half an ounce, in the metric translation.
I often puzzle over these frequent blunders and wonder why they continue to make them. The only plausible explanation is that they are doing it to irritate me.
This has been part 2.003. I'm sure there will be more, probably soon.
05 August 2007
Tony's Theory of Government
Tony Agnello is a long-time friend and colleague. Today he mentioned that he was arguing with a Libertarian and asserted the following conclusive argument:
"Government should be as small as possible, but no smaller."
He did not mention exactly how the other gentleman replied, but I imagine there was a lot of silence and perhaps a bit of slinkage involved.
My own observations: Tony is a very smart guy. Smart enough, for instance, to not have a blog, which is why this ended up here. And he even looked a little Einsteinian today.
"Government should be as small as possible, but no smaller."
He did not mention exactly how the other gentleman replied, but I imagine there was a lot of silence and perhaps a bit of slinkage involved.
My own observations: Tony is a very smart guy. Smart enough, for instance, to not have a blog, which is why this ended up here. And he even looked a little Einsteinian today.
YOP or STOLD?
Today, another contribution from CATWOKE*
There are STOP signs, and then there are STOP signs. At some STOP signs, you slow down, casually look around, and continue on your way, make your turn, or whatever. At other STOP signs, you really, truly, come to a complete stop, shove your face as far forward as you can, carefully look in all directions, and then proceed when the whizzing column of death leaves you a sufficient space. All drivers know this, all cops know this, and experienced drivers on familiar routes cope with it with few repercussions and almost no bodywork. This semiotic dissonance is caused, in my humble opinion, by the limited repertoire of signs bequeathed to our road regulators.
Of course I have a solution.
The YOP SignThe less-common situation, where your vision is clear to right but somewhat limited to the left. You can see there's nobody on your right, and nobody close enough to affect you on the left while you go through the intersection, so just keep going to make your left turn.
The STOLD Sign
The more common, case, where it's clear that you can make a right turn, but you really want to think a bit before dashing out across two directions of traffic. Yield to make a right, STOP before making a left.
The more common, case, where it's clear that you can make a right turn, but you really want to think a bit before dashing out across two directions of traffic. Yield to make a right, STOP before making a left.
The benefit of this new signage is obvious! Drivers unfamiliar with the area will have better cues, and there will be less wasted energy since less stopping will be necessary. And of course, the remaining STOP signs, for which there frequently is justification, will really mean STOP, to the enhancement of safety and increment of law enforcement coffers.
I don't think I'll try to patent this one.
*Citizens Against the Waste of Kinetic Energy
PO'-tate or Po-TATE'?
Answer: PO'-tate.
Potate is what you do after a hard day's work at the office or on a lazy Sunday AM. You can potate on the couch watching the teevee, you can potate in the easy chair. You can potate with the crossword puzzle or while looking out the window watching the natures. Many would argue that if you potate too much you are contributing to our nation's epidemic of obesity. (They would most likely be correct.)
What you can't do is po-TATE'. I tried to explain this to the staff of the NPR program "The Next Big Thing" during a telephone interview for a "What's Your Word" segment. They were very insistent that I was pronouncing it incorrectly. I reminded them that it was my word and I had accenting rights. They reminded me, although it took several months of recording and fruitlessly checking for the segment, that it was their program. Oh well, NPR's loss is your gain, right?
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Follow-up: I just discovered the "Pseudodictionary." What a wonderful concept!
Potate is what you do after a hard day's work at the office or on a lazy Sunday AM. You can potate on the couch watching the teevee, you can potate in the easy chair. You can potate with the crossword puzzle or while looking out the window watching the natures. Many would argue that if you potate too much you are contributing to our nation's epidemic of obesity. (They would most likely be correct.)
What you can't do is po-TATE'. I tried to explain this to the staff of the NPR program "The Next Big Thing" during a telephone interview for a "What's Your Word" segment. They were very insistent that I was pronouncing it incorrectly. I reminded them that it was my word and I had accenting rights. They reminded me, although it took several months of recording and fruitlessly checking for the segment, that it was their program. Oh well, NPR's loss is your gain, right?
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Follow-up: I just discovered the "Pseudodictionary." What a wonderful concept!
04 August 2007
Powers of Ten
What's wrong with the next sentence?
"Earlier studies of WMAP data have determined that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, give or take a few hundred thousand years." (CNN 17 March 2006)
Nothing that couldn't be fixed easily if CNN weren't innumerate. Not that I mean to single out CNN. Show me a news outlet that doesn't make this sort of mistake on a daily basis and I'll show you a weekly publication. It's taken most of this century for scientists to pin down the age of the universe to the approximate 13.7 billion years quoted above. Doing so involved, among other issues, reconciling the age of stars in globular clusters which appeared to be older than the universe in which they resided.
When scientists produce numerical results, they are usually accompanied by "error bars," so that if a graph shows a point with a value of 175,000 and an error bar of 4000, the scientist believes that his measurement is most likely 175,000, and is very unlikely to be more than 177,000 or less than 173,000. These error bars can be large or small depending on the details of the measurement. If, as was the case of the measurement of the age of the universe, one measurement fell outside error bars from those of a measurement that was supposed to be consistent, it meant that something was wrong. After a lot of work, all the measurements agreed to a sufficient extent that 13.7 billion was believed to be a good estimate. Assuming they're right, the universe most likely is less than 13.8 billion years old, and more than 13.6 billion. If they had greater confidence, they might say the universe is 13.70 billion years old, or miraculously, 13.700 billion. To agree with the CNN report, though, it would need to be an "order of magnitude" or even ten times better than that! That's because CNN says "give or take a few hundred thousand years" instead of "give or take a few hundred million," as they should have. Have I made my point? Million? Thousand?
And that was only part one. (No, not part 1.0027.)
"Earlier studies of WMAP data have determined that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, give or take a few hundred thousand years." (CNN 17 March 2006)
Nothing that couldn't be fixed easily if CNN weren't innumerate. Not that I mean to single out CNN. Show me a news outlet that doesn't make this sort of mistake on a daily basis and I'll show you a weekly publication. It's taken most of this century for scientists to pin down the age of the universe to the approximate 13.7 billion years quoted above. Doing so involved, among other issues, reconciling the age of stars in globular clusters which appeared to be older than the universe in which they resided.
When scientists produce numerical results, they are usually accompanied by "error bars," so that if a graph shows a point with a value of 175,000 and an error bar of 4000, the scientist believes that his measurement is most likely 175,000, and is very unlikely to be more than 177,000 or less than 173,000. These error bars can be large or small depending on the details of the measurement. If, as was the case of the measurement of the age of the universe, one measurement fell outside error bars from those of a measurement that was supposed to be consistent, it meant that something was wrong. After a lot of work, all the measurements agreed to a sufficient extent that 13.7 billion was believed to be a good estimate. Assuming they're right, the universe most likely is less than 13.8 billion years old, and more than 13.6 billion. If they had greater confidence, they might say the universe is 13.70 billion years old, or miraculously, 13.700 billion. To agree with the CNN report, though, it would need to be an "order of magnitude" or even ten times better than that! That's because CNN says "give or take a few hundred thousand years" instead of "give or take a few hundred million," as they should have. Have I made my point? Million? Thousand?
And that was only part one. (No, not part 1.0027.)
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