House of the rising Moonglum

I just got back from a trip to Hawaii (pics forthcoming) and while there I had the opportunity to read some local news. In particular, given my own predilection for fear mongering, a series of articles on geothermal energy interested me. I was wondering aloud to my wife why Hawaii didn’t have more geothermal power generation, and it turns out that the locals have all sorts of concerns about the environmental damage that it would cause. (Unlike I guess the 78% of their electricity which is currently generated from oil.) Given their tidal wind solar and geothermal sources, renewables should be able to easily make up a majority of the power generation needs for the island, but it currently only provides 6%[1]. But vocal local opponents have stopped major projects from going forward to far. The series in the newspaper did a pretty good job of showing the benefits and describing more scientifically what the actual dangers are, and not just the presumed dangers.

Given that, the next piece of local fear that appeared in the newspapers is extremely humorous. There is currently an ongoing eruption on the big island. This is great for visiting, because you get to see something that doesn’t happen that often, but annoys the locals because it creates a bunch of SO₂ vapors blanketing the island with a fog like substance they call vog. People wrote into the paper complaining about it, and suggesting that “something needs to be done about the volcano.” Awesome. Some suggestions were put a dome over it and fill it with concrete. Fortunately that day a scientist responded, “the lava has been coming up through three miles of the earth’s crust, I don’t think your concrete is going to stop it.”

And now I read about another item from the Hawaiian courts. Apparently someone is suing to stop the LHC at CERN. Oh yeah, because it is going to create micro black holes and eat the planet away, all Earth style. I think the scientists who were afraid that the first nuclear explosion was going to engulf the entire planet in a chain reaction had a better argument. It also makes my fear of peak oil look like a downright sure thing.

[1] Numbers are from 2002.

I’m glad to see that the CTA is trying out serial hybrid busses. While cars are really too small to use current technology in, busses are large enough that the different drive train makes sense. A similar system has been in use by trains for years. The addition of a moderating battery and regenerative braking turns the diesel electric drive train into a true serial hybrid. The advantage of this over a standard hybrid is that you only have one drive-train and the gas powered engine can always run at optimal efficiency since it is just running a generator. This also means no more busses idling downtown for a half hour at a time.

CNN appears to have gotten their hands on a bunch of papers from al Queda in Iraq detailing the command structure and operations from mid to end 2006. It is a very interesting read because it shows that there really was a central structure for the insurgency in the Sunni areas in Iraq. It is also interesting because it shows that there is a real enemy to be fought there, and not just a conglomeration of independent groups. It gives some hope that they might be able to straighten things out some day. I think the most interesting item for me was their internal awareness that the tide had turned against them, long before the US ever figured that out.

It is also worth noting that much of the al Queda in Iraq violence has died down now, but there are plenty of other groups out there. I have to wonder now though if they aren’t similarly run, giving some chance that they could be stopped one day as well.

The announcement that wasn’t on Monday was that 10.6 is going to be coming out sometime next year. The reason they didn’t make a major announcement about it was that it isn’t going to actually have any new features. Apple is planning on going back over what they currently have and consolidating and pruning and improving. (The name is very clever, since it will basically have the same customer facing feature set as Leopard (aka 10.5) they are calling it Snow Leopard.)

For the non programmers who read my meow posts, cleaning up old code is absolutely critical. There are so many instances where the second time you write something it is about a million times better than the first. So doing an entire release cycle with no new user facing features is just about the best thing you can do with an OS.

My guess is that 10.6 will be by far and away the best OS Apple has ever made if they are able to stick to their plan. Of course, there will be some new features. Some API internals that will make the life of developers better, but hopefully they will be able to keep those to the minimum needed to really give the developers time to work on improving the existing code base. It is simply a focus on quality that you normally don’t see in software, where the constant drumbeat is for new and flashier features.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, if they are able to not shove a bunch of extra features in it, and how much they will charge for something that, while wildly improved over the previous version, doesn’t show any new features to the end user.

Another in a long list. My wife got me an iPhone for my birthday. It was very well done, she got me a case, stuck a picture of the phone in the case, and said that we could go get it when the new model comes out. True love. Well, we all know that the new model is coming out on July 11th so I was getting excited and started looking into what I need to do to have my cell phone number follow me. (Being self employed and being that business cards are the only way that I advertise, keeping my cell number is critical.) It looks like it won’t be too hard, but just to be sure I called Sprint (my current carrier).

I knew that my contract was up, because I have had my old phone for almost 4 years, and they keep asking me to extend by getting a new phone. We tried to use that to get my wife a new phone last year, but they wouldn’t let me switch the phone over to her number. (Again with the phone number.) In any case, her contract was up in March, but it turns out mine isn’t up until November!! After much cussing and moaning, it appears that when my contract was up last time, they sweet talked me into another two years by giving me $10 off my monthly bill (along with smaller charges if I went over on minutes.) I totally didn’t remember that, I mean it was a year and a half ago! ($10 x 24 = $240, how they talked me into that I don’t know or remember, but I definitely have the contract that spells it out rather clearly. I guess I didn’t think that I would ever want to get rid of my Treo.)

Grr.

So I asked how much it would be to break the contract given that there are (will be) only 4 months left on the contract. They said $200. I asked how much it would be if there was only 1 month? $200. 1 day? $200. Given my last few interactions with Sprint (see getting wife new phone from above) I was actually planning on leaving them anyway. This is the final nail in the coffin.

Now I just have to figure out the least expensive way to leave them without lying or losing my current phone number. I suppose I could just shell out the $200, but that makes the (admittedly much cheaper) iPhone that much more expensive. I could just wait the four months but I don’t really want to give Sprint another 4 months of business. (And aiiiieee! Waiting 4 months for the shiny!) I could try to find a taker for my cell plan, but I have a hard time believing that someone looking for a short term plan would want mine. Also I don’t know if that interferes with keeping my old phone number.

I could try dropping everything I don’t need, I can get it down to $70/mo. (tax & fees incl.) but that is still more than $200. Then of course there is just waiting until November.

Grr. I hate phone companies.

When I used to go to NYC all the time on a $100 per diem, I had to lower my standards for hotels. I did end up with a few rules however. No garbage on the floor when I enter the room. Nothing else living in the bed but me. Bathroom in the room. That sort of thing. All of those were made from experience. I recently attended an “emergency” wedding in Seattle. This means I didn’t have a lot of time to pick hotels, however it was suggested that La Hacienda might be near the event. It was, but it turns out that was about all it had going for it. I should have read the reviews before reserving a room. One guy claims they had bedbugs (I didn’t even put my bags down) and another said he thought he saw it on Cops. The walls were so thin that it shook with the wind, and didn’t keep the outside weather outside. Suffice it to say, there is a fairly long story involved in what happened next, but I will cut to the chase. New hotel rule:

Hotels must actually provide shelter.