10 June 2010  

The building codes governing gas appliances are irrational.  I'm talking about appliances that burn natural gas, namely fireplaces, furnaces, water heaters, ovens, and stoves.  All of them burn natural gas to generate heat, and all of them have to exhaust the combusted air: but the rules vary widely depending on the appliance and its history:  Fireplaces have the strictest rules, since their ancestors were fire-prone wood-burning monsters.  But even with safer natural gas (no embers in the exhaust) the exhaust rules still require super-safe metal exhaust vents, and direct vent fireplaces must use concentric metal vents.   Heating furnaces that are direct vent do the exact same job as fireplaces, but their vents are PVC plastic, smaller (a decent size), and the intake and exhaust are separate pipes (which makes for a simpler installation).  Water heaters take their intake air from the room, and exhaust through a simple plastic or metal pipe: much simpler than furnaces.  Finally, ovens or stoves have no special venting requirements at all, and can vent their exhaust directly into a room (although most stove tops are required to have vent hoods, the fans are rarely turned on, and the CO2 directly goes into the room's air).   Finally, there are ventless fireplaces which act like stoves and simply burn room air and exhaust directly into the room.   Bottom line:  the rules are all over the place, and are rooted in 100-year-old safety issues.  My big beef is that I'm putting in a new direct vent fireplace and I'd like to have a simple, small vent pipes that are legal for furnaces, but I cannot: instead I'm required to use a huge concentric metal vent, that (because of its complexity) comes in only one size, namely, sized for the largest imaginable fireplace, so it is probably 10x larger than the corresponding vent for a furnace.  One side effect is that, in cold climates, these large vents let tons of freezing air enter the house during winter.

27 May 2010  

Financial woes in the world today:  Greece is defaulting on loans (it borrowed money to cover its large annual government deficit).   Lenders met with Greece, and extended the loan deadlines, in exchange for Greece promising to reduce its annual budget deficit to something like 5% of its GDP.  Somehow, that doesn't seem right.  Shouldn't the lenders insist on Greece having a zero deficit? or an annual surplus?  But so it goes in the world of international finance.  Countries routinely default on debt, and they merely have to suffer a few years of evil-eye stares from other countries, then all is forgiven.  Mexico defaulted, Argentina defaulted.  The lenders complain, but after a new regime takes over the government, lenders return, willing to make loans again. 

One thing I've never understood:  what stops a government from lying about how much $$ it has in its own bank account?  For instance, let's say Brazil buys some airplanes from Russia.  Russia's bank contacts Brazil's (national) bank and says "you owe us $8B".  Brazil's bank says "No problem, we'll transfer it overnight" and they initiate a digital money transfer.  Russia's bank account increases by $8B, and Brazil's account decreases by $8B.  But can't Brazil simply, on the sly, add another $8B or $10B or $20B into their account?  Sure, for small privately-owned banks, there are government auditors, but who is going to audit Brazil's national bank?  All the books are in Portuguese; all the bank employee's are Brazilian:  how deep can a team of foreign auditors dig during a 1 week audit?  

World cup is next month, in South Africa.  For the first time, it will be widely televised here in the United States, time-delayed of course.  I still cannot figure out why professional soccer is not more popular in the USA:  it sure seems like more kids play it than any other sport. And that has been the case for a generation ... say at least back to 1990.  Maybe it takes 2 or 3 generations for sports to take hold. Sure there is a 8-team professional league, but its attendance figures are in the basement.  I suppose it is just a case of the other sports having a dominance, and it is hard for a new sport to work its way into the entertainment realm:  the sport needs icons, heroes, idols, legends.  What do we have?  Mia Hamm?  I always thought soccer was superior to baseball or soccer or football in several regards:  (1) a true team sport, without a single dominant role like quarterback or pitcher;  (2) no stoppages: the play is continuous; (3) great disciplinary system (one warning, then you're out of the game); (4) a good combination of endurance and skill.   Basketball shares many of the same virtues.

Read Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift (1726).  Pretty darn entertaining.  I tried it when I was younger, but only got through the first section: A Voyage to Lilliput (I suspect a lot of readers bail out at the same point). The story is very entertaining, and the imagery of Gulliver awakening, tied down with strings by hoards of Lilliputians, is a classic visual.   I always heard that the book was supposed to be a biting satire, but I didn't quite get it.  It turns out that most of the satire (of Britain's political system and upper classes) is in the latter books:  Brobdingnag, Laputa, and Houyhnhnms, it is in these books that it becomes apparent he is mocking various occupations and individuals.  There is a quote in Voyage to Brobdingnag that is somewhat famous: "And [the king] gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together."

Read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Lewis Stevenson.  Absolutely phenomenal story:  I can see why its been made into a movie a few times.  Very well written, and very suspenseful.  Unfortunately, I knew the plot, so it was not as enjoyable as it would be to a reader who had no clue how the story was going to turn out.

Read Treasure Island, by Robert Lewis Stevenson. Another outstanding story, deserves to be called a classic.  I've never read it before ... my only knowledge of the story was the Disney movie adaptation, set the future, called Treasure Planet.  

I think there was a great, exciting period of adventure literature:

• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1872) - Jules Verne (also wrote A Journey to the Center of the Earth. etc )
• The Time Machine (1895) - H. G. Wells (also wrote The War of the Worlds,etc) 
• Treasure Island  (1883) - Robert Lewis Stevenson
• The Lost World (1912) - A. Conan Doyle

Notice how Gulliver's Travels (1726) was far earlier than these other examples.

2 Feb 2010  

Gluing plastic.  Should be easy, right?  We have a instant hot water dispenser in our kitchen, like this.  Looks great, but what a piece of junk.  Broke twice in the first month we had it (fixed under warranty, luckily). Now the 1/2 gallon under-sink tank is leaking ... it is only 3 years old!  Not under warranty any longer.  These are super handy devices for tea or coffee drinkers, but this company has a monopoly.  If any one can build a competitive product that lasts, they could make some money.  Anyway, I tried to fix the leaky water tank:  took it apart, and found the leak: a pinhole leak in a plastic 1/2 gallon tank.  Tried to glue it with epoxy, fiberglass, superglue.  Nothing worked.  Turns out is is made of either polyethylene (PE) or polypropylene (PP), neither of which can be glued.  To repair a hole in these kinds of plastics, you must "weld" them with heat.  You can actually buy a device called a "plastic welder" that heats air (kind of like a hair-dryer gun) to around 300 degrees F and focuses it at a small point (say 1/4" diameter).  You also have to buy a stick of similar plastic, and you heat the body of the hole, and the repair stick, and then they melt together.  I haven't tried that yet:  all the web sites indicated it is very tricky process that takes some practice, plus the cost of the welder hardware.

Read an article that says that they are building an official Wiccan prayer circle at the Air Force Academy in Colorado.  The Air Force Academy had some odd policy in the 1990s where the officials actually proselytized Christianity to the students, and there was discrimination against cadets that did not attend services in the Christian chapel.  Some Jewish students complained, and the policy was reversed recently (? around 2005).  Now, on the campus, there is a Jewish chapel and Buddhist chapel, soon to be joined by a "earth-centered religion" circle of stones.  I'm all for that:  the more the better.  I've also read that the Armed Services now provide a Wicca-style headstone for use in military cemeteries (in addition to currently available Christian, Jewish, and Muslim headstones).

2 Jan 2010  

Read Collapse, by Jared Diamond, the author of the renowned "Guns, Germs, and Steel".  Both books are very educational because they are synthesis of anthropology, history, and geography ... lots of good information drawn together.  In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond asserted that geography was the primary factor responsible for the prosperity and success of societies.  I thought that was just plain wrong, and ignored culture, values, and skills ... countries like Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore have very poor geographic attributes, yet are wildly successful. 

But in Collapse, Diamond produces a more balanced analysis by asking:  why do some civilizations collapse when faced with certain challenges, while others succeed?  He focuses on several notable past  failures (Maya, Easter Island, Greenland, Anasazi) and past successes (Iceland, Japan).  This book's theme is very similar to Toynbee's A Study of History.

Diamond's major theme is that collapses are due to a combination of five factors:  hostile neighbors, climate change, loss of friendly (trading) neighbors, environmental damage (by people), and the society's ability to respond to challenges.  He focuses on environmental damage caused by people, and notes that some societies respond pro-actively (e.g. Japan started managing their forests in the 1600s) and some don't (Easter Island deforestation).  

He then applies the lessons-learned to many modern societies, and surveys the recent environmental and societal history of Australia, Montana, China, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Rwanda.  He shows that the same reasons that ancient societies failed (deforestation, unrestricted competition for limited resources, etc) are responsible for most modern societal debacles (Haiti, Rwanda).  He claims that other societies are on the road to failure (Australia, China, Montana).  He is careful to point out that some failures are due primarily to political reasons.

As an aside, he confirms a politically incorrect observation I've made in the past:  that many primitive societies were very poor stewards of the environment, and Diamond goes through some well-known examples:  Maori causing the Moa to go extinct, Anasazi deforesting their New Mexico region, Easter Islanders deforesting their island, Native Americans causing many large-mammal species to go extinct.  Plus the absolutely atrocious torture and sacrifice of slaves and captives by Mayas, Aztecs, and many other groups.  Liberal defenders of the "primitive people lived in balance with nature but modern people do not" don't like to hear those observations.   Diamond addresses this head on and asserts that older cultures were no better and no worse than our own:  sometimes they were greedy and selfish, sometimes they weren't.  

One implication of the book, which won't be liked by conservatives, is that solutions to huge environmental problems (deforestation, ozone-layer depletion, climate change, overpopulation) are often best solved by centralized top-down authority:  The UN leading the CFC ban; Japan's Shoguns mandating forest management; China's 1-child policy; the US's Clean Air law.   He points out that, without a central authority, the problems often get worse due to "Im gonna get my slice of the pie" viewpoints that individuals and small groups can exhibit.  Even though everyone may be aware of the long-term consequences, it is difficult to sacrifice when one sees other groups continuing to be greedy.

The book is filled with many outstanding examples of foolish decisions that had devastating consequences for societies:  clear-cutting forests, importing rabbits into Australia, Rwanda's civil war, over-grazing, soil erosion, water pollution.  He is pretty bold about talking about overpopulation and how it has a major contributing effect on many of these historic instances of failure.  Memorably, he analyzes the Hutu/Tutsi violence in Rwanda and cites overpopulation as a contributory factor (people killing neighbors so the survivors could get a larger portion of the nations resources and land) although the primary cause was unethical leaders exploiting the masses to promote political agendas.   He contrasts Rwanda with Netherlands which is more heavily populated, and faces huge environmental issues (polders and dikes) yet is flourishing.

He ends the book by looking at the changes to the environment that are currently happening on a large scale (climate change, over-fishing, deforestation, pollution) and suggests that the examples of past societies - both failures and successes - may give guidance on how the modern world should tackle those challenges.  He does not overtly proselytize about pro-environmental themes, but the general tenor of the book is "See, many societies suffered horrible calamities because they failed to address environmental / population / food / climate issues, even though solutions were within their grasp."