Tag: technology

City of Seattle – Home heating fuel costs


City of Seattle – Fuel Costs

Notice the oil and electrical resistance heating systems. Even with a newer 80% efficient oil furnace, the cost of fuel is still more than double the cost of an older natural gas furnace. If I had a house with oil or resistance heat, buying a new gas furnace would be a no brainer. When paying $1,000 extra per year, it doesn’t take long to pay for a more efficient heating system.

But look at that high efficiency heat pump! It costs only $350/yr to heat the house. Because it’s a heat pump, it’s also an air conditioner. By switching to a heat pump,  A/C is included.

Using a heat pump is also the best choice for our environment. Here in Seattle, the vast majority (91% – http://www.seattle.gov/light/FuelMix/) of our electricity is generated from hydro. An electrical powered solution burns almost no fossil fuels and contributes almost zero pollutants to the environment.

If that still isn’t enough reason to choose a heat pump, consider the rapidly declining costs of solar power generation. The installed costs declined from 2009 to 2010 by 17%.  Costs have further declined by 11% in the first half of 2011. Solar now costs less than $6/W installed. Germany and Japan are further ahead, and installed costs there are under $4/W. In a few more years, residential solar will be the cheapest way to purchase energy. Having all electric appliances is preparation for that future.

MacBook Pro sleep causes network failure

A short time ago, my MacBook Pro developed a new and annoying habit. After putting it to sleep by closing the clamshell, and then waking it, the WiFi network wasn’t working.

Safari would report “You are not connected to the Internet” and DNS queries via dig in Terminal would fail with an “Unknown host” error message.  Interestingly enough, ifconfig reported that I did in fact have an IP address:

en1: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500

ether 60:33:4b:XX:YY:ZZ

inet6 fe80::6233:4bff:fe0a:d552%en1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x5

inet 10.0.1.43 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.0.1.255

media: autoselect

status: active

And netstat reported that I had a default route which pointed at my default network gateway:

$ netstat -rn

Routing tables

Internet:

Destination        Gateway            Flags        Refs      Use   Netif Expire

default            10.0.1.1           UGSc            7        0     en1

10.0.1/24          link#5             UCS             4        0     en1

Upon further examination, I was also able to ping the default gateway. And I was able to send DNS queries (dig example.com. @10.0.1.1 syntax) to the gateway and get them resolved. But attempts to resolve hosts using Snow Leopard’s DNS recursion failed.

The workaround was turning WiFi off and then back on. Voila, problem solved until the next time I put my laptop so sleep. Today I decided to find and fix the problem. The solution was disabling IPv6 support on the WiFi network interface (in Network control panel). Voila, problem solved.

 

HDR arrives for the masses

Dynamic range has been a limitation of photography since its inception. Film and digital photographers have used a number of techniques over the years (merging film negatives, dodging and burning of film, bracketing on digital cameras) to enhance the range of their photos. The historical problem of achieving High Dynamic Range (HDR) has always been the amount of time spent post-processing the images. With film, the process could take days. With digital photos, it was reduced to hours. With the introduction of HDR on the iPhone, the process takes two seconds.

Apple added HDR functionality to the iPhone with the recently released iOS 4.1 update. With a single tap of the shutter, the camera takes three photos and merges them. When shooting a stationary subject with a steady hand, the results are excellent. Otherwise, the results are mixed. I’m certainly glad the camera I have with me has it as an option.

It’s not just backhoes

From, Mother Earth Mother Board

In 1870, a new cable was laid between England and France, and Napoleon III used it to send a congratulatory message to Queen Victoria. Hours later, a French fisherman hauled the cable up into his boat, identified it as either the tail of a sea monster or a new species of gold-bearing seaweed, and cut off a chunk to take home.

When written well, history is fascinating, and often hilarious.

iPhone 4 early impressions

The good:

  • FaceTime. It works. It is easy. Video quality is surprisingly good. Audio quality is excellent. The audio quality I’ve experienced is better than an iPhone call, Skype, or iChat AV.
  • The video camera does remarkably well in changing lighting conditions. I can walk around the house while on a FaceTime call and my image remains clear and well exposed as the lighting change. It’s far more fun to FaceTime my sleeping babies to a friend with an iPhone than a laptop.
  • Phone voice quality is improved. Callers sound better and they report that I sound better too. My buddy Mike, 2,000 miles away in Michigan, reported that the quality was as if I was standing next to him.
  • The Retina Display is amazing. After getting the iPad, I had reduced my  reading on the iPhone to those times when I didn’t have a computer or iPad. I still prefer reading on the iPad, but I find myself reading more on the 4. While the iPad is in arms reach. I am continually surprised at the rendering and legibility of teeny tiny type.
  • Speed. The 3GS was a huge performance boost over the 3G. While the 3GS was no slouch, I still saw occasional pauses and delays in responsiveness. I have yet to see any lags or pauses on the iPhone 4.
  • Reception. My experience has been entirely positive. I was able to drive all the way home from work while holding a call. For the first time. I explained the reception issue to a friend, “Imagine you have an AT&T phone with poor reception (nearly all of them, including iPhones) and suddenly you get one with very good reception. Except when you have poor coverage and hold the phone wrong. Would you be disappointed?”
  • Battery life is greatly improved. I’ve had my 4 for a week and have charged it three times. Every previous iPhone had to be charged nightly. I suspect that when the novelty wears off and I’ve beaten all the levels in Angry Birds, I may get 3 days of ‘normal’ usage from a charge.

The Bad

  • I love how pocketable the 3G is. I carried the 3G and 3GS in my front pants pocket, vertically, with the glass against my leg and the curved plastic back facing out. The curved back nearly matched the profile of my leg, and that position protected the glass screen. I rarely noticed its presence. Being narrower, the 4 likes to  slide down and ride sideways. That produces a larger and less comfortable bulge, which I regularly correct. While the 4 is thinner, it often feels thicker while pocketed.
  • The 4 is glass on both sides. When I heard Apple describe the glass as 20 times stiffer and 30 times stronger than plastic, warning bells went off. While working in mechanical engineering departments, I enjoyed spending time in the prototype labs. Especially when that time ended by filling out forms with the words, “consumed in testing.” Whether plastic, metal, or glass, harder materials are more brittle. I do believe the 4 will be more scratch resistant. And possibly more impact resistant. But it’s still glass. If I’m out rock climbing and drop it while taking a picture, I believe the 4 is more likely to be significantly damaged. This will be the first iPhone I buy a case for.

To Be Determined

  • I was able to get 8 hours of backcountry GPS use out of the iPhone 3GS. That’s with the 3G, WiFi, and Bluetooth disabled and occasional use of the camera. For comparison, my buddy has an Android phone that lasts 3 hours while using GPS. I’ll be trying out the 4 soon with the recently updated Motion GPS, updated for background use in iOS 4. It would be great if I can get a weekend of use from a single charge.

Flash stumbles again

In November 2009, Palm announced Flash support for WebOS in the first half of 2010. In February 2010, Palm released WebOS 1.4 with support for Adobe Flash 10.1 Beta, which would be available for download in the Palm App Catalog. On April 18th, Adobe’s CEO announced that Flash for Android and WebOS would be delayed until the second half of 2010.

Today, Palm announced that they don’t know why Flash for WebOS is not yet available. Perhaps, like Steve Jobs pointed out, after years of trying, Adobe still cannot deliver a version of Flash that runs well on any mobile phone. Look at how poorly Flash performs on the HTC EVO, a brand new phone with super-sized hardware specs.

Goodnight Flash. You will be remembered fondly as a relic of another time. Just like floppy disks, token ring networks, and Helen Thomas.

BSD, how I love thee

Gordon called this morning. I always like hearing from Gordon, and today was no exception. Even when “the pooh has struck the rotary oscillator,” Gordon is polite and amiable. Since Gordon manages a slew of networks, the best way to keep in touch with him is to break one of his servers.

To make sure he doesn’t forget about me, I wrote a program to do this automatically. I’m quite clever about it. The breakages coincides with power outages, lightning strikes, and other such events so my tracks are always covered. Gordon has to call me at least once every year or two.

After a manual fsck, his server back came back online but wasn’t working. We figured out that he’d changed the default gateway of the network since the machine was last rebooted. We updated the routing table on the machine and all was well. Since it had been 14 months since the box was last touched, we decided I should do some updates.

Partway though, I filled up /var. Oh, the partition is only 256MB. That’s a tad on the small side, I thought. Then I looked at the disk size: 16GB. RAID 5. Seriously? 9GB disks. And 256MB of RAM. The Pentium III processor dates the machine to circa 1999. And I just upgraded the OS to current. Amazing.

iPad 3G and iPhone data plan

I picked the 3G iPad for 2 reasons: I want the 3G data while traveling, and I want the GPS because so many mobile apps make good use of it. I didn’t like the wait but it was worth it. Even without a 3G data plan active, the built in GPS is useful when coupled with a GPS app like Motion GPS, which has support for map caching. I have maps for the entire Greater Seattle area (street and topo) cached on my iPad.

For the car, I find the iPad to be a better car GPS than a mobile phone for two reasons. Because of the larger screen, I can nearly always see what I need in a single glance. The distraction time is less than with a mobile phone where the need to scroll, swipe, and tap little buttons is greater. The other reason the iPad beats a mobile phone for GPS is raw speed. Pressing a button results in instant changes, so there’s very little time spent glancing at the device to see if the desired data is displayed yet.

The best 3G iPad feature is being able to drop my iPhone SIM into the iPad and use the 3G data plan I already pay for. The ability to do so is limited by only two things: the carrier profile on the iPad needs to be set appropriately, and the iPhone SIM cards physical size. The iPad is not carrier locked so setting the carrier profile is a snap. That leaves dealing with the SIM cards physical size.

Some people have speculated that Apple chose the micro SIM format as a concession to AT&T. While that may be the case, I believe that Apple is leading the industry towards adoption of the micro SIM format and the soon to be released iPhone will also use the smaller SIM card.

I wanted to use the iPad with my existing 3G iPhone. An old credit card (for adapter material), a pair of kitchen shears, an x-acto knife, and a bit of careful trimming yielded me an adapter and a micro SIM I can use in both devices.

To 3D or not to 3D?

I’m still not sure I prefer 3D movies. We watched Avatar in 3D when it came out, at the really big IMAX (we have 3 in the area). Movie aficionados tell us that’s the only one to consider. Jen enjoyed the 3D experience where I just found it jarring. I kept finding myself thinking about the plot (or lack thereof) and the effects rather then being engaged and immersed.

Perhaps it is something in my head. I am rarely able to see the 3D stereograms that so many people enjoy.

I have been looking forward to seeing Avatar in 2D. Tonight we watched it on the 96″ HD screen in the living room. The planet of Pandora is smaller and less impressive in 2D. Or perhaps, that’s the difference between watching on a screen several stories tall versus one 4′ tall. Dropping off the side of a cliff on a banshee is less exhilarating. But I enjoyed the movie more. I was able to stay engaged.

Jen prefers the 3D version. And we both think the score was sorely lacking. But the movie is good enough to watch several times.