GeekLimit

“SCiB” touted to be safer than today’s Lithium Ion, lasts 10 years, charges in minutes (@ up to 50 amps).

1/3 pound (150 gram) cell is
- the size of a mobile phone
- provides 4.2 aH @ 2.4 volts. (devices)

4.4 pound (2 kg) cell is
- the size of a small paperback novel
- provides 42 aH @ 24 volts. (vehicles)

If they are able to deliver in mass production at a profit, this could be a major new development in both transportation and electronic devices.

Toshiba Press Release

This is great - for those of you who have had the life-changing experience of owning a TiVo, things just got a lot better. TiVo has added bolean search to their wishlist management.

What this means is that while in the past, you were stuck choosing either to record:

• Any show named ‘Mythbusters’, or
• Any showing that listed ‘Adam Savage’, or
• Any showing that listed ‘Jaime Hyneman’, or
• Any showing on channel 48 at 9pm…
• (etc)

You can now use AND, OR or XOR…which TiVo calls ‘This and that’, ‘This or that’, and ‘This but not that’. So if you’re a big fan of the Mythbusters, and want to see where they pop up elsewhere other than on the show, you can record Mythbusters Wednesday nights, but you can also make a WishList to record shows where the title has the keywords ‘Jaime Hyneman’ AND ‘Adam Savage’.

Other uses for this might be if you’re a NASCAR fan and want just the races. You could choose keyword = ‘NASCAR’ AND category = ‘Auto Racing’. That way, you get the races and none of the NASCAR talk shows.

Or maybe you want all showings where title = ‘Late Night with Conan O’Brien’ and keyword = ‘Andy Richter’, and nostalgicize about the old days.

A few notes, however: (TiVo this is your homework)

1. I could add multiple items, but had no way to select ‘AND’ or ‘OR’. It just shows a dot between the keywords, so I’m at a loss as to what that means. No idea where I can choose the ‘This but not that’. I have a pretty non-standard TiVo unit (Toshiba TiVo/DVD player), but that seems like a major voyage of the failboat on TiVo’s fault. Too difficult to have a lab with all the models in it to test feature rollouts?
2. TiVo’s database is terrible. It seems that I can only choose from actor’s names that will be on shows in the next few weeks. How hard could it be to give imdb.com a ring and work out a linkup? For example, I put in ‘Carolla’, and no listing for Adam. So no luck for people who want to catch Adam on any rare rerun of the Man Show? I realize his other shows aren’t in the rotation these days, but at least give people the capability to toss that net out there just on the offchance that they’re reshown at 3am some day.

Here in Chicago, there are magnetic sensors in the interstates surrounding the Chicagoland area.  I saw a special on TV once showing the central system, it was pretty cool.  The sensors report in to a central machine, and update a display every 2 seconds or so to show traffic flow.  By knowing how many vehicles travel through a given set of checkpoints over a given amount of time, they can estimate average speed, and assume that slow traffic (like 30 mph) means a traffic jam.

Originally meant for emergency crews, this information has been used to give real-time traffic reports to the public.  The best site I’ve seen that uses this info (at least in Chicago) is the one over at gcmtravel.com.  I like it, because not only are you able to look up traffic conditions, but you can look up historical traffic statistics.  This doesn;t sound like much, until you realize that if you look at the data, you can save (and I do) over 15-20 minutes in the car by shifting your departure time as little as 5 minutes.  This is accomplished by timing your travel so you’re not in the congested sections of highway when they traditionally have problems.

The problem in the past has been that I’ve had to look up directions, then go look up traffic.  Not anymore!  Google maps now offers the same color-coded type of traffic information that I’m used to, and it looks like it’s a great value-add for the Maps service.

Suggestions:

• change the travel times based on traffic conditions (might do this already, but I can’t tell)
• suggest other departure times to minimize exposure to historical traffic hotspots (this might be in a special pop-out or something…  “Commute planner” or whatever…)

All in all, great job, maps team.  Yet another example of the success of a value-added feature that rivals the value of an entirely new service, all while leveraging an existing product/user base.

CC photo by Douglas - westbound

[youtube]SPE8vL5hlFA[/youtube]

Here’s a tip I got from Skip Barber Racing School, relating to when you’re driving a stick-shift and going out of control. In racing you drive with both feet, the left does the clutch and brake, and the right does the gas.

• ‘When in doubt, both feet out’
• What this means is that if you don’t know what the car’s doing, don’t do anything. Don’t hit the brakes, and definitely don’t hit the gas (as shown in the first car in the clip). This keeps the car balanced, and reduces the risk of making a bad situation worse, DO what you can with small inputs to the steering wheel and try to recover.
• ‘When in a spin, both feet in’
• This is an emergency measure when you’re definitely beyond the point of salvaging the situation. Put the clutch and brake to the floor and hold on. This will definitely not stop the spin, but since it’s too late anyway, you’ll slide in a predictable direction, and hopefully the ABS system will be going crazy trying to help you stop. This also keeps you from over-correcting and ‘hooking’ (fishtailing, then spinning) into oncoming traffic, etc.

It’s hard to prescribe what to do when driving on pure ice like this. The best advice would be to not go out until the plow trucks have had a chance to do their job. If you do have to go out, these two things might keep you from making a bad situation worse, as demonstrated by the person who chose to lay on the gas in the first car. Unpredictable, and decidedly worse than if they would have just locked the brakes and taken the initial hit.

Note: there is a car that later does this. Although they are sliding directly sideways and can’t do anything about it, by sticking with it they took the least abuse from the bad situation they were in.

Edit: I’d also like to point out that the car control techniques taught at Skip Barber Driving/Racing School have to date kept me out of three major accidents, by making it a reflex to avoid other drivers who were driving recklessly, both in weather dry and snowy.  I highly recommend them.  They’re expensive, but in premiums and deductibles alone, the cost paid off several times over in my case.  (and it’s fun)

I like those peppermint mochas from Starbucks, but they don’t really fit in with my holday (or any) budget. I mean, come on. $5 for flavored water? Ouch.

Check this out, I’ve been making my own, and it’s just as good. What’s more, I think I could make over a gallon of it for about the same price as a trip or two to Starbucks. Not that I would want to make/drink that much at one sitting…!

Take 2 cups of hot chocolate mix (from costco or wherever), mix with 2 cups sugar. Keep this mix by the coffee grounds. Then go get some peppermint-flavored cream for your homemade coffee. It’s by the milk in the grocery store.

Put enough cream in to cover the bottom of your mug, and add 2 tablespoons of sugar/chocolate mix before filling the rest with coffee, and you’ve got yourself a grande peppermint mocha for the winter months, and a sizable amount of extra cash per month (# of trips saved to startbucks per month times about $5)

For me, this is adding up to about $20 per month, but I’m a light starbucks patron. $20 per month added to my savings of a programmable thermostat and my compact fluoresent bulbs. Overall, that’s about $120 per month saved, and I still have adequate light, heat and coffee! Try some of these cost-cutting ideas, and have a happy holiday!

If you’re a pro Geek like some of the authors here at GL, you probably get co-workers on a daily basis asking about their home machines, etc.  I don’t mind helping them, but I always feel a little guilty, since I’m not being paid to help them with their home computer problems…it’s just not fair to the company.

On the other hand, there are sometimes those people that have problems that really aren’t problems, they’re just lack-of-problem-solving-skills issues.  These are the ones that get most Geeks I know a little agitated.  You know the type… they could easily find the answer, but they throw out the “but you’re really smart and can do it faster than I can, can you just take a few minutes and do it for me?”.  These requests usually end up becoming habitual, since all the requester is learning is that you’ll do things for them if they don’t feel like learning.

In yet another display of the true meaning (not just rounded pastel corners) of “Web 2.0″, Ether allows you to set up an account and get an (888) number + 8-digit extension.  The idea is that you go into your account, set up what times you’re available by time and day, and people can call you.  Before they are connected, however, they agree to prepay whatever rate you wish, and Ether handles the processing of their credit card.  They also take 15%, or 10% for beta signups (currently in beta, of course)

In addition, the same process is available for digital content, where you can have people prepay for any type of file or media, and Ether handles everything.  ATTENTION MUSICIANS!  How does getting 85% of the profits sound, compared to being skimmed by a record label?

When you earn money with Ether, they can do Direct Deposit (woo hoo!) or mail a check (bzzzt, tiiimberrr!).

Here’s a few ideas, just off the top of my head on how I personally could use this service:

• schedule the times for when I’m in the car, going back and forth to work.  Maybe actually make money on my commute.  Maybe even pay for the phone bill I’d be racking up on the cell phone.  (I only charge $30/hour for consultant work…I know, cheap, right?)
• Put my obsession with designing well-balanced computers together at a certain price point.  I think someone might pay for the hard work it is to design the ultimate gaming machine at any specific price point…  (sounds easy, but I can’t tell you how often I’ve been sweating the details between two chipset feature sheets…)  Maybe even offer to build it for ‘em…
• scan in those 30 rolls or so of my b&w photography work at super-high res, sell prints
• start up my own record label, offer to give artists 75% of the sales and sell it via un-DRM’ed mp3 for $0.10 per song, no contract needed.  Put my 10% towards recording gear and the site.
• put my recent work in Google SketchUp and eMachineShop to good use - sell the plans for furniture and other gadgets.

What else can you guys think up?

If you're sick of high interest rates, or fearful of how the new laws designed to protect you from yourself will most likely bankrupt you, you're probably feeling pretty stressed, like I am.

I don't like having credit card debt, but giving a good vacation to the wife/girlfriend, trying to not have a disappointing Christmas, or buying furniture for that new house usually forces most people to put some amount on the credit cards. Since the credit card companies want you to stay in debt, and have made an entire industry out of doing just that, it's difficult to get out from under that stress.

I have an idea. Haven't tried it yet myself, but I wanted to open it to the blogosphere and get some feedback, because technically it makes sense…

Debt (credit cards, loans, bills) is what you owe people, this is negative. Assets (a car you have paid off, stuff you can sell on eBay, money) are what you use to get rid of debt (anti-debt?), which is positive.

Here's the interesting thing:

The positives can have interest rates (stock market, savings account), but this interest rate is usually small, as in 3% or lower small.

The negatives have larger interest rates, but the range is much larger, from 0% on a new car to 30%+ on a credit card.

There's nothing we can do about the positive interest rates. We can get better real estate or invest in riskier stocks to try and get more in interest, but we'll never get to a 30%+ gain per year.

So let's try to get rid of the high-percentage negative stuff.  Let's say our bad interest is in the range of 0%-15%.

An optimistic good interest range is in 5-10%/year, for stocks, real estate, etc. Yes, there are exceptions, but this is an example. Let's say we're gaining 10%/year on a $200K house, and 10%/year on $30K of investments. That means our money is making us about $23,000 per year.

However, in the bad interest group, we have 13% on the $5000 of credit card bills, 8% on the $200K mortgage, and depreciation on the paid-off car, currently worth $10K. That means our stuff is costing us $22650.

Overall, our investment gains are being eaten up by our debt interest, so here's the plan: make the debt's appetite smaller.

Digg This

OK, after reading the headline, you’re probably now looking for “the catch”. There isn’t one. I drive a 2002 Toyota RAV4 EV. It costs about $1.80 to go 100 miles, and I commute daily at about 75 miles per hour without any problems. And if you think I baby it, I don’t. Ask the bureaucracy over at the emission place when they made me bring it in, despite my explanations over the phone. They have an electric-vehicle burnout to show for it. (They loved it)

(Picture of the RAV4EV at right, in line at the Emissions Testing Facility. The funny parts were when they tried to pressure-test the gas cap (it doesn’t have one), and when the computer wouldn’t read the engine’s RPM sensor (no engine, no RPM’s)…eventually they just had me sign a form and I was on my way with an audience of 10 emissions-testing personnel)

Now that we have that out of the way…

OK, so maybe there is one catch after all. It doesn’t use gas. At all. It’s not a hybrid, it’s an electric vehicle. The ‘mpg’ I’m listing here (166) is how far I can go on $3 of electricity, so it is a “mpg-cost-equivalent. You’ve probably never heard of this car, because there is a long list of people who don’t want you to have one, including the manufacturers and oil cartels. In fact, these same people were successful in getting rid of the RAV4 EV back in 2003, via their lobbyists and marketing departments.

• The manufacturer’s excuse? No-one wants a usable car that requires little, if any maintenance, and gets the cost equivalent of 166mpg. Of course, the “lack of demand” was no surprise, considering the car was never advertised too strongly.
• The oil cartel’s excuse? Well, you can imagine.

I’ve worked pretty hard on the Wikipedia entry for the RAV4EV , along with other RAV4 EV owners and fans, so check it out. I’m not the most knowledgeable person about electric vehicles, but I tried to post everything I could personally verify. The RAV4 EV community filled in the rest, and they’ve been doing a great job! (as most uninhibited collaborative communities do).

I had planned on writing more about the RAV4 EV here, but the wikipedia article does such a great job, I decided to let you read it for yourselves… Go ahead and read it a second, then come back, I’m not done yet…

Now that you’re back, you probably want to know what you can do to get an Electric Vehicle, since they’re easy on you wallet and the earth (including your own health!). We all need you to voice our opinion about the blocking of the electric vehicle in the United States. As we’ve seen time and time again, companies who have their own sales channels usually try to stifle progress and force people into adopting their business model (*cough*RIAA*cough*) Not only does this end up being unsuccessful in the end (*cough*bittorrent*cough*), but it’s also not fair to all of those Geeks out there trying to use technology for the betterment of everyone, instead of the profit of a few. In this case, the manufacturers even went to the extreme of buying the cars back, just to crush them out of existence.

Given our present involvement in the oil-rich middle east, it seems to make sense get our resource dependence out of there. We can see every night what our money is doing to our own soldiers. I have a hard time dealing with the feeling that every tank of gas might be funding a clip-full of AK47 7.62mm bullets, or maybe a rocket-propelled grenade. Despite this, oil lobbyists seem do anything possible to preserve their current fuel delivery channels and revenue, choosing instead to work on profits for the right-now, instead of planning for the near future.

You might be saying ‘whatever, I don’t know anything about the oil companies of the world, so who cares.’ To illustrate this point to a Geek, this makes about as much sense as if AMD/Intel would block the development of any processor over 1Ghz, in order to keep a grid computing business alive. Except that people don’t die from slow processors… Well, it doesn’t make any sense in that hypothetical situation, and it doesn’t make any sense in the real world.

The car companies claim that there is no demand for these vehicles. You can find them selling used on eBay for $20,000 more than they originally sold for. That sounds like demand to me.

Geeks, we need to create the demand. Your wallet and earth will be better off for it.

In addition, if any of you want to know anything/want pictures/want youtube videos, let me know. I think I’m one of, if not the only electric car in Chicago (they were generally sold in southern California), so if anyone is in Chicago and wants to check the car out for yourselves, let me know.

Here are some other resources:

Check out these groups who have been fighting tirelessly on your behalf get you the technology you deserve, and most likely want. These are the EFF’s of the electric vehicle world:

www.pluginamerica.com

www.dontcrush.org

Think electric cars are too nerdy for you? Image how dumb the driver of a $440,000 Porsche feels after being beat 0-60 and in the quarter-mile by a new $100,000 electric roadster.

The X1

Some more detail on the RAV4 EV and Electric Vehicles in general:

Seattle EV Association

What is an EV?

Think I’m some crackpot? Sorry, the coverup is real news. In fact, there’s a movie coming out this summer about it. Your local theater will get it for you if you ask. Lucky you - you can say ‘I already heard about that 2 months ago at GeekLimit.com…’ to your friends. So Geeky…

Feature coming June 28: Who Killed The Electric Car

And the next X-Prize is coing to be based on a high-efficiency vehicle ! (Maybe I should show up in a stock RAV4EV…)

Want to complain to someone who can make a difference? You can’t match the money “donated to them”, but you can write your congressman/woman and be very noisy. Maybe a newspaper or two will notice… (One of them might write back, mine did - Henry Hyde is my new penpal… OK, not really, but cool anyway…)

Oh, and I’m not the only one who is a fan of the RAV4 EV. See if you recognize this guy:

(jungle and famous image from dontcrush)

Digg This!

Project Name: Thermostat Management
Initial Cost: $30 (after tax)
Recurring cost: $3.08 per year
($0.26/month for a 4-pack of AA batteries for the new thermostat)
Time involved: 30 minutes
(remove old themostat, install new thermostat, program thermostat)
Time to pay off initial investment: 6 weeks
(varies, depends on insulation in the house and how aggresive your programming is)

 GEEK MONEY: $22.74/month
(varies, I estimate I'll save at least $23 per month, about 20% on gas, 5% on electricity)

It was just winter here in Chicago, and it was cold. If it's winter for you right now, you know that your bills are a lot higher due to the increased heating costs. Whether you heat your home with gas, electric or oil, you can benefit from some thermostat management. Turn the thermostat down.

Whether you like it or not, 68 degrees is a perfectly normal temperature for the human being to be in. It may feel cold at first, but you can survive just fine at 68. If you're cold, that is what clothes are for. You shouldn't be in the dead of winter and sitting in your beach clothes at 75-78 degrees.

Not only are you overheating so you can wear shorts in winter, but the bigger the difference in out- and inside temperature, the more expensive it will be to maintain the temperature. In addition, whether your house is at 50 or 80 degrees, the fridge will have to work to keep itself at about 35 degrees (F) and the freezer at about 30 (F).

Also keep in mind that the human body is about equal to a 175-watt heater. You're supposed to be able to keep yourself warm at a reasonable temperature like 68. If not, see a doctor.

Get a 7-day thermostat
I picked up a deluxe model at Home Depot for $30. It was the cheapest one they had, but allows for the themostat to be adjusted at 4 different times during the day, 7 days a week, plus an extra 'special day program' with 4 times. Here's how it works:

On a given weekday, I know that I'll be in bed from midnight to 6:45AM. I'll be up and about from 6:45AM to 7:15AM. I'll be gone from 7:15AM to 5:00PM. I'll be home from 5:00PM to 10:00PM, and I'll be in bed from 10:00PM to midnight. On Saturday and Sunday, I don't know when I'll be home during the day, but I'm pretty sure I'll be in bed from midnight-8:00AM and 10:00PM-midnight.

Looking at this information, on the weekdays my house sees me in bed for 8 hours, 45 minutes. I'm gone for 9 hours, 45 minutes. I'm home for 5 hours, 30 minutes. If I keep the thermostat at 68, the temp is higher than it needs to be for me in bed or at work. That's 18 hours, 30 minutes per day that I am over-heating my house.

Set the 7-day thermostat
Based on the above information, I know I can have the following settings:

*Weekdays*

• 6:30AM: set temp to 68 degrees (I wake up 15 minutes later)
• 7:30AM: set temp to 55 degrees (I left 15 minutes earlier)
• 4:40PM: set temp to 68 degrees (I get home in 20 minutes)
• 10:30PM: set temp to 65 degrees (I fell asleep in a warm bed 30 minutes ago)

*Weekends*

• 7:30AM: set temp to 68 degrees (I wake up 15-30 minutes later)
• 10:30PM: set temp to 65 degrees (I fell asleep in a warm bed 30 minutes ago)

*Special Day Programming*
(there is a 'SDP' button on the thermostat to put on a daily override for weekday holidays, etc.)

• 7:30AM: set temp to 68 degrees (I wake up 15-30 minutes later)
• 10:30PM: set temp to 65 degrees (I fell asleep in a warm bed 30 minutes ago)

As you can see, I can time the heat so that I never notice the lower temperatures, and in the meantime, the heater takes a break during a large part of the day (and the fridge hardly has to do anything all day). That also means I'm not paying to have my house heat itself when it's empty, and have my fridge fight the house to stay cold.

A few very important points

• The amount you save on your bills will relate to how well insulated your house is, how long you can let it be cold, etc. I can't say you will save $xxx per month, but most people save anywhere between 10-30%, and sometimes as much as 50%+, depending on if you can use the sun to heat your house by opening curtains, efficient windows, etc.
• Don't forget about the pets! If you have a pet, make sure the temperature during the day is one that will be warm enough for them!
• The thermostat will pay for itself very quickly. My gas bill is about $100, and the electric is about $60. (I'll explain how I do that later) Let's say I save 20% on gas, and 5% on electricity from the fridge. That's $20 + $3 per month I save!
• Install the thermostat yourself. It's easy, and comes with easy instructions. If you have an electrician do it, it will take a while to pay off that cost in energy savings
• The new themostat comes with a function that will tell you to change the filter after xxx hours of furnace operation. You can program the hours. A clean filter doesn't make the furnace work as hard, and reduces risk of fire, in addition to cleaning the air. Bonus!
• My thermostat had a 'copy' feature, where I programmed Monday and copied it to the rest of the weekdays. A big time saver.
• Don't forget that the A/C will need to be programmed as well, so flip the switch over to 'COOL' and do everything over again.

For those of you who don't like talking to a machine, there is a great site here that has ways to immediately get a hold of a real person at many institutions.

Of course, the real gamble here is if you'll be connected to someone overseas who may understand you even less than the machine.

Here's a helpful tip: find the places you do business with, and enter their number AND the shortcut keys into your cell phone. Most cell phones will pause by using a comma or the letter 'p'. For example, if you would put this in your phone, you would have a way of reaching a human being at Washington Mutual, enter this in as the number in your address book:

18007568000,,,,0,0 (or possibly 18007568000pppp0p0

(each one of the commas or 'p' characters will pause for a specified amount of time. What character and how much time depends on your phone.

This will dial the number for Washington Mutual, wait 4-8 seconds (depending on your phone), dial 0, wait 1-2 seconds (depending on your phone) and dial 0 again.

If the phone system hasn't changed, you will be connected to a person, without having to look at your phone (or take your eyes off of the road).