24 posts tagged “news”

iPhone App Store order

Seeing as today was the day of the much-heralded 3G iPhone launch -- such as it was -- some thoughts on it seem called for (currently, 33,947 times called for, it seems). (Addendum, 10 minutes later: now we're at 216,814 hits. So there you go, give me a moment and I'll try to get us to 216,815.)

A big part of the question for original iPhone owners has been whether it even makes sense to upgrade. The only hardware changes appear to be GPS, which the original phone can approximate by cell tower or wifi base station triangulation, and 3G data speeds, which also mean a higher monthly phone bill and shorter battery life. The other components -- CPU speed, storage capacity, camera, screen, etc -- all appears to be unchanged.

Graffiti on Scituate Harbor gazebo: "GOOD FORM"

The bigger change, which original iPhone users get for free, is the updated system software, and the new App Store. While this means long overdue improvements to the built in apps -- contact search, wireless push sync of mail, calendars, & contacts, scientific calculator mode, parental controls, and a whole lot more -- the flagship feature is the iPhone SDK that third parties can now use to develop using a toolkit both similar to and unique from the ones available for traditional computers. While some computers are starting to have built-in cameras, the rest of the iPhone hardware remains unique: few if any laptops or desktops have touch screen controls, motion sensors, or geographical self-awareness, not to mention the fact that it's, you know, a phone. There's a line of thinking that this represents the birth of a new generation of ubiquitous computing, an idea that has been on the drawing board for 20 years now, but still just gradually starting to come together.

So, now that the prelude is out of the way, how has the first 24 hours of life with iPhone 2.0 been? Some random observations.  

I've been forwarded the following chain letter a few times recently (stripped of names & cleaned up the formatting for presentation, but otherwise intact as forwarded):

Nemo seagulls

Normally I don't do this but at $4.00 a gallon maybe it will help ...

Subject: Tips on pumping gas

I don't know what you guys are paying for gasoline ... but here in California we are also paying higher, up to $5.00 per gallon. But my line of work is in petroleum for about 31 years now, so here are some tricks to get more of your money's worth for every gallon..

Here at the Kinder Morgan Pipeline where I work in San Jose, CA we deliver about 4 million gallons in a 24-hour period thru the pipeline. One day is diesel the next day is jet fuel, and gasoline, regular and premium grades. We have 34-storage tanks here with a total capacity of 16,800,000 gallons.

Only buy or fill up your car or truck in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground the more dense the gasoline, when it gets warmer gasoline expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening ... your gallon is not exactly a gallon. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products plays an important role. A 1-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for this business. But the service stations do not have temperature compensation at the pumps.

When you're filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode. If you look you will see that the trigger has three (3) stages: low, middle, and high. In slow mode you should be pumping on low speed, thereby minimizing the vapors that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapor return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some other liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you're getting less worth for your money.

One of the most important tips is to fill up when your gas tank is HALF FULL or HALF EMPTY. The reason for this is the more gas you have in your tank the less air occupying its empty space. Gasoline evaporates faster than you can imagine. Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the gas and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation. Unlike service stations, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated so that every gallon is actually the exact amount.

Another reminder, if there is a gasoline truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy gas, DO NOT fill up. Most likely the gasoline is being stirred up as the gas is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.

WHERE TO BUY USA GAS ...

Gas rationing in the 80's worked even though we grumbled about it. It might even be good for us!

The Saudis are boycotting American goods. We should return the favor. An interesting thought is to boycott their GAS.

Nothing is more frustrating than the feeling that every time I fill-up the tank, I am sending my money to people who are trying to kill me, my family, and my friends.

Every time you fill up the car, you can avoid putting more money into the coffers of Saudi Arabia. Just buy from gas companies that don't import their oil from the Saudis.

These companies import Middle Eastern oil:

Shell	205,742,000 barrels
Chevron/Texaco	144,332,000 barrels
Exxon/Mobil	130,082,000 barrels
Marathon/Speedway	117,740,000 barrels
Amoco	62,231,000 barrels

Citgo gas is from South America, from a Dictator who hates Americans. If you do the math at $30/barrel, these imports amount to over $18 BILLION! (oil is now over $120 a barrel)

Here are some large companies that do not import Middle Eastern oil:

Sunoco	0 barrels
Conoco	0 barrels
Sinclair	0 barrels
BP/Phillips	0 barrels
Hess	0 barrels
ARC0	0 barrels

All of this information is available from the Department of Energy and each is required to state where they get their oil and how much they are importing.

But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of gas buyers. It's really simple to do. Now don't wimp out at this point ... keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I'm sending this note to about thirty people. If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) ... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) ... and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers !!!!!!! If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted!

If it goes one level further, you guessed it ... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

All you have to do is send this to 10 people.

It's interesting, but I can't decide if it's hokum. There's enough jargon, detail, and calls to authority here to make it convincing -- "specific gravity", "internal floating roof", "All of this information is available from the Department of Energy", etc -- but not quite enough to convince me.

The Conoco bit, for example -- didn't they have some kind of deal with Iran? I guess not -- back in 1995 they considered it, but were blocked by Clinton, though apparently the company and the country have a long, sordid history together.

The logic seems a little shaky to me though, and the woolly thinking (sloppy punctuation, incongruously jumping from a swipe at Citgo / Hugo Chavez / Venezuela to out-of-nowhere math about aggregate import costs) has me thinking that this person may have a point, but not the whole picture. Can individual gas pumping tactics help you get more per tank? Maybe. Can collective purchasing decision & boycotts make a difference, even on a large scale? I tend to doubt it, but maybe. Do boycotts ever work? Sometimes they do (South Africa & apartheid being the best example I can think of), but often they don't (the sanctions / boycott of Cuba, Iran, & North Korea being examples of them not getting results even after decades of trying at a national scale).

Anyone with more economics tuits have a handle on whether this could work?

How hard can this be? Compare & contrast:

Literally:

3 definitions found
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Literally \Lit"er*al*ly\, adv.
1. According to the primary and natural import of words; not
figuratively; as, a man and his wife can not be literally
one flesh.
[1913 Webster]

So wild and ungovernable a poet can not be

     2. With close adherence to words; word by word.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

2 definitions found
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Figurative \Fig"ur*a*tive\, a. [L. figurativus: cf. F.
     figuratif. See {Figurative}.]
     1. Representing by a figure, or by resemblance; typical;
        representative.
        [1913 Webster]

              This, they will say, was figurative, and served, by
              God's appointment, but for a time, to shadow out the
              true glory of a more divine sanctity. --Hooker.
        [1913 Webster]

     2. Used in a sense that is tropical, as a metaphor; not
        literal; -- applied to words and expressions.
        [1913 Webster]

     3. Abounding in figures of speech; flowery; florid; as, a
        highly figurative description.
        [1913 Webster]

     4. Relating to the representation of form or figure by
        drawing, carving, etc. See {Figure}, n., 2.
        [1913 Webster]

              They belonged to a nation dedicated to the
              figurative arts, and they wrote for a public
              familiar with painted form.           --J. A.
                                                    Symonds.
        [1913 Webster]

     {Figurative counterpoint} or {Figurative descant}. See under
        {Figurate}. -- {Fig"ur*a*tive*ly}, adv. --
        {Fig"ur*a*tive*ness}, n.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  figuratively
       adv : in a figurative sense; "figuratively speaking,..." [ant: {literally}]

VARIAVALVE QUICK VENT HEAT-TIMER

Human societies have always depended on having ready access to cheap, efficient means of transportation.

The Egyptians built their kingdoms along the Nile. The Greeks built their civilization among their islands. The Mesopotamians had the Tigris & Euphrates, the Indians had the Ganges, the Chinese had the Yangtze. Later, the Romans and Incas built vast empires laced together by paved roadways.

In America, the continent was [re-]populated first by ships & horses, then Conestoga wagons, then the locomotive, then automobiles and airplanes.

The topography of ordinary life is a reflection of this need to have access to transportation, balanced against other needs for agriculture, trade, industry, and so on.

From what I've seen of Germany, most of the old cities & towns are organized along roughly similar lines, with a dense cluster of homes & other structures, clearly demarcated from the surrounding countryside -- often by a literal wall. Of course, this probably has old medieval origins where the people would live together in town but farm in the fields, and occasionally would have to hide behind the walls as the town was besieged by some invading army or mob. But it also means that for ordinary life, the things you need are all within walking distance of home -- your job, the people you trade with, and so on.

Never Cry "Arp!"

Older American cities on the east coast started out along similar lines, but with less fear of invasion (after all, Native Americans tended not to have cannons & muskets) plus good roads and horses to get around with (not to mention the allure of an entire vast continent to stretch out across), they never really had the tight, walkable density that old European cities had.

And then, of course, the train came, and not long behind it, the car. If you look at how American cities are laid out, especially as you move west, and as you look at cities that had most or all of their growth in the 20th century, it's obvious just how much these places grew up with the assumption that the car would always be there, would always be cheap, and was strong enough to be the almost physical foundation of how society is built, lives, and works. 

(And, as if it needs to be said, nothing the next president can do is going to change any of this.)

Real estate sign out window

So -- and I'll probably break out this section into a post of its own later -- given the choice of where to live, where does it make sense to live now? The days of suburbia as the standard lifestyle for a large fraction of Americans seem to be numbered. The cities are getting nicer, but if you want things like good schools and low crime, the suburbs are seen to be the way to go, but how long will that assumption hold up? Can things really change as fast as the LA Times article suggests? I'm not betting against the possibility.

Assuming you can't pull up roots and move to New York, San Francisco, or heck London or Paris, then where would be a good place to live for the next 10, 25, 50 years? What criteria would a "nice", "smart" place to live be? Good access to public transit, preferably rail, but bus should work too (there's always biodiesel or electric trolleybus options). Being able to walk to things like jobs, schools, and supermarkets would be good. Access to a river would be nice -- just in case we get reduced back to Egyptian levels, though I'm not quite that pessimistic yet -- but I'm willing to assume that some kind of motorized means of transportation is going to be a permanent fixture of human society now, even if individual, personal motorized transportation may not always be taken for granted the way it has been for the past century. What else? For that matter, what kind of physical home makes sense? Should we all move in to Manhattan / Soviet style apartment complexes, or is a patch of lawn still an option? Is an oil heated home any better or worse than gas or electric? The time to plan seems to be now.

Clouds over Allston

The effects of the rise in energy prices continues to unfold. 

Now people are wondering if we've hit Peak Travel, as the number of highway miles Americans drove in April 2008 was significantly down from April 2007, the first dip in over a decade, and the biggest dip by far in at least 20 years.

They don't know what's about to hit them

Meanwhile, Krugman does the math & makes a case that "high oil prices, by making shipping much more expensive, may reverse a significant amount of globalization". The crux of the argument, basically, is that China has ended up making everything because it's cheaper that way, but this depends on shipping in the raw materials and shipping out the finished goods; if transportation prices go up & stay up, then effectively that part of the cost takes a double-whammy and not just doubles, but triples: "That 10 percent rise in transport costs in effect reduces the payoff to China from producing the good by almost 30 percent." As a result, both  shipping & business travel can be expected to decline. 

Storm clouds, or mothership? You decide.

Thunderstorm blocking the view

After the thunderstorm

Seemed like a good name at the time

We're already in a period of supply & demand imbalance that is driving up prices on all kinds of fundamental resources. Oil prices are jumping, and supplies seem to be peaking. Likewise, there's concerns about peak food, just as there is peak oil. Demand for metal is driving up prices and creating a colorful black market. Even financial credit is more scarce today than it was a year ago. And as industrializing economies continue to increase demand, prices look set to continue rising indefinitely.

One aspect of this is that the global economy seems less able to withstand shocks to the system that it would have been in healthier times. Like pulling on a rubber band, if it's loose, it will stretch, but if it's taut, it will snap. So are we at a stretching point, or a snapping point?

• Today, a Nigerian oil pipeline was attacked, cutting off 10% of the country's oil flow, and driving up the price of a barrel to $136.88, $2.67 higher than the day before; almost inevitably, this seems likely to cause prices at the pump to continue to drive their rise above $4/gallon. It seems like only a month or two ago that policymakers were anguishing over the fact that prices had risen above $120 per barrel, but already that looks like an improvement over the current situation.
  
• A widening & as-yet unexplained salmonella outbreak with tomatoes is disrupting prices for produce, to the point that it has people considering the locavore movement as an alternative to national or international food markets. But is this really a solution? Stephen Dubner suggests that it's an appealing idea, but probably unlikely to have the intended benefits.
• Meanwhile, a quick Google News search for "shortage" turns up stories about limited supplies of deep-sea oil drilling ships, Indian fertilizer, bees, Canadian doctors, African blood, British teachers, Indian coal, Japanese doctors, and Midwestern sandbags. And every one of those, in its way, tells its own sad story.

When times are better, it seems like we are better prepared to weather these little storms. There have, for example, been several contaminated food outbreaks over the past few years -- most notably the 2006 E. coli outbreak with spinach & lettuce, but there are lots of other examples.

But usually when something like this has happened, it's a temporary glitch, people make do, and things go back to normal a few weeks later.

This time around, things seem different. People seem to be talking more openly about changing decades-old behaviors. People drive less & take public transit more, and are willing to pay more for organic food. Car companies are closing or repurposing SUV plants. Just in the building I live in, it seems like more people are recycling now than were even a year or two ago.

Clearly, things are changing. The big question is, is this a tipping point, or a breaking point?

There was a shooting a block from our house this afternoon.

We found this out indirectly because the police had the street blocked off on the way home from work, and we had to circle around the neighborhood, then move a barrier out of the way, to get to the driveway. A neighbor who got home at the same time thought there was a shooting, but didn't really know what was going on.

Of course, nothing had been mentioned (yet?) on WBUR/NPR radio, and by the time I had a chance to get to the computer to look it up, there was still nothing on Boston.com/The Boston Globe, WBZ/CBS, WCVB/ABC, or WHDH/NBC -- the latter of which in particular has pretty much staked its claim to "if it bleeds, it leads" style sensationalist journalism.

But then there's the little Somerville Journal, which already had it on the home page: it happened around 5:30 (it was around 7:00 when I was finding out), and all they knew at that point was that it seemed to be a drive-by shooting.

Police sealed off the intersection of Cross and Pearl streets after a drive-by shooting Thursday evening, temporarily shuttering local businesses and stranding area residents making their way home from work.

Early police radio chatter indicated gunfire at 5:30 p.m., and were looking for four men in a black 1997 Toyota Camry.

Reload the article an hour later and it now has more details, photos, and even a YouTube video with an interview with the police. Plus, this reassuring paragraph:

The victim, who is believed to be 16- to 17-years-old, was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening gunshot wounds. He is in stable condition and was talking and alert when police responded to the scene, according to Holloway.

So that's good, at least. Inasmuch as "non-life threatening gunshot wounds" can be thought of as being "good".

Meanwhile, there were still pedestrians milling around as late as 8:30, presumably not knowing what was going on (the police weren't talking, but they were still out there with lights, sirens, etc. Score one for local web journalism to explain what's going on 100 yards from home... :-/

Me & Barry go way back. Okay not really.

So this comes a day or two late to be salient, but then again, it's a lot later than that. Oh well. 

John McCain on Flickr: LETEMROLL

Hillary Clinton on Flickr: profile page

Obama on Twitter