Will the rush to Electric cars - short-circuit?

EV-1 Cutaway, originally uploaded by 85Gripen.

As the price of a gallon of gas has risen dramatically during the summer of 2008 - more and more consumers are looking for alterntaives to the internal combusion engine. Several manufacturers, some new to the car industry and some established players have accelerated their plans to bring the Electric car to the mainstream.

One of the manufacturers getting the most press - is Tesla Motor's Roadster. This is a true electric - which will require a plug-in to recharge. But will run you over $100,000.

Even GM's Chevrolet Volt - while originally touted as an all electric (plug in) vehicle - is actually going to have a small 3-Cylinder engine on board (to recharge the batteries due to the Volt's short range (~ 33 miles) on a charge). An initial estimate (since retracted) was $40,000.

And you know the push for a plug-in Electric car is getting serious when the Electricity Industry has to put out a press release saying that they have enough capacity on the grid to handle Electric car being plugged in at homes across the country.

But - Electric cars still have an achilles heel. The batteries.

I live in Arizona. The Arizona weather (heat) kills batteries. It doesn't matter if you have 3, 4 or 5 year battery. The average life span of a battery in Arizona is 22 months. I will have had my truck for years next month - and it is already on its 3rd battery.

How many batteries need to go into a hybrid or all-electric car?

GM maintenance estimates for their EV-1 all-electric (pictured above) was that the battery pack would have to be replaced every 25-35,000 miles. Reduce that by 50% - and you are starting to look at replacing the battery pack every year - even w/ moderate driving.

Let's figure 15 Die-Hard sized batteries make up a 'pack'. A Die-Hard Gold goes for $80 (list price - prob another $5-10 for the assorted municipal recycling fees). So $90 per times 15 batteries = $1350. That's 3x what I have spent on maintenance for my truck each year.

This is the hidden cost of a hybrid/electric vehicle - which I don't think anyone has realized is part of the cost to be Green.

Until the capacity and cost of the batteries improves (more miles per charge) - an electric vehicle won't be able to replace the internal combustion engine - at least in my garage.

Jedi Swiss Army knife

n1291140192_17042_1242, originally uploaded by illallangi.

The caption says it all.

I would pay Amazon for next day shipping if they had this.

Optical Illusions / Subliminal messages

A long time ago in a Galaxy far far away - I went to school to get an education. Still trying to figure out how that happened, and why I still remember the craziest things.

But one of the more creative things I was exposed to - was Subliminal advertising. That was the idea that images are retouched ever so slightly to impart a theme to the viewer, w/o the viewer actually realizing or consciously recognizing what they were seeing.

There were some doozey's - but you have to realize it was the late 70's/early 80's - and there was no such thing as 'Photoshop' - so any images either in stills or motion pictures - had to be altered by hand.

Two of the examples that have stuck w/ me all of these years are;
- skulls in the ice cubes of liquor ad's
- the word 'Sex' in Lincoln's Beard (on the old $5 bill)

Now all of that said - I came across the following link to Mighty Optical Illusions today - and all I could think about was that old 7th grade class (it was part of English - still trying to figure that relationship out).

Let me warn you - if you 'see' the allusions in these pictures - you might be offended by what they are suggesting.

I found my Dayton pictures!

Boeing Bird of Prey, originally uploaded by rob-the-org.

I had this set of pictures (and there are several more than what I have posted to Flickr so far) that was MIA somewhere on one of my PC's.

They were taken when we blew threw OH - on the drive out to Phoenix in 2004, so they would have been on my older laptop or my big desktop. But I couldn't find them.

Obviously - I finally found them (they were in the Shared Pictures directory - because I put them somewhere that Pam could get to them since she always says she never sees the pictures I take), and have started to post them.

And I have found a really quick way to get hits/views on your picture - is to include a Star Trek reference in the tags/descriptions. Because there is a Star Trek fan site - http://trekweb.com searches Flickr for Star Trek related pictures. And in the course of a couple of hours - I had over a hundred hits on this particular picture. Now - enough pictures of peoples cats named 'Spock' have taken me off their home page.

:(

Yes - I live in a desert

DBG - a young Cactii, originally uploaded by rob-the-org.

I think I have finally adjusted to life in a desert environment. Yes, Phoenix is a desert. Don't let all of the trappings of civilization fool you - it is still a desert.

I think I finally realized this the other day. I was driving back from running one errand or another - and I went past a block where they are putting in a new planned development (yes - I know the housing market isn't the best in the world right now - but some builder's insist on trying to build and sell new homes anyway). I passed a street sweeper going down one of the streets trying to keep the dust under control (this is serious - local govt's fine the builders if they don't keep the dust down from their building sites. So there is a whole industry of street sweepers and water sprayers out there soley for keeping the dust down). And as I passed by - I could 'feel' the increase in the humidity due to the water that the sweeper was spraying on the road.

There are a couple of fountains at the entrances to some of the other neighborhoods - where I have noticed the same thing the last couple of times I have gone by.

[Click to see historical temp/humidity from Phoenix during a week last July (2007)]

My father-in-law has joked that when he gets out of the bath - that by the time all of the water has drained out of the tub - he is usually dry.

My how Stealth has changed in 20 years

DSC06729, originally uploaded by PlaneJared.

In 1978 Northrup engineer's started to work on 'Stealth' as an idea to allow aircraft to fly places that other people (i.e. the Russian's) didn't want our planes to go.

Usually those no fly zones were strictly enforced with AAA and SAM's - as shown by the Vietnam War. And Air Force planners wanted to limit the chances of the opposition to harm their pilots and their pretty planes.

This was their first attempt. Northrup's Tacit Blue aka the Whale. It is currently on display at the US Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH.

If you go to the Museum page for the Whale, and click on the More pictures, you can see a better look at the wings and tail surfaces. The canted tail surfaces have carried through to the F-117 and the F-22. The JSF (aka F-35) has canted surfaces - just not as dramatic.

And then there is the B-2 - that decided they didn't need a tail at all. But it shares the curves that the Whale tested.

When I first saw this plane - it was parked over in the main building - under the wing of the XB-70 Valkyrie. And at first glance - all I could think of - is a Star Trek Shuttlecraft.

Travel tips for the Occasional Traveler

A couple of travel hints for any newbies out there trying to get around the US by air these days;

1. Check the airline or airport web site to see how far in advance of your flight you should be at the airport. Taking an hour for breakfast at the airport restaurant and then trying to shove your kid's stroller through the long screening line, saying you are about to miss your flight - is NOT going to get you anywhere.
   
2. You cannot take your 2 liter bottle of soda/water/liquor through security. So start chugging now.
3. Don't complain about the lines to get through security - unless you are willing to go to work for TSA. Maybe there is a reason that only 5 of 10 screening lines are open.
   
4. If you packed the bag - you get to carry it (and lift it in and out of the overhead bins). If you can't - maybe you should travel lighter.
   
5. Buy a watch to tell time on the airplane.
   

[the last one is my fault. My favorite watch fell apart a year or so ago - and I got a cheap one as a stopgap. I am picky about watches - it took me more than 2 years of looking to find that last one. The cheap one died a couple of months ago - and I figured I didn't really need one - since I always have my cell - and it shows the time just fine. But when I was travelling yesterday - I realized why I need a watch. Because you don't have to turn off your watch while the plane is in flight!]