Who is Supporting All the Spam???

I don't think that I am alone in saying that the vast majority of my email is Spam. Even with the Junk filtering tools of Thunderbird, I still get the privilege of deleting 30-50 messages a day from my various emails. While I understand that sending Spam is free, I have wondered who is buying the products that are trying to be hawked.

Spam comes in various forms. There is the phishing spam. This is meant to get you to give them your data to some bank or other account that has money that the perp will then access and clear out for your convenience.

Next is the porn spam. I understand this completely. Some people just have a need to see some girl named Natasha take it all off.  Yahoo is big on this, everytime I log in there are 50 bazillion chat requests from "girls in my area."

Now on to the spam that I don't understand. The sad story/joke/incorrect blurb spam. This is usually sent by well meaning friends and family to let you know that an angel is watching over you, or that some political figure is trying to take over the world, or the signs of a redneck. The reason why this stuff is so annoying is in many cases the sender never bothered to remove the long list of headers that were left by all of the other morons who forwarded it. Also, spelling and grammar were not on anyone's priority list. Finally, I would estimate a good 95% of the time they are false to begin with. I rarely read forwarded spam, but when I do one of the first places I look is www.snopes.com. This website does an excellent job of fact checking on all of the various urban legend emails that are out there. For a while I would reply back to whoever sent the email with the information from Snopes. Since I still keep getting the same kind of junk from the same people, I gave up on that.

The stock picks of the day. Why would anyone buy an investment based on an email that was unsolicited. Most of what is advertised needs to be capitalized on daytrading (or week trading). I am not that kind of guy. In the last 5 years, the only stock that I sold was TXU and that was really because they were bought out (so I really didn't sell it, the new company just bought it and I am forced to pay taxes on my windfall). Here is a hint. The last place you should look for investment advice is your Inbox.

Next in a similar vein is the Rolex/Breitling/Viagra/Cialis/other product. More often than not, one of the words in the subject is misspelled or numeralized on purpose to avoid the spam trackers. Who in their right mind is buying expensive watches from an email? Unfortunately there has to be one or two people, otherwise we wouldn't be getting all of these emails. As for drugs, don't you think you should maybe be getting them from a pharmacy rather than the world wide web? If you need the Viagra that badly, maybe you should click on the porn spam a little more.

Finally, the foreign language spam. This comes in two forms, one that my computer can understand and prints out the characters (in Russian, Chinese, Korean, Tamil, etc) and the one that my computer can't understand which usually results in boxes or wingdings. If I knew what these said I could probably classify them as one of the others above. As it is, they just simply get deleted.

Facebook has largely replaced a lot of the spam.  Now, instead of seeing it in an inbox, you can view it on your timeline.  There has to be some scientific studies out there about the social drive to create spam, because we have been doing it for at least the last 100 years (possibly even thousands of years if we had better records to review).  It has come in every communication format that we have developed and I see no sign of it slowing down.

Economies of SodaStream

Soda Stream appears to be making a splash in the beverage market.  I'm not much of a soda drinker so I don't know. It is a way to make your own carbonated beverages and hopefully save money.  So, does it really save you money?  As with all things, it depends.

There are three major costs to Sodastream.  I used the Target website to find the information I needed to evaluate this. The initial machine is about $80 (although some models go up to $200) which comes with flavor packets and a carbonation tank.  There are the carbonation tanks which run $15 and carbonate up to 60 L of drinks.  And finally, there are the flavor packets which run from $5 to $12 for about 12 liters of servings.  So then, how much soda does one have to drink to make this economical?

Total Liters Made	$5 flavor Cost / 2L	$12 flavor Cost / 2L
60	$      3.50	$       4.67
120	$      2.00	$       2.58
180	$      1.78	$       2.56
240	$      1.67	$       2.54
300	$      1.60	$       2.53
360	$      1.56	$       2.52
420	$      1.52	$       2.52

Now, like I said, I am no soda connoisseur, but I am pretty sure that those prices are much higher than what I can buy in the store.  So I looked.  Sure enough, name brands go for $1.50 to $2.50 for 2L bottles and generics for $0.50 to $1.50 for 2L bottles at the local grocery store. But the next question would be at what consumption is this economical?

That depends on the durability of the machine.  The $1.50 for generics is broken at the 480 L level.  Assuming a 3 year life, this is almost 7 Two liter bottles every month (our family maybe goes through 7 in an entire year - unless I am buying them for Mentos geysers in which case I'll go through 7 in about 5 minutes, but I digress).  But that is the top of the generic price level.  Unfortunately, because of the cost of the carbonator and flavoring, the cost for 2L will never be less that $1.33.  For name brand it looks even worse, the flavoring and carbonator make the bottom price $2.50 per liter.  So I would judge this as not that much of a money saver.  It is almost always going to be cheaper to pick up your soda at the store - even with ridiculously high deposit fees. 

Let me alter that statement: Unless you are accustomed to drinking premium sodapop, this is not a good buy.  However, if you like the flavors or like to make other things carbonated, then have at it.

About 20 years ago, I was at a party where a friend had something similar.  We were using it to make carbonated eggnog.  It worked sporadically at best and made a mess when not used exactly right.  I have no idea whether the Sodastream has similar problems.  My guess is that the fad will wear out within a year or two as machines break down and people realize sugar, water, and carbon dioxide are REALLY cheap to mix together (which is why they have specials for 2L bottles as low as 33 cents!), ergo not worth the time to do it yourself.

How Many Computer Operating Systems are in Your Home?

I often point out to my kids how lucky they are.  I didn't have a computer in my home until I was about 8 years old, an Apple IIc.  My Dad would bring the portable computer from work home on occasion and we were able to play a Centipede like game.  But that thing was as big as a suitcase.  The Apple IIc was sleek, it had a 10" monitor (although some of my friends had a monitor up to 13") and we could play games like Oregon Trail and Loderunner.  Oh yeah, and we could keep track of our allowance and write school reports.  It was awesome!

Fast forward to today.  I have probably gone through a dozen computers in my life.  Currently (considering computers, laptops, and tablets) there are 6 working computers in my home all far more powerful than that Apple IIc was. Can you imagine telling Isaac Asimov in 1960 that 50 years from then, multiple computers in homes would be common?  He would laugh at you as if you were talking poppycock (I had a book about the using the slide rule that he wrote where he specifically states that there would never be computers in people's homes and that was one of the reasons to learn to use the slide rule).

Currently, three of my machines run Windows 7, one runs Windows XP, one runs Android Ice Cream Sandwich, and one runs Android Honeycomb. Four different operating systems.  But I have had more there was one time for about 6 months that I had 6 different operating systems in my home. That can get confusing as to where everything is.

Selling Coins on Ebay

I like to collect coins.  I have been doing it since I was a kid.  It started with spare change and whenever family members were going out of the country I wouls ask them to bring back money for me. As I have gotten older, I have focused my collection on circulated coinage of the 20th century, for a couple of reasons.  1) it is really cheap, I can get coins for about 5 to 6 cents per coin and 2) there is so much of it.

Before the internet, the best place to get coins was at a coin shop.  Unfortunately, almost all of them had jacked up prices. Of course, since there wasn't up to date available market information, I was willing to pay 10 cents to 50 cents for a penny that I needed (which was probably only worth 3 or 4 cents).  Good thing I wasn't looking for Morgan dollars at the time.

Recently, I wanted to dispose of some American Eagles and Proof sets that I had received from my grandparents estate. A quick look on Ebay showed me what the going auction rates were.  So, I went down to a coin shop to see what they would give me.  The man looked them over and quoted a price less than half of the Ebay price.  I went with Ebay.

With the money, I bought more coins.  Sellers on Ebay will sell bulk coins for around $6-8 per pound.  The funny thing about many of them is they like to say that they are in "unsearched" lots.  Unsearched by the seller maybe, but anyone in this day and age can sort through a pound of coins (approx 100) and pick out any valuable ones in about 10 minutes or less. What is really funny is when you look at the buying and selling history of some sellers and find that they buy up large lots of coins, and then sell smaller lots the next day (while saying that they are from Grandpa's barrel of coins).

So, after buying about 30 lbs of coins from various sellers, sorting through them and keeping about 15 lbs, I sold the rest on Ebay in two lots.  Of course, I like to distinguish my sales from others so I wrote the following description:

This is my duplicates from collecting foreign coins. Somewhere between 700 and 800 coins based on 100 coins/lb. You’ll notice from the title that I didn’t use the key words “unsearched” or “silver”. Well, there are two reasons.

Reason # 1: If I said unsearched I would be lying. Of course I have searched these. Just looking back through the auctions I have won you can see that I have bought a lot of foreign coin lots in the last month. Why? Because I collect coins that is why. Besides, every lot has been searched. Perhaps not by the current seller, but it has been searched. That being said, let me explain what I collect so that you know what I will have taken out. I collect one each of every different circulated coin (including years and mint marks). That’s it. I don’t hoard copper, nickel, or silver coins. I am not expecting the Mayan apocalypse at the end of the year. I just like enhancing my collection of foreign coins. So periodically, I will buy a whole bunch, sort through them all to find ones I don’t have, and then sell the rest for the next person to search through.

Reason #2: Silver coins are rare enough now, that any you find in a batch have probably been planted there (see also Reason #1 where I mention that all lots are searched by someone before it gets to you). That being said, I can just about guarantee that there are no silver coins from the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, or New Zealand in this lot. That is not 100% guarantee, but if you are bidding on this because you think I missed a Morgan dollar, then you are a fool. For the rest of the world’s coins I have a cursory knowledge of silver coinage, but I can be pretty sure that nothing after 1970 is silver, and the VAST majority of things before 1970 are also not silver (Copper, Bronze, Brass, and Aluminum have very distinctive looks from silver, steel is magnetic, and stainless steel coinage is too modern). So if you are bidding on this in hopes of finding that off chance foreign silver coin, you too are a fool.

Now that those reasons are out of the way, what is it you are getting. 7+ lb of foreign circulated coinage. There is something from most everywhere around the world. Probably enough Canadian pennies to have a complete collection from the 1970s with many earlier dates as well – and they aren’t making any more Canadian pennies (I know because my Canadian penny collection is almost complete). Enough British new pennies to have a nearly complete collection (1971 to present) (I know because my British penny collection is almost complete). German Marks and pfennigs galore. Plenty of French Francs and Spanish Pesetas to keep you happy. Mexican pesos in all of their varieties for the last century.

What about money that is currently legal tender? Absolutely. Japanese Yen. Taiwan dollars, Chinese Yuan, British pounds, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Euros! Plus more (its hard to keep track of what money is current in all countries on earth).

Is it just pennies and nickels? No, there are higher denomination coins as well. While any bulk lot is going to be made up of primarily low value coinage, this is because there was a whole lot more low value coinage minted. That being said, I only collect one of each coin. So if I have two 2001 British pounds, then one of them is going in my duplicates bag. Same with Canadian Loonies, Australian 50 cent pieces, or Hong Kong 10 dollar coins.

Well, it must be all modern money? No, most of it is from 1950 to present, but again, that is because more coins were minted from 1950 to present than prior to 1950. When it comes to Thailand, Israel, and the Arab countries, I don’t know what dates they are. However, I don’t hold back. I know there are a half dozen Canadian WWII nickels (with the V back). Large British Pennys and Halfpennys. Again, anything that I already have one of, will go in this bag, I am not particular. Browsing through the Krause catalog there are probably some coins that are worth 50 cents to $2, however, the additional cost to me (in time and storage space) to separate them out and sell them individually or as a separate lot when I have enough, is not worth it. Coin collecting is my hobby, not my full time job. Yes, if there was a high dollar coin that I recognized, I would pull it out and sell it separately. But in the last 40 lb of coins that I have bought, I haven’t found a coin that I would consider valuable enough to sell separated. Probably the people who searched through the lot before me already found those.

Are these just culls? No, there might be a cull or two (although usually I throw culls in the trash if they aren’t silver, copper, or nickel). Look at the pictures, they run the gamut of condition. The pictures are the actual coins you are going to receive. Things I have removed are tokens, medals, and US coinage (although no one is perfect so if one slips through, please forgive me).

Are they washed or cleaned? Yes, now before you panic, are they individually washed? Heck no, I don’t have time for that. What I do though, is wash the pile of them in a hot water and dish soap bath and then rinse with clean water and pat dry. These are common circulated coins, so when I get them, they have plenty of surface grime that will turn your hands black while sorting them. I like to send them off cleaner than I got them so the next person doesn't have to use as much soap to wash his hands. It’s less harsh than putting them through the washing machine in your pants pocket. And they are going to get more banged up in the bag during shipping and handling than they are swished around in a colander. Once again, these are not high dollar coins. Washing them with dish soap is not going to change their value. Hopefully, it will keep you from starting a collection of germs from around the world!

I tell you all of this so that you know exactly what you are getting. A lot of foreign coin lots are slim on the details. Why don’t I tell you exactly all of the coins in the lot then? Because that would take hours. Foreign coin lots typically sell for $7-$12 per pound. It would be a waste of my time to catalog all of the coins. That is why it is sold in a bulk lot!

So now that you know what I know, bid to your hearts content!

 The best thing about this is I received about a half dozen emails from people who didn't even bid on them and telling me how great it was that I was completely honest.  Yeah, there are a lot of sleazy people on Ebay, but every now and then, you run into an honest person like myself.  I sold them for about $8 a pound. Not necessarily any more than the sleazy people, but more than I paid for them originally.

Piecing Out Appliances for Money

Last year our glass oven top met an unfortunate demise at the hands of our stone cookware (serves the glasstop right for busting one on the stones when it was set on the "On" burner three years ago). So after much internet searching I found that a new glasstop for the stove would cost $425 delivered to our house. A brand spanking new stove and oven would cost only $525.

Looking over the life expectancy of stoves/ovens it is around 8-12 years. So paying 80% of the replacement cost for the repair just didn't make much sense. We ordered the new stove. In the meantime, I decided to do some more internet searching to see what the cost of some of the replacement parts that aren't broken are.

Control Panel - $381
Large Burner - $109
Small Burner - $62
Burner Switch - $45
Control knob - $15

So with a half hour, I removed all of these items from the old stove, since they were still in perfect working order. If I can just get 25% of the retail price, I have paid for half of the new stove. If I get 50%, then the new stove was free. $500 for 30 minutes of work, isn't too bad. The sad thing is, if I was really tenacious, I could have stripped the whole thing and probably had $2000 worth of parts to sell, and then sell the shell for scrap steel and get another $2.

Maybe I should go into the spare parts business. Just buy new stoves, take them apart and sell the parts. It would work with cars too. I could be a millionaire in just a matter of months. After the week of auctions, it turns out I made a total of $23.48, the market just isn't there.  So, I am not quitting my job and moving to the Bahamas.

Retrospectively, the market has got to be really slim.  Consider that there were 2 million of this model made. And they were made over a 10 year period, 200,000 a year.  Parts don't start breaking until the 8-12 years and only in 25% of them, so 50,000.  There are still 52 weeks in a year, so only 1000 potential customers at the time that I am selling the stove parts.  Only 25% of these are regularly online, and only 25% of those think to check eBay.  So, that puts me at 65 potential customers.  There are about 30 different parts on the stove that could break, I had 10 of them for sale, so now my customer base is down to 20.  It wouldn't take too many errors in my estimates to bring it down to the 1 to 3 people that were bidding on the parts.  Markets can be funny that way when you look at the variables that make up demand.

Office Supplies and Booby Traps

It seems there has been some pilfering going around the office. It was brought up at our morning meeting s this last week. Why someone needs to "borrow" a stapler from one desk when they can ask their admin assistant to order the Whamodyne 9000 Paper Perforator, I'll never know. Personally, I think the company has an unlimited budget for office supplies. I have never been turned down for a request.

So after this was brought up, I raised a question:

Me: "Since we have this pilfering going on, can we booby trap our cubicles?"

Manager (immediately without thinking): "Everyone else can, but you can't!"

Me: "Why not me?"

Manager: "Because I have seen your teddybear mortar and I have heard your conversations about your hobbies. If I gave you permission I have no doubt that a) you would do it and b) it would be effective."

College Football and the DVR

Last night, I found out why God inspired someone to make the DVR. College Football. I had started recording the Utah/Pitt game while I was out at some other activities. I arrived home and was able to start watching it at 9:45 (at the beginning of the 3rd quarter).

Fast forward was great. Slow motion was great. Skipping all of the commercials and halftime was great. Pausing so I could review the stats was great. In the end, I go through the entire game in about 1-1/2 hours. I was about 5 minutes late at the end to see overtime live, but thats fine.

I think I will have to do more planning so that I only take 1.5 hours per football game this season rather than 4 hours. That should make my wife happy.

Whoever invented the DVR, St. Peter has a free entry pass when you die!

I'm the Technological Neanderthal??!!!

The newest iPhone came out and guess what? I didn't get one. Not only that, I have no desire to get one, ever. I didn't get an iPad or an iPod. (alright I admit, I am only mentioning them to increase my Google relevance score). Recently, I was accused of being a technological neanderthal because I don't have a cellphone (to set the record straight, I do have a Tracphone, it just hasn't been used in more than a year). I thought this accusation was rather humorous.

I have more computing power in my home than my parents and all siblings combined. I was the first in my family to have a DVD player and a portable DVD player. I had a Palm Pilot for many years. I was the first with a webcam in my family and helped facilitate video conferences with the family.

I use MagicJack to make free calls when I am overseas. I am the one my father would call for technical support (until he got a Mac - sorry, I like my cheap computers that I know there is software for, and I don't think Microsoft is the devil incarnate - besides if you want to look at unfair business practices, you don't have to look any further than Apple, they just weren't the biggest fish on the block until recently so expect a lawsuit against them in the next couple of years - but I digress). I pride myself on being able to read a map and not having to rely on a GPS unit to find my way around different cites or even foreign countries.

I helped my wife make the conversion to digital scrapbooking. I have designed database driven websites (that make money) and taught myself PHP, Perl, and MySQL. I have had high speed internet at my home for almost 10 years.

Yet somehow, I am a technological neanderthal because I don't have a cellphone.

Protecting the Skys, One 6-Year Old at a Time

The TSA is there to protect us. They are working hard to stop terrorists everyday. In fact, there are a whole host of stories where the TSA has prevented bad things from happening. There was that one time that they stopped a terrorist from detonating a bomb in his underwear ... oh wait, that was passengers on the plane. But there was that other time that they stopped someone from passing a note that said there was a bomb onboard ... oh wait that was the stewardess. Well, there have been a couple of unruly passengers that they stopped from boarding the plane ... oh wait, no they didn't airline employees identified them and had them removed.

So what has the TSA done? Well, they have strip searched amputee's traveling with their small children. They steal money from wheelchair bound passengers. They subpeona bloggers who re-post their security directives. They can't keep their hands off of 3 year olds. And they force mom's to drink their own breast milk.

But remember, this is the agency that is sooooo much more professional and better trained than the screeners we had before 9/11 who basically were minimum wage employees that left you alone. You know, the one's who let the 9/11 hijackers onto the plane as opposed to the one's now who let the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber onto the plane.

But we have the restricted fly list of those people who are so dangerous we won't let them fly. They haven't actually been convicted of anything, or even charged with anything, but we will only let them roam around shopping malls and have access to gas stations because large crowds are immune to burning gasoline, but we wouldn't want them to get onto an airplane with 200 other passengers and 3 ounces of hair gel.

So who is on the no fly list? Well to start with, some of the 9/11 hijackers on are the no fly list - yes, those ones who burned up in the plane crashes. We can't be too careful. Afterall, someone else may use that dead person's identity. There are heads of state (Bolivia and Lebanon - but not Iran and Venezuela). Robert Johnson is also on the list - not exactly the most common name, but pretty darn close. Ted Kennedy was on it, but he was allowed to rent a car without further scrutiny. Recently, it was discovered that a 6 year old girl was on the list. I thought it was just Iran that executed 7 year olds as spys. In America, we are much more civilized. We just subject suspected 6 year olds to strip searches and prevent them from traveling with their families.

The change in airport screening has done NOTHING to make air travel safer. The only thing that has made air travel safer is 1) reinforcing the cockpit doors and 2) passenger awareness that terrorists are going to blow up the plane. Surely if all of the Orange Alert Levels, 16 weeks of TSA training, and confiscation of nail clippers actually made an impact, then the TSA would be able to tout at least one example where a terrorist plot was thwarted. Afterall, there are millions of flights a year.

chirp ... chirp ... chirp

Don't hold your breath.

Lawnmower Problems

With all of the rain lately, I decided to try and take advantage of a small window of opportunity when it wasn't raining and get the lawn mowed before I lose any kids in the grass. My philosophy on push lawnmowers (and lots of small engine equipment) is that their cost is so little relative to my earnings that I will fill it with gas when it stops and fill it with oil just before it seizes up and then basically do nothing.

I don't drain the fluids before winter. I don't sharpen blades every year. I certainly don't change the oil. I did have a riding lawnmower once when I had a half acre to mow. It came with the house and was about 30 years old. It would run out of oil about once a season and semi-seize up. I would put a quart or two in it and then wait an hour for it to cool down some, and it kept on working.

Small engines are designed to take the abuse of the casual home owner. Last year I didn't mow the lawn at all (my wife did it all), this year I have noticed that the lawnmower wasn't running real smooth. Choppy, changing speeds, although right before it ran out of gas it would rev up to its normal operating speed (and then promptly die).

So, halfway through the yard I ran out of gas. Got the gas can (which has gas that is probably 1-1/2 years old and didn't have the fuel stabilizer put in it last winter), and filled it up. Normally, the lawnmower starts on a single pull. But, this time, I could get it to sputter a bit and then it would poop out again. After several minutes it was time to get some tools out and check the thing out.

First thing I did was check out the air filter. The air filter is nothing more than a sponge with a hole in it. At the intake holes it was cakes with oily grass clippings. Well, that could be a problem. The lack of air would definitely affect the engine causing it to run rich for the amount of air (explaining the sluggishness), and then working fine at the end of the tank when it was just sucking a few fumes (and getting the fuel-air mixture just right).

So, I took it inside and cleaned it with some dish soap (dish soap is good for oil - they use it to clean off animals from oil spills - or at least that is what the Dawn commercials say). While the filter was off, I decided to check to make sure that gas was spraying through the carbeurator. A couple pumps on the primer and a nice stream of gas was spraying. So, I attempted to start the engine with the air filter off. No luck, it was doing the same thing as before.

So, the next thing to do was pull the spark plug. Sure enough, it was caked with carbon deposits. One of the problems with a engine constantly running a rich mixture is some of the fuel is left on the spark plug and chamber walls. This gets hot enough to smolder, but doesn't make a clean burn. Instead, it coats the surfaces with a black carbon deposit. Eventually, this gets thick enough that the spark won't happen, hence the engine won't sustain itself.

Some wiping off with a rag and a file to clean up the sparking surfaces and I was ready to go. Put it all back together and the lawnmower started on the second pull. I let it run for a while to be sure it didn't die. So, the next time I am at Lowe's I'll probably pick up a new air filter and a spark plug. After all, I have had the lawnmower for three years and I haven't done any maintenance on it until today.

48 Hours Or Else!?

British Petroleum has 48 hours to identify containment strategies. 48 hours or else ... what? The point of a deadline is to have some sort of consequence. Does the Coast Guard think that they are going to take over? After all, they have soooooo much experience stopping oil leaks.

Perhaps it is 48 hours or else we will beat them in soccer? Nah, that couldn't be it, we just tied them (besides, my guess is that most of the workers for BP in the Gulf are actually Americans - you know the whole multinational corporation thing).

What's the point of the unmentioned threat anyway? It is not like BP is trying to develop nuclear weapons. Usually, Obama saves his "or else" for crazy dictators bent on the destruction of the US. BP, well, they just want to sell us oil. It's not like they have been sitting on their butts doing nothing. Its not even like BP wanted to have a 100 million barrel oil leak into the Gulf of Mexico to begin with. Unfortunately, that is what we have.

Empty ultimatums (while at the same time trying to smooth things over with the homeland's head of state) won't stop the spill. It took 9 months to put out the oil fires and cap the wells after the first Iraq war, and that was on land. I don't seem to remember any ultimatums being given to speed up the process.

Engineering Packrats

I changed positions in my company recently and took over for an engineer who had been in his position for a couple of decades and basically was the industry guru for his field. In this respect, I feel rather inadequate as a replacement, but it also is a major challenge then to be successful following in the shoes of a giant.

One thing that I have noticed throughout my career is that engineers are natural packrats. The older generation are paper packrats and it can be evidenced by my current position. There are at least 4 filing cabinets of documents and notes that are for my position, carefully gathered and sorted by my predecessor. Unfortunately, besides being packrats, engineers also are obsessive/compulsive in the way that they organize things. And no two are alike.

This makes taking over an engineering position difficult. Besides being a newbie to this area, I now have to sort through, mentally catalog, and try to assimilate 100,000 pages of information that is in a filing system which a) I don't know, b) has no index to describe it, and c) more than likely is diametrically opposed to my own OC tendencies.

I am a digital packrat though. I like to keep things electronically and throw out as much as I can. In my first job out of college, I was similarly dumped on with boxes of papers. I sorted through what I could, digitized much of it (using my own folder filing system) and then after 4 years boxed up the rest for the next guy to deal with (I still got emails for about 4 years from my successors to ask me to explain something about the documentation).

At my current position, there are two computer folders that I consider mine. The first day on the job, I literally spent 5 hours rearranging the folder and documents in them. I was half expecting some gnashing of teeth the next day as some of the other engineers had lost links to important information. But nothing. My rearrangement went unnoticed.

I cleaned off two shelfs of one of the bookshelfs by getting rid of the empty binders (that should give me enough room to bring the books from home that I may use at some point in my career). Oh yeah, and I have a big schematic on one wall that I spent a couple of hours color coding. Engineers can't get over the childhood urge to color everything.

Change in Media Provider

About two months ago I got a flyer in the mail with a deal that interested me. Cable, phone, and internet for $72 a month (which included all taxes). I'll call this Company A So I decided to look into it since we were paying $96 for phone and internet already. I'll call this Company B. After some searching on the internet, I found a few differences.

Company A's internet service was 20% slower than Company B's, but since I don't do online gaming, downloading of music or videos, this really isn't a big deal. Also, Company A's phone service did not include unlimited long distance, but 7 cents a minute. So for a $24 difference I could talk for 5.5 hours. Oh yeah, except I have the Magic Jack phone that gives me unlimited long distance, so while a slight hassle, not a big problem. Plus, not only would I get cable, I would get digital cable (and we all know digital is better than analog), plus a DVR. Now, this was only a 1 year teaser rate and the rate would be $145 after that year, but there was no contract, I could cancel at any time.

I talked with some friends at work and found no complaints from Company A, except for their HD service. I don't have an HDTV so I didn't care about that. So I was ready for the next phase of the research. I only really care about phone and internet so I was more than willing to stay with Company B if they would lower their $96 rate (it didn't even have to be down to $72, I probably would have settled for $80 or 85). I called them up and talked with a salesman.

"Thank you for calling Company B, how may I help you?"

"I got a flyer from Company A that is offering Cable, Phone, and Internet for $72. I currently am paying $96 for Phone and Internet. I don't care about the Cable, so I wanted to find out if you can give me a better deal on the Phone and Internet than $96."

"Let me see what I can do. Well sir, the only thing I can do is add Cable to your account. It is normally $49, but since you have Phone and Internet it would only be $20."

"I think you misunderstood. I don't care about Cable, I would like a lower price on my Phone and Internet or I am going to switch to Company A."

"I could increase your Internet speed for only $5 more per month..."

"Ma'am, I don't want to pay more money, I would like to get a reduction in rate. If someone is willing to give you cable, phone, and internet for $72 does it make sense to pay $96 for phone and internet alone?"

"Well, no. Let me transfer you to our retention department." I love it how service companies have a retention department. This is where I wanted to go in the first place, because if there is a deal to be made this would be it.

"Thank you for calling Company B, how may I help you?"

"I got a flyer from Company A that is offering Cable, Phone, and Internet for $72. I currently am paying $96 for Phone and Internet. I don't care about the Cable, so I wanted to find out if you can give me a better deal on the Phone and Internet than $96."

"Let me see what I can do. Well sir, the only thing I can do is add Cable to your account. It is normally $49, but since you have Phone and Internet it would only be $20."

"That is the deal the other lady just offered me and I already told her I am not interested in paying MORE money."

"Well, I can't match the deal they are offering."

"I am not even asking you to match the deal, I just want a reduction in the rate I am paying for Phone and Internet."

"I'm sorry there is nothing more I can do."

"OK, then I will be switching. Good bye."

A phone call to the Company A and I was all set. A couple weeks later, they were our and installed our new service. Phone works fine, internet works fine, 200 channels of tv, 80 channels of music work fine, and then there is the DVR.

I didn't know what I was really missing until I got the DVR. Now, I can set up the shows to watch (or the shows my wife wants to watch, or the kids want to watch) and let it record. No more having to pray that Mythbusters is on TV so that I can get a breather from the kids. There's always a few episodes on the DVR. Shows not playing at convenient times, no problem. And the fast forward through commercials is great. Now, if I can just figure out how to transfer shows to the computer through the USB port, I'll be in heaven.

A year from now, my wife and I will have to make a decision. Do we switch back to Company B who will probably be running the same or similar special or just cancel the cable and be paying $80 a month? We'll see. Home phone number portability has sure taken the hassle out of switching phone companies. Why Company B didn't want to just cut $10 off the bill and keep a paying customer, I will never know.

A Primer on Electricity Generation

Most people in the United States take electricity for granted. Whenever we need something we simply plug it in and electricity magically powers whatever instrument we have. Having been in the energy business for my entire adult life, I thought I would write an introduction for the average person on where electricity comes from. Since the country is currently debating items that could drastically change how energy is produced in the US, it is important that people understand the basics how where electricity comes from. After reading this, you will probably know more about electricity production than 90% of the adults in America.

To begin let me start with what everyone does know about. Our homes. Most homes in America have two services of electricity: 240 Volt AC and 120 Volt AC. There are normally three wires that come into your home, two 120 volt wires and one ground wire. Large appliances like oven ranges, dryers, electric furnaces, and air conditioners use 240 volts, while all of the rest of your home uses 120 volts. The first thing to remember is don't ever try to plug a 120 volt appliance in a 240 volt outlet. For one, the plugs are different so it shouldn't work. Secondly, you are going to fry your appliance. If you do try to plug your 240 volt appliance in your 120 volt outlet most likely, you appliance won't work (it is not getting enough electricity), although it probably won't be permanently damaged.

AC stands for alternating current. This means that the direction of flow changes. In the US, we use 60 Hz or 60 cycles per second. So the direction of flow switches 60 times each second.

As an analogy, voltage can be looked at as pressure. Water pressure (from a water tower) pushes water through the pipes which is why it comes out when you turn the faucet on. Voltage pushes electrons (electricity) through the wires so that when you plug something in, it turns on. No voltage, no electricity. The other key term is amps or amperage. For the analogy, amperage is like the amount of electricity that is flowing. When a water faucet is off, there is pressure (voltage) in your pipes, but no water flow. When you turn the faucet on, you get water flow (amps).

Besides your normal appliances and lights, your doorbell runs on electricity as well. This is usually a lower voltage of around 12 volts. To do this, a transformer is connected to a 120 volt circuit. A transformer is a simple device that has two sets of windings, input and output. Based on the ration of loops per winding, will determine what voltage the output will be.

All of the electricity in your house flows in through a meter and a breaker box. The breaker box allows loads (lights, appliances, etc.) to be disconnected without affecting the rest of the house. The meter is where the electric company measures the amount of electricity you are using so that it can bill you.

Working backwards, the 120 volt lines that run to your house are probably coming from a transformer. As before, the transformer steps down the voltage from a higher voltage. Higher voltage allows for more efficient distribution of electricity over long distances. Depending on your locale, the power lines you see overhead could have any number of different voltages and more than likely there are several transformers in between your home and the major power lines. Major power lines have voltages in the neighborhood of 14,500 volts to 345,000 volts or more.

The major power lines run through substations. Substations are sort of like your breaker box for your home. They may include stepdown transformers, but they also include breakers and disconnects so that electricity can be cut off to different areas of a city or county without affecting the entire network. Neighborhood substations feed into major substations.

Major substations are like the clearinghouse for power. Major substations may be near a power plant or not. In all cases, major substations have incoming lines from several sources. Our modern reliance on electricity makes it impossible for a city to lose power just because one power plant is not producing electricity. It is not a matter of backup sources, all of the sources are the primary sources. To return to the water analogy, a city may have only one water tower, however it might use a dozen wells to fill that water tower. The residents of the city never notice that any of the wells are not working as long as the water tower remains full. The major difference, is that a water tower is storing water, electricity in the electrical distribution system is either used or not created. (More on that later.)

Major substations are fed by power plants. Besides some solar power plants (which account for less than 1% of all electricity production in the US), electricity at a power plant is created by a generator. A generator is a machine that rotates magnets passed wires (or wires past magnets). This creates electricity (you can generate your own electricity with a magnet and a piece of copper wire - but don't plan on running anything from it). Electricity and magnetism are related. Electricity creates magnetic fields and magnetic fields create electricity. A generator uses rotational energy to create electricity from wires and magnets (a motor is the opposite, it uses wires and magnets to create rotational energy).

A quick word about solar plants. There are really two types, direct conversion and generator conversion. Direct conversion uses solar cells (like what is found on a calculator) to generate electricity. The materials on the solar cells produce electricity when light shines on them (conversion of visible light to electricity). Generator conversion types use a generator like any other power plant.

The generators are turned by a turbine. A turbine is another rotating machine that has blades attached to it. As a fluid (usually steam) passes over the blades, it causes the turbine to rotate (like a pinwheel in the wind) which turns the turbine. Hydroelectric dams use liquid water to rotate specially designed turbines. Wind generators use a wind turbine which is open to the environment because air is the fluid that is pushing the blades. But the blades on the windmill are connected to a generator. All other power plants (coal, gas, nuclear, solar) use the same type of turbine, and in some cases if a company (say GE) designed two different types of plants (say nuclear and coal) at the same time (say 1975), it is very possible that they have the exact same model of turbine and generator. So except for those solar and wind plants I already mentioned, from the turbine out to the electric distribution lines they are all the same (and in some cases exactly the same).

And since all of the electrical lines are interconnected, the electricity is all the same. In other words, lets say that you are a rabid environmentalist and want to get all of your electricity from wind power. If you have a wind turbine in your yard and your house is not connected to the grid, then congratulations. However, if your house is connected to the grid, then you are getting electricity that was made from coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, solar, and wind. There is no device you can put on your house that is going to filter out the "bad" electricity. 1 kilowatt of electricity from coal is indistinguishable from 1 kilowatt of electricity from solar.

So, why hasn't wind and solar energy taken off, in spite of promises that it would for the last 40 years? In a nutshell, the answer is energy density and reliability. (Coincidentally, the same issue that has kept the electric car from being the savior of mankind since the late 1800's). Energy density could be described as the amount of energy that can be derived from a certain volume. Wind and solar's energy density sucks rocks. Sure it is all over the world, however it is in such small amounts that huge tracts of land are needed to supply energy. For instance, an average size power plant is around 1000 MW. For a coal, oil, natural gas, or nuclear plant all of the equipment can be located on 50 acres or less (with room to spare and build walking paths for the employees at lunchtime). A comparable wind or solar farm would need several thousand acres to produce the same electricity. Wind does have an advantage over solar in this case, because 95% of the land could still be used for farming or other uses.

Energy density has to do with the fuel itself. Nuclear has an extremely high energy density. 95% of the mass of nuclear fuel is made up of non-fuel (uranium 238 that isn't fissile, stainless steel, zirconium, and some other metals). In spite of this, a nuclear plant produces only a few hundred tons of waste each year (which includes the 95% of non-fuels in the fuel). Compared to a coal plant which produces millions of tons in ash alone.

As you can begin to see, every type of fuel has its tradeoffs. So reliability is coupled with energy density to determine what fuels we use to make electricity. We need electricity all day long, although in varying amounts. Simplified, there is a base load and a varying peak load. The base load is the minimum amount of electricity that is needed. Plants that produce baseload need to be the cheapest plants that can be continuously run. Since plants will always be shut down for maintenance on a periodic basis, there is little to no "extra" base load, unless a new plant is started up. Coal, nuclear and hydroelectric plants are the vast majority of this country's baseload. Coal and nuclear plants also cannot just be started and stopped at will. The process takes several hours to days.

Peak load is during those times (daytime, early evening) when more electricity is demanded because of industrial needs. In hot climates, the use of air conditioning can greatly affect the peak demand. Because this electricity is not needed at all times, certain peaking plants are used. Natural gas is the primary fuel for these plants. Gas turbines plants are basically glorified jet engines (really, really BIG jet engines). They can be started up rapidly, and are designed to go through lots of start stop cycles. Solar is a great option for peaking plants since it is available at the prime peaking times. Unfortunately, it is not predictably available at the peaking times. Cloud cover can decrease the effectiveness of solar power to near nothing, so any solar plant is going to have to be backed up by a gas turbine plant.

Wind is even less predictable than solar. While some areas have great wind resources, Mother Nature doesn't always cause the wind to blow like the average of the last 30 years. Sometimes it is significantly below that. And when the wind isn't blowing, there is still the electricity demand. So while wind and solar may someday provide up to 20% of the electricity we use, there will be another 20% of unused fossil fuel capacity just in case. Running two power plants (even though one is inactive) is more expensive than running one.

Red Light, Green Light!

Someone will always come up with something to cover a niche market. In this case, they are sort of inventing their own niche market. An electronic firearm that is automatically disabled if it is not near the corresponding wrist watch, a "safe" gun. I have a few problems with it.

1. A "safe" gun, is a term more commonly called a "safe queen." It is a firearm that because of its beauty or monetary value is never fired, but resides in your safe. It is brought out for show and tell, but nothing more. I don't own any "safe queens." I certainly don't begrudge someone who does. Everyone probably has a small fortune tied up in something that will never be sold. My is in coins.

2. $10,000 price tag. Alright, I am sure this is just the starting price and as the technology catches on it will come down in price. Right? Seriously, though, this is being marketed to law enforcement and personal security people. What law enforcement agency is going to spend $10,000 per firearm? Most common firearms used by law enforcement cost less than $1000. Besides, if I had $10,000 to spend on a firearm, I wouldn't buy a .22, even if it was gold plated. I would buy one of these.

3. .22 caliber. There is nothing wrong with .22 caliber. I own several and shoot more rounds of .22 than all others combined. That being said, I would only use .22 in a defensive situation if I had no other choice. Again, this is marketed to law enforcement and personal security. I would be that there are a total of ZERO law enforcement agencies that use .22 as their standard (or even backup) caliber. The vast majority (and by that I mean all) use .38 special, 9mm, .357, .40 S&W, or .45ACP (or one of their derivatives).

4. LED lights. This is designed so that if the firearm is near the watch, it is activated and a green light is lit. Otherwise a red light is lit. OK, for stoplights and electronics, green means on and red means off. For firearms, not so much. If you haven't looked at your manual safeties lately take a look. You will find that the safe position is white and the fire position is red. Every firearm manufacture that I know follows this method. Green is for camoflage. This tells me that people who actually use firearms probably had very little to do with its development. Not sure I want to trust someone like that with a weapon.

5. Electronic whiz bang stuff in a mechanical instrument. Let's be perfectly honest with ourselves. Firearms are mechanical devices. The revolver was invented more than 150 years ago and is still in (very reliable) use today. Semi-automatic handguns were developed more than 100 years ago and we are still making some of the exact same models that were produced at the turn of the 20th century.

But, but, but, Reputo...you sound like you are anti-technological advancement. Uh, no. I happen to love a lot of technology. That doesn't mean to say that every technological advancement is good or worth spending our money on. No one complains that pencils are outdated and we continue to sell billions of them each year. Yet this technology (using carbon based substance to make marks on a plant based substance) has been in continuous use for more than 10,000 years. Before they used charcoal and wood, today we use graphite and paper. It is essentially the same. Mechanical pencils are nice, but in all honesty, they aren't as reliable as a regular wood pencil, can you imagine what would happen if someone came up with an electronic pencil?

The reason why firearms are so popular with law enforcement, military, hunters, sport shooters, and yes, even criminals, is because they go BANG each time you pull the trigger. If they don't do that reliably, then they are sold at a discount. Quality firearms go BANG whenever someone pulls the trigger, and they don't go BANG unless someone pulls the trigger. This company has produced a gun that goes BANG when someone pulls the trigger IF (and depending on your situation, that could be a big IF), there is a wristwatch nearby, AND IF the batteries are still working, AND IF none of the electronics have gone bad. And they want to charge a premium for it as well.

So, if you feel like wasting $10,000 on this paper weight, do you mind sending me a check as well?

The iPad Technological Revolution!

Since Apple has just announced the new iPad, I thought I would do a quick review of it. Nah... I am just shamelessly whoring for traffic like others here, here, here, and here. So instead, let me go through some of the technological advances in my lifetime that I have and have not embraced.

1. iPad - I have no intention of ever buying one. I see no use for it in my life. I have tried reading books/newspapers/etc. on an object similar to the iPad, and it doesn't work for me. I can search for what I want far faster with a paper whatever than I can with some electronic device (unless I happen to know the exact keyword or phrase I am looking for). That is not to say that I don't read stuff off of the computer. I read lots off of the computer. But it isn't laid out in traditional book/newspaper format.

2. iPhone - No need for one of these either. In fact you could put the entire cellphone concept in this category. I will admit, I have a Tracphone (pre-paid cell phone) that I use whenever I go on vacation. If I ever am in a dire emergency and need to use a phone, I'll borrow one from one of the 5 billion people in the world who have one. I don't even care if they charge me.

3. iPod - (are you noticing a pattern here) Once again, no need for this one. I don't listen to music like I did when I was a kid. I have never had a portable CD player either. I did have a walkman once or twice, but looking back, it was probably a complete waste of money. People who have the headphones of their iPod stuck in their ears all the time annoy me. Do you honestly have nothing better in life to do? Have you ever heard of talking to people (I know complete strangers are scary, but get over it already)?

4. Mac - Apple made a big mistake when it decided it was going to be stingy with software rights for the Mac. So for a while no one made it (not literally, but in effect yes), hence the PC grabbed the entire market. I remember in college a friend showing me the new mac OS X operating system. He raved on and on about how stable it was and how it was based on Unix (and Mac people accuse Microsoft of copying their product). Then we asked what programs he had for it (primarily what cool games 20ish boys would want to spend hours playing). None, there wasn't really any that he could buy. Was he poor? No, there were no games that would run on the new system. Period. Gosh, stability is great when all it will do is boot up the computer.

5. Personal computers - Yeah, I latched on to these real quick. The Apple IIc we had when I was a kid had much better games than the Atari 2600. Now I am at the point where I have more computers in the house than adults. And yes, the primary purpose of computers is to play games. Even my mom will tell you that in college she would take her punch cards down to the computer lab and they wouldn't be able to run it until midnight because they had a pong tournament going on.

6. Segway - this was suppose to revolutionize the way we lived. Eh...not so much. More like give yuppies with too much money (or credit) an excuse to get fat. Never ridden one, no desire to.

7. Rollerblades - I liked rollerskating when I was a kid, so in high school when I could buy my own rollerblades I did. I gave them to a friend while I was out of the country for two years, and I never did get them back. Unfortunately, I have never found a pair comparable to that one.

8. New cars - OK this isn't a technological advance, but still. My car is 17 years old. It still runs so I have no intention of getting a new one for the next couple of years.

9. Ebay - Yeah, I recognized the value of this pretty quick. I have had my account since 1998. Sure I may not be a top seller or buyer, but I have never had anything but a + rating. And I have gotten rid of a lot of stuff that probably would have just been thrown away.

10. Automatic bill pay - How could you not love this? Besides Christmas cards and a few magazine subscriptions, there isn't much I need my mailbox for now. Or my checkbook. About 7 years ago I bought a program that could print out checks. I haven't had a "traditional" checkbook yet. And I probably write less than a dozen checks each year.

11. Netflix - This is one I have waffled on. While I couldn't think of how I could imbibe in so much pointless entertainment to justify getting a subscription, now I am looking at is as a way to get a lot of the educational videos that my kids can use for home school.

As you can see from this short list, Apple is pretty much a useless company to me. That is not to say that I wouldn't invest in it. There are plenty of lemmings that buy their products just to have the latest and greatest that their stock price has performed admirably.

Great Balls of Fire!

We had some friends over for dinner on Saturday night. The kids had attended my son's birthday party when I played the role of Dr. Madd and we exploded some dry ice bombs (and other slightly less cool things). They told me I couldn't be Dr. Madd at dinner. I relented, but asked them if they wanted to play with fire!

So, after dinner, once the small talk was over with, I started to get things set up in the backyard. Fire is really cool. Especially at night! Whoever the caveman that discovered how to make fire was, he or she should be given a retroactive Nobel Prize. The same with the person who invented matches and the Zippo lighter. Flares definitely deserve a Nobel prize.

In setting up, I had three things to show the kids (all under 10 years old). I had the test combustion chamber sitting on the picnic table. And my cannon right beside it. And something that I call Dragon's Breath (no not the shotgun shell one).

We started with the Dragon Breath. It is simply a large can with some tygon tubing inserted near the bottom. A sterno can burns inside and then you put in a couple of spoonfuls of your favorite combustible kitchen powder. There are lots of them: flour, powdered sugar, corn starch, coffee creamer, etc. Then simply blow in the tube and you get the following:

The kids definitely enjoyed that, especially since I put some pixie stick dust in to make it change colors (and you thought crack in a tube was suppose to be eaten). The best part was to allow them to blow in the tube to make their own fireballs!

After that it was time to get out the black powder! I had my test combustion chamber and just loaded a tablespoon of black powder in it and lit the fuse. In case you didn't read about building a cannon, the combustion chamber is made from nested cans with concrete filler in between. The actual chamber part is an empty tomato paste can (about 2 1/2 inches deep). So, the chamber isn't covered like it would be in the cannon, simply a small pile of black powder. Light the fuse and:

Pretty cool (at least the kids thought so). That column of flame is about 3-4 feet high. So, after getting them a glimpse of the power of black powder, we loaded up the cannon (in the backyard) with a tablespoon of black powder and launched the empty pineapple can about 35 feet. The kids clamored for more! And I was more than willing to oblige. Two tablespoons of blackpowder and the can, plus my wife was ready with the camera. Fuse lit. It burns down, and down, down ...

The fireball was impressive, and my wife caught it on film (or actually on the SD disk). She actually took all of the pictures. And she is great. Today, she cleaned out her craft closet and emptied her box of paints into a smaller box. Her old box was a giant toolbox. I asked what she was going to do with it and she suggested that I turn it into an explosions and miscellaneous stuff box. So, how many guys do you know have both a range bag and an explosions and miscellaneous box (besides Joe Huffman)?

If you didn't know, she posed for the Motivational Posters we made several months ago. Which brings me to a final thought: Why are pictures of women with guns (even fully clothed women) so popular? Since posting the pictures, those links have consistently been in the top five of viewed pages on my blog. I don't know, but as with teaching science through fire and explosions, I am happy to post for your viewing enjoyment some other great photos of my wife with a gun. Feel free to link to it as much as you want!

Taiwan Wedding Vacation Extravaganza!

About a two months ago, I got an email with this heading: Got any plan next spring Opening it, was one question: Would you like to come to Kaohsiung for my wedding next April?

And for some background. When I lived in Vancouver, British Columbia 13 years ago, I became friends with a young lady from Taiwan. Teresa. After she graduated from high school she went to college out in Toronto and I went back to school in Texas. We kept in touch through email for 13 years.

My wife and I helped her a lot with correcting grammar on her English papers and my wife (who has a degree in Marketing) helped her out with one of her Graduate projects. Later on, my friend worked in Taiwan and Japan. Even though she speaks Chinese, Japanese, and English she would still call or email me for help in translating documents, letters, and agendas (I speak English and passable Chinese). So over the last 10 years you could say that documents I helped translate have seen the desks of government officials from Taiwan, Japan, and the USA and officers of multinational corporations and international Universities.

Now, lest you think that all of the diplomatic problems in the world rest on me, let me assure you these were not the policy making documents. For example, I helped translate the agenda for some conference that the US Representative from American Samoa (Eni Faleomavaega) was going to in Taiwan. I also helped script out my friend's welcome speech.

We haven't seen each other since 1997. I have gotten married and had a gaggle of kids. And now she gets to start that wonderful journey. So, I was excited that I would be invited all the way to Taiwan for her wedding. My wife and I looked at our budget for the year and after a couple of weeks of playing with the numbers decided that we would do it. This was a big decision for us. We had taken a trip to Disneyland in May and weren't planning on any other major trips until well into the next decade.

International travel started for me when I was 16. I went to Niagra Falls in Canada. It might have started earlier (when I was 13) when I went fishing with an uncle in Seattle, but we aren't sure if we crossed into Canadian waters. I lived in Canada for 2 years. Then about a month after I graduated from college, my work sent me to England for a week. This was the first of about a a half dozen trips to England. (When you stay at the same hotel each time, and have the same taxi driver take you to and from the airport it sort of becomes a second home.) Later I was sent to India.

Then I switched jobs and worked for a government contractor in an area where they limited the amount of foreign travel. It was here that I found out that Hollywood and the novel writing industry is absolutely completely clueless about "Top Secret" designations and the like. Trust me, it is a lot more mundane and boring than you think. If I told you more, they might lock me away forever - or until they realized the Top Secret information is also published in high school math and physics textbooks. But I digress.

So now I work elsewhere (don't you like the cryptic nature of not giving the reader any real clue as to my background), and going to Taiwan is an option. My wife has never been out the country and she is excited and nervous all at the same time.

Well, first thing I do is check out the State Department website about travel to Taiwan. No visa required - good, that is one less hassle to try to deal with. Lots of people speak passable English - good for my wife. Don't drink the tap water - ooooh this is sounding sort of like India. When I went to India, I was there for a week. After talking with my doctor (actually my wife and kids doctor, I don't have a doctor), he told me that I could get all of the recommended immunizations (malaria, hepatitis, etc) or I could just not eat raw food, not drink the tap water, and not have any liaisons with prostitutes and I should be fine.

So, when I traveled to India, I had just one carry-on. It weighed about 60 lbs because half of it was bottled water. I wasn't going to risk losing my luggage on the way to India (since I was flying all over India) and not have clean drinking water. This was also before they put the ban on liquids on planes. No, I am not kidding, I had 3 gallons of water in my carry-on. Taiwan is more modernized than India, so I think that I'll leave the water in the checked luggage. But since it is for me and my wife, I'll probably take 3 gallons.

This then led me to the American Airlines website to check out the baggage guidelines. I was in luck, for international travel, checked bags are free! Then I scrolled down some more. Under the sporting goods section they have a list of what can be checked (size of plane dependent). Bowling Balls - alright, except your going to go over your weight limit pretty quickly. Hang-glider - you are allowed to check 1 hang-glider for only $100 additional charge. I wonder how often that happens. Javelin - check 1 javelin for an extra $100, although can anyone explain why a pair of oars (about as long as a javelin) is allowed for no extra charge. No kayaks or canoes (which is odd since they can get a hang-glider in there) but you can check a windsurfing board, mast, boom, and sail for $100 extra. I'll have to remember to check the baggage compartment the next time I am on an aircraft that loses both engines and is plummetting to the earth and the evil badguy has thrown all of the parachutes out the door (no airlines do not have parachutes on board for every individual). There may be someone's hang-glider or windsurf sail that I can use.

Anyway, back to the wedding thing. International tickets are a finicky thing to nail down. One month ago they were $1200 to Taiwan. A week ago they were $960. Two days ago they were $1415. Yesterday they were $1006. So I bought. Watching the prices swing so wildly reminded me of the Stock Market during April and May of last year. Sure I made money on the swings, but it is kind of nerve racking to see 30% changes in such short periods of time.

The hotel we are staying at is one of the tallest buildings in the world. And the hotel starts on the 45 floor. So at a minimum, we will be staying in a hotel room that is higher than the tallest building in the state of Iowa. The wife doesn't want to look out the window. I want a balcony! We also plan on taking the high speed rail up to Taipei. It is the perfect transportation for my capitalist mindset. Privately funded mass transit. $30 gets you 300 miles in an hour and a half. I can't wait. Needless to say, I may not get much sleep while I'm there.

Now we have to figure out the whole Chinese wedding thing. I'll admit, I have been to a Chinese funeral, but never to a Chinese wedding (well one sort of but that was between a Chinese girl and an American guy). Furthermore, my friend has asked me to give a speech at the wedding. It seems that her friends and family are all shy, so the gregarious American gets to become the entertainment. Perhaps after I am done, she will think twice about having an American speak at her wedding...

Cannon Fodder - Applied Science

After reading A Brief History and Building a Cannon you should know that there is only one thing left to do. Actually use it. Well, I needed a fuse, and it turns out that the hobby shop doesn't sell the regular fuses anymore. They only have the electronic kind. I did find some online through a fireworks warehouse. You got to love the internet. You can buy anything online.

To begin the tests, I had to make certain that I wasn't going to blow myself up (a rather important step if you want to continue to have fun with cannons). I had built two combustion chambers (since I had two tubes of PVC), although I only assembled one in a cannon. The other was for cannon testing.

Over the course of a couple of evenings, I made some small fireworks displays in the backyard. I started with relatively little black powder (about a half a teaspoon) to see how much of a flame/ smoke it would create. I slowly built it up until I was igniting a full tablespoon of black powder. Then I tried it by covering the combustion chamber with a #10 can. Everything worked. And suprisingly, the neighbor kids either didn't notice that I was making big clouds of fire and smoke, or just didn't care.

My first thought was to test this out on Thanksgiving weekend. I was going to be down at my brother's place where there was plenty of open land. However, a combination of deer season (cannons tend to scare away deer, or so I've heard, I'm not a hunter and couldn't care less) and a broken fridge (he lives an hour from town and having a fridge die during a weekend when all of the family is in town is not fun) nixed the testing of the cannon. So it would have to wait until I had another opportunity.

That opportunity came on New Year's Day. What better way to ring in the new year than by firing off a home made cannon. I asked my wife if I could go test it in the afternoon and she consented. I figured that the cold weather (-5 degrees) and holiday would keep people away from the range. I didn't want anyone around in case something bad (like an explosion) happened. While I had tested out the combustion chamber in the backyard, this would be the first live test of the cannon.

For some crazy reason, there were actually half a dozen people at the shooting range. (Don't they know that it is freezing outside!) So I continued on driving down the road to the Shotgun range. I was sure no one would be dumb enough to be out shooting clays in this weather. I was right!

After setting up, I loaded the cannon with a half a tablespoon of black powder. For my shell (cannon ball), I used an empty can of peaches wound with duck tape to the same diameter as the barrel. So, for the first shot, it would be a very small charge, shooting out a very light (and non aerodynamic) shell. It took forever to light the fuse since the wind kept blowing the matches out. Finally, I saw the sizzle of the fuse, and ran back about 50 feet. While I wasn't expecting any negative consequences, I wasn't going to tempt the firearm gods.

Pfft! It sounded just like a 4th of July mortar firework. (Which makes perfect sense since it is basically the exact same thing minus the dazzling display of colors in the sky). The can flew out about 20 feet in the air and 10 yards down range. A big smile broke across my face. I had just built a working cannon with stuff you can get from a hardware store. Now, the fun was about to begin.

Just before Christmas, my kids cleaned out the basement and ended up with two trashbags full of stuffed animals that were not needed. Goodwill won't take them and I was thinking of sending them to fellow blogger JayG who loves to bayonet stuffed animals. But then I got a better idea. If bayoneting stuffed animals is an acceptable practice in the communist state of Massachusetts, then shooting them out of a cannon must be an acceptable practice in the slightly more free (we are still a May Issue state) land of Iowa!

So little teddy bear got to be the pioneering cannonaut! I used a full tablespoon of black powder and just stuffed the bear in the can. Pfft! A little louder this time and the teddy bear went sailing. About 20 yards. Not bad. One of the most satisfying things about a black powder cannon compared to an air cannon or even a flammable fluid cannon is the big puff of smoke. The wind was blowing perpendicular to the range of fire so after each shot there would be a nice 5-10 foot smoke cloud floating away.

A third time with a tablespoon and a half and a fourth time with two tablespoons. The teddy bear did not disappoint, each time going a little farther, until he peaked out at around 30 yards. I did notice that the can was going farther, about 40 yards. So, by my eighth shot I was practically frozen, the wind was blowing and the wind chill was about -30 (no, I am not exaggerating) and since I had to take off my gloves to light the fuse, my hands were numb.

I decided that my eight shot would be the final one for the day. I wanted to get some weight to the shell so that it would have more momentum (also less air resistance as I would fill up the can. At first I thought of packing the can with snow, but decided that it wouldn't really add that much weight, snow just doesn't weigh very much. While I was retrieving the can from the range, it hit me. I'm on a shotgun range and there are bound to be clays I could crush up into the can.

Sure enough, the people who use the shotgun range are about as good of a shot at flying clays as I am (which means not good at all!). In no time I had found a half dozen unbroken clays. I smashed them up into the can. Now it had some weight to it.

Three tablespoons of black powder in the chamber, then the can and the teddybear on top for good measure. I set the camera to continuous picture to be able to get multiple shots.

Pfft! Somehow my camera was timed perfectly to not only capture the teddybear in the early stages of flight but also the growing smoke cloud AND the two foot column of flame.

The teddy bear did a perfect spread eagle at the apex of his flight and traveled about 35 yards. The can continued on to about 65 yards.

I was giddy all the way home. In my mind I started planning what types of shells I am going to make and different combinations of powders to use. This was only a two foot cannon with a combustion chamber that is large enough for about a half cup of black powder (six or so table spoons). I think for the three foot cannon I'll make a combustion chamber that is twice that size. If anyone would like be to give a demonstration and a physics lesson to elementary, middle, or high school age kids, I'm ready. You can bet that the 4th of July will be a whole lot of fun at the Reputo Casa!

Cannon Fodder - Building a Cannon

Well, if you read Cannon Fodder - A Brief History you know where I got the inspiration to build a cannon. Why build a cannon? Because I can (and so can you). First off, there is nothing illegal about building a cannon. For the most part, federal law doesn't even classify them as firearms or destructive devices (even though they use black powder, a lead or other metal projectile, and shoot hundreds of yards).

Second, they are great teaching tools. Lessons in Materials science, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, etc. can all be taught in a hands on way. The two lessons that I remember most from high school physics were when we made dry ice bombs (try getting that into schools these days) and ignited methane bubbles. Sure many of the formulas and principles have been ingrained in my mind through later courses in college and hands on experience, but if you ask me what I remember about high school physics those are the stories I would tell you. Since my wife and I homeschool our children, we have a lot of latitude in how they are taught. And since my wife says that I am in charge of science, it is my duty as a father and a teacher to provide the best education possible. Why play the cannon game where you lob shells at an opponent on the computer, when you can do it in real life. So in essence, its for the children!

Third, cannons are FUN!. Fireworks are glorified cannons, and we all like them. The last thing we need is to teach our children to be afraid of smoke and flames coming from a barrel. They need to be taught to respect the power of them (just like they should respect the power in a 100hp engine attached to a one and a half ton metal box). But they should also learn that the proper application can bring joy and happiness. (Not to mention it can be a great stress relief - I have never been stressed after blowing something up).

So I was going to build a cannon. Not an air powered or even hairspray/lighter fluid cannon. I wanted a black powder cannon. Something that would have smoke and flames! I wanted to build it out of everyday materials that could be found in any decent sized town in America. I did not want to use any specialized tools or specialized skills. In other words, I wanted to do it so that any adult capable of getting a driver's license could do the same thing. As a final result, I wanted a cannon capable of launching a 5 lb shell, 100 yards.

Now, let me allay any fears that some may have. In showing in excruciating detail how to build a cannon of one's own, am I aiding terrorists or criminals? Uh, no. As I mentioned in Cannon Fodder - A Brief History, the technology I am explaining is 1000 years old and the principles have been known for almost all of recorded history. If terrorists or criminals are coming to my blog to learn how to make destructive weapons, then we don't have too much to worry about.

So, let's start with a list of tools that you will need:
Hacksaw
Drill w/ 1/4" bit

Materials and where to get them:
PVC pipe (home improvement store)
Duck tape (home improvement store or Walmart)
PVC joining glue (home improvement store)
Small copper tubing (home improvement store)
Concrete filler (home improvement store or Walmart)
High temperature grill paint (home improvement store or Walmart)
Various sized cans (from your wife or mom after she makes dinner)
Large band clamp (auto parts store or Walmart)
Shelf tracks (home improvement store)
small nuts and bolts (somewhere in your garage or basement)

So on to the assembly!

First, the barrel is made from PVC pipe. I used 4" sch 40 because it snuggly fit a can of peaches (which became my outermost layer of the combustion chamber). A cap is solvent welded onto one end.

Now, PVC has the nice quality of being rigid (hence less risk of compression holding the shell too tightly and making a bomb). However, it is also a brittle material that will be subjected to many stresses that are going to crack/shatter it in a cannon. Hence, I wrapped it with duck tape. The cloth tape will provide a protective barrier to prevent the PVC from breaking apart, and by wrapping it very tightly, I am introducing some compressive forces on the PVC which will partially counteract the hoop stress from expanding gases.

Second, the combustion chamber is made by nesting various size cans inside of one another. I started with a big 25 oz peach can for the outer base and ended with a 4 oz tomato paste can on the inside. I used concrete filler (the rubbery stuff) to fill in the space between the cans. This does two things. It increases the mass of the combustion chamber (providing strength) and being a compressible material, it will mitigate the amount of hoop stress transfered to the barrel (the highest pressures are going to be in the combustion chamber).

I then sprayed the inside of the cannon with the high temperature grill paint. Not so much to make it heat resistant, as to give it a uniform color. The heat resistance is a bonus. To assemble the cannon, I simply dropped the combustion chamber into the barrel. Then I drilled a hole through the wall and into the combustion chamber. A short piece of copper tubing was inserted to act as the touch hole.

Finally, after scrounging around my garage, I found a 4" hose clamp and a couple of old shelving tracks. I used these with some nuts and bolts to create some legs for the cannon, and viola! The cannon was completed!
Next up, what good is a cannon if you don't use it. See Cannon Fodder - Applied Science.