payback

I replaced all the lightbulbs in my apartment today with CFL bulbs. The store had them for a buck each and they are compact enough to actually fit in the socket, so I went all out. I'm keeping the old bulbs in a bag to swap back when I move out, because the CFL bulbs are supposed to last for years and they're too neat to leave behind.

I got the latest issue of Car and Driver. They had some cool stuff about the new Corvette Z06 and the Pontiac Solstice. However, there was an article I took offense to. The guy was talking about how hydrogen isn't a primary energy source, which is right. But then he said that solar cells don't make back the energy it requires to make them, and ripped on wind power too. I'm still very new to the renewable energy scene, but I've heard this energy payback rumor several times now. It's FALSE.

Even if it were true, do these people think it would stay that way? All you have to do is increase lifespan, increase efficiency, or decrease input cost, or some combination of the above. It's called technological progress, morons.

I'm probably going to finish rereading The Idea Factory tonight. Parts of the book hit a little close to home. The most depressing part is still ahead, so I'll be bummed out later. After this book I think I'm going to reread William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy - after Ghost in the Shell I'm hungry for more cyberpunk.

I'm recuperated from all my travelling and now I have too much energy. I wish I had a bike to burn it off. I should look into that before classes start.

generator

Today's physics recitations went much better than yesterday's. I used more of my natural teaching style today. Fewer people showed up today, which is a little discouraging, but at least the few people that show up probably want to be there. Small groups are easier to work with anyway. I collected their first homework problem today but I haven't looked through the stack of papers yet.

The math thing I worked out yesterday is used in the actual process of RSA encryption and decryption. Now I'm working on my RSA key generator, which is a mess. After I first coded it, I found there was some kind of nasty bug that made the keys not work. I replaced a chunk of code and checked my prime number generator, but the problem is still there (maybe even worse). If I can work out this bug it would be a good coding day.

I ran across an article today about a company that uses Stirling engines with solar collectors. That's pretty smart. So this morning I was looking at solar power stuff and coding RSA stuff, instead of preparing for my recitations.

damn it feels good to be a gangsta

I just finished watching Office Space. I love that movie.

It's about 11 PM local time. The space shuttle is supposed to land around 2 AM local time. Since I don't have to work tomorrow, I'm going to try to stay up for it. No promises though. I haven't bothered to get cable TV yet (no CNN), but I found a webcast.

Since I have some time on my hands before then (and I finally graded those prelabs I had been putting off) I am thinking about crazy stuff. Like how I hate batteries. It just seems to me there's got to be a better way to store energy. Unfortunately my background is in physics, not chemistry, so I really have no idea how batteries work, or what a better alternative would be.

Then there's my professed interest in solar power, photovoltaics and whatnot. My physics background SHOULD be able to make all that clear, but semiconductors were not gone over real well. Hell, I know less about transistors now than I did before physics tried to explain them (I took some EE before that). I'm not entirely happy with my undergraduate education. To improve this, my grad classes are going to be heavy on Solid State Physics. I think Oregon State is trying to go big time in optics, but they do have a good Solid State program here, so I'm in a good position. I get the impression that's going to be important in whatever I go into.

(sooner or later I'm going to have to stop saying "whatever I go into" and go into something.)

I've also been sentenced to a year of Quantum Mechanics. They don't think I have deficiencies in anything, they just feel QM is good for everyone to have. I also managed to talk them into giving me E&M as well. At least I kind of like E&M. Then I've got my business classes, and a bunch of seminars on the side. I'll be busy.

Dr. Warren recommended I take a stupid physical activity class to round everything out. I agree. I like the looks of the Badminton class. I remember Badminton fondly from my required high school gym class. I teamed up with another band geek in that course. We sucked at everything except Badminton and swimming, but we didn't care. Basketball was especially painful. People assume that because I'm tall I can play basketball, but I have no talent for it. On top of that you've got all of basketball's ridiculous rules, and you've got a recipe for failure worthy of Emeril. BAM! Consider it kicked up a notch.

There's also a 'Relaxation' class. No Wallyball though. Or archery. I got to the longbow part in my book of wonder weapons, and now I want to try archery.

Edit: Now they're saying the shuttle is supposed to land around 4 AM local time. To hell with that, I'm going to bed.

and i've never been to boston in the fall

Today's Google Earth theme was alternative energy. I was poking around Mojave, CA trying to find Scaled Composites when I remembered that there are a ton of wind turbines around there. I had seen them on the SpaceShipOne documentary, and I think Mythbusters went out to Mojave for something as well. Anyway, if you know they are there it's hard to miss. The resolution is high enough that you can see the shadows of the blades. I also found that nearby is a spot where the power company laid out a bunch of spare blades. It's pretty cool.

I looked up some solar plants next. I found a good sized PV array outside Prescott, AZ, but it wasn't too exciting to look at. I wanted something like the solar plants in SimCity 4 that I love using. It turns out that the US only had one of those - as a test facility - and it's not running anymore. I guess I'd assumed than all you needed was 3,000 wealthy residents...In addition, the site is in a low-resolution area, so I can't even get a good look at it. Oh well.

I spent the day waiting for my DSL hardware to arrive. UPS came by yesterday between 2 and 3, but today they didn't show up until a quarter after five! I hate UPS. The hardware was pretty easy to set up except the phone company had forgotten to send me a letter with important user name and password info, so I had to call tech support and make them tell me.

Things have been going well since then. I'm on my own DSL now, so I don't have to worry about dialup, or the neighbor's DSL going down, or being kicked off the neighbor's DSL, or having problems because the neighbor's DSL isn't secure. One less thing to worry about and I'm happier for it.

The temperature has been a bit nicer recently, though the other grads are still bitching. I'm getting pretty far on sorting through the gigs of music I got from the guys. One of my favorite finds is a punk cover of 'The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything' - it amuses me, especially since it reminds me of PJ.

another quiet day

Not much going on today either...I went through all the archives of the webcomic Ctrl-Alt-Del, I finished beating Ace Combat 4 for the 10th time, I did a Sudoku that was pretty hard, I got some stuff in the mail. My hard drive enclosure shipped and it should be here for my birthday. I think I'm going to start working on Riemann tonight so I can sell it, but I'm going to go chill in the hot tub first. The first Pistons-Spurs game is tonight too, so I'll probably support the Pistons and watch part of that.

It was hot and humid out today, but we have the A/C on. I wish we had a solar power system so we could run it with impunity, and I could laugh at the sun and be like 'The harder you beat down on this house, the more power you give us for air conditioning!' Or something like that. While I'm wishing, I wish I had a Prius. Maybe someday.

I've had the laptop for about a week now. It's going so well I haven't turned on my desktop in days. I was a little skeptical of the widescreen format, but I pulled a quick 180 on that one. I can fit more columns of data into programs like Excel and iTunes, and AIM doesn't get as much in the way anymore because I can push it further to the right. Overall I am very pleased. Between rebates, the garage sale and selling my desktop I will probably make back 2/3 of the cost of the machine, so it didn't hurt my wallet too much in the end.