How far is that?

This past weekend we were in San Diego for a soccer tournament and had some time to kill so we went to the beach.  As we looked out on the water we noticed a large black smoke plume on the horizon, but could see nothing else.  A man was standing in the bed of his pickup with binoculars looking at it and said he could see flames, we could not.  One of the group asked how far away that was and I said more than 3 miles away.  They asked how did I know and I explained a thumbrule that I learned in the Navy.  The rule states that the distance to the horizon (in Nautical miles) is 1.1 times the Height of Eye (in feet)

I’m 6’ tall so in round numbers the square root is 2.4 * 1.1 = 2.6NM or about 3 statute miles.

My friend just laughed and said something like, “who knows that?” I explained it briefly and then someone else walking along said he knew that the horizon was 21miles away.  I didn’t want to get into an argument with the guy so I left it alone.  But that made me think what is the geometry involved?

The applicable rule is the “Secant Tangent Theorem”

It says: the length of a tangent squared is equal to the length of the two secants that go to the same point.

We’ll choose a secant that is the diameter of the earth plus the height of eye (~6ft) and the second secant is just the height of eye.  The formula becomes.

d² = h * (D + h)

Where:

d = distance from the point to the tangent

= distance to the horizon

D = Earth’s diameter (7900 – 7926miles)

H = height of eye

We can simplify the formula by virtue of the fact that the diameter of the earth is much, much greater than the height of eye.  (At a 100:1 ratio the error is <1%) the equation becomes:

d2 = h * (D )

take the square root:

d = √(h*D)

this is commutative, so:

d = √(h) * √(D)

D = 41.7e6 – 41.85e6 ft

Square Root = 6.47e3 = 6470

Nm = 6076ft => 6470 = 1.065 * 6076

d = √(h) [ft] * 1.065 * 6076 [ft]

d / 6076 = √(h) * 1.065

d [NM] = 1.065 * √(h) [ft]   now simplify for ease of using your noggin only, no calculators

d [NM] = 1.1 * √(h) [ft]

Remember that if you’re looking at something that has some height to it, like a boat, lighthouse whatever that you have to add the two distances to the horizon.   Your eyeball to the horizon and then the distance of that object to the same point on the horizon from the other direction.

Awesome overview from ~1967 on how integrated circuits are made. These wafers are only 2″ in diameter nowadays Intel (and others) make them in 300mm (12″) in diameter. Many manufacturers still use 200mm (8″), 150mm(6″) and even 100m(4″)

TV Briefing
Box 1058
Mountain View, California

No Zip Code!

Found this article, well written. I agree that it’s time Steve Jobs got his comeuppance. Those of us that are engineers by profession or just thinking aren’t all bad…

http://electronicdesign.com/article/editors-notebook/page/page/1/apple_feels_antenna_angst_as_form_trumps_function.aspx

OK – I agree that I can go all over the map, but here is one that is very much in line with the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mantra.  Homemade deodorant.  Let me back up a bit…

As a teenager, I had a problem with body odor, at least I thought I did.  I could shower twice a day liberally apply deodorant and still stink (so I thought).  Not sure how much of that was nervous perception of a teenager or was in reality actual stench. Certainly there was a smell but was it strong, objectionable etc. I don’t really know.  I didn’t go around asking people their opinions of my arm pits.

One day I read either “Dear Abby” or “Ann Landers” (did you know that they were sisters? ) column and someone wrote in with a partial solution to my problem.  This man wrote in and said he suffered with BO for quite some time and had finally decided to do something different.  After unsuccessfully switching deodorants and anti-perspirants numerous times, he finally started trimming his underarm hair.  This made perfect sense to me.  If the forest is smaller and less dense, there are fewer creatures that can live in it. What an analogy.  I decided to try it.  Now if I was self conscious about my BO I was just as self-conscious about cutting my arm pit hair.  Heaven forbid I should look like a little kid in the locker room.  Seemed like I walked the tightrope of too little hair or too stinky.  Well no matter, it worked.

So for the past 30+ years I’ve continued to trim the pits.  I don’t shave them to bare skin, because then I’d look a tad bit ridiculous given that I’m probably a 7 or 8 on the hairy scale and would look sort of odd with no hair in my pits. Antiperspirants work and I’m a happy non-smelly guy.

Within the past couple of years, I read an article about the detriments of using antiperspirants.  Seems the aluminum compound has been linked to brain issues like alzheimers, dementia etc.  It’s not a tight, or perfect, link but still is thought that it might exist.  So I looked into alternatives for my antiperspirant.  About a year ago I figured we’ve used baking soda to deodorize our fridge, our garbage disposer, laundry, shoes etc., why not my arm pits?  So I tried using it as a deodorant.  I would dab a moist finger from into a small dish and then apply it to my armpits.  Seemed to work OK most days but after about 3 or 4 days I noticed that the skin under my arms was red and peeling.  Seems my pits were sensitive to the baking soda.  I stopped use and within two days they would clear up.  I used it only one side and I’d get the raw peeling skin on only one side.  I tried it a couple of more times over a several week period and always got the same, unsatisfactory results.

I shelved that idea and went back to my commercial anti-perspirant.

About two or three weeks ago I stumbled across an article on home made deodorant that included a recipe, so I decided to try again.  The jury is still out but after 2 weeks of daily use, I believe I’ve found something that works!  Here’s the recipe:

• 4 Tbl of Baking Soda
• 4 Tbl of Corn Starch
• 5 Tbl of Coconut Oil

Mix the two dry ingredients in a small dish using a fork or spoon.  After the two are mixed, slowly stir in the coconut oil.  Depending on your climate, you may have to warm the oil to get it to liquify.  I put the jar of oil in a small pan of hot water on the stove and it liquified within about 15 minutes.You may only need 4 Tablespoons of the liquid oil, to suspend the dry ingredients.    But be prepared with the little extra.  After it’s mixed put in a suitable container. Some people are able to put it in an old deodorant container, but my climate is just a tad warm to do that.  The oil liquifies.  I used a 1/2 cup  tupperware container.  I bought the oil at a local grocery store on the international aisle. It seems to sell for about $1/oz whether in the store or on-line Spectrum Naturals – Coconut Oil Organic, 14 oz liquid

The oil has a melting point of about 76F.  What I find is that the finished concoction will solidify overnight and start to get soupy again during the day.  The medicine cabinet where I keep it has an eastern exposure so the wall warms up.  If you live where it is warmer that 76F all the time, you might have better luck using a hydrogenated version of the oil which will have a melting point of somewhere over 97F, perhaps as high as 104F.

To use it, I simply get a little out the container and rub it in.  When the concoction was first made it stayed liquid for abut two days.  During those days and others when it liquifies, I use my finger to stir up the mixture and keep the powders evenly dispersed.  It may take a bit of getting used to, as the mixture has a greasy feel (hello, it’s oil) I make it the first thing I do after drying off from my shower and by the time I’m done shaving my face, I don’t even notice it.

It has been over two weeks since I started using it and I have yet to have any problems with my skin getting red or peeling.  I’ll keep this  updated periodically, especially if something goes awry.

If your skin is sensitive to this mixture, try changing the ratios to 2 Tbl Baking Soda and 6Tbl of cornstarch.

Variation:  Next time I’m going to add about 10 drops of tea tree oil to the powders before adding the coconut oil.  I’ll use less coconut oil to see if I can get it a tad thicker.Tea Tree Oil – 100% Pure Australian Oil, 2 oz,(Good N’ Natural)

We bought a large screen TV when our existing Sony 32″ died after many years of faithful service. We were sad to see it go, but the picture tube was shot, so we figured why not go for one of the new fangled, large, flat screen. They all seemed to be very expensive when we found one manufactured by OLEVIA. My wife did a bunch of research on-line and proclaimed the set worthy of coming into the house. It should last a long time and it has a great picture…

The TV lasted just over two years when it decided it didn’t want to play games any more. It wouldn’t turn on. Depress the swithc and it would turn on for all of about 6 seconds or so and then would turn right back off. The familiar “blue” screen never showed up, the picture never showed up, nothing. Sometimes you might hear something, but usually not. I called several repair shops before I found one willing to work on it. I asked them all why and they all said something along the lines of parts are too hard to get, they have lousy support, etc. I finally found a shop that was near our house that said they could fix it.

We took it in and about a week later they called and said it would be about $400 to fix it. I had done some calling around and found some place willing to sell me parts and the price they quoted me was only slightly less than what the repair shop was going to charge me, including the labor. We decide to have it fixed. About a week later we had it back and working. It worked for about 6 months (outside of the 90 day shop warranty) and then it started to act squirrelly again.

The symptoms were that after it had been on for a while it would make a loud piercing noise through the speakers and turn off. If you pressed the “ON” switch, it would make a similar noise and then turn back on. It would repeat the cycle with shorter and shorter “ON” times until it wouldn’t turn on at all. Then you had to wait half an hour or so before it could be turned on. Too bad for us, it turned off one time too many and wouldn’t come back on. I decided I would open it up and have a look. This is when I discovered that the repair shop buffoons had stripped three of the four screws that attached the chassis to the legs. They were so distorted (a couple were bent in addition to being stripped) that I had to cut the case off of the chassis…

Trouble shooting without a schematic is challenging, and not real fun. The only thing I could ascertain was that there was a major fault in the power supply. When I turned the power on, the fuse arced over LOUDLY, brightly and instantly. After several days it became apparent that I was not going to succeed so I created a search on eBay for a used one. After several month, I found one and after discussions with the seller purchased one. I installed it and we were working again.

Here we are just over a year later and it has started making the sound again. So what I’ve done is to add a temperature sensor (LM35-DZ) on the upper end of the power supply (heat rises) and two 20mm CPU cooling fans the bottom of the power supply blowing up into the supply. I brought all the leads to the outside of the case and will check the temperature the next time it makes the noise. I’ll then turn on the fans and see how quickly they can lower the temperature of the power supply and see if they keep it from overheating again…

I fear that when it quits this time, we’ll be forced to buy a new set as OLEVIA is defunct, that is unless it pulls a “Phoenix” and rises from the ashes…

Will Syntax Brillian Survive

Syntax Brillian waves the white flag files for chapter 11 bankr

U.S. Authorities Probe Syntax-Brillian for Missing Millions

http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/2009/05/24/20090524biz-syntaxbrillian0524.html

Controversy still dogs Syntax Brillian

Court Case Summary

This is a dense, wonderful bread.  I’m not sure if it is the same as the recipe that I got with my DAK bread machine, but it seems very similar.  I remember using powdered milk, but don’t know if it was this recipe or another one.

• 5/8 cup Milk  (1/2 cup + 2 Tbl)
• 5/8 cup Water (1/2 cup + 2 Tbl)
• 2 Tbl Vegetable Oil
• 1-1/2 Tbl Honey
• 2 Tbl Raisins
• 2 Tbl Brown sugar (packed)

• 1-1/2 cup Bread flour
• 1-1/4 cup Whole wheat flour
• 3/4 cup Rye flour
• 1 Tbl Gluten
• 1 tsp Salt
• 2-1/2 tsp  active dry yeast (1pkg)**

The night before, put the raisins in the water and allow to stand overnight. This re-hydrates the raisins so they become softer and easier to macerate.

Alternatively, you can bring the water to a boil with the raisins in the water. As soon as the water comes to a boil, set it aside and allow it to cool. If your blender can tolerate the hot mixture, put the cold milk in first and add the hot water and raisins to it, while it is running. Adding the cold milk to the hot water will drop the temp to about 130°F – 135°F. Don’t start the blender with only the hot water and raisins in it, it could burn you.

In a blender, liquefy the milk, water, oil, honey, and brown sugar on high speed. Slowly add the raisins so that they become liquified too.  They should not be recognizable as raisins.

Combine the flours, gluten, salt and yeast in a large mixing bowl until mixed. Create a hole or large pit in the middle to receive the liquid mixture. Pour in the liquid, scraping the blender with spatula if required. Mix together with large rubber spatula. Once well combined, put it on a board and begin kneading. The dough will be very stiff and sticky at first, losing it’s stickiness as you knead it. Knead for about 10 minutes after it loses its stickiness. Place in a greased (Pam) bowl, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise until doubled, ~1.5 to 2.5 hours.

Punch down the dough and knead for about 3 minutes. Form into a loaf  (Standard press/roll out to about 18×9 folding in thirds so it is 6×9 pinch ends under) and place in a greased loaf pan, seams down. Allow to rise until the top is out of the pan ~1inch. Bake at 400°F until it sounds hollow when tapped ~30 minutes.  Remove from oven and allow to cool in pan on wire rack.  If it the top is getting too brown, loosely cover with a piece of foil.

On the liquid:  the exact variation I used was 1/2c each water & skim milk and 1/4c half & half.

If you’re doing this in a breadmaker, put the ingredients in the breadmaker in whatever order the manufacturer suggests.  (i.e. wet first or dry first) Keep the yeast away from the liquid if you are trying to do a delayed start (i.e. don’t mix in with dry ingredients) and make sure all ingredients are at room temp to start.  In the photos below the raisins are visible because I didn’t follow my own directions…

Living in California in Pacific Gas and Electric’s (PG&E) territory gives me the awesome, amazing wonderful opportunity to be one of the first to receive and enjoy the benefits (?) of a “Smart” energy meter.  The meter was installed in early March.  The process was relatively painless and took all of about 10 minutes.  They undo the tamper seal, remove the retaining ring and then literally pull the meter out of the panel.  They install the new one by pushing it back into the opening.  They do some type of operational check and if that’s ok back goes the retaining ring and it is re-sealed.  viola! Several weeks later, it was April 10th, the data it was transmitting was being recognized and properly stored in their computer.  They couldn’t tell me when I could start to seeing the hourly data.

I also got a Smart gas meter.  That installation I didn’t get to see, but believe they pulled the face off of the meter, install the transmitting unit and then reinstall the meter face.  My guess is that the box is a radio transmitter and antenna, a generator powered by the gas as it moves through the meter, a super capacitor or two to store the energy and a transducer to read the faceplate.  The bill did not show a discontinuity when the meter was upgraded.

On the graph below are three lines.  At the bottom, the orange circles show the gas usage versus heating degree days.  The equation for the line is to the right of it.  The curve fit is excellent with an R²>0.95.  R² is a mathematical way of expressing how close are the data points to the line.  If R²=1 then the points are all exactly on the line.  If R²=0 then there is no correlation, the line could be anywhere.  The constant of ~23 represents the baseline usage primarily composed of heating hot water.  This is borne out by comparing to the bills in the summer time when the furnace doesn’t run and the usage ends up at about the same number.

The blue diamonds represent the electric usage versus a combination of heating and cooling degree days with the old meter.  I did a primitive calculation varying the ratio of heating and cooling degree days to maximize the linearity of the line.  For heating only, the R² was about 0.5.  The highest I could get is shown on the graph.  The equation, to the right of the line shows a slope of 1.8.  I could probably get a better fit by looking at only the summer months or only the winter months, but I haven’t had a chance to do it.

To explain why the gas curve fit is so good and the electric is so poor goes like this: For gas, the primary consumption in our household is the furnace.  The furnace is controlled by a programmable thermostat that is rarely, if ever, changed.  The usage is then primarily dependent on the weather.  Yes we use hot water which varies from day to day but over the course of a month it averages out.  For example, I take “Navy” showers (rinse, lather, rinse) during the week and as we called them “Holiday’s” (water on for full shower duration) on the weekends.  The dishwasher is normally run daily, but sometimes not and equally rarely twice in a day.  Electricity is much more variable because we use it for cooking, washing, drying laundry, air conditioning, etc.

The red squares represent the electric usage versus a combination of heating and cooling degree days with the new meter.  I used the same ratio as above.  Since there are only two data points, R²=1.  It will be interesting to see what happens as the number of data points increases.  The equation, again to the right, has a slope of more than TWICE the old meter.  Just looking at the graph, you can see how the red points are so much higher (above) the blue ones.  They should be right in “the mix” with the blue diamonds.

What makes this extra painful is that PG&E has a tiered rate structure.  As your consumption goes up so does the rate at which you pay.  The rates are:

Baseline is an arbitrary number. It is not scaled by the number of people in the household. I had never hit the 200% tier and only occassionaly got to T3. Now with the new meter, I’ve not gotten out of (below) T4 since the SmartMeter™ was installed.  The only good thing to come of all this is that the increased bills makes it easier to say “yes” to a small solar system.  If I could get myself out of the T3 & T4 range that would be awesome.  A system with that target would payback in under 5, if not 4 years.

I’ve asked on their facebook page to tell me what the distribution of bill changes is.  What percentage of bills remain the same, go up or go down along with an idea of how much.  In other words produce a statistical comparison of of the meters.

They have a comparison of meters that they are doing in the Bakersfield area and not surprisingly, most of the reading show no difference and an essentially equal number of meters read hi as read low.  None were off by more than 2% and most were under a 0.5% difference.

For my SmartMeter™, I verified that when I open the main breaker, the meter drops to 0 and stays there.  I own a watt hour meter that allows me to determine energy usage for appliances that consume less than 2kW and operate on 120VAC.  I can see both the instantaneous consumption and the cumulative consumption.  One thing I was surprised to find was that the UPSs I use to protect the PC’s, DVR and big screen TV all consume about 35 – 40W even when powered off.  I’ve even got one in our bedroom to power the cordless telephone transmitter.  I’m going to see if I can modify the UPSs to shut off completely when the PC goes off.  I set up a program that runs every night at about midnight to shut the PC’s off after running the diagnostics and backups.  It would be nice if the UPS went off (i.e. 0 power consumption) at the same time.  I might even make a simpler battery charger arrangement for the cordless phone base station.

5 UPS @35 watts = 175wH/hr; 175H/hr * 6hr = 1050wH/day.  The other trick is to figure out how to get the PCs to go to standby.   Other possible reductions are to convert the dryer to gas when it needs to be replaced.  Same for the ovens and cook tops.  Converting the energy in gas to kWh yields a price per kWh (median) of $0.072; mode = $0.042, CHEAPER than the lowest price per kWh of electricity. I think this makes sense given that one must convert fossil fuel to electricity.  The efficiency of most conversions (turbine generators or steam plants) is on the order of say 35% means the cost would put the price per kWh of electricity and $0.126 kWh.  Add in the fact that you have to buy and maintain the equipment and that makes the numbers seem reasonable.

Anna, Damn her! Depending on the teller, the story of how this bread came into existence and got its name is about some type of outdoorsman: either a woodsman, a hunter, or a fisherman from old New England whose wife, Anna, was an absolutely awful cook who could only, and barely, make cornmeal mush. One evening, coming in from the great outdoors (i.e woods/fields/water), the man came home to find yet again a bowl of cornmeal mush waiting for him. The man angrily grabs the dish, and then he fixes himself some dough from molasses, flour, and yeast. While the bread bakes, he sits by the fire muttering to himself over and over, “Anna, damn her. Anna, damn her.”

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup yellow corn meal
• 3/4 cup boiling water

• 1 packet active yeast (2.25 tsp)
• 1 cup warm milk (100 degrees)
• 1/8 tsp sugar

• 1/3 cup molasses
• 1/4 cup water, room temp

• 4 cups All-Purpose or bread flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 Tbl soft butter

1. In a medium bowl, pour boiling water over corn meal and set it aside for about 15 minutes or until water is almost absorbed.
2. In small glass bowl, dissolve yeast, milk, and pinch of sugar, set aside for five – ten minutes until frothy.
3. In large bowl, combine yeast mixture, molasses, and 1/4 cup room temp water until molasses is completely mixed with yeast mixture. Add cornmeal and any residual water. Mix in salt and then combine three cups of the flour.
4. You should have a very moist, almost batter like mixture. Add in remaining flour 1/4 cup at a time until dough is sticky, firm but elastic. Depending on your flour, you may need a little more or a little less flour to get the dough to this stage.
5. Knead dough for about five – seven minutes adding small palm full of flour if dough clumps to your hands. Let dough rest five minutes. Give dough four to six quick kneads and then let rise in a greased and covered bowl until doubled.
6. Tip dough onto lightly greased counter and form loaf. Place dough into greased 9″ x 5″ loaf pan, loosely cover and let rise until dough is 3/4″ – 1″ above edge of pan.
7. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Bake bread until it sounds “hollow” when tapped, about 30 – 40 minutes. Allow to cool for about twenty minutes before slicing.

This bread is awesome with soup or with appetizers.  Use whatever type of beer or cheese you like.  I prefer dark beer or ale and a sharp cheese so that the flavors come through.

• 1-1/3  cups  beer (I prefer dark) — flat & room temp (like in english pub)
• 3-1/4  cups  bread flour
• 1-1/2  Tbl  sugar
• 1-1/2  tsp  salt
• 2  Tbl  dry milk
• 1-1/2  cups  sharp cheddar cheese — grated
• 4  Tbl  vital wheat gluten
• 2-1/2  tsp yeast (1 package)

Optional, cut some (about 3 – 4 oz) of cheese into small cubes (size of raisins)

Flatten beer by leaving open overnight or  pouring repeatedly between two glasses until it stops foaming.  Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl.  After they’re well mixed, add in the grated cheese.  Once that’s mixed in, make a depression in the middle to pour the flat beer into.  After adding the beer, sprinkle the yeast on top of the beer.    Knead everything together until well mixed (none of the cheese should be distinguishable) and smooth.  Add additional flour so that the dough is not wet & sticky.    Place the ball of dough in a greased bowl to rise.  Allow the dough to rise until doubled.

If using the optional cheese cubes, add them now.  Punch the dough down, and knead lightly for about 3 minutes, all you want to do is disperse the cheese pieces throughout the dough, not incorporate them into the dough.

Place in a bread loaf pan.  Allow to rise in the pan until it is even with the top of the pan.

Bake at 425F until it sounds hollow when thumped (about 30 Minutes)