According to NPR, NH building code will require sprinklers in all residential construction, starting next year. Just the thing to spark the sale of new houses, shiny chrome sprinkler heads sticking out of the living room ceiling. To say nothing of the extra few thousand dollars added to the price of the house.
This bit of user friendliness is brought to you by the fire departments of America who lobby for anything fire suppressive. The firemen are the largest group on the building code committees and they pushed this one.
The insurance companies did a good imitation of a hole in the ground on this issue. They figure it's a wash. Fewer fire claims but a whole bunch more water damage claims when the sprinklers sprinkle down the house when they shouldn't.
We are probably stuck with it although the NH legislature could overturn if they cared. If we can do some good work next November, maybe this irritant could be rolled back.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Pratt & Whitney goes to Russia
The Russian Irkut company selected Pratt & Whitney engines for their new MS-21 medium sized airliner. Pratt will supply the ultra modern geared turbofan PW1000G engine.
Hmm. The Russians are going to stay in the airliner business. Right now Aeroflot advertises that ALL their international flights use Boeing aircraft. The old Russian built Tupolevs are uncomfortable for passengers, hard to maintain, and scary to ride in. And plenty of them are still in service on Russian domestic flights. Looks like the Russians want to fly in made in Russia airliners even if the engines come from America.
That's the way to bring unemployment down, make world class products and export them. The Russians came to Pratt & Whitney because their engines are the best, not because they love Americans.
Hmm. The Russians are going to stay in the airliner business. Right now Aeroflot advertises that ALL their international flights use Boeing aircraft. The old Russian built Tupolevs are uncomfortable for passengers, hard to maintain, and scary to ride in. And plenty of them are still in service on Russian domestic flights. Looks like the Russians want to fly in made in Russia airliners even if the engines come from America.
That's the way to bring unemployment down, make world class products and export them. The Russians came to Pratt & Whitney because their engines are the best, not because they love Americans.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
How many CAT scans are being billed?
Listening to NPR this morning. Someone was ranting about CAT scans, excessive Xray exposure from. The ranter did not, as is typical of ranters, have any numbers on the amount of radition (number of REMs) in a scan. Journalism school graduates are innumerate. This one slipped up and let out that 72 million CAT scans were billed last year.
Wow. The population of the US is only 300 million, that means nearly a quarter of the population was CAT scanned last year. That's a hell of a lot of CAT scans. If each scan cost $1000, that's $7.2 billion worth of scans.
Are all these scans necessary? I doubt it. Would they have occurred if the patient had to pay for them? I doubt it.
Note: I used to design CAT scanners many years ago.
Wow. The population of the US is only 300 million, that means nearly a quarter of the population was CAT scanned last year. That's a hell of a lot of CAT scans. If each scan cost $1000, that's $7.2 billion worth of scans.
Are all these scans necessary? I doubt it. Would they have occurred if the patient had to pay for them? I doubt it.
Note: I used to design CAT scanners many years ago.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (movie)
Well, the movie made it to DVD the other day. My little low speed video store had a whole wall of copies ready to rent. Didn't seem like all that many had been rented. So I rented one, mostly 'cause they didn't have anything better.
Half Blood Prince is the weakest of the Harry Potter movies. It suffers from the curse of the sound man, you can't understand the dialogue. Poor mike placement, score overpowers the dialogue, and the actors mumble. The plot is difficult to follow, even for someone who has read the book. The scene jumps from here to there and back again in a pseudo random manner. For instance in a dramatic scene Voldemort's followers attack Harry. They throw a ring of fire around the house and Harry goes tearing off thru a head high field of some-thing-or-other, wand out, in hot pursuit. Lots of zap flash bang, but at the end of the scene you can't tell what happened. Did Harry get Bellatrix? Did someone scare her off? Did Bellatrix kill someone? The scene fades out leaving me wondering what happened and what was the point. The final quest with Dumbledore for the Horcrux is unclear. How did Dumbledore know to search this wave swept rock? Why does Dumbledore incapcitate himself drinking from the font? How does Harry fight off the cave monsters and drag Dumbledore back to Hogwarts? And why does Dumbledore send Harry away and let the bad guys kill him? In short, the movie ends on an unsatisfactory note, Dumbledore dead for no good reason, the Horcruxes still at large, and Harry vowing to leave Hogwarts and pursue his anti-Voldemort quest.
Finally, the camera work is poor. Dark unlit scenes, low contrast, and you can't figure out where you are. A lot of "fade out the color to black and white" effects which are irritating to this viewer who thinks his color TV is dying when the color goes away. Shots of the Hogwart's Express steaming across an open midwest prairie, rather than English countryside. How did the train get onto the prairie from lush green England?
Too bad. And no wonder it doesn't seem to be renting all that well.
Half Blood Prince is the weakest of the Harry Potter movies. It suffers from the curse of the sound man, you can't understand the dialogue. Poor mike placement, score overpowers the dialogue, and the actors mumble. The plot is difficult to follow, even for someone who has read the book. The scene jumps from here to there and back again in a pseudo random manner. For instance in a dramatic scene Voldemort's followers attack Harry. They throw a ring of fire around the house and Harry goes tearing off thru a head high field of some-thing-or-other, wand out, in hot pursuit. Lots of zap flash bang, but at the end of the scene you can't tell what happened. Did Harry get Bellatrix? Did someone scare her off? Did Bellatrix kill someone? The scene fades out leaving me wondering what happened and what was the point. The final quest with Dumbledore for the Horcrux is unclear. How did Dumbledore know to search this wave swept rock? Why does Dumbledore incapcitate himself drinking from the font? How does Harry fight off the cave monsters and drag Dumbledore back to Hogwarts? And why does Dumbledore send Harry away and let the bad guys kill him? In short, the movie ends on an unsatisfactory note, Dumbledore dead for no good reason, the Horcruxes still at large, and Harry vowing to leave Hogwarts and pursue his anti-Voldemort quest.
Finally, the camera work is poor. Dark unlit scenes, low contrast, and you can't figure out where you are. A lot of "fade out the color to black and white" effects which are irritating to this viewer who thinks his color TV is dying when the color goes away. Shots of the Hogwart's Express steaming across an open midwest prairie, rather than English countryside. How did the train get onto the prairie from lush green England?
Too bad. And no wonder it doesn't seem to be renting all that well.
Dr. Christina Romer on Meet the Press
She is a middle aged woman, blond, bright red suit, no jewelry and little makeup. She is on, or head of, the presidents council of economic advisors. This is the first time I even heard her name. Host David Gregory pressed her to explain how Obama could do yet more economic stimulus without going deeper into debt. In the course of this discussion she said "The administration has down everything possible in the health care bill to reduce the cost of health care". Gregory let her get away with this spin/lie/whopper/untruth/what-do-you-call-it. In actual fact, health care cost reduction means malpractice reform, selling insurance across state lines, and allowing the import of drugs from all first world countries.
None of which is in the healthcare bill. She knows it and so does Gregory.
None of which is in the healthcare bill. She knows it and so does Gregory.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Getting charts out of Excel
Like many, I use Excel for charting nearly any kind of data. And, if I need the chart in any other MS Office application (Word, PowerPoint etc) I just cut and paste. What about moving an Excel chart to a non MS application or the web?
It can be done but the how-to is non-obvious. You have to do "Save as WebPage" from the file menu. This produces TWO files on your disk. The first file has the extension .HTML which is a wrapper of HTML code, and a second .gif file which is the actual graphic file of your chart. The .gif can be uploaded, merged or even edited with a graphics edit program.
It can be done but the how-to is non-obvious. You have to do "Save as WebPage" from the file menu. This produces TWO files on your disk. The first file has the extension .HTML which is a wrapper of HTML code, and a second .gif file which is the actual graphic file of your chart. The .gif can be uploaded, merged or even edited with a graphics edit program.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Excel plots of world temperature.
On top is the Excel plot of the raw temperature data from NOAA file v2.mean. Notice, no hockey stick. It's just a wiggly line rising from say 9 degrees in the 1700's to 14 and a skosh in 2009.
The lower plot is adjusted mean temperatures from NOAA file v2.mean_adj. The NOAA readme file says that v2.mean_adj was computed by adjusting the data from v2.mean for various things. They didn't say what those things might be. Notice the adjustments trashed all the data from 1701 to 1838. After 1838 the adjustments flatten the temperature curve, and the last ten years show a small decline, supporting those who say world temperature has declined since 1998. The downward glitch in 2006 might be explained by a drastic reduction in the number of temperature readings that occured in 2006.
I lack faith in NOAA's adjustment process. I have not yet found an explanation of what the adjustments might be. Trashing the record from 1701 to 1838 is not a confidence builder. The 2006 glitch has got to be an error. I remember 2006 and it wasn't that cold.
Color me confused. The raw mean temperature says the world have been warming since 1701. The adjusted mean temperature says the world has been about the same since 1838. Who you gonna believe? I don't believe the science is settled.
The lower plot is adjusted mean temperatures from NOAA file v2.mean_adj. The NOAA readme file says that v2.mean_adj was computed by adjusting the data from v2.mean for various things. They didn't say what those things might be. Notice the adjustments trashed all the data from 1701 to 1838. After 1838 the adjustments flatten the temperature curve, and the last ten years show a small decline, supporting those who say world temperature has declined since 1998. The downward glitch in 2006 might be explained by a drastic reduction in the number of temperature readings that occured in 2006.
I lack faith in NOAA's adjustment process. I have not yet found an explanation of what the adjustments might be. Trashing the record from 1701 to 1838 is not a confidence builder. The 2006 glitch has got to be an error. I remember 2006 and it wasn't that cold.
Color me confused. The raw mean temperature says the world have been warming since 1701. The adjusted mean temperature says the world has been about the same since 1838. Who you gonna believe? I don't believe the science is settled.
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