Some things, when they are in bad enough condition, you just toss them.
The list is actually pretty long. It goes way beyond a side chair that has a broken leg, or a lamp that's too nasty a style to tolerate. Americans will cheerfully throw away almost anything. Bicycles, lawn mowers, pets, you name it. Is there an upper limit to what people will throw away?
No. When you can find cases of abandoned family members, too old or too sick for their families to care for, there is no upper limit. And that's a damned depressing road to travel, so I'm not going to do that today.
I've seen abandoned houses. Sometimes they have a sign out front with a realty company's name, but sometimes they don't. The house is just there. No tenants, no owner, no nothing. Just an empty house. What's up with that? Who owns it?
Most likely the city owns it, or is about to. Unpaid taxes pile up because no one has been seeing to the place for years. Grass gets longer, bats move into the attic, that kind of thing. But the place is still standing, right? That's got to stand for something.
A house still standing has some strength left in it. You can fix it. A lamp that still turns on is still a lamp. And even if it doesn't turn on, you can fix that too. You can get the parts anywhere, up until a few years ago you could expect to find a couple of lamp repair bits in grocery stores or the Woolworth store.
Remember Woolworth?
Anyway. The point is that even though it doesn't have the value it used to have, it still has value. Lamps can be fixed. Cars can be fixed - even though ones mouldering on the hill at Lambert's Used Auto Parts.
Houses can be fixed. What's a house, anyway? A great big box people live in. That's pretty simple. Of course, there are somewhat more complex bits that go on, too.
Roofs wear out. But they can be replaced. Scrape off the old roof, put on a new one. That's easy. I've done it before, the most difficult part is not falling off the roof. Do that and keep the courses even from one side to the other, and it's a good roof.
Electricity goes around inside a house, too. Well, if it's a battered, stripped-out shell of a house most of the wiring may well be already exposed. That makes replacing it easy. Super easy. And you can replace wiring without tearing open walls, just attach new wires to the ends of the old wires, pull the new through as you're pulling the old out. Strenuous but not impossible. No popping or sparks when you turn the lights back on, either, so that's good.
Siding keeps the wind and rain out of the wall. I can tell you from experience that replacing siding is easy - easier than roofing. There's not as far to fall, generally, so that's good. And if you're replacing all the siding, you can add an inch or two of foam insulation to the wall and make it easier and cheaper to keep the place comfortable when all's done.
Working on plumbing is straightforward too. If you're fixing up a tax sale house, you might need to tear everything out and start over. But with modern PEX tubing for fresh water and PVC for drains, you don't need to know anything about how to solder or leading joints or anything like that. If you ever glued a model airplane together, you can handle plastic drain pipe, no problem. And PEX tubing with its new fittings is almost literally plug-and-play easy. It's even flexible, so you don't need to make as many joints as the old copper lines. Just flex the line to where you need it.
Why give up on a house? Everyone needs someplace to live. Seeing the homelessness problem go up and up pretty much all over the country, and so many municipalities have these vacant homes on their tax rolls. Rather than sell them in a bidding war to entrepreneurs, why not give the vacant house to a homeless family? Let the homeless families apply for the house. They can't live there until the place is fixed up of course, but if they do have a place to live while doing the work to make it safe, that would get an eyesore fixed up so property values around the house would go up, a homeless family wouldn't be homeless anymore, and the house could start generating tax revenues again. Everybody wins.
That sounds like a proper job of remodeling to me.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Thinking About Cars: Smart ForTwo
How smart is a Smart? Note that I'm capitalizing the name, even though in the marketing and on the car, it's all lower-case. That's just for the sake of clarification.
The EPA highway rating for the ForTwo is 41mpg on premium fuel. Check that out, premium. Your ultra tiny economical personal mobility pod takes high-test. But at 41 miles per gallon, that's not bad. Assume $3.89 per gallon - totally reasonable on this date of late August 2011 - and that works out to a fuzz under nine-and-a-half cents per mile. If it's just you getting down the road, you're doing well.
But let's cast that against a few of the other options. Take, for instance, the globally developed Chevy Cruze Eco. It's a Cruze with a few small modifications and if you, like I have, ever spend any time on the excellent website ecomodder.com, you will see that most of what GM did to make their Cruze an "Eco" was nothing you can't do at home. But that noise aside, the Cruze Eco whistles up a rating of 42mpg highway. Wait a sec - that's one more than the "Smart" car. And the Eco takes regular. Assume $3.60 per gallon - and at this moment that's actually more than I pay by about 10 percent - and you're looking at about eight and a half cents per mile. You might think that's chump change, and it is - you're a chump if you pass it up.
Not a Chevy fan? Okay. The Ford Fiesta "only" whistles up 40mpg highway. But again, it's running on regular fuel, not premium. There's savings there, but it's slightly down from the Eco's impressive result.
I drive around 12,000-15,000 miles per year. At a penny per mile, that's up to a $150 savings per year. Maybe only $100 worth of savings driving the Fiesta. Insignificant, you might think, but let's reexamine some of the givens of these cars.
The ForTwo is a two seater. Smart is pretty loud about this. They play it up, declaring it to be one of their car's primary selling points. "All the car you need, and none of the car you don't." If all you ever do is convey yourself back and forth, it may well fit that mold. But how certain are you that that's all you really will ever need? Things happen. Families grow, you move, you get a cat. You pick up family from the airport.
If you have one friend to carry with you, the Smart gets the job done. Two seats, one trip, no problem. Add one more person and the formula goes into the wastebasket. There are no more seats. Even Scion's brand new iQ submini, almost a doppelganger for the diminutive Smart, can carry four in a pinch, and it's only a foot longer than the Smart. The iQ is still tiny. It still looks like a baby shoe. And it also takes regular gas.
The Cruze Eco has seats for four. Five if there's someone small you can put in that emergencies-only center spot. So what you can do in one trip in the Eco, the Smart will need four trips to accomplish. And of course the Eco has a perfectly functional trunk, comfortably larger than the Smart's cargo area.
The Ford Fiesta is available as a four-door hatchback, that super-flexible form factor that makes you seriously question your need for a wagon. Seats fold down, cargo cover tucks away, and suddenly toting back that new fire ring from Home Depot is a snap. It all fits inside. And it still gets that thrifty 40mpg on regular.
The Smart ForTwo is cheaper at its base model than either of these other offerings. Even completely optioned up, it still comes in at a comfortable margin less than a similarly equipped Eco. And coming with only half the seats and half the cargo space, it had damned well better. Of course, it doesn't cost half as much. It's more like about 6/7 as much. So yeah, there's some savings to be had, no doubt. They will slowly be eaten away by the lower highway mileage and the thirst for the more expensive fuel.
It's worth noting that the Smart ForTwo and the Scion iQ both get poorer fuel mileage than the Fiesta or the Cruze Eco. So as convenient as the super itty bitty form factor might be in a crowded city, it's actually holding you back once you get onto the open road. Once you get to where you can open it up, the Cruze and the Fiesta start passing up the gas stations that the so-called "economy cars" can't ignore. Bigger car with more capacity, bigger fuel tank, and even better economy.
Sorry, it just doesn't seem that smart to me.
The EPA highway rating for the ForTwo is 41mpg on premium fuel. Check that out, premium. Your ultra tiny economical personal mobility pod takes high-test. But at 41 miles per gallon, that's not bad. Assume $3.89 per gallon - totally reasonable on this date of late August 2011 - and that works out to a fuzz under nine-and-a-half cents per mile. If it's just you getting down the road, you're doing well.
But let's cast that against a few of the other options. Take, for instance, the globally developed Chevy Cruze Eco. It's a Cruze with a few small modifications and if you, like I have, ever spend any time on the excellent website ecomodder.com, you will see that most of what GM did to make their Cruze an "Eco" was nothing you can't do at home. But that noise aside, the Cruze Eco whistles up a rating of 42mpg highway. Wait a sec - that's one more than the "Smart" car. And the Eco takes regular. Assume $3.60 per gallon - and at this moment that's actually more than I pay by about 10 percent - and you're looking at about eight and a half cents per mile. You might think that's chump change, and it is - you're a chump if you pass it up.
Not a Chevy fan? Okay. The Ford Fiesta "only" whistles up 40mpg highway. But again, it's running on regular fuel, not premium. There's savings there, but it's slightly down from the Eco's impressive result.
I drive around 12,000-15,000 miles per year. At a penny per mile, that's up to a $150 savings per year. Maybe only $100 worth of savings driving the Fiesta. Insignificant, you might think, but let's reexamine some of the givens of these cars.
The ForTwo is a two seater. Smart is pretty loud about this. They play it up, declaring it to be one of their car's primary selling points. "All the car you need, and none of the car you don't." If all you ever do is convey yourself back and forth, it may well fit that mold. But how certain are you that that's all you really will ever need? Things happen. Families grow, you move, you get a cat. You pick up family from the airport.
If you have one friend to carry with you, the Smart gets the job done. Two seats, one trip, no problem. Add one more person and the formula goes into the wastebasket. There are no more seats. Even Scion's brand new iQ submini, almost a doppelganger for the diminutive Smart, can carry four in a pinch, and it's only a foot longer than the Smart. The iQ is still tiny. It still looks like a baby shoe. And it also takes regular gas.
The Cruze Eco has seats for four. Five if there's someone small you can put in that emergencies-only center spot. So what you can do in one trip in the Eco, the Smart will need four trips to accomplish. And of course the Eco has a perfectly functional trunk, comfortably larger than the Smart's cargo area.
The Ford Fiesta is available as a four-door hatchback, that super-flexible form factor that makes you seriously question your need for a wagon. Seats fold down, cargo cover tucks away, and suddenly toting back that new fire ring from Home Depot is a snap. It all fits inside. And it still gets that thrifty 40mpg on regular.
The Smart ForTwo is cheaper at its base model than either of these other offerings. Even completely optioned up, it still comes in at a comfortable margin less than a similarly equipped Eco. And coming with only half the seats and half the cargo space, it had damned well better. Of course, it doesn't cost half as much. It's more like about 6/7 as much. So yeah, there's some savings to be had, no doubt. They will slowly be eaten away by the lower highway mileage and the thirst for the more expensive fuel.
It's worth noting that the Smart ForTwo and the Scion iQ both get poorer fuel mileage than the Fiesta or the Cruze Eco. So as convenient as the super itty bitty form factor might be in a crowded city, it's actually holding you back once you get onto the open road. Once you get to where you can open it up, the Cruze and the Fiesta start passing up the gas stations that the so-called "economy cars" can't ignore. Bigger car with more capacity, bigger fuel tank, and even better economy.
Sorry, it just doesn't seem that smart to me.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Helpful Household Hints: Power
So what's on your agenda today?
Your house uses a lot of electricity. It doesn't have to.
This goes without saying. You know it's true because the utility company keeps sending you those friendly reminders every month that you owe them money. And they never miss a month, so it's not like you've ever caught up with how much you've used. More got used.
So what can I do about it?
Blame Edison. No, wait - blame Nikola Tesla.. We use AC electricity, alternating current. Edison was a genius, make no mistake. But he was hung up on DC current and wanted everyone to use that. Edison even went so far as to stage public executions of everything up to and including an elephant with alternating current in order to build public sentiment against AC. Edison wanted DC to win popular approval. It was expensive to lay the heavy transmission lines, so if he could make AC look scarier, he could gain a lot of business.
Money eventually won out, of course. AC is easily stepped up and down with transformers, and once stepped up can be sent over many miles of conveniently thin and inexpensive transmission wires, unlike DC current. So Tesla eventually won that war.
But now that we've mentioned transformers, let's talk a little more about them. Do you have a cell phone? Lots of people do. How about a telephone answering machine? Small, low-power devices like these often use a little plug-in transformer to convert that 120v juice in the outlet down to something more like what the device really needs. Transformers are necessarily bulky, so you can't just slap the transformer into the device itself, right? Too heavy. But did you know that even if the device isn't plugged in, there's still some current going into that transformer?
Well, it's just a little wall wart. It can't be using a lot of power, can it?
Oh, yeah. It's not a lot, but it's real. It's called a "phantom load" and it adds to your utility bill. Not a lot, but some.
VCR and DVD players have their transformers built in. You don't see them, but they are there. TVs have memory circuits that are always on, and the tube (for those of you still using previous-generation cathode ray tube TVs) is kept a little warmed up. Folks above a certain age remember how TVs used to need a couple of minutes to warm up, get to full brightness. Not anymore. Now there's a little juice going through it all the time so it's ready for you. That convenience costs. And when did you ever have a TV emergency?
Never a TV emergency. But I thought new devices were supposed to be more efficient than the old stuff they replace?
Lots of things are, for sure. LED clocks are more efficient than the old motor-driven electric clocks. They just are. But remember old stoves, the gas or electric stove that had no clock at all? All it did was get hot. Turn it off and it was off. My current stove tells time, has a timer, and can even be scheduled to come on at such-and-such a time. I don't know how to make it do that, but it can.
Thermostats. Again, this is a better choice than the old mechanical ones. The old kind had liquid mercury in it, probably, and couldn't be set to turn the AC off during the day while you're at work. The new ones can, and it's totally worth it. You give up maybe a kilowatt-hour of power per year to run the thermostat, but it saves you dozens of kilowatt-hours every week that you let it run a setback schedule. So if you don't have a programmable thermostat, get one.
Don't get Rite-Temp. They're a disaster. Shoot for Braeburn or Honeywell. Honeywell is easy to install, Braeburn more versatile.
Remember those wall warts, the little plug-in transformers? Get them all together and put them on a plug strip, one that has a switch. When you're not using them, turn off the plug strip. Bye-bye, phantom loads.
Not a big TV watcher? Put the TV on a plug strip too, and the set-top box if you have cable. Shut it all down when you're not using it. Phantom loads.
So far you're talking about a lot of really little things. I'm sure they add up, being always on. But is there anything big I can do, some low hanging fruit that makes a big difference?
Water heaters pull serious amperage when they're on. But if you're gone half the day, install a timer and let it just drift while you're gone. Have it turn on before you get home, and right before you get up. Off during the day and while you're sleeping. There's a surge of electricity use while it heats up, but no silly reheats at luncthime while you're at the water cooler at the office. You can also add insulation to the water heater to slow down how much heat it does lose, which makes a big difference as to just how long it's on when it does come on.
What about in the kitchen?
Refrigerators with lots of doohickeys in the freezer door tend to pull more amps. If you can get by without the ice cube crusher and the chilled water dispenser, you can have a freezer that doesn't have a hole in its door. Hello, conservation.
Anything else?
Compact fluorescent bulbs. If you're using the old, hot, incandescent bulbs, you're mostly making heat with those things. The old Easy Bake Oven used a light bulb for a reason. Compact fluorescents make about the same amount of light for nearly a fourth of the power - that's less heat in your house, that your AC has to run to remove. Win-win. LEDs are getting better by the day but they're not as efficient as CF bulbs, not yet - though the spot and flood bulbs are very, very good and if you have to replace in a difficult location, the LED floods may well be worth the extra cost. Not having to replace a hard-to-reach bulb for ten years is awfully appealing, add in the fact it gets almost the same energy conservation the CF does and it becomes a no-brainer choice.
That's a few ideas, enough to get you looking around.
Your house uses a lot of electricity. It doesn't have to.
This goes without saying. You know it's true because the utility company keeps sending you those friendly reminders every month that you owe them money. And they never miss a month, so it's not like you've ever caught up with how much you've used. More got used.
So what can I do about it?
Blame Edison. No, wait - blame Nikola Tesla.. We use AC electricity, alternating current. Edison was a genius, make no mistake. But he was hung up on DC current and wanted everyone to use that. Edison even went so far as to stage public executions of everything up to and including an elephant with alternating current in order to build public sentiment against AC. Edison wanted DC to win popular approval. It was expensive to lay the heavy transmission lines, so if he could make AC look scarier, he could gain a lot of business.
Money eventually won out, of course. AC is easily stepped up and down with transformers, and once stepped up can be sent over many miles of conveniently thin and inexpensive transmission wires, unlike DC current. So Tesla eventually won that war.
But now that we've mentioned transformers, let's talk a little more about them. Do you have a cell phone? Lots of people do. How about a telephone answering machine? Small, low-power devices like these often use a little plug-in transformer to convert that 120v juice in the outlet down to something more like what the device really needs. Transformers are necessarily bulky, so you can't just slap the transformer into the device itself, right? Too heavy. But did you know that even if the device isn't plugged in, there's still some current going into that transformer?
Well, it's just a little wall wart. It can't be using a lot of power, can it?
Oh, yeah. It's not a lot, but it's real. It's called a "phantom load" and it adds to your utility bill. Not a lot, but some.
VCR and DVD players have their transformers built in. You don't see them, but they are there. TVs have memory circuits that are always on, and the tube (for those of you still using previous-generation cathode ray tube TVs) is kept a little warmed up. Folks above a certain age remember how TVs used to need a couple of minutes to warm up, get to full brightness. Not anymore. Now there's a little juice going through it all the time so it's ready for you. That convenience costs. And when did you ever have a TV emergency?
Never a TV emergency. But I thought new devices were supposed to be more efficient than the old stuff they replace?
Lots of things are, for sure. LED clocks are more efficient than the old motor-driven electric clocks. They just are. But remember old stoves, the gas or electric stove that had no clock at all? All it did was get hot. Turn it off and it was off. My current stove tells time, has a timer, and can even be scheduled to come on at such-and-such a time. I don't know how to make it do that, but it can.
Thermostats. Again, this is a better choice than the old mechanical ones. The old kind had liquid mercury in it, probably, and couldn't be set to turn the AC off during the day while you're at work. The new ones can, and it's totally worth it. You give up maybe a kilowatt-hour of power per year to run the thermostat, but it saves you dozens of kilowatt-hours every week that you let it run a setback schedule. So if you don't have a programmable thermostat, get one.
Don't get Rite-Temp. They're a disaster. Shoot for Braeburn or Honeywell. Honeywell is easy to install, Braeburn more versatile.
Remember those wall warts, the little plug-in transformers? Get them all together and put them on a plug strip, one that has a switch. When you're not using them, turn off the plug strip. Bye-bye, phantom loads.
Not a big TV watcher? Put the TV on a plug strip too, and the set-top box if you have cable. Shut it all down when you're not using it. Phantom loads.
So far you're talking about a lot of really little things. I'm sure they add up, being always on. But is there anything big I can do, some low hanging fruit that makes a big difference?
Water heaters pull serious amperage when they're on. But if you're gone half the day, install a timer and let it just drift while you're gone. Have it turn on before you get home, and right before you get up. Off during the day and while you're sleeping. There's a surge of electricity use while it heats up, but no silly reheats at luncthime while you're at the water cooler at the office. You can also add insulation to the water heater to slow down how much heat it does lose, which makes a big difference as to just how long it's on when it does come on.
What about in the kitchen?
Refrigerators with lots of doohickeys in the freezer door tend to pull more amps. If you can get by without the ice cube crusher and the chilled water dispenser, you can have a freezer that doesn't have a hole in its door. Hello, conservation.
Anything else?
Compact fluorescent bulbs. If you're using the old, hot, incandescent bulbs, you're mostly making heat with those things. The old Easy Bake Oven used a light bulb for a reason. Compact fluorescents make about the same amount of light for nearly a fourth of the power - that's less heat in your house, that your AC has to run to remove. Win-win. LEDs are getting better by the day but they're not as efficient as CF bulbs, not yet - though the spot and flood bulbs are very, very good and if you have to replace in a difficult location, the LED floods may well be worth the extra cost. Not having to replace a hard-to-reach bulb for ten years is awfully appealing, add in the fact it gets almost the same energy conservation the CF does and it becomes a no-brainer choice.
That's a few ideas, enough to get you looking around.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Tobacco Companies Are Whining
If you've been reading the news, you're probably aware that the old black-and-white text-only warning on cigarette packs was going to go away. They would be replaced with "graphic" warnings mandated by the FDA.
The graphic warnings are pretty graphic indeed. Big colorful photos comparing healthy lungs with diseased ones, smoker's teeth with non-smoker's, a "body" with the post-mortem Y-incision.
Some debate about that body. It might just be an actor.
The interesting thing here is that the images that have to be displayed on the packs are huge. They're fully half the entire front of the pack, with the remaining space below it being the brand. I've never seen anything like it. It's like there's a government mandated horror show that goes along with the purchase of cigarettes.
The old warning label didn't amount to much. First it was the exact same warning every time, and I don't even remember what it was. Not being a smoker, I don't have much experience to draw on here. But in the 90s I found out that the label had changed, and in fact wasn't the same from one pack to another. There were different messages, like advising you that stopping smoking had health benefits compared to continuing smoking, and the warnings had become more sternly worded. Far from the old, dry language I associated with them, the new warnings with their novel changing messages, at least got people interested in them for a while. They were a little like Chinese fortune cookies.
Maybe that should be misfortune cookies, considering the message.
Anyway! These new labels aren't messages at all. They're pictures, big bold ones. They're right there at the top of the pack, in order to look at the flap and get the box open, you have to look at the message. That's pretty arresting, having to open the mouth full of crusty yellowed teeth to get to your smokes.
Tobacco companies are complaining that the images they're now required to include on their packages are too much. There's too little space left for their brand image, the body in the post-mortem picture is actually an actor. The changing images on the face of the package will cost too much to implement.
As to the actor complaint, the famous Marlboro Man campaign resulted in a few of those actors dying at relatively young ages. They took up pretty active anti-smoking campaigns at the ends of their lives; I'll bet any one of them would have signed on for this last modeling gig. Even no less an icon than Yul Brynner, knowing he was dying of lung cancer, renounced smoking before he died, and wished out loud he could take it all back.
The tobacco companies, I hate to admit it, have a powerful point. Car companies aren't required to splash their cars with a gallon of blood before leaving the factory to serve as a warning to those who might neglect to brake. McDonald's doesn't have to stick a funhouse mirror to every door to show people, upon entering, what they might look like at 350lbs.
That last one's actually not a bad idea.
But you need a car to get to work. Granted for thousands of years humans did just fine without cars, but that's not the way society is shaped anymore. And there's no way around needing food. It doesn't have to be McDonald's, but you need food. You just do. And these products, fast food and cars and myriad others aren't harmful in and of themselves. They just aren't. McDonald's food won't kill you if you moderate your intake. Responsible driving is almost as safe as walking.
There is no safe way to smoke. You aren't physically adapted to it - that's why the first time people suck on a lit cigarette, there's usually a fit of coughing, maybe retching. That's the body trying to expel something bad.
Think about tobacco. The plant produces nicotine in itself to ward off predation from bugs and animals. It's not a perfect solution, there are bugs and animals that still eat it. But it's not worthless either. Do a great job of growing this plant up nice and tall, now cut it down and dry it out. Shred it. Stuff it into a paper tube. Stuff a bit of insulation into one end of the paper tube. Light the uninsulated end. Now stick the unlit end of the paper tube in your mouth, and suck that smoke deep into your lungs.
You're paying for that privilege. And it's not chicken feed either. With current prices, eachcancer stick cigarette costs about 20 cents. Each cigarette is estimated to shorten the average smoker's life span by eleven minutes (disregarding the wasted minutes spent actually buying, lighting and smoking the things); a single pack costs about three and a half hours. Four bucks, three and a half hours. For thirty-two dollars saved, you could live another day. More time, less cost. I don't see a downside here.
So what have the tobacco companies offered to make the cigarettes less dangerous? What are they printing on their packs that suggests alternatives to smoking? They are very vocal about the infringement on their rights, but haven't supported their claim to the rights. The rights are assumed, and that may be where the crux of the entire discussion lies: should anyone have a right to smoke, should anyone have a right to sell tobacco for smoking? So far that question hasn't been raised and I may do it at a later date, but for the moment that's not where I'm going. But there's plenty of ground there to cover, so that will probably be a lot of fun when we get to it.
I don't know whether the tobacco companies are still clinging to the "studies" they funded years ago that kept coming up inconclusive. Of course they're inconclusive. When the lab is funded by the very body it's holding up to the microscope, you can kiss its neutrality goodbye. And even if they're not, again they have a haven in the form of the legality of their product. No one has outlawed tobacco products yet. No one has outlawed smoking yet.
I think the day is coming, though. I'm looking forward to it, too. I'm not even so jazzed about the potential absence of the smell of tobacco smoke - I'm more looking forward to never seeing another cigarette butt again.
The graphic warnings are pretty graphic indeed. Big colorful photos comparing healthy lungs with diseased ones, smoker's teeth with non-smoker's, a "body" with the post-mortem Y-incision.
Some debate about that body. It might just be an actor.
The interesting thing here is that the images that have to be displayed on the packs are huge. They're fully half the entire front of the pack, with the remaining space below it being the brand. I've never seen anything like it. It's like there's a government mandated horror show that goes along with the purchase of cigarettes.
The old warning label didn't amount to much. First it was the exact same warning every time, and I don't even remember what it was. Not being a smoker, I don't have much experience to draw on here. But in the 90s I found out that the label had changed, and in fact wasn't the same from one pack to another. There were different messages, like advising you that stopping smoking had health benefits compared to continuing smoking, and the warnings had become more sternly worded. Far from the old, dry language I associated with them, the new warnings with their novel changing messages, at least got people interested in them for a while. They were a little like Chinese fortune cookies.
Maybe that should be misfortune cookies, considering the message.
Anyway! These new labels aren't messages at all. They're pictures, big bold ones. They're right there at the top of the pack, in order to look at the flap and get the box open, you have to look at the message. That's pretty arresting, having to open the mouth full of crusty yellowed teeth to get to your smokes.
Tobacco companies are complaining that the images they're now required to include on their packages are too much. There's too little space left for their brand image, the body in the post-mortem picture is actually an actor. The changing images on the face of the package will cost too much to implement.
As to the actor complaint, the famous Marlboro Man campaign resulted in a few of those actors dying at relatively young ages. They took up pretty active anti-smoking campaigns at the ends of their lives; I'll bet any one of them would have signed on for this last modeling gig. Even no less an icon than Yul Brynner, knowing he was dying of lung cancer, renounced smoking before he died, and wished out loud he could take it all back.
The tobacco companies, I hate to admit it, have a powerful point. Car companies aren't required to splash their cars with a gallon of blood before leaving the factory to serve as a warning to those who might neglect to brake. McDonald's doesn't have to stick a funhouse mirror to every door to show people, upon entering, what they might look like at 350lbs.
That last one's actually not a bad idea.
But you need a car to get to work. Granted for thousands of years humans did just fine without cars, but that's not the way society is shaped anymore. And there's no way around needing food. It doesn't have to be McDonald's, but you need food. You just do. And these products, fast food and cars and myriad others aren't harmful in and of themselves. They just aren't. McDonald's food won't kill you if you moderate your intake. Responsible driving is almost as safe as walking.
There is no safe way to smoke. You aren't physically adapted to it - that's why the first time people suck on a lit cigarette, there's usually a fit of coughing, maybe retching. That's the body trying to expel something bad.
Think about tobacco. The plant produces nicotine in itself to ward off predation from bugs and animals. It's not a perfect solution, there are bugs and animals that still eat it. But it's not worthless either. Do a great job of growing this plant up nice and tall, now cut it down and dry it out. Shred it. Stuff it into a paper tube. Stuff a bit of insulation into one end of the paper tube. Light the uninsulated end. Now stick the unlit end of the paper tube in your mouth, and suck that smoke deep into your lungs.
You're paying for that privilege. And it's not chicken feed either. With current prices, each
So what have the tobacco companies offered to make the cigarettes less dangerous? What are they printing on their packs that suggests alternatives to smoking? They are very vocal about the infringement on their rights, but haven't supported their claim to the rights. The rights are assumed, and that may be where the crux of the entire discussion lies: should anyone have a right to smoke, should anyone have a right to sell tobacco for smoking? So far that question hasn't been raised and I may do it at a later date, but for the moment that's not where I'm going. But there's plenty of ground there to cover, so that will probably be a lot of fun when we get to it.
I don't know whether the tobacco companies are still clinging to the "studies" they funded years ago that kept coming up inconclusive. Of course they're inconclusive. When the lab is funded by the very body it's holding up to the microscope, you can kiss its neutrality goodbye. And even if they're not, again they have a haven in the form of the legality of their product. No one has outlawed tobacco products yet. No one has outlawed smoking yet.
I think the day is coming, though. I'm looking forward to it, too. I'm not even so jazzed about the potential absence of the smell of tobacco smoke - I'm more looking forward to never seeing another cigarette butt again.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Abercrombie and Fitch: Discovering Taste
Believe it or not, Abercrombie and Fitch has its limits.
The young folks fashion store, also known by its initials A&F, has nothing to do with the old Abercrombie and Fitch that used to cater to the outdoorsy set. That company was full of rugged outdoor wear and upscale hunting and camping gear. The current one has only the name in common. Too bad. If there were a less tenuous chain of relation, it'd be pretty cool to be part of a company whose roots went all the way back to the 1890s.
They still claim it of course, but I don't give it any credence. Buying a name isn't like growing up with the name.
A&F has been in the news recently for a few little tidbits that have garnered some notice. For starters, the stock price has been on an upward spiral since January of '09, gaining about 400% in the two-plus years that have elapsed. That must be a heady experience for shareholders in general. They're down a bit over the last month, but who isn't?
A couple of months ago, pundits, moms and probably shareholders took A&F to task for its unveiling (ha ha ha) of their new push-up bikini intended for younger girls. Like, seven-year-old girls.
There's optimism, and there's just plain silly. There's nothing to push up. And why would you want to? Isn't seven a little young to be getting into the whole bigger-is-better routine? I thought we were trying to raise kids with a little less self-consciousness about how they were shaped. They've since stopped calling it a "push-up" anything, but A&F haven't pulled it off the shelves, either. No word on how well it's selling, but I hope it's very poorly. Most of the parents I know would prefer their kids that young, boys and girls alike, just be happy being kids for a while longer.
This last may have stayed in the news cycle a little longer, or come back around, when Vogue recently featured a tarted-up 10-year-old on its cover and in its pages in its most recent issue. At no point does the child look like a fully-vamped adult, either - she looks like a kid with some serious Dress Up skillz once she's gotten access to mommy's closet and warpaint case. One wonders what Vogue is doing, even putting her in the magazine. It's an utterly unrealistic image to portray. Do the adult readers aspire to that appearance? Too late for that ladies - you've got boobs now. Is Vogue hoping to attract younger readers? Well, maybe a few less Virginia Slims ads, Buick ads and they've got themselves some potential. Of course, your average preteen has next to no spending cash, so that may be a bad market to expand into.
There I go, ending a sentence with a preposition. Sorry, Kathy, if you're reading.
But now the latest blip in the news is A&F is asking a "celebrity" to stop wearing their products. There's something you don't see too often, and frankly I find it astonishing. Where a lot of publicists carry the mantra, "there's no such thing as bad publicity," A&F has decided, as a corporation, that there is. And who is this undesireable person? No less than Michael Sorrentino, "the Situation" of MTV's Jersey Shore show.
I've ranted about Jersey Shore before. I won't cover that same unpleasant ground again. The sooner JS goes off the air, the better - and takes its loudmouth buffoons with it. And it would appear that A&F has the same opinion.
Abercrombie and Fitch used the term "aspirational" when describing the look they want their fashions to portray. I'm taking that to mean they want the people wearing the clothes to look like they aspire to something. Since all I get from The Jersey Shore is a bunch of 20-somethings that have little to do but party, drink, tan and hang out, I can see where there would be disharmony between the two. A&F wants to be associated with people who are trying to make something of themselves, and The Jersey Shore conveys little evidence of making something of anything except comments overheard at bars.
If I made clothes, I wouldn't want my brand associated with a bunch of hangers-on. Get a real job, you slackers. Put on some no-name overseas-made jeans while you're at it.
The young folks fashion store, also known by its initials A&F, has nothing to do with the old Abercrombie and Fitch that used to cater to the outdoorsy set. That company was full of rugged outdoor wear and upscale hunting and camping gear. The current one has only the name in common. Too bad. If there were a less tenuous chain of relation, it'd be pretty cool to be part of a company whose roots went all the way back to the 1890s.
They still claim it of course, but I don't give it any credence. Buying a name isn't like growing up with the name.
A&F has been in the news recently for a few little tidbits that have garnered some notice. For starters, the stock price has been on an upward spiral since January of '09, gaining about 400% in the two-plus years that have elapsed. That must be a heady experience for shareholders in general. They're down a bit over the last month, but who isn't?
A couple of months ago, pundits, moms and probably shareholders took A&F to task for its unveiling (ha ha ha) of their new push-up bikini intended for younger girls. Like, seven-year-old girls.
There's optimism, and there's just plain silly. There's nothing to push up. And why would you want to? Isn't seven a little young to be getting into the whole bigger-is-better routine? I thought we were trying to raise kids with a little less self-consciousness about how they were shaped. They've since stopped calling it a "push-up" anything, but A&F haven't pulled it off the shelves, either. No word on how well it's selling, but I hope it's very poorly. Most of the parents I know would prefer their kids that young, boys and girls alike, just be happy being kids for a while longer.
This last may have stayed in the news cycle a little longer, or come back around, when Vogue recently featured a tarted-up 10-year-old on its cover and in its pages in its most recent issue. At no point does the child look like a fully-vamped adult, either - she looks like a kid with some serious Dress Up skillz once she's gotten access to mommy's closet and warpaint case. One wonders what Vogue is doing, even putting her in the magazine. It's an utterly unrealistic image to portray. Do the adult readers aspire to that appearance? Too late for that ladies - you've got boobs now. Is Vogue hoping to attract younger readers? Well, maybe a few less Virginia Slims ads, Buick ads and they've got themselves some potential. Of course, your average preteen has next to no spending cash, so that may be a bad market to expand into.
There I go, ending a sentence with a preposition. Sorry, Kathy, if you're reading.
But now the latest blip in the news is A&F is asking a "celebrity" to stop wearing their products. There's something you don't see too often, and frankly I find it astonishing. Where a lot of publicists carry the mantra, "there's no such thing as bad publicity," A&F has decided, as a corporation, that there is. And who is this undesireable person? No less than Michael Sorrentino, "the Situation" of MTV's Jersey Shore show.
I've ranted about Jersey Shore before. I won't cover that same unpleasant ground again. The sooner JS goes off the air, the better - and takes its loudmouth buffoons with it. And it would appear that A&F has the same opinion.
Abercrombie and Fitch used the term "aspirational" when describing the look they want their fashions to portray. I'm taking that to mean they want the people wearing the clothes to look like they aspire to something. Since all I get from The Jersey Shore is a bunch of 20-somethings that have little to do but party, drink, tan and hang out, I can see where there would be disharmony between the two. A&F wants to be associated with people who are trying to make something of themselves, and The Jersey Shore conveys little evidence of making something of anything except comments overheard at bars.
If I made clothes, I wouldn't want my brand associated with a bunch of hangers-on. Get a real job, you slackers. Put on some no-name overseas-made jeans while you're at it.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Thinking About Cars: Stick Shift
I mentioned David S. Platt a couple of weeks ago, and his video that discusses the mindsets of people who use software: they don't want to use software, they want to have used software. But before he said that, he used the example of driving, that the vast majority of drivers are much less interested in the act of driving than they are in the fact of having arrived. They aren't interested in the mechanism by which arrival happens, so long as it happens.
Specifically, his example pointed up stick shifts, manual transmissions in cars. Software engineers, at least the sample of them in Platt's audience, like them. They are simpler in their function, more reliable, more efficient and offer more control to the user. But they are more difficult to use.
There's a subtle but very real change in the function of the accelerator pedal when it's in a manual transmission car vs. a car with an automatic transmission. Not the function of the pedal itself, but the function it serves to the driver. To fully understand it, let's first look at the transmission itself.
Specifically, his example pointed up stick shifts, manual transmissions in cars. Software engineers, at least the sample of them in Platt's audience, like them. They are simpler in their function, more reliable, more efficient and offer more control to the user. But they are more difficult to use.
There's a subtle but very real change in the function of the accelerator pedal when it's in a manual transmission car vs. a car with an automatic transmission. Not the function of the pedal itself, but the function it serves to the driver. To fully understand it, let's first look at the transmission itself.
Here's one stripped naked. This appears to be a five speed (plus reverse).
Image from CDX Online eTextbook
The interesting thing is that it looks like all the gears are already meshing with each other, right? Except that last pair at the right. That last pair is reverse. Looking at everything else, you just see four pairs, so you'd think four-speed transmission, right? Nope: in a typical five-speed tranny, fourth is actually a straight-through drive. Fifth is the first pair of gears on the left, the input gear is a tiny bit bigger than the output gear. It means you have the output shaft turning faster than the input shaft: overdrive. Slows the engine down for economical turnpike cruising.
But they're all meshing. Except they aren't. The greeblies between the gears are what make the actual engagement happen. Without those being engaged, the gears just spin freely on the shaft. And to make that engagement easier to do, there's a sort of mini-clutch inside the transmission that make the two different parts of the shaft match speeds, so there's no grinding when you shift. You can, if you have the time, eventually get your car up from a dead stop and fully engaged in first, just by gently leaning on that synchronizer clutch inside the transmission. Make no mistake, it's a terrible thing to do to a synchro, but it can be done.
If you drive a stick, you probably know about all this already, or at least some of it. And that picture of shafts and gears and whatnot up there, you can probably correctly identify at least half of the various parts.
Now let's take a look at an automatic transmission. There are a few different varieties and the newest, most modern automatics are radically different in design from the ones that started the automatic transmission industry fifty years ago. And yet, there's one thing most of them have in common and so we'll take a look at that:
An automatic transmission. Image from Topspeed.com
Now of course that image isn't of the transmission itself. And if you drive an automatic, you probably don't really care. Just so long as it works. Reverse to get out of parking spaces, Drive to go forward. Neutral between them to avoid unpleasant mishaps, and Park so you can get the key out. What does the actual transmission look like? I sincerely doubt the majority of automatic drivers know, and couldn't describe one if asked to do so.
In the manual transmission-equipped car, you use the clutch and accelerator pedals to decouple the transmission from the engine, match engine speed to transmission speed (if already moving), modulate the takeup of load onto the engine and increase then engine's torque output (if at rest) to get the car going and increase its speed.
You have to choose which gear. You have to decide when to select it. You disengage the clutch, let up on the gas, reengage the clutch and get back on the gas, all in a sophisticated, rapid and carefully timed dance. Don't forget you're also steering and thinking about the brake while all this goes on. The gas pedal is how you make the engine do what you want it to do, because you want it to do different things at different times.
In the automatic, you put the gear selector in Drive and go. You use the accelerator pedal to control only the car's speed. Not the engine's speed, the car's. What the engine and transmission are doing is not a consideration you worry about. Having selected Drive, your further involvement with the function of the transmission and engine is not required. You want the car to go, and it's going.
Do you see the difference there? The difference in wants. The manual transmission car requires that you want different things to happen even as the car is going down the road and take the necessary action to make them happen; you already want to arrive at your destination, but operation of the manual transmission predicates a bunch of other wants in order to make that happen. The automatic, however, doesn't. It leaves you only with your original goal-oriented want. It takes care of everything else. There are other wants associated with the operation of the car, of course, but I'm not talking about them.
I prefer not to abdicate the responsibility for my car's proper operation. In fact my favorite vehicle doesn't even tune itself on the go the way a modern fuel injected car does; if the fuel-air mixture is off it's up to me to figure that out and to fix it. Fuel injection is constantly self correcting things like that and it's great - but I like to know what's going on. If the engine tunes itself, then me knowing what's going on is completely unnecessary.
How long before the driver is completely unnecessary? Not long, it appears. You can have an automatic and abdicate the operation of the transmission. You can have satellite navigation systems and blame an electronic device when you get lost. You can have adaptive cruise control that brings your car to a complete stop with no intervention from the driver if it detects an obstruction.
You can have a car that drives itself.
Remember when it was up to the driver to operate the car safely? How much more of that are we going to trust to automated systems? It started with the automatic transmission, ostensibly to make driving easier, safer. But I think it's accelerated the surrender of personal responsibility worldwide. That's a larger question about human culture in general, a much bigger question that I'm not ready to tackle. And with hackers, EMP attacks and the occasional solar flare, I don't think it's a great plan to give over so much responsibility to devices that are fallible. If we learn to rely on the machines, we don't have to learn to rely on ourselves, do we?
Shift for yourself. I said it before, but it's worth repeating.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Helpful Household Hints: Cooking in Iron
This is a paradigm shift. Usually you're talking about household maintenance. What gives?
Yeah, I'm usually about handyman type stuff. But the underlying theme there is always money money money, and especially not giving yours up to someone when you could simply do the work yourself.
You might recall that I've already touched on the economics of eating in vs. eating out. The example I chose wasn't perfect because it looks like rather a tighter race than it really is, and of course I did mention that breakfast tends to be a low-priced meal even at the fast food places. Lunch and dinner on the other hand can become pretty pricey, and certainly more expensive than even a lavish meal cooked at home.
I get all that. But the title up there says "Cooking in Iron." Expand on that.
Like home repair professionals, top-notch chefs are inclined to make you think you're stupid, incompetent. If you're dumb, that means they're the smart ones, the ones who can bang together an excellent meal. But if you've ever watched Top Chef (my personal favorite, all-around good guy Rick Bayless who actually believes anyone can cook, probably as well as he can and they're all worth learning from) you've seen that one of the challenges the competitors face is making gourmet meals on short notice, or in primitive conditions with rudimentary equipment, or with vending machine ingredients. That is to say, they're made to make food that doesn't rely on gadgets, flashy pans, or super-high-dollar foods.
And this relates to me how...?
If they can do it, so can you. At this moment Sweetie is whipping up a little dinner. Admittedly it isn't going to be anything flashy but frankly we're not flashy people. I don't want my food to be flashy. I want it to taste good. That's why I choose to eat the food instead of just subsisting on the same thing day after day.
Fancy oven? Not hardly, a ten-year-old Kenmore from the lower-middle of the spectrum. Utensils: cast iron, baby. Lodge cookware, from South Pittsburg Tennessee. You don't find that many things made in America anymore, but Lodge is solidly planted just a hundred miles down the road. Ingredients: canned. I don't know what brand and frankly I don't care. My dad told me a story one day about how a factory cranked out Penn brand tennis balls during the day shift, and Slazenger brand, from the exact same production line, during the night shift. Same balls, different stamp. It might be just a story, but what the heck: they're tennis balls. Who's going to tell a difference? They're green beans, who's going to tell a difference?
So you could drop a few hundred bucks on a set of top-of-the-line Calphalon pots and pans and use, just like everyone else, the same four or five pans over and over. What are those other pans for?
Revereware is a popular and very old brand, and we have quite a bit of it. Most of our array of Revereware has been accumulated over years from garage sales and thrift stores. What the heck, it's a pan. It's clean. It matches the others. What more could you ask for?
Sauteing, frying, lots of general cooking happens in the cast iron, though. Do we miss the old non-stick surface of our Teflon lined pans, not a bit. A well-seasoned iron pan practically rejects scrambled eggs, they leap out of the pan onto the plate. Cleanup is a snap and f it doesn't shine, well, it's cast iron. It's supposed to look like its great uncle was a locomotive.
What's your point? It sounds like you're just bragging about cast iron pans.
Maybe a little. I like the absence of pretension. It's a solid piece of metal designed to transfer heat and cook food. Period, end of story, no embellishment. So the food stands on its own, as does the cook. You don't need to lean on gadgets and expensive ingredients for good food.
Dinner tonight: butter beans, pork chops, potatoes. It might not sound like much but we can expand on it: Pan-seared pork chops with sauteed onions, breakfast fries with pepper, and butter beans.
That first description doesn't sound impressive, does it? But the second one does, almost like something you'd read in a menu at Shoney's. It's the exact same plateful of food. And if you ordered it at Shoney's it'd set you back $8 per person, while the cost of all the ingredients for the entire family's dinner tonight might not be $8 total. And no tipping, either. Sure, someone has to do the dishes. What of it?
Looking for the point, still...
The point is this: good food is just good food. You can pay a lot for it to have someone else cook it, someone else bring it to you and someone else clean up, or you can pay a little and do it yourself. But the big point is there's nothing to stop you from doing it yourself. Dinner tonight, with either the plain or the fancy name, took about fifteen minutes to make. I've already cleaned half the dishes from making it. No Kobe beef was involved, or marinated artichoke hearts. Cans were opened, plain potatoes were peeled. The cookware is black and hot and the wallet stayed closed. It was affordable, fast and delicious.
Your dinner can be all of those things. Or it can just be fast.
Yeah, I'm usually about handyman type stuff. But the underlying theme there is always money money money, and especially not giving yours up to someone when you could simply do the work yourself.
You might recall that I've already touched on the economics of eating in vs. eating out. The example I chose wasn't perfect because it looks like rather a tighter race than it really is, and of course I did mention that breakfast tends to be a low-priced meal even at the fast food places. Lunch and dinner on the other hand can become pretty pricey, and certainly more expensive than even a lavish meal cooked at home.
I get all that. But the title up there says "Cooking in Iron." Expand on that.
Like home repair professionals, top-notch chefs are inclined to make you think you're stupid, incompetent. If you're dumb, that means they're the smart ones, the ones who can bang together an excellent meal. But if you've ever watched Top Chef (my personal favorite, all-around good guy Rick Bayless who actually believes anyone can cook, probably as well as he can and they're all worth learning from) you've seen that one of the challenges the competitors face is making gourmet meals on short notice, or in primitive conditions with rudimentary equipment, or with vending machine ingredients. That is to say, they're made to make food that doesn't rely on gadgets, flashy pans, or super-high-dollar foods.
And this relates to me how...?
If they can do it, so can you. At this moment Sweetie is whipping up a little dinner. Admittedly it isn't going to be anything flashy but frankly we're not flashy people. I don't want my food to be flashy. I want it to taste good. That's why I choose to eat the food instead of just subsisting on the same thing day after day.
Fancy oven? Not hardly, a ten-year-old Kenmore from the lower-middle of the spectrum. Utensils: cast iron, baby. Lodge cookware, from South Pittsburg Tennessee. You don't find that many things made in America anymore, but Lodge is solidly planted just a hundred miles down the road. Ingredients: canned. I don't know what brand and frankly I don't care. My dad told me a story one day about how a factory cranked out Penn brand tennis balls during the day shift, and Slazenger brand, from the exact same production line, during the night shift. Same balls, different stamp. It might be just a story, but what the heck: they're tennis balls. Who's going to tell a difference? They're green beans, who's going to tell a difference?
So you could drop a few hundred bucks on a set of top-of-the-line Calphalon pots and pans and use, just like everyone else, the same four or five pans over and over. What are those other pans for?
Revereware is a popular and very old brand, and we have quite a bit of it. Most of our array of Revereware has been accumulated over years from garage sales and thrift stores. What the heck, it's a pan. It's clean. It matches the others. What more could you ask for?
Sauteing, frying, lots of general cooking happens in the cast iron, though. Do we miss the old non-stick surface of our Teflon lined pans, not a bit. A well-seasoned iron pan practically rejects scrambled eggs, they leap out of the pan onto the plate. Cleanup is a snap and f it doesn't shine, well, it's cast iron. It's supposed to look like its great uncle was a locomotive.
What's your point? It sounds like you're just bragging about cast iron pans.
Maybe a little. I like the absence of pretension. It's a solid piece of metal designed to transfer heat and cook food. Period, end of story, no embellishment. So the food stands on its own, as does the cook. You don't need to lean on gadgets and expensive ingredients for good food.
Dinner tonight: butter beans, pork chops, potatoes. It might not sound like much but we can expand on it: Pan-seared pork chops with sauteed onions, breakfast fries with pepper, and butter beans.
That first description doesn't sound impressive, does it? But the second one does, almost like something you'd read in a menu at Shoney's. It's the exact same plateful of food. And if you ordered it at Shoney's it'd set you back $8 per person, while the cost of all the ingredients for the entire family's dinner tonight might not be $8 total. And no tipping, either. Sure, someone has to do the dishes. What of it?
Looking for the point, still...
The point is this: good food is just good food. You can pay a lot for it to have someone else cook it, someone else bring it to you and someone else clean up, or you can pay a little and do it yourself. But the big point is there's nothing to stop you from doing it yourself. Dinner tonight, with either the plain or the fancy name, took about fifteen minutes to make. I've already cleaned half the dishes from making it. No Kobe beef was involved, or marinated artichoke hearts. Cans were opened, plain potatoes were peeled. The cookware is black and hot and the wallet stayed closed. It was affordable, fast and delicious.
Your dinner can be all of those things. Or it can just be fast.
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