Football Anger

Normally I leave the football analysis alone. Sports are overanalyzed anyway, and the last thing we need is another cubicle-jockey talking like he knows stuff.
Plus, my favorite column, Tuesday Morning Quarterback, usually does an effective job of saying what I was thinking about various games.

However I feel morally obligated to rail on Herm "I honor my contract when I want to" Edwards and his inane play calling with 40 seconds left in the 4th quarter. For those readers who were watching other games, underdog Kansas City trailed the New England Patriots by a touchdown late in the 4th Quarter. I had already written "Game Over" in my head and started looking at fantasy stats when all of a sudden KC was on the Patriots 5 yard line thanks to a 65 yard pass. 1st and Goal from the 5 yard line.
"Great!" I thought to myself. "We have Larry (lower your head and bull through) Johnson and Jamaal (downhill, brakeless freight train) Charles behind Damon (the ancient one) Huard, surely the Chiefs will just run a couple running plays and be in. For God sakes, Larry could jump the five yards."
Then I watched my stat-tracker as the Chiefs ran the following: incomplete pass, incomplete pass, run up the middle for no gain, incomplete pass, game over.

What just happened? Anyone with a basic knowledge of Chiefs football knows that Larry Johnson averages 4.5 yards per carry over his prolific career. So all the Chiefs needed was one average run by Larry and they're within a foot of the endzone. And they had four downs to try.

Great play-calling, Herm.

Read More

Boeing Machinist Strike

Unions and strikes are difficult issues for me to resolve because The Abstracted Engineer's father is in a union, however for the most part I am against them.

A little background: Boeing's machinist union, which represents over 27,000 workers in Seattle, Wa, Portland, OR and Wichita, KS is striking because they want a better deal for themselves. Boeing has attempted to negotiate a settlement with the union reps, but the union has overwhelmingly voted to reject any offer and set up picket lines.

The strike could cost Boeing as much as $100 million dollars a day, assuming the strike lasts more than a few days. Boeing offered the machinists a $5,000 dollar bonus, 11% raise plus 3% adjustment for cost of living increase, and benefits increases, so that each employee's total package would be upwards of 34,000 dollars annually. The average machinist at Boeing makes $27/hr, or $56,160 annually. Apparently the union workers want all that, plus more vacation and 401k benefits. So basically the union workers are saying "we want you to pay us more, but we also want to not have to work as many days to earn it, and we want to be able to retire sooner."

Now I'm going to try to remove my bias here because it's hard to feel sympathetic to people who are complaining that they aren't getting paid enough when I get paid a similar amount to them and I have 7 years of college more than they do.

The problem with this strike is that it's stupid. I'm not a heartless money-grubber, and I'm not anti-American, but if I were on the Board at Boeing I would give the machinists the finger and move my factories overseas. In 12 months Boeing could be building their planes in Asia where labor is 1/4th the cost it is here. They would reduce their expenses, increase their profits, and please their shareholders.

"But," you might ask me, "are you advocating abandoning American workers?"

Well I'm not, really. But I do advocate fair wages based on labor quality and difficulty of training, and I find it hard to believe what the machinists are doing is worth what they are making...and even harder to believe it is worth what Boeing offered as a settlement. But greed is a dangerous and awful thing, and with Boeing's back orders totaling over $430 billion, the machinists believe they have a right to some (more) of that money. More than 27 bucks an hour, anyway.

Capitalism works (and works well) because a fair price can be paid for a service or commodity. Labor, it can be argued, becomes a commodity when it's price is negotiated and regulated by a group such as a union. Capitalism also works because you are not forced to pay an unfair price for a commodity. If something is too expensive, people don't buy it. Then the price will inevitably come down.

Milton Friedman argues that increased wages (via union negotiation) actually increases unemployment by decreasing the amount of workers an economy can support.
Simply put: If bananas are 12 cents a piece, and I have a dollar, I can afford 8 bananas. If the bananas go up to 13 cents a piece, I can now only afford 7 bananas, and one banana rots.
On outsourcing: If a banana is worth 12 cents that is one thing. But if I can find a banana seller somewhere else that will sell me 8 bananas at 7 cents a piece, not only am I getting all the bananas I want, but I have 44 cents left over to return to my shareholders. This is how labor unions increase unemployment, and how I believe they are pushing the industrial sector of this country increasingly overseas.

It's not un-American to move your company overseas. CEOs often have no choice, as their longevity at a company is intimately linked to their ability to return a profit to the shareholders. I am sure any God-loving American would prefer to see businesses invest in, and stay in America, but when you are a business administrator, not a political one, your job is to run a successful business.

So if I were a higher-up at Boeing, here's what I would do (I decide this without any intimate knowledge of the legal ramifications):
I'd tell the machinists they're all fired. I would then try to hire new machinists here in the states. If the machinists sued me, I'd counter-sue, claiming that they forfeited their jobs when they stopped coming to work.
If the government stepped in and tried to force me to negotiate with the machinists, I'd sue the government, and claim that government intervention into private enterprise is not warranted when there is no threat to the national GDP, no threat to national security, and no significant decrease in taxable wages. Then I'd have my lobbyists (who believe me, at Boeing the lobbyists know their stuff) tell the members of Congress that if they didn't back off, I'm taking my entire business to Asia. Probably Russia, actually, since Boeing has already promised to spend $27 billion there building up their titanium industry.

A small, kind word for unions before I go. America's economy 100 years ago was such that unions were an awesome idea, when price fixing was not well regulated, workers had no rights, or job security, or retirement plans.

But today isn't 1908, its 2008, and the average blue-collar worker is living better than ever. Modern economics has shown that a labor-union wage increase generally increases inflation and comes at the price of lost jobs...for non-union workers. Boy that's fair.

Read More

Cellulosic Ethanol

In order to produce cellulosic ethanol all you need is a plant. The structural material a plant creates to support itself is cellulose, which is essentially a complex sugar. Using enzymes to break down the plant's cell walls into sugars then fermenting the sugars is the extremely basic explanation for how cellulosic ethanol is made.

The primary reason starch-based (corn and sugar cane) ethanol is easier is that the corn seeds are already fairly simple sugars and the methods to turn them into fermentable sugar is much simpler and cheaper.
But corn-based ethanol can only utilize the seed of the corn plant. Cellulosic ethanol can utilize the entire plant.

Interestingly, some of the most ideal plants for cellulosic ethanol are grasses, which have a high ratio of cellulose to mass. And they're cheap.

Here's my list of reasons that this is awesome:

1. CO2 emissions from the fermentation process are much less for cellulosic ethanol than for corn-based ethanol.

2. Tillage of soil to plant corn crops release large amounts of CO2 trapped in the soil, and switchgrasses are perennial, which means once planted tillage never need happen again.

3. Native species can be used. Why plant some genetically engineered freak corn when you could get ethanol from all-natural native plants that restore the native habitat.

4. Grass farming is much cheaper and easier than corn farming, and grasses (especially native) are far more resistant to local weather conditions. Also, many insects that wreak havoc on corn crops have no effect on grass.

5. Corn farming causes soil erosion. Grass farming actually decreases soil erosion.

6. With an abundance of native grassland areas, the government could reduce or end the CRP management policy, saving the tax-payers billions. (34,500,000 acres at 170 bucks an acre = 5,8 billion dollars a year.)

7. Mathematically, we could actually end our use of petroleum based fuel. Switchgrass production, at peak, could eventually produce enough oil to fuel the current U.S. fuel consumption. In 2007 fuel use actually dropped. Even better!

8. Corn-farming is creating a condition where there is a total lack of genetic diversity amongst all plants. If a bacteria or virus started wiping out corn, it could take out all corn because little or none of it would be virus-resistant. Switchgrasses could be planted in a mixed bag (read: hundres) of various native grass species, and when one grass suffered from illness, the other species could easily fill the void.

So I'm excited to see the Dems jumping on the cellulosic bandwagon. Although I don't agree with ethanol mandates and ethanol subsidies, this rests entirely on the fact that corn-based ethanol benefits literally no one except corporate corn farmers.
Cellulosic ethanol could free us from foreign oil, decrease CO2 emissions, increase U.S. wealth, increase native populations, and decrease fertilizer and genetic engineered crop use.

But the main reason I love this is that normally technology and cars and fuel clash violently with the natural world. Here's a solution to the fuel crisis that involves cutting-edge technology - that actually encourages returning farmland to native plant growth. Imagine a shining ethanol plant, sitting in a field, surrounded by thousands of acres of tall-grass prairie. Now that is what I call harmony.

Read More

A rare, kind word of praise for the Republicans

I have spoken out and written about the Second Biggest Folly in American Energy History, and how it appeared from the start to be nothing more than a smoky mirror congressional P.R. stunt to say "You hate high gas prices? We'll we're doing something about it, re-elect us please."

I am of course talking about the massive, massive ethanol subsidies this nation has created in the last 10 years. I continue to state as I always have that corn is a crappy ethanol source compared to sugar cane and the entire U.S. ethanol industry would completely collapse without the government subsidies.

I have noted before that ethanol makes up an inconsequential amount of our fuel resources and that total conversion of America's farmland to ethanol production would only cover the fuel needed by this nation for 25 days.

I have also mentioned that ethanol destroys engines when used in greater than 10% concentration. E85 vehicles are able to handle it, but all small-engined vehicles, lawn-mowers, atv's, motorcycles, etc. find ethanol toxic to their internal components.

Thank you, finally, GOP, for agreeing with me. As noted on page 30 of the GOP 2008 Platform:

The U.S. Government should end mandates for ethanol and let the free market work.

YES!

Unsurprisingly, the Republican Senatorial incumbents and candidates from the northern plains states are highly against this reversal of policy. Could that be because their states have reaped a fortune over the last 7 years from corn prices skyrocketing? Or is it because they genuinely think that ethanol is a way to break our energy dependence on foreign oil? I'll let the reader decide.

Here's what the DNC platform had to say about ethanol:

We'll invest in advanced biofuels like cellulosic ethanol which will provide American-grown fuel and help free us from the tyranny of oil.

Even the democrats now basically agree with me. They are acknowledging that starch-based ethanol (corn, sugarcane, etc) will not work, but cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass is much more efficient a producer of ethanol (once mass-production is utilized).

Why do I love this plan? Well, imagine the entire Great Plains blanketed by the original tallgrass prairie that originally was there. Imagine thousands and thousands of acres of cropland converted to highly-profitable grasslands. I can't even express how great a plan this is...oh heck the easiest way is with a whole seperate post.

Here's the Biggest Folly in American Energy History since I left that unanswered above.

Read More

Philosophy in a Mountain Dew

I had no idea before but today I noticed that my 20 oz. Mountain Dew bottle is a source of infinite wisdom.
Besides supplying the brain-altering surge of caffeine and sugar that puts me in a near-hallucinatory frenetic state (and subsequently renders me catatonic 2 hours later), it also boasts unique and wonderful information on the outside of the bottle: nutritional information, a "best by" date, a mysterious recycling code number, and the obvious brand label.

However, as I twisted off the cap, I was dimly aware that I might just be the "1 IN 8 SCORES: Buy (1) 20 oz., get (1) 20 oz free!" Woohoo! Unfortunately when I twisted off the cap I found I was not the winner, all I saw was "Please, try again."

As disappointing as this is, its a far cry better than Coke contests, where the outside of a Coke bottle claims by twisting off the lid you could win any number of great prizes. Twisting off the top of a Coke bottle reveals something like this:

75xv9
11z7b

As though by drinking Coke products you suddenly become fluent in a strange WWII army code and you can find out if you won. The truth is its all a not-so-cleverly disguised attempt to force you to log on to their website, www.mycokerewards.com, and enter personal information so they can sell your soul information to advertisers and make a secondary revenue. So by "entering to win" usually all you are winning is a full mailbox.

But I digress. The point is, I got to thinking about that Mt. Dew lid and it's taunting "Please Try Again" and I came to the conclusion that by and large that's some of the finest advice I have ever been given. Although I don't normally go looking for advice on the underside of Pepsi products, well, there it was.

We as humans are inherently failures. We learn to walk by standing up, taking a cautious step, and falling. Then we try again. And again. And eventually we are sprinting. We take classes and (with a few exceptions) make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. Maybe I misdefine us when I call us failures, because failure implies the endgame is one of non-success. What I mean to say is that we are a creature that by and large practices doing a thing unsuccessfully many times before it is eventually accomplished with success.

This differs from most other animals, for example housecats. Ever watched a cat sit there, twitching its tail as it ponders something, then in a blur it bounces upward and performs a highly acrobatic jump which involves three or four different bounces before casually landing on a perch? How many times did the cat practice that move? Probably none, and it probably got it right.
Or think about a squirrel jumping from tree to tree...it doesn't miss that branch very often.
So we as a species are uniquely prone to fail. Not total failure, just individual failings that stack up until they are crowned by a single success.

So this Mt. Dew lid, though its message was completely innocuous, reminds me what we all should remember: when you mess up, please, try again.

And never forget: 1 in 8 scores.

Read More

Black Holes (Funding and Literal)

Next week the Large Hadron Collider starts smashing particle protons, an event that some believe will cause the Big Bang Lite, and in an instant we'll have solved all the world's problems by ending the world.
The Large Hadron collider cost an estimated 6.4 Billion Euros (up to this point) and it's primary goal is to prove (or disprove) the existence of the Higgs Boson particle. For those of us who don't know what the Higgs Boson particle is, its basically particle physics answer to the great question "Why does a tiny proton have mass?"
Unfortunately for Particle Physicists, discovery of the Higgs Boson particle will in no obvious way benefit mankind in the foreseeable future. However, it will answer one of the fundamental questions about physics, and tie up the Standard Model of Physics.
Which leads to the problem. How will physicists convince their governments to fund ridiculous particle accelerators in the future if the LHC successfully answers the last great question? Several physicists who are involved in the LHC were interviewed last year in Science magazine. They suggested they hope the LHC doesn't find the Higgs Boson, becuase if it does they will essentially be out of a job. They are concerned that without the potential for a major discovery, they'll have no footing to fund their super-super collider, and the super-super-super collider after that.

Let me assuage their fears. The Fermilab accelerator has not had a major discovery since its finding of the "Top Quark" in 1995. However, they had no problem securing $320 million dollars for funding in fiscal year 2008. Then they complained that they weren't getting enough, so Congress earmarked another 29 million as an add-on to the current Iraq spending budget for the year. There are approximately 1900 employees at Fermilab. 350 million dollars divided amongst 1900 employees comes out to around 184,200 dollars per employee, many of which are graduate students and post-docs. I wasn't making 184,000 dollars as a grad student, then complaining to Congress for more, while producing no major research breakthroughs for 13 years...

Anyway, the LHC comes online next week and some believe the particle collisions might produce micro-blackholes that could destroy the earth and solar system. And although the physicists who believe this acknowledge it is a low-probability, the major study that found the LHC was safe was funded and produced by CERN, the company in charge of the LHC. That's like a used car dealer saying "oh hell yeah, this car has a great engine. You can trust me, I'm not biased."

The LHC is sponsoring a live webcast of the first particle collisions. There may be a small contingent of physicists going "I told you so" as the webcast shows swirling, bright energetic lights appear, then mysterious high-tech gizmos being sucked into a vortex, then the camera going dead.

Read More

Detroit (Tokyo) Muscle

As I am working on rebuilding my little Honda Tin-Can (from my fender-bender) I am wondering how far I should go in the maintain and rebuild process.

I spent my lunch break reading about the legendary 71 Plymouth Belvedere GTX, the car owned by my father back in the early 70's. I didn't know much about this car, other than dad would always go into that weird, radio-announcer bass and go "4-26 hemi...the most powerful engine blah blah blah" and I'd tune the rest out.

But as I wandered today through my rambling thoughts and wikipedia articles I came across a weird regulation in the Nascar rules that state that 427 cubic inches is the "maximum allowed displacement" for a regulation racing engine. Apparently the 426 hemi took first, second and third at the Daytona 500 soon after they were introduced, and other companies (Ford, Chevy) successfully got it banned for a year before its "stock" parts were widely distributed to the public and it was allowed again. To this day the regulation stands, the 427 cu. in. engine is as large as it gets. And suddenly I remembered my dad's ridiculous rants about his old car.
Could it be, I asked myself, that my dad actually knew what he was talking about and had the ultimate, most bad-ass car ever?

Further research revealed the truth, the 426 Hemi produced way more than the 425 HP that Plymouth claimed, but in order to keep insurance rates low (and sales high) that is what they advertised. Further, only 720 GTX's were sold with the 426 Hemi, and to this day it remains an extremely valuable collector car. And of the 720 GTX's made with the 426 Hemi, only a few were 71's, as the production level was way down that year.
It's quite possible my dad had one of the rarest, most valuable Plymouth cars in company's history. Today a 71 GTX with a 426 Hemi is so rare (30 known to exist) they each have their own name and sell for $250-500k.
And my dear old dad sold the GTX and bought a Vega.
When I mentioned that story to a co-worker, he about flipped out. Apparently he spent his 20's (in the 80's) rebuilding late 60's, early 70's Detroit muscle cars. When he found out my dad had a 71 GTX with te 426 Hemi he was blown away. But it was the downgrade to a Vega that really caused him to gasp.

I never really understood how valuable the 71 GTX my dad had was until today.

And so it makes me wonder about my own car: that little, dinged up, tin can, Honda Del Sol that looks like the runt of the Honda litter. Similar to the GTX, the Del Sol was a novelty car built by a major automaker during its heyday. There were slightly less than 75,000 made between 1993 and 1997. Today approximately 1/4 of those remain on the road. In the next 20 years they'll fade into history. Could it be that I should cling to my little Del Sol, or god willing, fix it up?
It has crossed my mind that someday people may go "remember the days when cars didn't look like jellybeans?" And there will be that spiffy little Del Sol under a canvas in my barn, and I'll drag it out and fix it up and when I drive it down the road people will openly gape in admiration for a day when you actually had a fuel-injected single overhead cam engine that didn't talk to you and discuss its feelings.
And maybe, just maybe, some other person my age will feel sufficiently nostalgic and offer me 45,000 dollars for that little car, and it'll be theirs, so they can drive it around and remember how great it was when Tokyo Muscle ruled the streets.

I guess the problem is when I pull up to a dealer to get a new car the dealer will offer me a few hundred bucks for the Del Sol (my dad got 300 bucks for his GTX)...but its worth more than that to me, and 30 years from now it may be worth a lot more, to me and to someone else.

Especially if I swap in a B16 engine, turbocharger, add sway bars, put in a stage 3 clutch...

Read More