alex chiang: web 6.0

An article in the CSM today is entitled Drivers seek ways to save at the pump. What struck me were these two lead-in paragraphs:

Liane Adduci, a public relations consultant, lives 50 miles from her office in Chicago. She and her husband carpool to work and leave at 3:30 a.m. to beat rush-hour traffic. Still, she estimates they pay from $800 to $1,000 a month for gas.

They now have signed up for a free Speedway SuperAmerica loyalty card that saves them 5 cents per gallon. With gasoline currently at $2.79 a gallon at her neighborhood station, Ms. Adduci pays $50 to fill her SUV. Her husband pays $70 to fill his truck. She estimates the card saves her family hundreds of dollars a year.

Holy smokes! Why on earth do you need an SUV and a truck when living in Chicago of all places (one of the most suburbanized hell holes on earth)? Here’s an idea: sell one or the other (I can understand the need for a big car for doing things like home improvement projects or whatever), and spend that money on something gas efficient. If a Toyota Prius is too expensive, get a Honda Civic, which gets mileage in the high 30s or low 40s.

I seriously wonder what kind of thought process (if any) people like this have before making decisions. Sure, high gas prices suck, but there are ways to solve this problem that do not involve waking up at 3:30 AM.

Here’s to the $hundred barrel.

Here’s an article in the CSM today about state legislatures who are starting to think about interfering with the gasoline market. From the story:

Maureen Hornung’s plea to her legislator about spiraling gasoline prices was to the point: “Isn’t there something that can be done? Please?” asked the Marine Corps veteran from Jackson, Wis.

Hornung is faced with either buying gas for her car so she can get to work or buying groceries. “There are many times that I literally put together some meals that I would not feed anyone else, but it’s something,” she said in a letter to Wisconsin state Rep. Patricia Strachota. She recounts how she can barely afford to visit her ailing father, who is in his 90s, or attend a celebration for her sister’s 45th wedding anniversary.

Unfortunately, the article doesn’t mention what kind of car Maureen drives. I’m sorry, but I’m rooting for higher gas prices. The only way you’ll effect change amongst the unwashed masses is to hit them in the only place it counts — their wallets. Maybe once gas hits $5 a gallon, we’ll stop seeing single occupancy giant pickup trucks and SUVs tooling around town. Maybe we’ll start seeing viable public transportation initiatives, or more bicyclists. Maybe we won’t need to maintain a strategic interest in the Middle East, and can let that area of the world fester and rot as seems to be their desire anyhow.

“If we see $100 a barrel, Congress will reappraise everything it’s doing, and very likely you will see it reevaluating its opposition to CAFE [gas mileage] standards,” says Rep. Christopher Shays (R) of Connecticut.

Here’s to the $hundred-barrel.

I’ve been spending a few days to write down a neat technique for sharing bookmarks across multiple computers (ie, work computer, home computer, etc.). If you’re interested, you can check it out here:

http://www.chizang.net/alex/misc/delicious/

I saw Closer last night and thought it sucked. The Filthy Critic got it right when he said that this movie was for the actors, and not the audience. Fuck that.

That would be the second movie in this genre (”I need to be seen as a serious actor, so I’ll make a sucky movie”) I’ve seen this year starring Julia Roberts, the other being Full Frontal. Ugh.

Friday night/Saturday morning drunken shennanigans. I just ate a fingernail. Whose it is, I’m not saying. Blazow.

Friday quickie: here’s a link to a good paper (pdf) on debunking creationist nonsense. Don’t forget to give homage to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Through the magic of the intarweb, a FOAF has asked me to link to his site, Sketch Please. The site’s an interesting idea — a competition between three buddies to make a drawing per week as a form of self-motivation. If a person fails to make a sketch, they forfeit a comic book (although the receiver is not specified).

Thus far, my favorite week has been the 80s vs 90s tv character fight.

Personally, I think they should have better stakes, like maybe whoever doesn’t submit a sketch that week has to eat the piece of paper he would have made the sketch on, or perhaps gets a finger on his sketching hand broken or somesuch, but seeing as my artistic ability is limited to doodling the word “poop” or “i hate this meeting” over and over again, I shouldn’t talk.

In any case, check it out: Sketch Please.

There is an editorial in the Coloradoan today about drunk driving and punishments. Ron Holland killed Janna Klussmann when driving with a BAC of 0.21, injuring the husband Andy, and leaving him with two children to raise. For this, Ron Holland got 12 years in jail.

Education and awareness programs to prevent drunk driving are nice, but in my opinion, the only way this problem will be solved is when society makes the determination that drunk driving is unacceptable behavior, and changes the punishments appropriately. My proposal is to make anyone caught drunk driving subject to an automatic mandatory 10 years in jail. If you injure someone while drunk driving, life in jail. If you kill someone, death penalty. If society accepted my proposed punishments, I bet there’d be a lot more designated drivers and cab rides taken.

The problem is that the punishments now are not a serious enough deterrent to prevent this behavior, and thus people tend not to think of drunk driving as a serious infraction. This stems from a general attitude of treating driving in too cavalier a manner, and forgetting that a driver is piloting around a 2000 lb. missile. If more people thought of driving as the equivalent of walking around downtown holding a loaded pistol with safety off and waving it at random passersby, the roads would be a lot safer.

With such a weak set of legal consequences, do you really wonder why drunk driving still exists? With slap on the wrist punishments, you’re sending a message that you don’t really care about drunk driving as a problem.

I watched Sideways the other night, and was left wondering, “why the hell did so many people recommend this movie to me?”

Snotty pretentious ninny bitch loser guy whose method of dealing with bad news is to pound a gallon of wine hangs out with dumbass prodigal son that can’t keep his dick in his pants.

My theory on why people liked it is because the plot revolves loosely around wine, which for most people is an intimidating subject. Having some basic concepts explained in the first thirty minutes (before we start hating the characters) makes them predisposed towards liking a guy who is perceived as knowledgable about the subject and they start rooting for him, rather than being annoyed with how much of a wanker he is and wishing he would choke on his own vomit.

Professor David Pimentel has caused quite a bit of ruckus lately with his claim that ethanol and biodiesel are net energy negative, which means that you use more energy in making the alternative fuels than you get out in return.

I haven’t read his paper yet, but the National Biodiesel Board has responded (pdf). They link to the USDA/DOE study as well (pdf).

For more linking fun, here are some more articles:

• Stirrings in the corn fields — at the Economist
• Powering the Future at National Geographic

And finally, if you do have a newer VW TDI with the P-D engine, you’ll want to read this post. The upshot is, before you put biodiesel in, make sure to get the ASTM printout.