Expert Controvert, Novice Accomplice

United States Popular Vote

2013-01-28T09:15:00.001-08:00

One thing I try to avoid every talking about is politics - especially US Politics. But recently there has been a lot of media attention on the electoral college and certain states attempting to pass laws that would change how electoral votes are allocated. See: here here here here here here. What you read in the news is never the full story and I feel compelled to let as many people know that there is another story that should be getting media attention but is not.

The crux of the story is that after the republican party lost the presidency to the democratic party again in the last election, states with republican controlled legislatures decided to change the way electoral votes in their state were allocated to favor their party.

If at this point you are lost, perhaps you should read the Wikipedia page on the electoral college.

Many many people complain about the electoral college every time there is a presidential election. The most common remark you will ever hear from a US voter on the electoral college is that it should be done away with. The reason why it hasn't yet is because to abolish the electoral college would require an amendment to the constitution - something that rarely happens. In fact, in 1969 a new amendment with great support was almost passed that would have abolished the electoral college. The only reason it could not pass was for a small minority of states that were currently favored in the electoral system used the filibuster to stop the bill.

The current discussion on states like Virginia involves changing the allocation of electoral votes within a state. It is the right of each state to choose how electoral votes are allocated according to the US constitution so no amendment is needed to change this. The problem with the proposed plan is it can potentially give the presidency to the candidate who did not win the popular vote (A valid argument, yes, but four US presidents have already taken office after loosing the popular vote - clearly the system is not working). Both Maine and Nebraska currently use a method similar to the one proposed in Virginia. While there is an outcry against this so-called unfair law, this is nothing new to the United States.

You can argue that the allocation method of Virginia is more fair, you can argue that is is less fair. But almost everyone will agree that the whole electoral college system is unfair, stupid, and needs to go away. This is where I feel the need to step in and share some information I found on the matter.

There's a big idea that could end all this electoral college business without ever forcing congress to change the constitution. Since every state has the power to allocate electoral votes however they see fit, if every state agreed to allocate all of their electoral votes to the candidate that wins the popular vote, then in effect the electoral college would be in consequential. Even if not all states agree, once a majority of electoral votes are allocated this way, the remain electoral votes would have no control over the outcome; the popular vote would decide the president as most US voters would prefer.

This grand idea is not just a pipe dream either. This a real thing called the National Popular Vote plan and its not that far away from happening. Currently 9 states have passed a law forming a compact allowing for all their electoral votes to be cast for the candidate that wins the national popular vote. Right now these states will allocate their electoral votes in the same way they always have but if enough states pass similar laws then the election will be decided by the popular vote just as most voters always wished.

Check out the status of your home state here. Then tell your congress and senate to pass this law if they already haven't. Most importantly, spread the word to everyone you know. Even if your state has already passed the laws public awareness of this is very low.

A History of Food Trucks

2012-12-18T11:06:00.001-08:00

Let's first start with the advent of food trucks. Food trucks have been around much longer than anyone cares to admit. The concept of food trucks did not originate with the dawn of hipsters, nor did they first appear 50 years ago in the form of ice cream trucks. Food trucks have even been around much longer than the first food wagons seen in New York City. In fact, food trucks originated in the United States shortly after the Civil War! The food truck can be traced back to the original chuckwagons created in 1866 that provided much-needed support to ranchers and loggers on their long journeys.

Food trucks have become popular in recent years, but where did they originate from?

As you can see right away, the first food trucks were born out of necessity, not hipness - the necessity to feed people who were traveling long distances far from any near by towns. Had some budding entrepreneur decided to open a chain of restaurants along the frontier, that person would have quickly noticed that business is not so great for most of the year when no cowboys are passing through. From this perspective, a traveling restaurant is the logical route. In this earliest of incarnations the food truck just makes sense.

The next place food trucks appeared was in big cities as "night wagons." Night wagons, like chuckwagons filled a need that could not be easily filled by ordinary restaurants. In this case, the food trucks primary customer was night workers looking for a hot meal when all other businesses were closed. A night wagon could move around serving the much smaller night crowds while not having to pay for seating space or a full complement of kitchen staff like a normal restaurant. Most of these night wagons returned to the same places every night so customers could rely on getting a meal any day of the week - they did have the option to post surprise schedules on twitter or facebook like today.

The first food trucks were called chuckwagons. These wagons followed cowboys driving cattle across low-populated lands.

By the 1950s food trucks had become firmly rooted in American culture whether or not today's hipsters knew it. Food trucks thrived by following army installations and construction sites as large numbers of hungry workers move in as quickly as they move out. Again, food trucks did what local restaurants could not - they could support large variation in local eating habits.

My personal favorite food truck: the ice cream truck!

It was also around this time that the food truck evolution split into several branches. There were many single-item food carts that became permanent installations in big cities. These carts would serve one or two main things such as hotdogs, pretzels, or falafel. Ice cream trucks also became widely popular. These carts were able to get food to people where they wanted it and when they wanted it. On the busy streets of New York, you could grab a hot dog in a hurry when you just don't have time to go inside to order from a menu. On a nice summer's day in the park you can grab a snack without having to leave the park.

From 1866 until today, food trucks have always served an important role in feeding people. With the exception of the most recent food truck craze, food trucks have filled in the gaps normal brick-and-mortar restaurants couldn't. So the next time you are eating at a food truck think about how that food truck helped in a way that a normal restaurant couldn't.

Shaving for Less: Not That Hard

2012-12-06T11:53:00.000-08:00

Short-short version: Dorco = Dollar Shave Club for a lot less.

Lately, there have been a lot of people telling me I should switch to dollar shave club to save money on razors. When I thought about this proposal, it didn't overwhelm me. I have been using the same disposable razors for about 10 years. Whenever I start to run low, I wait for a good deal online or at my local store and I stock up. I never thought too hard about how much each razor was costing until now.

I decided to examine the cost of shaving a little more closely. I know that in the checkout-isle, there's usually a small package of razor blades with a really high markup intended to catch would-be buyers who forgot to put razor blades on their shopping list only to remember they need some while waiting in line. Ignoring these obviously bad deals, how much does the average replacement cost? Using amazon as a baseline price I found that the popular Gillette, Schick, and knock-off Personna replacements are all around $1-2 per cartridge (you can double check my work with the links below). This is without looking for coupons or seeking out the best deals. Looking into my own buying history I found that the last time I purchased replacements I paid $11.99 for 16 3-blade cartridges (about 75 cents per replacement).

Pretty nifty razor.

At the time of writing, these three options were the top result for each brand and were between $1 and $2 per cartridge.
Schick
Gillette
Personna

So how much does dollar shave cost in comparison? From their website, you get three options which I'll refer to as low, mid, and high for the low-end 2-blade option, the mid-range 4-blade option, and the high-end 6-blade option. For low, you get 5 cartridges for under $3 (I found from other sources that $1+s/h is about $3; I don't know for sure without logging in). For mid you get 4 for $6, and for high you get 3 for $9.
this works out to be $0.60 for low, $1.50 for mid, and $3 for high.

The low option seems to be the only money-saving option and not much of a savings really when you consider that they will ship you 5 replacements a month - more than I ever use in a month, for sure. Additionally, the low option is for a 2-blade razor and you can find 12-pack of twin-blade Bic razors for about $0.30 each.

More or less, the mid and high are on par with the quality you get from any name brand razor. So it really comes down to preference. But, if you do prefer the dollar shave razors over the others, you might consider going to the source: Dorco. Below you can see the Dorco brand razors on the left and the dollar shave razors on the right.

Notice how similar they are? It's almost as if you are getting the same thing. Maybe its because you are.

If you want either of these options sold by dollar shave, you can pick them up for a significant discount by ordering them on amazon or direct from Dorco. I found the high model for as little as $0.68 per cartridge on the Dorco website. That's basically a years supply for what you would pay in 3 months from dollar shave!

In conclusion, dollar shave club will not save you money unless you are the type of person that always forgets to buy razors and foolishly pick up the pack in the checkout line.

All about Ripening Bananas A.K.A. Do bananas have souls?

2012-11-08T15:39:00.002-08:00

I've long heard that putting fruit like bananas in a paper bag will ripen them faster - something to do with the gases given off speeds up the ripening process and the bag somehow traps these gases. But with every produce expert online there still doesn't seem to be any measure of how much faster the ripening occurs so I decided to do some experiments of my own. I called these experiments "Do bananas have souls?" after the famous "scientific" study on human souls by Duncan MacDougall.

To begin, I weighed six bananas on my home kitchen scale every morning for 10 days. Below you can see how one of the bananas fared before I turned it into a delicious banana bread. (In case you cant tell from the images, the units are grams)

On average, the bananas each lost about 3.5g each day. Over 10 days, each banana lost between 13% and 15% of the original weight (buying already ripe bananas is a good deal!). There wasn't any significant difference between the weight change of the larger (239g) and the smaller (203g) bananas. There was a decrease in the rate of loss over time (see graph below).

Average weight loss per day for six bananas left on a counter.

The next step was to test if putting bananas in a plastic bag would really ripen the bananas faster. For this experiment I took 6 bananas and put two in a paper bag (paper group), two in a plastic bag (plastic group), and left two out in the open (control group). The paper and control groups both ripened at about the same rates as the first experiment. The control group actually ripened slightly faster (about 0.5g/day) than the paper group. The plastic, however, hardly ripened at all losing about 0.7g per day. On top of that the plastic group tasted off; I would not recomend putting fruit in plastic bags. Below you can see the results from this experiment.

Results of the "Do bananas have souls?" experiment: the bananas put in a plastic bag (top) did not ripen as fast and tasted weird; in paper (middle) ripened normally or maybe a little slower than if left on the counter (bottom).

The conclusion of this experiment is that bananas do have souls. All joking aside, putting bananas in paper bags doesn't seem to have a very big impact on the rate fruit ripens. If anything, it might slow it down slightly. Most of all, we learned not to put fruit in plastic bags.

Amy Winehouse and the Forever 27 Club

2011-07-24T09:05:00.000-07:00

Now, I'm not a avid fan of Amy Winehouse myself but her death yesterday (23 July 2011) has given me reasons to pause. For one, I'm also 27 this year. Two, there is something about the age of 27 that claims the life of of musicians.

For those unfamiliar with the Forever 27 Club:
Between 1969 and 1971, four famous artists died at the age of 27, Brian Jones of the rolling stones (3 July 1969), Jimi Hendrix (18 September 1970), Janis Joplin (4 October 1970), and Jim Morrison of The Doors (3 July, 1971). The coincidence of their deaths lead to the creation of the Forever 27 Club. Years later, Kurt Cobain killed himself and joined the club also (5 April, 1994). One thing all these member have in common is rock & roll and drugs. With the exception of Morrison, all the members were known heavy drug users. Some speculate that even Morrison was under the influence of drugs during his death - no autopsy was preformed in his case but some conflicting reports suggest he was using at the time of death.

Undoubtedly, some will try to induct Amy Winehouse into the Forever 27 club. She was a talent, famous singer-songwriter. Winehouse was known for heavy drug use and, most importantly, she died at 27. However, the Forever 27 Club is not for any musician that dies at 27 - it is reserved for Rock musicians. If you were to include Winehouse, classified as a R&B/soul/jazz singer, you would then have to include a large number of musicians from other genres who all died at age 27.

I'm not attempting to say who belongs in the Club and who doesn't. Some include more musicians; some include only the four from the early 70s. There are however numerous musicians who have died at the age of 27. If you look at the graph to the right, you can see that there is nothing out of the ordinary for the age 27. Yet, there is a statical spike at 27 for musicians. Perhaps an early death is just the product of the rock & roll lifestyle. You can read about the 30 or so musicians that have died at 27 here.

Cloning a Trachea

2011-07-13T19:58:00.000-07:00

In the news there is a story about a man from Eritrea going to school in Iceland recovering from surgery in Sweden where a surgeon born in Italy recently gave him a new trachea grown in a bioreactor from the United States composed of synthetic scaffold designed in the United Kingdom and the man's own stem cells! The world is certainly getting smaller and the smaller it gets the more specialists like surgeon Paolo Macchiarini and others can collaborate to make stories like this possible. I'm posting this because it's a relevant update to a blog entry I made recently on Cloning.

NPR has a great podcast on this story where they cover the more human side of the science (see here). You might also be interested in earlier advances in cloning organs that go back to 1999 in cloning bladders: first, in dogs, now humans.

This cloning case is unique because until now, all trachea transplants involved using cadaver trachea as the "core" scaffold to grow stem cells around. So far there have been a handful of successful organs cloned in the same manner as this trachea. The technique basically starts with a synthetic material which serves as a scaffold for new cells to grow on. In the case of children where the organ will need to grow with the child, a biodegradable material is chosen for the scaffolding. Such

There are two main advantages for such a transplant:

No wait for organ donors to become available
No anti-rejection drugs needed.

Whether or not this kind of procedure can illuminate the need for all organ donors is yet to be seen.

Water Conservation in the Home

2011-07-08T19:34:00.000-07:00

The story of water in Brazil is a tale of contrasts. On one side, Brazil holds 12% of the world’s fresh surface waters, is home to the largest natural rainforest and second longest river in the world, the Amazon. The Amazon discharges an average 200 million liters of water per second, one fifth of the entire global river output (learn more). On the other side, 25% of Brazil's population lives in the state of São Paulo where less than 2% of that water is found. Sadly, not everyone in living in Brazil can afford clean water supply and sanitation. The good news is that the Brazilian government has been making a lot of progress on this issue.

I recently came across a very interesting TV ad that aired in Brazil advocating water conservation (shown below). This commercial put out by SOS Mata Atlantica urges viewers to pee in the shower. To most people, this might seem like a crazy idea just to save a little extra water but, as the ad points out one flush can use up to 12 liters of drinking water (4380 liters per year). As pointed out above, certain parts of Brazil could benefit greatly from this kind of conservation.

In fact, there is no down side to urinating in the shower regardless of how gross it might seem. First, consider that everyone is downstream of someone else. There are many areas around the world that practice water recycling and we all remember from elementary school that all water is recycled.It only makes sense to just pee in the shower since the urine will get washed down the drain anyway.

I will admit that recycled water isn't the same thing as fresh urine. However, there is a body of health professionals that will say it's OK to pee in the shower because a healthy person has sterile urine and it goes down the drain the same as a toilet. Glamour magazine conducted a survey of nearly 1,000 women and found that 75% admitted to peeing in the shower – even the famous American idle signer Kelly Clarkson admitted to doing it. Take a more recent example: a case of a reservoir in US in which a man urinated. The Toxicologist interviewed states "In a healthy person, urine is sterile. It's something we can say with confidence - it's not going to have any impact on anyone whatsoever."

So while the subject might be taboo and even gross to some, it is a simple way we can all help the planet by using less water wherever possible.

Cloning

2011-07-04T08:58:00.000-07:00

I recently read about a survey that shows Americans are more accepting of cloned food than Europeans. Right now we are on the cusp of a new era. Today, the practice of cloning is limited to a small number of labs around the world. Tomorrow, cloning of livestock, pets, and even people could be commonplace.

There are several advantages and disadvantages of cloned livestock. Most obviously, farmers can clone the most desirable animals for leanness, milk production, taste, and so on. Farmers could also select clones that are resistant to certain strains of disease. However, this lack of genetic diversity could leave the industry open to other diseases (read here for more). There is also evidence that cloned animals suffer more liver and kidney aliments, die younger, and reach puberty later (RSPCA).

Cloning of pets is probably the least controversial (though, still controversial) cloning on the market today. Since late 2001, pet cloning has become a booming commercial enterprise fetching up to $50,000USD. Cloning pets gives owners a way to keep from losing their beloved pets but some have noted that the clone of the animal you love is not the same. The memories and personality of the new creature are its own. Cloning pets can be a Pandora's Box for pet owners. One great example of this is Chance the Bull. There was a segment on This American Life about Chance in which they discuss how the clone, Second Chance, was prone to attacking its owner despite the fact that the original Chance was a very calm bull.

Finally, cloning humans, the last frontier in this scientific journey, is the most contentious of all. Scientists race to find ways to clone skin and other organs for the rich that want to remain youthful and cheat death even if only for a few years. Some say the advancement of cloning could lead to near immortality.

One thing that I think could really benefit from cloning is blood. Since the advent of blood transfusions, the biggest drawback has always been shortage of blood. Blood donors are inadequate in supply and the shelf-life of a blood is rather short. It’s not hard to find instances of blood shortages like this one in Ohio. Of course, the problem of a shortage is largely because people eligible to donate are unwilling to donate either because they lack time to go donate or because they don't like needles. There are still other problems with the blood supply. The risk of transmitting disease from donor to recipient (especially HIV) is a concern. Also, the existence of rare blood types is an issue. People with certain rare blood types may run into problems if they ever need a transfusion. If we could clone red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets there would be no need to worry. Here are some Pros and Cons for cloning human blood:

Pros

Makes it possible to always have the necessary units of blood on hand
Blood donations could eventually be obsolete
Storage needs reduced because fresh units could be synthesized on demand
No more risk of transmitting HIV and other infectious diseases via transfusion
People with rare blood types can receive transfusions of compatible blood

Cons

Very expensive for the foreseeable future
Moral and religious debates over cloning

The Rise and Fall of the Electric Street Car Part II: The Beginning of the End

2011-06-17T10:14:00.000-07:00

The success of the electric street car was short-lived. The Great Depression forced many routes in United States to close. There was a brief life-line for the electric trolley during the Second World War when rubber and gas were rationed and factory workers turned to mass transit. Production of wartime materials limited the possible of growth (from 1942-1943 there was little change in the total number of cities with electric street cars). However, the end of the war brought and increase in automobile use and a decline in street car use to the already struggling street car lines. By the 1960s the electric street car could only be found in a hand full of cities across North America.Growth and decline of the Electric Streetcar. Solid red area is number of cities with an electric streetcar in operation; transparent red area represents possible cities (for lack of complete records) that may have been in operation.

Service provided by the electric street car was most often replaced by buses which were seen as more flexible and requiring less infrastructure than the electric rail counterpart. This shift from electric trolley to bus has led many to believe that a union of automobile, oil, and tire companies was responsible for the dismantling of what otherwise appeared to be a productive public utility.

The possibility of a conspiracy against the electric streetcar is at least likely given the circumstances publicly known. In 1949, General Motors together with Standard Oil (now Cheveron) and Firestone were convicted of conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses and related products to local transit authorities. The goals of this group were to promote the use and sale of buses, tires and gasoline: three things not needed in cites with electric streetcars. Therefore the use of such a transit system often came at the cost of reduced or complete dismantling of electric street car routes.

< Part 1

Trading with Bitcoins Part II

2011-06-12T11:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I shared some of my experiences in Bitcoin trading. Since then, a few more important details have come to my attention. I mentioned that MtGox was the primary way of trading BTC for USD. So much so that the public activity on MtGox generally controls the trade value of BTC outside of MtGox. By talking to some people in the IRC channel I found out that MtGox is either frequently targeted by Denial of Service attacks or other mischievous which brings trading to a standstill.

Fortunately, there is a rising star in the Bitcoin trade industry, TradeHill. The volume of trades is low compared to MtGox but growing and the price is usually close to MtGox. I have yet to try out TradeHill myself (transferring from MtGox is down). Most people who have tried it like the interface and the lower trading fees on TradeHill. Speaking of which: using the referral code TH-R12942 will get you an additional life-time 10% discount on trading fees.

Trading with Bitcoins

2011-06-11T18:37:00.000-07:00

Amidst the global economic collapse a new digital "coin" has emerged as the next big thing in virtual currency. Bitcoin has been touted for its advantages over conventional currencies - advantages I will let someone else explain in more detail. Basically, all you need to know is that the Bitcoin system is decentralized, anonymous, and therefore not government controlled. Unlike the US Dollar that can be printed by the government or taxed, there is virtually no way governments can take away your money. If you still want to know more go here.

With not much effort you can easily find that the mainstream (if anything related to Bitcoins can be called mainstream) way to convert your USD into BTC is this place called MtGox. Here you quickly create an account and upload funds (either in USD or BTC). The process of trading will cost you .65% for both buying and selling.

The trouble comes when you try to add funds: because Bitcoin transactions are irreversible, people giving up bitcoins want to make sure they will not have their USD taken back after the transaction. For now at least, there is no instant method of payment that guards against possible charge-backs. So before you can trade on MtGox you must wait a number of days before your USD "clear" and you can begin buying BTC and all along the way you'll rack up fees from various thrid parties you dealt with.

The solution? Trade directly with others in the Bitcoin IRC channel. (If you don't know what IRC is you should just give up now; even if you do you may still want to give up.)
Before you logon to either #bitcoin-otc or #bitcoin-pit you'll need to learn a little about the etiquette, how trades are done in bitcoin-otc, and most of all, how to avoid scam-artists. If this doesn't scare you away you might be ready to read the wiki guide to otc.

The first thing I learned by trying to trade with people is that you can buy or sell anything as an anonymous user: everyone doing business in otc has something called GPG. GNU Privacy Guard is a package encryption software that the people running the Bitcoin channels use to keep track of trusted traders. My first time in the channel I just asked how to go about getting GPG set up and someone pointed me to a lengthy but straight-forward guide.

After getting my GPG configured you won't be ready to trade just yet because you have to build up your reputation. It may sound like a catch-22 but there is no way to avoid it. People wont trade without unless they know you are honest. Fortunately for me, I know someone personally that has a good reputation in the pit that got me my first trade. For your first trade you should be prepared to pay in some form that cant be charged back after the fact. Most reputable people will not trade if you are using PayPal because with PayPal you can file a claim and reverse the charge. The best option for someone breaking into the scene is with MoneyPak, a prepaid card you can buy in local stores and that can be transferred to the PayPal account of the seller.

So assuming you've found someone who will trust you, you have to make sure you can trust them. If you use a form of payment that is irreversible you could end up with just another sob story for Bitcoin court (yes there is a Bitcoin court). The best way around this is to find the most reputable and willing person to hold the BTC before sending payment.

After you successfully make a trade you can then begin using your Bitcoins.

Read more.

The Rise and Fall of the Electric Street Car Part I: The Beginning

2011-06-05T09:30:00.000-07:00

The modern electric street car evolved from horse-drawn omnibuses which lasted from 1820s-1880s. Before long, bus operators started running horse cars on rails to reduce rolling resistance and increase speed (this began in 1830s-40s) compared the unpaved surfaces used until then. In 1860s-1890s other forms of motive power (often steam or cable) became more common. Making the switch from horse-drawn trolleys to electric was an obvious choice for most cities wishing to be rid of the care and maintenance horses required.

1882 was the birth of the first electric street car in America in South Bend Indiana. In little more than a decade the electric street car had transformed the urban and suburban landscape of almost 900 U.S. cities. Scranton Pennsylvania was an early adopter of the Electric street car and earned the nickname “The Electric City”. Electricity provided a major advancement in transportation but the use of rail was becoming obsolete; city streets were no longer dirt and the investment of track meant routes could not change to accommodate an evolving city.

Part II >