Green Power Economics

Graham Industries VR1A

2010-01-27T22:12:00.001-05:00

I got another Graham Industries engine in the mail today. I set it up with ease once I got home from work. Can't wait to get it fired up. He does such a good job making these engines with such a great price. Only $119 for the new VR1A(Engine on the right)

First Investors Corporation: Worst Company to Work For

2010-01-20T23:08:00.005-05:00

My experience with First Investors is not unlike that of many others. It started out at a career fair, or maybe it didn't but shortly after I attended a career fair I got an email from a First Investors recruiter asking me to set up a time to interview with them. They gave me a date over thanksgiving break, and I was able to attend. I suited up and when I got there I was in a room with probably 25 other prospective candidates. They told us how they review thousands of applications for the seats we were in(Total BS) and how we will be able to help people. They told us about how much money we will be making, up to 100k in the first year if you work hard. I couldn't help but smile when I thought about all the things I would be doing with that stupid amount of money. After the little group meeting, we were individually called in to have a quick personal interview with a current employee of the company. They asked the regular old where do you see yourself in 5 years question and sent me on my way. They neglected to tell us that we would be paid straight commission, have no benefits at all, and have to pay for our own licensing. They let you know all this once you "accept" the position.

I thought I could give it a try. Just make it work. They make it seem so easy. As if you aren't selling something people don't need. They wanted me to start the first day I moved back, which was a monday. I definitely need a week to adjust and get moved back in before I started working. I also had to have my "Bank Book" filled out with 100 names. Its basically just a organized notebook where you can write down all the contacts you can think of because you will be calling them. I just wrote down as many names as I could to make them happy, never had any intention of calling them. I would have much rather cold called.

The first weeks you are there all you do is "train" and by train all you do is sit in a room with the other trainees and go over your licensing material, which you paid for. Monday through Friday, 9-2pm, with a conference call on monday at 2pm. Go in, read the book, take practice tests, leave. Awesome. Easy, and you don't get paid. There's really no point in going in. You don't benefit at all from reading the book there. I started to get skeptical of the many glorius things we were told in the welcome seminar. I kept looking in the parking lot for the nice cars. I never saw one. The supposed top producer at my office drove a Toyota Corolla. Maybe he just isn't into cars I thought.

It took me about 6 weeks to complete my tests, series 6, 63, and my life insurance license. I scored an 86 an 90 on the Series 6 and 63 respectively. You don't get to find out what you scored on the life insurance, only if you pass or not. One person failed their first test, I couldn't help but feel great inside because of this. After all my tests were passed, I finished my last one on a friday. I was no longer considered a trainee and I would be staying all day Friday, Saturday, and till 9pm on monday . Tuesday I would be going to the First Investors University training program in New York. Nine Days where I would learn the presentations. Finally I would learn something about this business. I was very very wrong. The Training program consists of sitting in a room from about 9-5 learning presentations on the first investors products that you will in turn regurgitate to potential clients. You are taught exactly what to say If a client asks why in gods name the commission rate is so high. 5.75% is a little bit ridiculous, their answer: "You get me". The thing is that you aren't worth even 1%. The other people in the training class with me were complete and utter retards. No one knew how a stock got its price, or even what the market was doing. The job is to sell shitty products. Its like cutco knifes, but instead of getting a nice knife, you get a terribly performing mutual fund or a life insurance policy that will rape you on premiums.

The best part of the presentations are that you should put 90% of the prospects into the same mutual fund. The Growth and Income fund. So since you already know what you are going to put them in before you even meet them, are you really worth 5.75%? Most definitely not.

The commission schedule is also something to gawk at. 5.75 sounds like a lot, and it is. On a $10000 sale thats $575 taken by the company. Sounds great for the Rep that got the sale. It gets broken down further however. A level 1 rep will get 21% of the commission, or $120.75 and that will be split with the rep's guide, 60/40. So you will walk away with $72.45. Should also mention that it takes 10000 points to go from level 1 to level 2. All this does it raise your real commission. It eventually goes up to level 3 where it ends at 44% commission rate. The fact that you have to take a senior rep with you on your first appointments until you have reached level 2 just shows how much they really care about the new employees. They make it seem like they are doing a nice thing for you. Feel like you have someone there to help you out in case something goes wrong. It all sounds nice until they mention the commission split in a little piece of paper that you have to sign. Always have their hands in your pocket. You have to sell $100,000 worth of products to be able to work on your own.

They call this job very entrepreneurial. And that's about the only thing they don't lie about. You have to find your own clients. The only thing you are supplied with is a desk, and a phone. That's it. No computer. Once you are a Registered Representative, you are expected to set 10 appointments for your first week. This means you have to break out your "Bank Book" and start calling anyone you have ever met and had phone numbers for. Family, friends, aunts, uncles, grandparents, parents friends, friends of friends. Set up 10 appointments. You are expected to have them setup for the first week you come back from training. Now I should mention that I am 22, and had graduated from college not even a month before this. Anyone that knew me already knew this. Lets not forget 80% of my "bank book" consisted of people my age. Two people had jobs. And I can guarantee you they weren't going to invest anything. And if I did sit down with them I would tell them not to waste their money. How can you sell a product, that you yourself would not buy.

I lied and said I set 8 appointments. I would call friends and bullshit with them. I texted them before calling on the phone so they would know it was me and could play along. I had a hard time even finding 8 people to do this with. But I did it and it kept the manager off my back until I could leave for proper training. It was at this point that I figured it wasnt for me. A full friday, part of saturday, and 12 hours of monday. Sitting at my desk, starring at names in my bank book of people that I knew would not ever be investing, and that its not my fault.

For those that are thinking about joining first investors. I leave you with this. The manager will constantly have their hands in your pocket collecting your commission, If you get a sale that is, and the will not help you out at all. They will give you a supplemental pay of a paltry $250 a week, but understand that they consider this a loan against your future earnings, and not actual pay. The manager will constantly be busy looking for new recruits because my "class of 12" ended up dropping to 4, by the time I left, and I can only imagine that the girl that had to go to a credit consolidation company to help her with her personal debt and also failed her licensing test isn't still around.

First Steaming

2010-01-19T23:17:00.002-05:00

After many months and two jobs later, I finally assembled my Graham Industries TVR1A Steam engine. The crossheads were attached too tightly and it made the crosshead guides not fit correctly, if at all. After some grinding, I thought to myself, "Hey maybe I didn't put it together right. Sure enough after taking it apart and reassembling it I found the problem The crosshead guides were being screwed in too tight and this caused them to warp.

I steamed up my Maccsteam 3.5" marine boiler and gave it a very amateur steaming. The timing must be off, because the engine only ran for about 30 seconds on its own, although there could be many other things that are going on that I am not considering. I will check the timing tomorrow to make sure, and hopefully update more frequently now that I have settled down into my new job

AENY Trade

2009-11-21T17:51:00.004-05:00

This week I made about $35 after commissions. I only did one trade this week. I was long AENY for about 20 minutes. I got in at 2.90 and out at 3.00. The expectation was for it to get to 3.60, but I never saw it go there. Just too speculative, I would rather lock in my profit at $.10 per share. I was only long 500 shares. There was way too much resistance to push it higher than $3.00. Easy enough, free easy money. I can't complain!

The stupid day trading rule set by the SEC means that in any 5 day period I cannot do more than 3 trades where I am in and out on the same day. It makes things difficult, and the only way to get around this rule is by having $25,000 in your account. Hurts the small guys like us.

New Job and Trading Profits!

2009-11-12T21:44:00.003-05:00

I left my job at yale to join Subway Headquarters. Now instead of playing with all the gadgets I can get my hands on I tick away a spreadsheet all day in my cubicle, but I do get free lunch! It's not quite as cool or exciting as I thought it would be. I started monday. I do the budgets for the international subway regional administrations(I think). I take a number that was given to me, divide it by 12, and enter it into the proper account. That's about it. For 8 hours a day. Not much to it. I don't have the internet anymore either. I miss it sometimes, but I am learning to cope. The Cubicle does need to be decorated.

I have become quite the master at excel. I almost never use the mouse anymore. The keyboard shortcuts make doing repetitive tasks very easy. I have barely even scraped the surface of what excel has to offer sadly.

My ThinkorSwim.com Account was finally funded. Took a long time because I was stupid and used the wrong routing number. I made the first trade today whilst at work using the amazing iphone app. I put in a buy at market order for VRMLQ@22.00. I hesitated for a couple of minutes. I could have had it for 21.70 or so. I had anxiety the whole time I was in the market. I was waiting for this stock to break out passed 22 but it never really happened. There was a lot of resistance so I decided to pull the plug. I am new to ThinkorSwim, and the Iphone app was a bit confusing to me. I kept entering my Sell order as a MOC or Market on Close order meaning an order to buy or sell stock or options at the end of the trading session at a price within the closing range of prices. MOC orders must be placed 45 minutes before the close of trading. I tried to sell at 1pm and I could not get the order to go through untill 2:42pm @22.30. So while I didn't get the price I wanted (23.50) I still made a profit even after commission, albeit only 4.97, thanks to SEC commission fees! Oh well, lesson learned and it didn't cost me a dime!

Fun at work!

2009-10-16T17:18:00.002-04:00

So I have been working with a new company for the past 8 weeks or so. It has been a fun time. It is a start up company that does electronics recycling. Basically we pay people for old electronics, refurbish them and resell them. A couple of projects I have worked on so far have been dealing with vendors in China for business arbitrage opportunities as well as a lot of technical work. The biggest project yet, was buying 80 returned xbox 360s. It wasn't until later on that I figured out the reason they were returned was because of so many of them having problems. These wouldn't be so easy to process as fixing broken ones requires you to open them up and replace the two heatsink mounts on the motherboard. It is not difficult, but it is time consuming.

Of the 80 we bought, 30 worked fine out of the box. Fifty of them had various problems. The majority of the broken ones suffered from the Red ring of death or RROD. A few here and there had the e74 or a disc drive problem. I looked up how to fix the RROD and it seemed doable for me. I will post a guide on how to fix it with some good pictures from a DSLR camera we got in too! I get to play with so many gadgets. I have attempted to fix 30 xboxes thus far, 25 I have successfully fixed, there are 5 that will be parted out so far.

I am doing the X-clamp fix and replacing the heatsink mounts with individual screws. It seems like all of the problems that happen to the xbox are caused by the way the heatsinks are mounted, and how the system deals with heat. Maybe I will watercool my xbox at home. That would be a fun project

Model Engines

2009-09-21T19:27:00.004-04:00

I have always loved small model engines and model engineering. When I was 14 or so I bought a model R/C nitro powered buggy. I took it a part and put it back together hundreds of times and probably annoyed my neighbors with it more than anything else. Ok, maybe not the toys I have now, but this sounds like a bug.

What interested me most about it was the size of the engine and how well engineered they can be. I had fun with my nitro engine's and the accompanying trucks, but I wanted to actually build an engine that had more parts and was a little bit more intricate. I got into watching videos on Youtube featuring model steam engines. Once I got enough money to actually order one I decided on the Graham Industries TVR1A twin cylinder marine engine. It came well packaged and was difficult to assemble. It has over 175 parts and many of which are very very small. Here it is all assembled. I cant wait to be able to run it when my boiler comes shortly.

Impressed by PS3

2009-09-21T15:00:00.002-04:00

Since I got my PS3 last week, I have been dieing to try it out with an HD connection. I picked up a HDMI cable, and tried it out. Wow the picture is night and day difference between 480i and 1080p. Even on a small 20" lcd it looks amazing. The way I have my desk set up does not allow for me to watch tv or play any games while I am in bed. Slightly an inconvenience because it means I always have to be at my desk. While I do enjoy having the tv always be in viewing distance. I do also like to watch from bed.

The prices on Tv's have come down drastically since I looked last. You can get a 58" plasma for under $2000. Insanely good deals in this economy! As soon as I saw that I decided that I could not go any lower. Anything smaller than 58" will seem to small for me after I have already seen how good it would look on my wall.

I am considering a Samsung. This one specifically. Im worried about some of the reviews as them mention the tv having a HUM that can be somewhat audible. I still haven't decided if this is in my range yet, but I will find a way to make it work

New PS3 Slim

2009-09-16T19:23:00.004-04:00

I had a break down recently, and also the oppurtunity to get a brand new ps3 slim for only $150. I wanted to experience blu ray and see if it lives up to all the hype, and $150 for a blu ray player/ps3 is too good to pass up. Opening the box it came in reminded me of that first system I got, NES. It was fun to open, and the box is small and nicely packed. Upon first start up it reminded me of the PS2. It took forever to get my PSN account set up, and updated the firmware. Then I realized I had no games to play and no movies to watch. I sure as hell am not going to watch a movie on a small 20" LCD that displays at 480i. WTF! How come sony is still shipping the system without any kind of HD cables?

I am now forced to get this TV I have been looking at...There is no reason for me to even bother getting a game to play on this shitty resolution! One thing I did notice was the size of the ps3 is much closer to the ps2 in height and width. It is also much quieter than any of my other systems, however I haven't put a disc in yet!

Reviews: Princeton Tec Apex LED Headlamp

2009-09-15T22:04:00.006-04:00

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I just got the Princeton Tec LED Headlamp today. So far it seems great. I had been looking for a decent headlamp for about a week or so. I had been doing some night biking around town and had to borrow one from a friend. His was ok. It had 4 small LED's, I want to say they were 5mm's. This headlamp has a massive 3w LED in the center and 4 smaller 5mm LED's surrounding it. The extra LED's give some extra ambient environment light. All I have for a camera is my terribad iPhone. Sigh, Really need to pick up a DSLR so I can do some HDR photography. This light was $69.99 at Campmor. Really great deal. I'll review the two other things I purchased from there. I'm the biggest internet shopper around, and surprisingly they had the best prices on these things. They even beat Amazon. I tried taking a picture testing it. It's really hard to gauge these things, but my god this light has incredible throw. The picture has to be at least 25 feet away, and it completely illulminates the whole backyard!

The box says the battery life is 150 hours. I think that's on low mode on the surrounding LED's. It takes 4 AA batteries. They sit in a container on the back of your head. The headband is tight and feels comfortable when worn, and very solid even when biking. I have no worries at all about this falling off, granted I don't wear a helmet:(. The 3w main LED is too bright to be used all the time. Before I can get in a real riding session I plan on using the surrounding LED's and that should be sufficient, there are many street lights.

Overall, for $69.99 this is a headlamp you should definitely check out. I should add that its waterproof to 1m so don't worry about the rain!

How to Unlock Blackberrys

2009-09-15T20:05:00.003-04:00

Unlocking 8XXX model BlackBerrys

Preface: This process only works on GSM model phones(At&t, T-Mobile). Do not attempt to do this to CDMA Phones (Verizon, Sprint). These Instructions must be followed in this exact order, with the correct versions of the software supplied in the Blackberry folder, otherwise this will not work.

Step 1.) Begin by installing the BlackBerry Desktop Manager. I have supplied version 4.7 It seems to work the best. The newest version of this software was not working correctly.

Step 2.) Install Microsoft’s .Net Framework. The unlocking program needs this to run. Odds are you already have it, but run the included file anyway to make sure.

Step 3.) You need to have the Blackberry Operating System Flashfile for the phone you intend to unlock Installed on your computer. This may not be necessary, And may be removed from future revisions of this guide. For the time being just run the included software for the phone you plan on unlocking. Versions 8100, 8110, and 8310 are included.

Step 4.) Install MFI Multiloader. It is in the MML Setup 1.1.8.3 Folder. Do not run it yet.

Step 5.) Navigate to the MFI multiloader install directory. It should be C:\MML . Next you want to go to the supplied Blackberry folder and open the MML Copy Files Folder. It will have a folder inside called MML. Copy and paste this folder to the c:\ directory. The root of the C drive. You will be overwriting some files so if it asks you if its ok, just click ok. We want to replace those files. If it doesn’t ask you, You did not do something right.

Step 6.) Open the MML Config File Folder, copy and paste Configuration.xml to C:\MML\Configuration. This enables you to use MFI Multiloader while still connected to the internet. Otherwise you will need to disable your internet connection, a real hassle.

Step 7.) Delete the vendor.xml file located in c:\program files\common files\research in motion\apploader

With those steps completed we can get to unlocking!

Step 8.) Make sure the Blackberry is not plugged into the computer. Double click on the MFI Multiloader icon on your desktop.

Step 9.) Make sure that your window looks like the one above. You need to tick the two boxes Full Erase, and Auto Start

Step 10.) Make sure the Blackberry device is turned on before you plug it into the computer. Plug it in and wait. The software will immediately begin to erase the OS of the phone. All you need to do is wait for the box to change from BUSY to PASS.

Step 11.) If it passed, the screen of the device should display a large 1 in the upper left hand corner. Disconnect the device and type S T A R T into the phone using the keypad. If entered correctly the screen should change and say “No Application Linked (Factory OS)”. This is Good.

Step 12.) Close MFI Multiloader and plug your phone back into the computer. Run The apploader from c:\Program Files\Common Files\Research in Motion\Apploader.exe and reinstall your OS. You are good to go now!

Jalapenos Grow Slow?

2009-09-14T19:56:00.003-04:00

These plants have seen little if any progress at all. They are still so very very slow. They haven't grown passed two inches. The tomato plant has really gone to town. The roots are really big and thick and are already in the water. Ill try to get a picture up. In the meantime I'll try to catch everyone up on some cool new toys.

Tomato Successfully Cloned!

2009-08-07T01:17:00.004-04:00

Well it looks like the tomato plant has survived the cloning process. As I was watering the other jalapeno sprouts, I did a quick check to see if it had roots yet, and sure enough it had a great set of roots already. I decided that I would transplant it to the hydroponic system, since the roots will be able to sit in the fog. While I am away for the weekend I hope that the root system will grow through thelava rock, and the planter and sit in the fog. I poured the nutrient solution that was in the gatorade bottle into the tub. It is a very very diluted amount of nutrient. I will mix the appropriate amount when I return Sunday night.

LED Lights

2009-08-02T15:29:00.003-04:00

As I mentioned in my first post, I decided not to go with the standard for indoor growing lights. There are a couple of reasons for this. They are an expensive investment. They create a lot of unneeded heat. They are expensive to run. They are expensive to maintain. An alternative to HID lighting is compact fluorescent bulbs, or CFL. The downside to CFL is that they aren't nearly bright enough or have the correct light spectrum for the plants. A relatively new type of lighting that is just now being used is LED.

Light Emitting Diodes, or LED's for short are small diode's that emit directional light. The advantages of LED's are the size, cost, and maintenance. There is no need for a reflector because all the light from an LED is emitted in a single direction. The next advantage of LED's over conventional lights are the amount of energy they use. LED's use 85-90% less power than a conventional light. This is because LED's do not use heat to create light. When compared with metal halide (MH) lighting, LED's consume only the fraction of the power that MH lights need and do not need a ballast. And in terms of intensity LED's produce the same spectrum as MH lights at 1/4 the wattage. Therefore a MH light at 100 watts can be replaced by a LED light of 25 watts to produce the same intensity of light.

The size of LED's makes them practical for use in places where space is confined. I am using a small walk in closet as a grow room. It has no ventilation, but that isn't a problem because the LED's create next to no heat. It is actually cooler in the closet then the rest of the house. Years ago the argument about LED's Lighting was such that they are expensive, but they have come down so much in price that they are cheaper now. My grow takes place with only LED light. You will be able to see the progress.

The main reason LED's are superior to other forms of lighting are because of the way the plants create energy. This is through photosynthesis. The plants are green, and thus they reflect green light. So any light in that spectrum is essentially useless to the plant. The plants absorb red and blue light. Since the LED's only make red and blue light of the appropriate wavelength, all of it can go to creating energy, which means less is wasted. In an HPS or MH setup, much of the light created is going to be in the green and yellow spectrum, and thus no use to the plant.

Germination

2009-08-02T03:43:00.000-04:00

I decided to start this as sort of a journal to track my progress with my first hydroponic set up. I'll start off by describing my set up a little bit. I am growing 6 Jalapeno plants from the seed. I am trying to spend as little money as possible, and since I am an economist at heart, I will also give a breakdown of what it costs.

I am using a sterilite 18 gallon tub. As far as the exact dimensions go, it is not very large. And also not very deep. Maybe a foot deep. I wanted it like this however because of the type of growing I will be doing. I took the planters I was using, and traced them on the top in two rows of three. I cut the lid with a skill saw, slightly inside the line I drew so that the planters would sit on the top. It appears I am fairly skilled with the saw! This is a picture of the completed grow set up.

Next is the light I went with. Most indoor growers use some type of CFL, or other expensive, heat creating, power draining lights. These high pressure sodium, or metal halide lights can cost hundreds of dollars and require a special device called a ballast to make them light. They create lots of heat, and take lots of energy to make light. I am using an LED light that I bought off of eBay for only $28 shipped to my house. Compare that to a HPS or MH light that can cost upwards of $3-$400 for a set up! No way do I even have close to that amount of money to spend on this hobby! Not yet anyway! Here are two pictures of the lights. When the light is off you can see that it is made up of 225 LED's a mix of both blue and red. I will go into more detail in another post as to why this is. For now there is what it looks like lit and unlit.

I am using a nebulizer to create a mist for the roots. The mist will have the nutrients and water for the plants roots. The nebulizer sits in the bottom of the tub, submerged in the water and nutrient solution and fills the tub with fog. It has corny LED's on it that change color and are supposed to create a cool effect. I don't care for it since you can't even see them with the lid on, but thats how it came. I also got this from eBay for $17 shipped to my house. Amazing deal. In another post I will explain why I am using this system. The nebulizer is really cool, and works amazing. It fills the tub up to the lid with fog. That really is the only way to describe it.

I germinated the seeds in what started out as little round discs. I soaked them in water and they grew like a sponge. I popped the seeds in there and waited for them to germinate. It took sometime but they finlly did. I transplanted them to their final growing medium, a tad early maybe but we will see. I moved them to 4" netted pots filled with lava rocks. It is just a medium for the plant to get a base in, the roots will grow through them and suspend in the tub. Where the 100% humidity will give the roots nutrients, water, and oxygen. I also took a clipping from my tomato plants outside which are growing in soil. It was on the top, and already has two flowers. It is in a solo cup filled with miracle grow potting soil. I am attempting to clone it, and hope that it will develop a root system so that it can later be put in a hydroponic system with the jalapeno plants!

I am starting off with Botanicare's Pureblend grow formula. I have premixed the correct amount for seedlings in a 20oz Gatorade bottle, it was tablespoon per gallon, but since this stuff was expensive and I don't have a job($18) I divided it out and determined I needed half of a teaspoon per 20oz, just about anyway. Since the seedlings do not have a root system yet, the fog in the tub isn't going to be able to maintain the correct level of moisture for the plants. So everyday I am going to water them with an eyedropper.

So here is a rundown of everything that has gone into this project so far:
1x Sterilite tub - Free (thanks mom)
1x LED Light - $28 (eBay)
1x Nebulizer - $17 (eBay)
6x Netted Planters - $7.50(Store)
1x PureBlend Grow - $18(Store)
1x PureBlend Bloom - $18(Store)
2x Lava Rocks - $6
1x Jalapeno Seeds - $2.29
Total = $96.79

Not bad, for under $100 I was able to get what I think will be a decent set up. Of course I am no expert and this is just a trial run, but in theory it should work fine. There is however a shopping list that I still have. I would like to get/need the following:

2x Timers
1x Wardrobe
1x Extension Cord

Essentially the Timers are going to be a requirement for both the light and also the nebulizer. The light needs to be on for a certain number of hours each day so that the plant knows what season it is in, and the nebulizer creates a lot of fog. It does not need to be constantly running. I feel like a timer for it would save me some money in the long run as I would not have to replace the discs that create the fog.