My Cat Meowed About Global Warming On NPR

It’s not often you get on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” and it’s probably even less often that your cats do too…

NPR is running a series called “Climate Connections” and this particular story was about trying to find the United States’ biggest greenhouse gas polluter. I signed up for a voluntary government greenhouse gas tracking program a few years back (”Count Me In” is a story I wrote about it for Grist.org), which led the NPR reporter to me since I was one of 2-3 regular people in the whole country who signed up with the likes of Ford, Pepco, BP, and IBM.

The best part about the story is that my cats were mentioned and one of them even meows for the story…

Click Here (listen around the 1:40 mark)

What’s kind of ironic about the voluntary greenhouse gas tracking system is that the government hasn’t signed up to report its emissions. If George Bush would like to start, I can help them calculate the White House’s emissions, and maybe they can challenge Al Gore to a climate reduction contest…

Cut Your Energy Bills in Half - Electricity (Part 2 of 2)

[Editor's Note: This is Part 2 of 2, originally published at GreenOptions.com.]

Electricity, or how I saved over $500 this winter

You may recall in Part 1 on Natural Gas, I outlined how I saved $166 on my natural gas bills over a two month period versus the previous homeowner (standardized against winter temperature differences) with little to no effort and less than $100 in supplies. That number has now increased to over $400 in savings from September 2006 through March 2007…

Now I’m happy to report that I got the electricity data on the previous owner as well, and frankly I’m not sure how she used so much electricity in our little house - she used as much in one month as we expect to use in a whole year. But the data doesn’t lie and over the same 6 month winter time period, i.e. no air conditioners or dehumidifiers to skew the data, we have saved an astonishing $516 over her previous bills in the same 6 months the year before…Our monthly bills are $25-$35 in the DC metropolitan area (we’re paying 13 cents/kWh on average). It’s incredible how easy it is to save electricity, money, and pollution.

As before, your first thought must be that I’m sitting in the dark or bought all new appliances. Nope. The porch light greets us when we come home, we hang out in various rooms in the evening without much thought to turning the lights off, and we haven’t replaced any major appliances (same refrigerator, dishwasher, laundry, etc).

Here are my secrets, not exactly rocket science, which cost less than $100 and only a little effort:

• Replaced all lights with CFLs - Every one. The light is the same. They hardly burn out. Friends can’t tell the difference. The trick? Don’t buy the $2 cheapie and expect it to put out the save amount of light. Pay $3 for the one with the most lumens, i.e. the 100 watt replacement (use these where the bulb won’t be visible), and/or the ones with the fancy cover so it looks like a regular bulb (use these where the bulb is visible). You can get really small ones and specialty ones for vanity lights that work great. Some (not all) may take 5 seconds to warm up and reach full brightness but is that too much to ask? Prioritize the lights that are on the most (not the ones in the closet) if you don’t want to replace them all.
• Light sensor on the front porch - I don’t like to come home to a dark porch. So I paid $10 for a light sensing socket and screwed it into the old socket on the porch. Sun goes down, light comes on, and it has a timer to turn itself off after 2, 4, 6 hours (or the next morning).
• Phantom Loads - There are a lot of things that are “on” even when “off” - anything with a remote control, a fat box for a plug (a transformer that converts AC to DC), a clock, cell phone chargers, printers, monitors, etc. We have 2 or 3 power strips that allow me to shut off 3-4 things at once where it’s convenient, or we unplug them. But it’s not practical to do everything - I don’t like to reprogram the VCR, TV, microwave clock, etc so I don’t bother. I do unplug the clock radio in the guest room when no one’s there (that thing uses $24/yr alone) and the chargers that don’t get used everyday. Get a Kill-a-Watt and use it to go around the house and test different appliances (or better yet, buy one with some friends and pass it around to share costs). You will be surprised how many of these you have…

That’s about it…surprisingly simple. Other things you can do:

• Switch to natural gas appliances - As you replace your old appliances (if they break or you remodel), switch to natural gas. It’s cheaper and cleaner for the most part (even with the higher natural gas prices recently) - stove, dryer, and water heater. After all, electricity production is about 30% efficient and mostly comes from coal. I found a free natural gas dryer on Craig’s List a few years ago at my old house. An electric water heater alone probably costs over $500/yr to operate - that’s more than it costs to buy it.
• Buy Energy Star appliances - As you replace your old appliances, pay a little bit more for ones with the “Energy Star” label. They are more efficient and save more money in the run. Don’t necessarily replace the appliances if they still work (although a new refrigerator over one that is 10 years or older could easily save over $100/yr). The “big four” users are refrigerator, dehumidifier, central air conditioner, and electric water heater.
• Buy a window air conditioner - We haven’t gone through a DC summer yet, but we plan on using the air conditioner at some times…but there’s no reason to cool the whole house at night, so we’ll use a window air conditioner for our room and shut the central air off. Use a fan at night if it cools down - even 4-5 use less than the air conditioner.
• Refrigerator details - Turn off the ice maker. We don’t use much ice and don’t feel the need to have 2 gallons of it available at all times, so I turn it off once it’s filled (and it usually stays off for 2-3 months actually). And if you buy a new refrigerator, the top/bottom door styles are more efficient than the side-by-side doors. Refrigerators can easily use less than 500 kWh/yr now versus 1500+ a few years ago (hurray for federal efficiency standards).
• Don’t replace the windows for energy reasons - As before, do it for aesthetics. Do it for comfort. Don’t do it expecting to save oodles of money and run from anyone who says otherwise.

Cut Your Energy Bills in Half - Natural Gas (Part 1 of 2)

[Editor's Note: Part 2 of 2 on Electricity, is also now available.]

Natural Gas , or how I saved over $250 this winter (Part 1 of 2)

We moved to the DC area last September and in the first bill from Washington Gas, it had a table of the previous owner’s natural gas use for the last year. A perfect opportunity for a little data analysis…

Using data from the National Weather Service, I was able to make sure that the numbers were comparable. If last January was colder than this January, it wouldn’t be apples to apples, but for months with similar “heating degree days,” they had the same average temperature and any differences in natural gas use would be a good assessment.

December 2006 (us) and January 2006 (old owner) had similar temperatures (639 and 672 HDD respectively). The old owner used 142 therms and we used 63 therms, which based on this year’s prices, saved us $90.

January 2007 (us) and February 2006 (old owner) were also very similar (746 and 733 HDD respectively). The old owner used 156 therms and we used 88 therms, which saved us $76.

That’s $166 in only two months!

When I standardize the old owner’s data to our data and normalized it to this year’s winter temperatures and natural gas prices, I came up with a cumulative savings of $230 from September through January (see the graph above).

So your first thought is that I must be freezing all the time. Nope. The thermostat is set at 70 F right now. Spent a lot of money? Nope. We have the same house, furnace, water heater, stove, etc.

Here are my secrets, which cost less than $100 and only a little effort:

• Bought, installed, and programmed a programable thermostat - We set it at 68-70 in the morning and evening, 55 at night, and 50 when we’re at work in the day. And no it doesn’t take more energy to heat the house back up.
• “Hold” the thermostat when gone - If we’re leaving for the evening, not coming back from work until late, or going away for the weekend or a week, we set the thermostat at 55 F. The cats don’t mind.
• Closed off the guest room - I shut the vent and we keep the room closed (unless a guest is visiting of course). No one’s going to notice. We do the same for a three-season office with poor insulation.
• Covered up the holes - We have a whole house fan in the second floor ceiling, which I assume will be great in the summer, but is basically a hole in the ceiling in the winter. I cut out some cardboard and taped it up. I also put weatherstripping around the attic “hatch” in the ceiling.
• Shut the basement door - It’s gross down there anyway.

Other things I’ve done since, i.e. they aren’t included in the above numbers:

• Seal the “attic bypasses” - You have hundreds of holes in your wall, which basically create a highway for warm air to escape through the walls and out the attic. I bought outlet gaskets, basically foam inserts, to put behind the light and electric outlets. For some, I put a little sealant foam around the outside if the gasket didn’t cover it enough. There are other things to do…for more information on these secret heat losses click here (PDF) - insulation without address the bypasses is almost useless. The better solution, if you have access, is to seal the tops of the wall cavities from the attic (but think about whether you’re going to insulate the walls in the process).
• Covered up more holes - I’ve since covered the kitchen fan and the office vent.

Other things you can do:

• Put up plastic on the windows - It’s not fun, glamorous, or good looking, but it works. I did it in Minnesota but we have better windows here in Maryland.
• Wrap the water heater - Trendy these days but not as necessarily if you’re water heater is newer and uses foam insulation (vs. fiberglass).
• Wrap the pipes - Buy the foam piping insulation and wrap the first few feet of the hot AND cold water pipes going into and out of the water heater. Go nuts and wrap the rest of the hot water pipes if you want to. Do the same if you have a boiler.
• Caulk - Caulk your attic bypasses. Caulk the window edges. Caulk it all.
• Put in a low-flow showerhead - They work well.
• Insulation - If you’ve addressed the attic bypasses, then insulation makes sense. Go with the ceiling and then perhaps the walls, but this isn’t necessarily a cheap option.

Things not to do unless money is no object - if you run the numbers, they aren’t your best investments:

• Don’t replace the windows for energy reasons - Do it for aesthetics. Do it for comfort. Don’t do it expecting to save oodles of money and run from anyone who says otherwise.
• Don’t replace your furnace for energy reasons - Do it for safety. Do it for a remodel. Do it if it’s broken. Have the old one checked out for safety and efficiency, but if it’s working fine, let it keep working.
• Don’t replace your washer or dryer for energy reasons - Do it if it breaks. Do it for a remodel. And when you do, get a front-loading washer and a gas dryer with a moisture sensor.

Next time: Electricity, or how I have a $30 electric bill (Part 2 of 2)

My Statistically Significant Girlfriend

My girlfriend is 100% unique. Aren’t they all?

But using only six variables, I can prove that she is 99.99999% unique and that stastically speaking, the odds of me meeting someone with these 6 limiting characteristics is pretty slim…

Total U.S. Population (100%): 301,186,847 (0% unique)

1. Female (50.9% of the population): 153,304,105 (49.1% unique)

2. Female, 25-34 yrs old (6.7%): 20,179,519 (93.3% unique)

3. Female, 25-34 yrs old, Bachelor’s degree or higher (32.5%): 6,558,344 (97.8% unique)

4. Female, 20-34 yrs old, Single (47.1%): 3,088,980 (99.0% unique)

I find it amazing that just these four factors, removes 99% of the population.

5. Male/Female, 25-34 yrs old (10%): 353,749 (99.9% unique)

6. Female, Plays Ultimate Frisbee (0.01% - guestimate at 25% of 100,000): 26 (99.99999% unique)

This is saying that there are roughly 26 single vegetarian female frisbee players 25-34 years old in U.S., which seems a bit low, but the overall point is the same regardless of the exact number…If you’re a heterosexual single male vegetarian frisbee player and you’ve found a match, consider yourself statistically lucky.

DC V-Day - Relationship Equations

What is a relationship if it can’t be defined by an equation? Nothing! Let’s go…

• Self (S) = emotional (E) + spiritual (Sp) + sexual (Sx) + physical (P)
• Partner (Pt) = E + Sp + Sx + P
• Relationship (S + Pt) = E^2 + 2ESp + 2ESx + 2EP + Sp^2 + 2SpSx + 2SpP + Sx^2 + 2SxP + P^2

No wonder relationships are so confusing!

You can also try to formalize your relationship through a committment:

• Committment (C) = personal (P) + legal (L) + religious (R) + spiritual (Sp)
• Committment (C) = your decision + approval of gov’t + approval of religion + metaphysical symbiosis

Let’s review some of the different commitment equations, which have changed over the years as different political and socio-economic changes have occurred:

• Traditional = personal + legal + spiritual + religious
• Hollywood = 0
• GLBT (in the U.S.) = personal + (spiritual) (optional)
• Atheist = personal + legal
• Arranged Marriage = legal + (religious) (by culture)
• Green Card Marriage = legal
• Shotgun = legal + religious
• Others?

Now, here’s what I find interesting. My girlfriend and I have been together for 3 years and own a house together (an obvious financial, and defacto personal, committment). We haven’t formally had an official committment, be it a party with friends, a civil union, or a marriage.

When we visit relatives, some of them make moral objections to us sleeping in the same bed because we’re not married, which we do every night at home, and which I find oddly inconsistent given our likely formal committment equation:

• Traditional = personal + legal + spiritual + religious
• Us = personal + legal

Under no known circumstances would we adopt a traditional committment equation which included religion as a component. But I would bet that the “legal” addition to the equation would miraculously make it okay for them, even though they object on a religious basis. Why is that different? Shouldn’t their moral outrage stay the same since we wouldn’t have a religious or spiritual component to our committment?

Our relationship would have a legally binding committment but nothing more. Their concern isn’t with our legal rights and frankly, that addition is a formality to making the personal decision, which is much more binding in my opinion.

And when they come visit, they don’t have a problem staying at our house, where we’re being immoral. Shouldn’t moral indignation trascend location and ownership?

DC Metro Gets Square, Shuns Future Hexagons

<Update 2/15/07> - Metro has officially decided to go square as stations are fixed, updated, or built new.  More information here.

<Original Post>

According to the Washington Post (”Board of 2 Minds About 6-Sided Tiles“, 10/20/06), the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMTA) is considering moving from 4.5 inch sided hexagon tiles (above) to 12 inch sided square tiles of the same color (see report here). The old hexagonal tiles are slippery when wet and have too many joints at subway pick-up spots, inherent character flaws which are causing much consternation among conservatives. Who knew DC had such lavicious floor coverings?

The WMTA Board is asking the currently homo-tilic manufacturer of the proposed square tiles to look into “switching teams” and producing hexagonal tiles to keep the unique subway aesthetics, reportedly because “6-ways are more fun.” A WMTA architect was quoted as saying that square tiles are more closely aligned with conservative ideals because “Fewer sides means fewer joints. Fewer joints means less water leakage damaging concrete below the tiles.” The concrete has thus far remained silent on whether the joints and leakage were in fact “damaging.”

The area of the new square tiles would be 1 ft2 each, while the old hexagonal ones are 0.4 ft2, which is hardly a fair competition. As a result of the handicap, mathmatically the squares would have more AND longer joints. However, if an extreme makeover hexagonal tile also had an area of 1 ft2 (6.9 inches/side), the hexagons come roaring back to reduce the length of the joints, even if they have more joints:

1. Length of joints: The length of the joints, i.e. perimeter, for a fixed surface area is less with a hexagon than a square. A hexagon with a 6.9 inch sides (vs. current 4.5 inches) would have a perimeter of 3.5 ft and an area of 1 ft2 (the same as the new square tiles). The 1 ft sided square tiles, having the same surface area, lose out with a 4 ft perimeter - that’s an extra 0.5 ft per tile!!! Hexagons win! Hexagons win!

2. Number of joints: With the area of both tiles fixed at 1 ft2, the fight is on to cover a hypothetical 10,000 ft2 with 10,000 tiles…the square tiles will have 20,200 joints, while the hexagons would have about 43,000 joints. Squares win by a 2:1 margin!!!

The WMTA could have saved a lot of money by hiring honeybees instead of consultants to figure this out eons ago. Honeycomb uses hexagons to maximize surface area, while minimizing perimeters and avoiding wasted space between the joints - so efficient! And for you wiseguys, a circle with an area of 1 ft2 has a perimeter of just over 3.5 ft2 (similar to the hexagon), but results in a lot of wasted space between them (for grout or honeycomb) when spaced next to one another.

I have no idea whether joint failure is a function of the number or length or a grout-raid but the debate is probably mute anyway - the WMTA is likely jumping into bed with the New York City subway on a square tile purchase deal. Hexagons, your days are numbered…

Props go out to MathTrek for the story lead…

What Happens When the Wonkette Picks Up Your Blog

 

It was a normally quiet Friday afternoon. I had just gotten back from a work trip to California and was catching up.I decided to repost a blog entry I’d written last fall (”Metro Sexual or Hexagonal“), largely because I thought it was well written, amusing, and had specific DC content that readers of the DC Blogs Live Feed might find interesting (I wrote it before getting in on DC Blogs so it was never posted there). So I re-read, edited a bit, re-named it, and re-dated it to today and in a few minutes, it was listed.

Later, I logged into my WordPress account to (obsessively) check my blog stats and noticed that someone had arrived at my site from the Wonkette (the Wonkette incidentally left the blog to promote her book last year, so it wasn’t the Wonkette herself…but I digress).

I went to see why there was a link to my blog and saw that it was picked up in a little tiny blurb that said “Metro is getting new, square tiles for reasons not entirely clear.” Hmm. So I checked my blog stats…

Nine people had looked at the post and I decided to refresh… 16… refresh… 22… refresh… 30… refresh…now it’s up to 387 for that one post, 250 and 248 in the last two days, and I made it into a Top Post on WordPress:

My previous “biggest day” was 135 when I wrote an online article for Grist Magazine (”Count Him In“) and I probably average 50 per day normally.

Who is the Wonkette? The Wonkette is a DC gossip blog that became famous for publishing the story of a Capitol Hill blogger who was having an affair with a Bush staff (Wikipedia entry). According to Technorati, the Wonkette blog ranks 54th in their database of over 2.5 million and has over 31,000 links to it. This website says the Wonkette is ranked 12th overall for blogs and is worth over $2.7 million. According to Technorati, my blog ranks 113,581 and has 97 links. Surprisingly my blog is supposedly worth over $18,000, which makes that estimate very suspect. Click here to appriase your blog, although cashing in obviously requires a willing buyer.

So what? Exactly. Some people will read the blog entry and a few others might click around my site, but it will lose it’s luster soon enough. My content is too scattered to get a dedicated following. But in my little world of blog uselessness, it’s like meeting someone on my celebrity list (”Hello, Ms. Judd…”).

MPR’s The Current Ranked 20th in Twin Cities Radio Market

The Star Tribune is reporting that Minnesota Public Radio’s ultra-hipster radio station, The Current, is ranked 20th in the Twin Cities radio market, losing about 36% of their radio audience over the last year. Arbitron reports that the Current had 2.2% marketshare in fall 2005 versus 1.4% in fall 2006, which is obviously disappointing given how great a station it really is…

I was wondering though, whether Arbitron measures online listeners? Being “youth oriented” as the Strib reports, would tend to correlate with internet focused. And if they don’t measure it, I’m sure MPR knows how many are tuning in all day at work, even from other states, like I do. Or do Arbitron ratings even matter since MPR doesn’t deal with much advertising to speak of

Either way, the Current rocks - there’s nothing like it.

Global Rich List

There are a lot of websites out there with various gimmics and information, but every so often one is interesting enough to pass along…the Global Rich List tries to put affluence into perspective, because guess what? The American experience is unique and almost everyone else doesn’t live like us.

Make $10,000/yr (minimum wage)? You’re in the top 13% richest people!

Make $50,000? You’re in the top 1% of richest people. That means you’re in the top 60,000,000 people in the world, which also means that there are more than 5.4 billion people poorer than you are. (Frankly this seems a little bit off and further research tends to show that this is an overestimation, i.e. it’s not quite that high.) But none-the-less, I think the point is still trending to be valid…even a relatively small salary by Western standards is still a lot compared to everyone else.

Science and Political Monkeys

Politicians love science; until it tells them something they don’t like. Then they call for “sound science,” which is a buzz word for “delayed science,” “biased science,” “non-science,” and “silent science.” UCS has begun documenting the blatant pattern of the Bush administration’s adherence to these latter kinds of science. Examples:

• Delayed a report showing that vehicle fuel efficiency had long been declining until after Congress passed the 2005 Energy Bill - Bush hates foreign oil but not enough to really do anything about it!

• Manipulated reports on climate change by striking out scientific information from reports - Pesky scientific statements be damned!\

• Pressured scientists to manipulate results on mercury - Drink up! Mercury is okay.

Click on the periodic table above to see the documentation, which is a part of their scientific integrity program.