Gates on Income Inequality.

Read this article in Fortune regarding Bill Gates view on income inequality.

True, Piketty's approach is not perhaps fine tuned enough. Some people are using their wealth to good purpose, better than government could ever re-purpose. The parble of the three servants can be seen as a long surviving anecdote regarding that. But found approach by Gates largely futile too. There needs to be at least some qualification.

What kind of business investment is "good"? An arms manufacturer or a pure commodity harvester (oil, tar sand, mining) are far less socially redeeming than something which actually directly helps or enriches people. Both jobs and output must be considered. Global direct education or communications seem to have both redeeming qualities in jobs and output... think microfinance. It is not a given that an entrepreneur is doing socially good work.

Charity is the same in reverse. A charity that promotes some sort of idealistic crusade (that squashes one group in favor of another, or promotes an idea or group without useful social output) is also not redeeming to the world at large. Again the goal has to be examined.

That consumption is bad is not always clear, even conspicuous consumption ala Veblen. Consumption for consumptions sake, of things that neither have nor produce lasting value (effectively destruction), is bad. But one could say the great projects of the New Deal or the Great Pyramids were an excellent way to consume resources - in a way that was socially "uplifting" and made a lasting mark. A car or a yacht are not (generally) lasting marks, nor is the average McMansion. BUT the mansions at Newport transcend. The great railroad empires transcend. Museums endowed (consumed) by benefactors transcend. {And it is disingenuous to call such a charity BTW}.

That the rich consume into channels of lasting value that build infrastructure and businesses is a good thing. A tax on pure capital misses the point. A progressive tax on magnitude of consumption misses the mark too. It is more about an independent social view of what is, and is not, worthwhile for society writ large. The question is how to get the capital out to something with lasting or ongoing value. Sorry not to have a good answer.

Direct voluntary giving to the poor has a better chance of working than any of the above. Shame on all of us if we know how (or have the means to know how) to give back well - yet never do.

Chromecast Yanks Input Feature.

Playing with Google Chromecast over holiday season. Looking at all the apps to cast. The Chromecast has a nifty feature of grabbing the HDMI input on our Toshiba TV. That HDMI-CEC feature alone is useful. Read on.

Our Toshiba like many TVs has about ten inputs. It has has a standard input selector (pressing "input" switches to next input source). But the loop of ten types of inputs (and their respective timeouts for signal detection) make it almost impossible to loop through to the desired input. And though it has an option to select input by number, that numeric option apparently works only through the Toshiba remote and not universal remotes.

Enter Chromecast: Hook it to the first HDMI input (usually grouped together) immediately before the most interesting input or group of inputs. In the in-laws-TV case just before the main composite input of interest (cable box or other).  In Toshiba case HDMI-1 just before cable box on HDMI-2. Basically hook it up to the input in the loop as close as possible and before the desired/main TV input source (apart from Chromecast itself of course *grin*).

One simply gets the right input for Chromecast by invoking a cast application (like YouTube or other). To get back to other main most-used inputs one can simply push the input button once or twice (not six or seven times).

Actually wish the DVD players and TV set top box had this HDMI-CEC "yank" feature built in (linked to menu or play - NOT volume or channel change - for obvious contention reasons). Then there would be no more pressing input at all. When target device was accessed via remote, it would simply grab an HDMI port.

Brings up idea of an HDMI selector box with four inputs and one HDMI output and built in HDMI-CEC control feature. Button on top for "emergency" manual select. "Yank" by ability to sense HDMI control.

Chromecast itself is well worth it alone just as HDMI "yank" input.

RF Tracking and Fencing.

Have blogged before on RF tracking
http://albertputnam.blogspot.com/2013/11/wifi-tracking-any-rf-tracking.html.

NFC and BLE and Beacons... interesting things from Nordic Semiconductor and their allies (like Estimote).

Apart from straightforward inventory... engenders ideas about geo-fencing as an augmentation of other systems like access control.

MassTLC IoT at PTC - Smart Connected Products Transforming Competition - HBR.

IoT has had much discussion lately. Went to a great MassTLC sponsored seminar at PTC on November 4. How Smart, Connected Products are Transforming Competition. Went hand in hand with article in Harvard Business Review. Lay of land for Smart Connected Products. Ten questions businesses should ask themselves. Very appropriate.  Looking at steps

1. 1. Monitoring.
2. 2. Control.
3. 3. Optimization.
4. 4. Autonomy.

Could not help but think about the roots of IoT in tracking/viewing things. The order should perhaps still be

1. 1. Monitoring.
2. 2. Optimization (based purely on what is monitored and outside of any actual IoT programme).
3. 3. Autonomy.
4. 4. Control - Control is last because one should understand the situation before taking action.

And in many cases there are limits (safety, regulatory, privacy, moral, etc.) on what can be controlled. Most of the value is in monitoring and optimization. Some situations never get to control.

 

There were questions during discussions about..

When will industries standardize? What are we waiting for?

1. Leadership from Apple, Amazon, Google and so forth were cited for consumer.
2. Leadership by the main players are often cited in commercial industry. But there is a commercial incentive for non-standard approaches (differentiators) in many situations.
3. Cooperation and collaborative openness. There are examples of collaborative standardization. There are ecosystems which makes it easy to exchange, normalize, coordinate, aggregate and analyze data.

Examples of collaborative standardization:

• BACnet in buildings.
• Sunspec in renewables.
• MTConnect in factory systems.
• OPC (XML DA) in automation.

And the following too - if an ONLY if the mapping/schema is well known... the universally accepted schema is the heart of the matter

• Modbus in industrial. The depth and of Modbus (all the way to sensors), and the breadth of its install base, should not be ignored.
• SNMP in IT.
• RESTful exchange in commerce.
• Any XML in any domain.
• MQ (message queuing) in any domain.

SQL is often hauled out as an exchange method. There is no universal public schema for any database system. Such a schema would be orthogonal to the performance needs of a database.
 
And as a final word. Smart connected things without goals and analytics are fruitless. And goals need not be set in stone, as they are generally informed by analytics. Tactical drives the strategic and vice versa. They are two sides of the same coin. Planning is essential but plans are useless.

 

Machines, Capital.

Two books have come up consistently in discussions lately:

The Second Machine Age - Brynjolfsson and McAfee - Washington Post Review.

Capital - Piketty - Bloomberg Article.

Probably not to be ignored by any serious amateur in economics and business looking at where we have been and where we are headed.

Analysis Defined.

Dictionary definition: Examination of structure as a basis for interpretation.

As an action: Data -> Results.
Or more richly: Inputs and Ideas -> Decisions and Deliverables.

Methodologies: 7C's:

Traditional: Three "Chi"s:

• 1. Chance - guess.
• 2. Cheat - know the answer before one starts.
• 3. Chestnuts - rules of thumb with unknown basis, gut.

Systematic: Four "K"s:

• 4. Coordination - statistics and regression for projection - functions of independent variables against well understood dependent varaiables like time and position.
• 5. Correlation - aka coincidence - any available variable against any other variable... including methods used in Big Data.
• 6. Crowd - wisdom of the masses (large numbers) - human and others - emergence.
• 7. Core - models based on reality - physical and observed.

The first six are all about getting to the seventh - building a model of reality. The key is a platform and framework for getting to the core.

Intellectual Ventures - Longterm.

Little late, but read Bloomberg article about Intellectual Ventures. All thought provoking. Most of the criticism seems to come from large entrenched players. Wonder what the long play really is? What is in the mind of Nathan Myrvold?
[Probably same as wondering about Amazon, Google, IBM and so forth.]

Trends. Industry and World Watchers.

Was recently directed to PSFK regarding Internet of Things industry trends. Interesting group overall. Great content. Like the PSFK business model. Fortune has nice things to say about PSFK. PSFK labs.

Adding PSFK to group of other "watchers" followed:
IdTechEx, the Gartner, Forrester crowd, the Big Three MBB, as well as various viewpoints from direct industry leaders like Intel, GE, IBM, and so on.

ABCD commodities, Big Data and IoT.

ABCD commodities companies:
ADM (Archer Daniels Midland), Bunge, Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus.
In the news regarding agribusiness technology.

Big data comes to agriculture. Monsanto and Climate Corporation.
FLIR and Big Data... Precision Planting.
IoT meets real world...
FLIR ONE  Lepton core (or Seek) on every fence post?
Or perhaps even more ubiquitous applications are at hand?

3D Printing.

Latest on price performance of 3d printers.
What is 3D printing?
Is there enough drama that one can make a movie about 3D printing startups?
Buy? Rent? Or go to local shop... Radioshack, Kinkos, Makerbot Retail... UPS?

MIT Mini Maker Faire.

MIT Mini Maker Faire
MIT Mini Maker Faire
October 4, 2014, North Court, east of Stata Center,  9a-6p

Update: Reference Books for Device, Apparatus and Electronics Design.

Omission in Reference Books for Device, Apparatus and Electronics Design was pointed out. Was going to just update, but seemed worthy of new post.

Where the core is design Donald Norman's Design of Everyday Things should be considered. It is both a classic, and has a new edition in 2013. One forgets usability and affordance at one's peril.

IBM and decentralized IoT.

Gigaom coverage of IBM announcement of Adept.
Decentralized approach to Internet of Things (IoT).

Blockchains

Telehash

BitTorrent (message queuing)

Paul Brody, IBM IoT and Mobile

Additonal commentary

EPR Paradox and GHZ Experiments - Assumptions.

Wrote before on EPR paradox.
http://albertputnam.blogspot.com/2013/07/way-out-of-epr-deterministic-approach.html

Discussion with others pointed to GHZ experiments.

GHZ are non-statistical. One shot. Agrees with QM; disagrees with local realism. Something was bothersome. All the math and analysis are solid. Problem is the basic assumption of what the classical result "should" be.

At extremely short length and timescales are the classical rules the same? Think about two (or N) spins travelling away from each other at the first instant of their separation at scales closer than the Planck lengths/times.

Overall: What if the spatial directions (and time's arrow) are indistinct at small scales? (like they were at the beginning of the "universe"?)

Reference Books for Device, Apparatus and Electronics Design.

One wants to get started building a device - a mechanism, a gadget, or an apparatus. Where to start? One can learn from peers and mentors. One can read magazines like Make, Circuit Cellar and Elektor. But what are the best reference books?

Classics:
Horowitz and Hill - Art of Electronics - Long in 2nd edition. Long rumored 3rd edition.

Richardson and Smith - Experimental Techniques in Condensed Matter Physics. (okay so I have a bias *grin* knowing them)

Moore, Davis and Copeland - Building Scientific Apparatus - little bit tilted to chemistry, but excellent overall.

More modern: Pratt - Make: Electronics

More ancient: Brown - 507 Mechanical Movements (Dover)

Meet more modern peers and mentors at a Maker Festival? Or at a Hackerspace?

Or go back to the past like at the Harvard Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments?

Maytag Neptune Washer and Dryer Saga.

Our Maytag Neptune washer has had troubles lately. When we bought it with our house the MAH4000 and its dryer sibling were already a little over ten years old.

Dryer in pair was the first to have trouble. Gas would not stay on. Pilot light was starved. Went through the process of replacing the solenoid. Turned out to be a bit of dust in the relief inlet (external pressure equalization) of the regulator valve. Was as simple as using a pin/needle to open the orifice up.

Done.

Last winter the MAH4000 belt started coming off. And the main bearing seal started leaking. Lots of brown water/rust thrown off the main pulley.

After some searching and diagnostics... Came to this link - Neptune Bearings by M Little . Actually found the above site very early in the process... but thought it was a parody (an ironic way of saying "Do not even try this!"). BUT it turned out to very straightforward - if somewhat long and drawn out.

Seal kit 12002022 has extras one does not need... read included instructions very carefully/literally. 6206-2RS and 6207-2RS are easy to get. Worst part was getting bearing back in. Hard to align and very tight. Advice: Grind and polish. Dremel. Marine grease during insert and for sealant.

Was good exercise. Got the front boot/seal clean in the process. Drum exterior also got a good scrub. Lots of grease on bearing rotating parts. Were a fair number of coins removed from the pumps.

Wax motor (for the curious this is a wax motor) had black plunger and was okay. And related - motherboard did not have fried triac Q6 and resistor R11.

All good.

Two months ago the MAH4000 stopped spinning. All the lights looked right at every stage of rinse and spin (will come back to this).
Checked all three imbalance switches on blue cable. All okay.
Checked connections to wax motors and safety switches. All clean and good.
Checked main control board R11 and Q6.
Checked all connections (reseated everything).
Was about to go after motor and controller. Then saw this.
Youtube: Neptune no spin. Not the normal failures.
In effect it is answering "So I tried everything but the main motor - any ideas?". The wax motor Z-spring backing led to an investigation of how well the "real" safety switch was working (the one on the right - not the one on the left that operates the door closed light). The switch was fine BUT the plunger that pushes the switch had worn down enough to not go far enough. Put a piece card board shim in front of the plunger.

All good.

Then last month the MAH4000 started to make an awful noise. And it stopped fast spinning (though it would try) and would only weakly slow spin. Looked through all of the above again. Did the J4 removed test. Bad motor or controller. Ordered kit with motor, controller, harness and instructions 12002039 . And a spare belt for good measure 12001788

Whole motor, harness and controller replaced. But though it looks completely alien to this machine, motor and controller fit perfectly. J4 fine, Power fine, GND(s) (there is a new case ground to screw to the base) - all hooked up fine. Even sounds better and seems to vibrate less.

And away we go again.  

So if a deal like this appears, and one feels handy enough, seems one should go for it?... Mercy Save Neptune Set  [Maybe check craigslist for one unloved.]. Also starting to ponder feasibility of an Ethernet interface to the IO - ala Internet of Things.

Of course each failure had a load of wet clothes associated with it that had to be hand wrung. Consider: Hand Wringer at Lehman's .  Lehman's has all sorts of interesting stuff. Or look at Amazon.

Ah for a "simpler" life... But refrigerators, stoves, washers, dryers, dishwashers, microwaves, ovens, and toasters are part of that life now.

OHS Open Hardware Summit 2014 Rome, Italy - by OSHWA.

Open Hardware Summit OWS 2014 Rome, Italy - by OSHWA. Self-servingly fond of this OWS 2014 link and its two photos of OWS 2013 at MIT...

because I happen to be in both of them *grin*.

Internet of Things - IoT - Tools Coming Together - PTC, Thingworx, Axeda.

Blogged before about IoT tools. Ecosystem is growing. Conferences growing. Push by players coming together. PTC, Thingworx, Axeda.
PTC , Thingworx and Axeda.

Lantronix and Internet of Things - IoT.

Related to recent blog entries on Internet of Things - IoT tools, Ethernet internal bus, and Serial Coprocessing. Mariano Goluboff at Lantronix has a great article on using xPico interface with various IoT tools. Lantronix + dweet + freeboard.

Lantronix has already shown commitment to IoT: Lantronix IoT

Lantronix blog has good stuff: http://www.lantronix.com/blog/

Recent of note in Lantronix blog:  SOEST , SLB  and Google Analytics

Ethernet as an Internal Bus for Internet of Things, IoT, Embedded Devices.

Ethernet and TCPIP are already regularly used as internal buses in large NAS systems. What about taking this model to embedded devices for IoT?

Backplane = Ethernet hub/switch - ala D-link GO-SW-5E (5VDC powered - roughly $15)  (or even a Mikrotik 750 router)

CPU with direct Ethernet = SoC ARM or x86 based compute and database engine - Intel based (Galileo, Minnowboard), Beagle Bone, 86duino, Raspberry Pi...

Bus controllers = Lantronix xPico classic.

The last part is the key piece. It can even in some cases be the CPU too. Platform specification for IoT often gets into nitty gritty I/O capabilities. This sometimes diverges into onboard or outboard coprocessors like TI Sitara's PRU, serially connected Atmel or PIC microcontrollers, special function chips like advanced application specific UARTs or communications units (think oddities like ARCNET, HomePNA, unusual RF, etc.)... and sometimes even to FPGAs. Usually these pathways take one to very specific/special specifications.

Ethernet is a natural actually - having:

• Isolation.
• Variable bandwidth.
• Wide "driver" support.
• TCPIP support - for web GUI and standard protocols/frameworks like XML, REST and layerable security and filtering.
• Various forms of pre-existing transparent, web configurable, "driver-less", pass-through devices.

Ethernet was formerly too expensive. Look at the price of xPico. And Ethernet suffers from being thought of as a LAN bus (distances of 1-100M). Instead think of it like CAN, I2C or SPI.
 
Bus power? One can go:

• Power over Ethernet 802.3af on the high end.
• Passive Power over Ethernet (with 3V-12V over short distances).
• 5V - USB being the current best flavor of 5VDC - Common EPS.

Alternatively, think of the xPico as a replacement for a PLX PCI9030 or a PLX PEX8112
or various forms of "bridge as IP cores" to be fabbed on demand. Without the fabbing, minimums, BGA assembly, and so forth.

Internet of Things (IoT) Tools

Great article on tools for the Internet of Things (IoT) from William Toll at ProfitBlocks.
http://blog.profitbricks.com/top-49-tools-internet-of-things/
Rolls up many of the players. ProfitBlocks located in Boston/Cambridge area. Too much to describe in a few words... Go see for yourself.

And it is all a moving target. Saw these and other announcements in the next days: Pinoccio Mesh IoT. Thread IoT Thread Group - Samsung, ARM, NEST. Not to be confused with previous Samsung announcement as part of Open Internet Consortium. Perhaps IoT is about forming consortia like AllSeen, Thread, OIC?

Solar Super Capacitor + Battery or Application.

Have seen lots of buzz around supercapacitors from IDTechEx.
Have mentioned them before in blog.

Beginning of 2014 saw news of new work on graphene devices.
Graphene solar cells.
Graphene supercapacitors.

How about combining the two? The core idea is to store the charge right where it is being generated, and cut down on transmission inefficiency while making the cells "flywheel" through darkness. And at the same time cut back (to zero) on all the voltage and amperage regulation needed for current (no pun intended) systems. Photovoltaic cell voltages are well matched to ultra-capacitor ratings.

If the graphene hybrid is too forward thinking, then go simply with standard commodity (cheapest) solar cell (say a nice 3-6W wafer or two - each 0.6V at 4-8A) and a big 5kF supercap. Now admittedly: The capacitor is big. It is heavy. It is only holding around an Ahr (integrating voltage). Alone, it is not for mobile applications. The /charging/ time constant is reasonable. Discharge depends on load and leakage.

However, the supercapacitor has an excellent temperature profile (can stand heat under a solar cell and cold in artic conditions), and excellent power density (can delivery a big power surge to a starting motor or...). The supercapacitor also offers an excellent front end for a battery hybrid. And the batteries can get you the next two orders of magnitude of raw storage... if they can be in a cooler place behind the refuge/buffer of the supercapacitor.

From there, there are other opportunities... Consider the atto or femto grid... Deliver solar photovoltaic energy - continuously - day and night - to directly attached fans and cooling units (eventually efficient solid state Peltier?). Maybe use the first coolers to keep battery array temperatures stable? Keep the high current distances down to under a metre.

Serial Bridges... Preparing for the Internet of Things (IoT).

Many embedded applications come down to I/O with "lesser" serial bus on one side (sensors via I2C or SPI or something straightforward like Modbus) via an intelligent agent which then interacts with a "greater" serial bus on the other side (like to a stateful serial protocol like BACnet MSTP, Profibus, ARCNET or even Modbus or USB). This is the essence of a serial bridge.

Most embedded developers pick a micro controller they are familiar with and go directly to work building their bridge.

What if one instead envisioned first how such a bridge could communicate via the Internet of Things?
That is to say - What if one envisioned a TCPIP and web interface from the start?
The web interface would be used for
- startup and configuration (minimizing dip switches and other UI hardware)
- ongoing status (minimizing indicators and hardware UI)
- "dip in" protocols to watch data flow - like RESTful interfaces (MTConnect, Sunspec and others), Modbus TCP and various XML schemas, or even simple .CSV data log files.

Basically one minimally needs two serial interfaces and a TCPIP (Ethernet or Wifi) interface.
[Wifi is a tiny bit harder to auto-configure - but not impossible].

The big problem was always price for TCPIP. And this was usually made worse by the fact that the TCPIP part was an after-thought or add-on - which had to be engineered /into/ the bridge. So what about taking a (cheap) TCPIP intrinsic part and using it "incidentally" as a serial bridge?

The Lantronix xPico is an embodiment of such a bridge, and a particularly "right sized" and economical version. Small ARMs and some recent x86 (Vortex86, Intel and VIA) are getting close,
but none have the sharp focus of the xPico... it being a child of a programme for TCPIP to serial bridging, which just recently branched into multiple serial. There are other small TCPIP UI systems with possible multiple serial... like Moxa and Digi. It is just that the price, tools and possibilities seem uniquely congruent with the xPico.

Only issue with xPico is actually humanly getting access to the two serials via the Hirose. The DKs have this... but also a bunch of excess. Ended up making a breakout DIP40 for prototype work... and working to a policy of keeping all useful pins exposed in viae or test points. See previous blog on breakout pins and APIs.
 
http://albertputnam.blogspot.com/2013/12/new-devices-just-give-us-pins-and-apis.html

Wearable Computers - Small Form Factor Redux

Was a bit surprised to find the definition of wearable computers so narrow.

The wearable computer I always wanted would have no intrinsic display or I/O. Have commented on these small forms for various purposes before.
http://albertputnam.blogspot.com/2013/11/minimal-portable-pc-usb3-hdmi-110g.html
It would have a battery, lots of compute, memory and storage, and would have IO ports like USB and HDMI. It would not be wireless locally, but would use a PAN (like Ethernet or USB).
Bluetooth would be okay... though it bleeds to WAN if intrinsic. External connect would be WiFi or 4G (again best if not intrinsic but via IO), but a direct Ethernet nearby is optimal. 802.3af Power over Ethernet would be preffered charging, but also via USB. Ideally wearable solar or energy harvesting would be integrated or integrable.

Do not want to be locked to any specific display or data entry method. Want I/O to be whatever is at hand. Maybe UI can be Oculus Rift ? ... for another post? And WAN disconnect to be guaranteed by using/executing a physical/visible/tangible mechanism.

[Update 140707: Interesting offering ECS LIVA . Available Newegg . Small and battery powerable.
Out of Stock Newegg with reviews].

Flintstone Car - Environmental Comfort - Human or Renewable Powered.

For trips of under a block, walking (or limited mobility equivalent) makes sense. For short local trips of a few kilometers bicycling makes sense. Then comes car, bus and mass transit for a few hundred kilometers trip. After that long distance trains, ship and air come into play.

It has been said that daily commutes have a constant at 20-30 minutes (each way).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marchetti's_constant
These above fall into the class of how far can you get in ten to twenty minutes. Multi-mode trips (for a daily traverse from home to work) should have their aggregate be 30 minutes, and each mode thus have some fraction of the whole.

The issue is the elements and comfort. The long distance comutes have environmental control  (heating/cooling, sounds, smooth ride).

The short travel options are generally spartan. Though there are interesting exceptions. The interior of a mall provides a controlled shopping trip environment. Pedestrian tunnels used in northern climates are another example. Even the shade provided by buildings and trees, and humidity from fountains in arid climates provide a similarly controlled environment.

But in the absense of ubiquitous infrastructure, there is wearing a snow suit or a raincoat, or using shade parasols, or sticking to tree lined venues.

The point is that it is NOT really about energy efficiency or exercise or other costs related to energy and dollars, as much as it is about "comfort".

If one takes this a starting point then the conclusions one can get to are unusual... A safe velomobile, can perhaps nicely fill the needs for walking and biking distances.

The Flintstone car is not so crazy - with a canopy, radio, communications, and safety. If the friction and weight could be small enough, yet all the above be in place, and with modest boost in basic "foot and hand powered" efficiency, then it is almost rational.

[Update 140714: Some getting close: But powered.
Elio motors
LIT motors
Tuk Tuks (aka auto rickshaw) ]

Swan's Maple Products.

Recent chance meeting at a conference made me sit down and properly get the links for Swan's Maple Products. http://www.swansmapleproducts.com/aboutus.html

It is a convergence of many things.

"Charlie" is my grandfather and the (half) namesake of my son. The half is because of my wife's grandfather - also a "Charlie".

Recent discussion with colleagues, has run to maple sugaring process. Had almost forgotten the trick of letting the sap freeze overnight, and removing the ice, as a natural pre-processing phase. Have been thinking lately that that freezing may add an artisinal twist to the product/flavour... the flavour I remember as unique in my childhood.  

Along another vein, cannot determine the cause of the strange correlation in "maple" flavor/scent found in Thai iced tea. None of the listed teas and spices seem to account for the maple. But there it is. Might be fenugreek (or related compound)?

Was also recently pointed to newsletters
http://www.themaplenews.com/
http://www.northamericanmaple.org/index.php/en/maple-syrup-digest

And here is some basic stuff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maple_syrup
http://www.massmaple.org/

Completely puzzled why Google Maps labels Swan's Maple as in Belmont? Map location pin is right but that is Central New Annan.

MBTA - Run More Trains.

MBTA
Run more trains.

One could digress:
- Better (not lesser) service during construction and disruption.
- Improvement of daytime operations before late night (are you listening sponsors?).
- Tooth on-time guarantees.
- Expresses (over holds).
- Address dangerous platform overcrowding at rush hour.
- Out-of-servicing only in sparsely-populated direction.
- All (or most) Green-lines inbound to at least North Station.
- No schedule adjustments at core and terminus stations.

But to get back to the crux...
Run more trains.

Network Enhanced Everything - NEE.

Have discussed "supers" previously - capacitors, batteries, insulation - and in general - materials...
also LEDs, solar photovoltaics and other renewables.

Lately thinking about everything network (and computer) enhanced...
Enhanced - manufacturing, services, handling, inventory, sensing, communications and analytics.
By no means comprehensive, but meant to encompass some popular specifics like
robotics, 3D fabrication, telepresence, IoT and M2M.

Robotics - Economist - Analysis, Logistics.

Feature section on Robotics in Economist March 27, 2014.
Rise of Robots [Ecomomist]
Economist Robotics

Highlights:

Asking for help where a robot is helpless is perhaps feature and not a bug. Drones are not in as much military demand as one might think. Who will provide us our last human kindnesses?

Thoughts:

Opportunity for analytics? Amazon Kiva Union [Forbes]
Kiva

More succinctly analytics for Logistics Automation

For cleaning iRobot Roomba
For snow? Tuvie Roofus

For lawn? Robotic Lawn Mowers

Little mention of trade show robots as a tele-presence application.

Trade Show Robots [Wired]

Great Grandmother's Oatmeal Cookies.

Here is the recipe for:
Great Grandmother's Oatmeal Cookies

2 cups rolled oats
1 cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon soda (baking soda)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix all together plus add the following heated together
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup water
Heat the above two until the shortening melts.

Mix and roll out 1/4" thick.
Cut with a round cutter.
Re-roll, cut, repeat.

She always put icing on top.
Icing:
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 to 1/2 cup milk (probably 1/3).
Mix the above and bring to a boil.
Add icing sugar until the mix thickens.
Add 1/4 teaspoon vanilla.

Albert's notes:
Rolled oats are critical above.
Need a box (1 cup plus?) of icing sugar on hand.
Hmmm. No sign of baking instructions.
Probably something like 325-375F for 30-90 minutes.
(Some heat for enough time until they just start to brown.)
Probably can be taken from a standard cookie recipe?

Transcribed by Albert Putnam from notes by Ethyl Beryl Putnam (ne McCully). Spring 2001. Based on cookies baked by Alma Mae McCully (ne Withrow).

IQ Power Xpert meters - Westinghouse, Cutler-Hammer, Eaton, INCOM - brought to TCPIP.

Have a bunch of IQ meters and/or switchgear? - maybe branded Westinghouse, Cutler-Hammer or Eaton?... Know the meters? - They are the ubiquitous first generation digital meters in practically every facility. Either one has never networked these meters (though one might have a blue INCOM line running between them one barely even recognizes), or one has soldiered through the ups and downs of the Power Xpert software gateway architecture running on PCs.

Have in mind that the only way out to the future is to upgrade the meters, but that would be a major project with shutdowns and swap outs. So one just sits and does nothing and waits for the meters to "inlast" the building; though that is rife with danger from normal maintenance failures.

Eaton has a little known solution/pathway for these meters.
It is called the Eaton Power Xpert Gateway PXG600.

How does it work:
- Upgrade set of meters to INCOM (sometimes with a PONI/IPONI = INCOM product operated network interface - often these are already in place).
- Run blue cable bus for INCOM between local sets of meters (up to about ten (best) to forty (pushing limits)) in a group. Often "blue hose" is already in place.
- Attach meter group(s) to the INCOM port(s) of PXG600.
- Attach PXG600 to a TCPIP Ethernet network system (attach like any common IP device).
- Setup PXG600(s). The PXG600 has internal template maps for the long history of IQ meters. It supports a variety of protocols like Modbus TCP and in some cases BACnet IP and SNMP.
- Get "middleware" together. One probably has systems that can consume and log meter data (HVAC, SCADA and such). One wants to convert the Modbus TCP data into such,  whilst also leaving openings for others to attach to Modbus TCP in parallel. Something like a Cimetrics B6035 does the intermediation job nicely. But it is also the case that many management systems will read the interfaces directly (especially if you have BACnet/IP in your building management system
or Modbus TCP in your SCADA system).
- Enjoy.

Too hard? Talk to Eaton. Eaton can set this up for you.
Too expensive? The PXG600 is "open channel" and supportable by third parties. Talk to someone like PWA - Physical World Analytics in their troubleshooting capacity or Cimetrics in their network-architecture design capacity. They too can set this up for you.

Continuous Monitoring Based Commissioning.

Article regarding Continuous Monitoring Based Commissioning.
http://w3.usa.siemens.com/buildingtechnologies/us/en/Smart_Buildings/Documents/the-12-things-you-need-to-know-about-monitor-based-commissioning-a-siemens-white-paper-final.pdf

Most everyone knows about commissioning. For most systems the concept is straightforward, and the goal is universal - optimization - chiefly for reliability (be it economic or functional.. and this is not really an "or" at transcendence).

It is more nuanced what happens with re-commissioning a system... Is it a snapshot? Does one stop the process? etc.

Then after one gets the before/after understood... one is faced with understanding ongoing versus batch/jump. The real winners (sometimes better termed "non-losers") are the ones who can harness the power of continous improvement.

Here is Contiuous Improvement with a large "C". 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continual_improvement_process

Green Tomato and Onion Chow.

Grama's (both family sides) green tomato and onion chow.
Goes by the name "chow chow" all over North America.
Closely related to Picalilly (relish). Unsure where this type of "pickles" comes from.
A close approximation is Habitant Chow Chow Green Tomato.
Habitant is a Smuckers brand.
Howard's Picalilli Green Tomato is reasonably close.

So looking for a recipe?
Chow [Yahoo Answers]
Bernardin Chow
Both of the above involve cabbage and peppers.

But for Canadian variants.
A. Mostly no one grew peppers (wrong climate).
B. Cabbages were relatively hard to grow (pests).

Here is a straightforward formula more in line with the version of my childhood
Elizabeths Chow Chow [Food.com]

Take any of the formulas and go with green tomatos and onions (roughly equal portions - less onions) and make them up to the "other" veggie totals. Omit all other veggies. Use the spices you favor, but the core is made up of mustard and tumeric. Boiling/cooking longer to soften the tomatoes and onions, and evenly embue them with tang/spices, gives a better product by my tastes. Proportions of sugar, salt and vinegar control sweetness and tang. Cornstarch is there to thicken if you wish. Leave it out and cut the water for authenticity, though it might then end up less smooth if not cooked until the tomatoes soften.

Recap of rough ingredients:
Green tomato, onion, sugar, water, vinegar, salt, cornstarch, mustard, turmeric.

Your Browser is Not Supported - Below the Fold

Lately have been served more than the usual number of pages along the lines of “Your browser is not supported by our website”. Some are quite clever, but most are brief (and no matter how polite – they make one want to leave). Such an approach misses a huge opportunity.

The one liner redirect (zinger which effectively says you are sub-human for using browser X) is itself content, and could easily be replaced with a few lines and a few images which at least portray the most important site message(s). And then sends you…

Have often changed browsers to find a graphic heavy website, with little dynamics (no warrant for browser features), which does not answer basic questions like:

A – What is your offer/business?

B – Am I the right customer? (service versus product, and ideas of scale – individual versus corporate/government).

C – How to contact? (multiple methods).

D – How can I see/touch/feel/experience what you offer?

E – What are your best features? (these must be simple, innovative, and fit within my world view).

Notice it is mostly about “me” *grin*. Who you are and your history come later. And so do fancy media presentations (unless that is what you are offering… though those websites – those in the business of making media presentations, or truly deeply predicated on history – are seldom offenders in this regard… think about that).

Tangentially related:

Long (real) content on a single page is no harm. Everyone scrolls (especially mobile). Only recently have been shown outcomes from the “above the fold” controversy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Above_the_fold

http://uxmyths.com/post/654047943/myth-people-dont-scroll

Get your message out quickly. Back it up firmly and succinctly. Present action items.

Cimetrics Launches Analytika

Cimetrics just released the new analytics offering website - Analytika.
http://www.analytika.com/
With Analytika for buildings, cut energy usage and cost, improve comfort and performance, detect faults, and manage the workflow of any maintenance or improvements.
With Analytika for process, predictive analytics are utilized to provide early warning, actionable recommendations and supervisory control, before parameter drift causes quality problems, process disruptions and waste.

Picked up by media outlets:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/cimetrics-inc-launches-analytika-145700352.html
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140212005852/en/Cimetrics-Launches-Analytika
http://automatedbuildings.com/releases/feb14/140212013404cimetrics.html

Cimetrics
http://www.cimetrics.com/

Grama Beryl's Passing

Grama - Ethel Beryl Putnam passed away in January 2014. She had a rich and long life and provided the cornerstone for the family. This says it best... [Well done Natalie.]

http://www.obitsforlife.com/obituary/841940/Putnam-Ethel-Beryl.php

http://thechronicleherald.ca/obituaries/1181843-putnam-ethel-beryl

Pre-deceased by Grampa - Albert Perley Putnam (HH #814 1996)
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/CAN-NS-OBITS/2007-05/1179348744
And by Mum - Marion Elizabeth Putnam  (HH #4337 2002)
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/CAN-NS-OBITS/2009-06/1244890267
And by Dad - Ralph Curtis Putnam (HH #367 1999)
http://www.forposterityssake.ca/Obituary/DS/DS-OBIT-0001-1000.pdf

How Many Tonnes of CO2 in a ....? And How Much is it Worth?

CO2 value and content? 

Short article in Dec 14, 2013 Economist p70. Easy to miss.
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21591601-some-firms-are-preparing-carbon-price-would-make-big-difference-carbon-copy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Emission_Trading_Scheme
ETS price $5 - "EUA" (which appears to be a tonne of CO2 'equivalents')
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/euets/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_credit
California price - very roughly $12.

But for businesses internally: $6 to $60.
Non-energy companies around $10.
Energy companies around $30-40.

So how much CO2 in, say, a barrel of oil?

0.43 equiv-tonne CO2/barrel.

EPA: http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-resources/refs.html

Comprehensive, yet simple open book calcs.

Given carbon credit (tonne of CO2, ETS EUA, etc.) prices above; what fraction of an energy unit cost is this cost/price?

http://www.oil-price.net/ Barrel of oil Jan 2014 about $100.
0.43 equiv-tonne CO2/barrel @ $10-40/equiv-tonne CO2 implies $5-20/barrel carbon price… five to twenty percent of oil price. Not insignificant, but not so high as to set off reality alarms.

"Theoretical" societal CO2 cost of $33/tonne implies $15/barrel.

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/EPAactivities/economics/scc.html (using %3 rate at 2013?)

How much does it cost to produce a barrel of oil?

EIA: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=367&t=6

[And this excludes transportation and such.]  Very roughly $30/barrel.

Observations for rules of thumb:

“Market” cost divided by two gives roughly sum of production, societal and transport.

Production cost divided by two gives roughly societal cost.