Posted by Max Dunn
Sat, 08 Dec 2007 17:36:22 GMT | no comments
When talking to people about religion, you have to be careful. Many people don’t want to hear facts or ideas that contradict their point of view; they are only interested in hearing things that reinforce what they already believe.
This same phenomenon also happens when talking about global warming – most people have their minds made up on this issue and aren’t willing to consider any evidence that would challenge their beliefs.
Posted in Global Warming, Random Thoughts
Posted by Max Dunn
Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:15:19 GMT | 2 comments
That is the question – whether to buy a low-speed electric vehicle now, or wait for a high-speed electric vehicle later? Here are the factors I am looking at:
- What type of transportation do I need?
- When will high-speed electric vehicles really arrive?
- How much will they actually cost?
- When will the severe oil shortages start?
- Will there be subsidies for electric vehicles?
The short answer is that I am going to buy a low-speed NEV now and wait for later to buy a freeway capable electric car. Here is the long answer:
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Posted in Electric Vehicles, Global Warming, Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:08:53 GMT | 1 comment
Blogging would be more fun if it didn’t feel so much like I was talking to myself. :-)
Posted in Attempts at Humor
Posted by Max Dunn
Wed, 14 Nov 2007 20:51:50 GMT | 9 comments
What makes a good president? Who should we vote for in 2008? Neither of these are easy questions. In this blog entry, J.R. Tozer and I will debate these questions and hopefully come up with some interesting insights.
Posted in Random Thoughts
Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 02 Nov 2007 15:29:55 GMT | no comments
When choosing an email address, it is often tempting to use just your first name or last name like lisa@mycompany.com or smith@mycompany.com. Don’t do it!
The problem with these simple email addresses is that spammers often use directory harvest attacks to find new email addresses to send spam to. In these attacks, they try using all sorts of different email names to see if any go through. Here is an edited portion of my mail log file that records these attacks:
...
Oct 28 01:51:26 <barker@testcompany.com>... User unknown
Oct 28 01:51:27 <barnes@testcompany.com>... User unknown
Oct 28 01:51:28 <barnett@testcompany.com>... User unknown
Oct 28 01:51:29 <barrett@testcompany.com>... User unknown
Oct 28 01:51:30 <bates@testcompany.com>... User unknown
...
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Posted in Tech Tips
Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:45:45 GMT | no comments
As we were flying to Las Vegas to go kayaking on the Colorado River, Suzanne and I were thinking about how many times we have taken a trip by ourselves without the kids. The answer was three times – and every one of them was because J.R and Eileen invited us to go someplace, with the implicit understanding that the kids were not invited!
While we love going places with our kids, we really appreciate that they invite us on these trips so that we get to spend some time with adults, to reconnect with each other and to have some fun. And this trip was definitely a great time!
After flying to Arizona, J.R. and Eileen picked us up at the Las Vegas airport and then we drove to Boulder City to spend the night. The next morning, we drove down to Willow Beach to pack the kayaks and launch. The trip was put on by Jen of Aqua Adventures and she did a great job. There were 13 of us total, and we enjoyed everyone’s company. (Later, I was informed that unlike power boaters, ALL kayakers are nice people. ;-) )
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Posted in Trips and Vacations
Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 20 Sep 2007 14:36:29 GMT | no comments
A friend of mine, Kaliya Hamlin, is putting on the She’s Geeky unconference in October 2007 for women working in technology and is using MaxWiki to run the conference.
This event is designed to bring together women from a range of technology-focused disciplines who self-identify as geeky. The goal is to support skill exchange and learning between women working in diverse fields and to create a space for networking and to talk about issues faced by women in technology.
Posted in
Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 14 Sep 2007 03:36:04 GMT | 8 comments
There is a growing interest in buying carbon credits to offset our carbon footprints. However, there is evidence of widespread failings in the market for carbon offsets. Some of these failings include:
- Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.
- Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.
- A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.
In addition, many carbon offset projects don’t pay for the whole cost of CO2 removal projects they just kick in a little money and claim all the carbon credit of the project. Is this really going to significantly reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere?
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Posted in Global Warming
Posted by Max Dunn
Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:31:35 GMT | 3 comments
Today, I went grocery shopping on our electric Zapino. I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to fit all the groceries in the basket and under the seat, so I took a Trader Joe’s bag too and planned to hold it between my feet. However, it turned out that I didn’t have any problems. Here is what I bought:
- Large powdered Gatorade
- 2 – Boxes of cereal
- Half gallon milk
- Quart of goat’s milk
- Jar of mayonnaise
- 2 – Tamales
- Frozen fish
- Asparagus
- French rolls
As you can see from the pictures, they all fit in nicely! I definitely could have squeezed a few more things in, and then could have filled up the shopping bag and put it between my feet.
Posted in Electric Vehicles
Posted by Max Dunn
Tue, 11 Sep 2007 20:30:14 GMT | no comments
There are three main issues to consider when designing web sites that will look good to the widest number of visitors: monitor size, OS/browser and colors.
Monitor Size
First, no-one uses 640×480 anymore, so this should not be considered. Next up only about 8% of users have 800×600 displays. The biggest group is 1024×768 which accounts for about 50% of user’s displays. At the 1280×1024, we have about 17% of the users. The rest, about 25% have higher resolution displays.
What this means is that to design for the widest group, web pages should be displayable on a 800×600 display, but can be optimized for best viewing on a 1024×768 display.
Keep in mind though, when thinking about the design is that it is hard to read long lines of text and that narrower web pages are often easier to read. Also, when users scan web pages, they look in an F-shaped pattern: first along the top and then the left side. So having a wide page with a lot of important information on the right side will likely not be effective.
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Posted in Tech Tips