Budget wisdom

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery."

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, 1849

Real Football

How do we recover from the fascination of the World Cup to return to our own sports, which seem so parochial and slow by comparison? Perhaps we can try to incorporate some of the attractive aspects.

• No commercial breaks. Go get your beer at the risk of missing a key play.

• Game time. 90 minutes playing time plus “stoppage time” is about right, our games are way too long, with a 60 minute game taking 3½ hours on TV. How can it take nearly twice as long for a 1 hour game than a 1½ hour game? Commercials.

• Continuous action. Don't gimme a break, please. American football is 12 seconds of action followed a minute standing around. Soccer is almost nonstop.

• Importance. We have “national champions” but they are not the champions of the nation.

• Vuvuzela. Forget the cowbell, gimme more vuvuzela. The buzz is the buzz. Ok, maybe not, because that Pavlovian cue of the expectation of great sport will fade (eventually).

• Fitness. Soccer athletes look almost normal but fantastically fit. Instead of fantastically big and out of shape.

On the other hand, soccer could learn a couple things from American sports.

• Bad referees/calls. Many American sports allow the referees to review and potentially reverse their call, greatly improving fairness.

• Scoring. While it is true that the low score in soccer makes the “GOAL!” all the more exciting, a few more scores per game would reduce the fickleness of the outcome. How can this be done? Remove the offsides penalty and thereby encourage offense over defense and, incidentally, avoid over half the referee mistakes.

I think I'll look for a pick-up game in a local park and kick it around a bit. Maybe see what they think of getting rid of the offsides rule.

Consider the Source

Since Rupert Murdoch's News Corp bought the Wall Street Journal, the stodgy but once-credible paper has been losing altitude in its reporting of political news. You might hope that this business paper would remain objective in reporting business news. Not bloody likely. Here are today's headlines from Google News reporting results of the last quarter:

• Good news from the Wall Street Journal itself: News Corp Raises Outlook For Annual Operating Income
• Bad news from competitor BusinessWeek: News Corp. Fourth-Quarter Profit to Fall on TV, Film
• A mixture of good and bad news from the Associated Press: News Corp. profit down but advertising rebounds

This one-man Orwellian apotheosis, Murdoch, continues to infect America news with his adopted British cynical disregard for objective news teamed with a native Aussie tenacity.

Now Fox-WSJ are furiously beating a drum along with Fox “news” that President Obama was slow to respond to BP's oil drilling disaster in the gulf. They will go to any length and sink to any depth to blame the President and divert attention from this abject failure of big business. Yesterday, they 'reported' (and decided) that the National Guard shooting of Kent State students 40 years ago was somehow 'triggered' by the (unarmed, non-violent) demonstrators themselves. Shameless.

DIY:Water Leak Detection and Pump Cut-Off

Ever worry that if your water pipes leaked or broke, that your electric water pump would fill the basement with well water? An alarm is no good if you're not home to hear it. A sump pump would mitigate, maybe, but it could only compete with the water pump. I wanted a water detector that would automatically cut-off power to the pump.

Having no luck finding a product that does this, I assembled one from available parts. I stumbled across one website where do-it-yourselfers made some excellent suggestions. Unfortunately, one product they recommended had been discontinued in favor of an overly-complex home automation system (X-10). I wanted a simple system: just a highly reliable detector and relay. These components seemed to be the best available.

• Parts:

1. Detector: Winland “Water Bug 200” (WNWB200) with relay output, 1 remote sensor probe included, plus DXAdapter500 mA for powering detector, ~$70 from Absolute Automation.
2. Relay: Opto 22 “120D25” (120V, DC controlled, 25 amp capacity), ~$25 from Allied Electronics (authorized dealer; it is cheaper on Ebay but why risk a defective or counterfeit part to save a few bucks?) This is a solid state relay (SSR), no moving parts and very reliable. I would recommend buying the cover because by covering the contacts it will make the installation safer. My pump is on a 15 amp circuit, so 25 amps is over spec.

• Connections: (see figure). "NC" on the Waterbug means "normally closed", i.e., a closed circuit, under normal, non-alarm conditions. The detector must be powered to allow the relay to close and power the water pump, so in that respect the system is 'fail safe'.
  

• Testing: As the water pump was operating, I placed the water sensor on top of a dampened paper towel. The water pump stopped instantly with no sound from the relay. When the sensor was removed from the damp towel, the pump restarted. I think this shows the system works. However, you are entirely on your own applying these observations, I make no guarantees of any kind.
  

Please post any comments or questions. Good luck!
Note: I recommend the cover, which snaps on an protects the contacts, and the matching heat sink from Opto22. The heat sink protects the relay when the pump runs for extended periods, such as when you are taking a shower or watering the lawn. The cover is cheap. The heat sink is about $35, so about $10 more than the SSR. (added April 17,2011).

One small step for a robot, one giant leap for mankind

G W (gee whiz) Bush had a “vision thing” about expanding NASA, returning to the moon, and going on to Mars. Problem is, he also created a giant financial crater right here on earth – a deep deficit in DC, a wobbly US banking system, and economies collapsing worldwide.

Enter Mr. Obama to apply some sense to another fine mess Jr. had gotten US into. Based on recommendations of real scientists (personae non gratae during the GWB years), he made the tough decisions to cancel the Mars vision/mirage, sharply reduce the manned space flights, and concentrate on cheaper but more scientifically valuable projects, such as astrophysics. The screaming from politicians who improbably claim to have been inspired by the manned space program continues. NASA has become about as adept as the Pentagram at spreading contracts thinly across the US in many Congressional districts.

The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity have already provided huge amounts of information for a tiny fraction of the cost of one shuttle launch (which these days is typically dedicated to repairing some life support system on the space station). They the earned places in a future museum but their recovery and installation can wait. Meanwhile, those inspiring Americans who designed, built, and managed this successful program will take their skills, experience, and spirit to the next opportunity.

Robots are invaluable parts of industrial production. They are continually undergoing dramatic improvements. If a robot is destroyed in an industrial accident, or lost in space, or left on a distant planet, nobody cares much. Future industries will develop robots to help in some aspects of jobs such as home health care, some nursing tasks, driving us through traffic more efficiently, etc. Removing some of the purely physical demands from these jobs will free humans to engage more fully in their rewarding aspects.

Sailing into the 21st Century

The BMW-Oracle racing team, founded and directed by Oracle owner Larry Ellison, won the 33 America's Cup competition. The deciding race 2 was completed Sunday off Valencia. Race 1 was a “horizon job” win by BMW-Oracle and only a big wind shift lifting Alinghi on the first leg kept it close for a short while in race 2. Let's skip the pseudo-nationalism nonsense and just revel in transnational corporate “boys with toys”.

San Francisco bay will be a great venue for the next defense, not only for the winds, which are reliably better than most places, but also for the high-tech silicon valley environment.

The race should not return to slow sloops! I loved the old 12 meter class and the (slightly) updated AC class but speed is fun. Both these multihulls were very fast, at 20-30 knots more than twice as fast as the wind. High-powered 'chase' motorboats strained to keep up. With a little more high-tech creativity, I predict a hydrofoil platform with a kite sail pushing speeds near 50 knots. Whoosh! Sailing in the 21st Century won't be your granddad's Corinthian snooze-fest.

Thank you, Massachusetts

Massachusetts voters elected a little-known Republican to replace Ted Kennedy in the US Senate. Apparently even the Fox "News" sycophants are a little leery of this new loose cannon on their side of the ship of state. However, the Democrats did not recognize the risk and the Republicans exploited an opportunity.

• To those on the left who are disenchanted with President Obama because so little has been done so slowly, I would remind you that it was an election, not a revolution, so he must maintain a consensus to accomplish anything.

• To those on the right who are terrified that President Obama has moved the country so far left so quickly, I would remind you that the economy was going over a cliff so a quick change of direction was necessary.

The Republican focus on taxes is an easy 'message' both in simplicity and sales, because it resonates with most people's self-interest in the short term. But tax cuts are easy; commensurate cuts in expenditures are hard. Too bad they couldn't "walk the talk" during the 8 years they were in control and the deficit exploded.

Like the midterm election that deprived President Clinton of his Congress, this election may be the tempering, even chastening, that will refine President Obama's term. Together with the Supreme Court decision giving corporations the legal cover to pay up-front for the Congress of their liking (reversing a century of stare decisis apparently does not count as judicial activism when the right does it), it might also unleash the populist Obama, the “give 'em Hell, Barack”, that the Republicans would rue awakening. Obama preferred the "Happy Warrior" role of FDR for several reasons, including inclination and tactics. But FDR was able to maintain it because Republicans had been thoroughly discredited by the Great Depression. Incredibly, despite foreign failures, domestic disasters, and the ideological incoherence of the Bush era, the Republicans remain a potent political force.

If there is a silver lining, it might be that the health reform measure can be made more bipartisan. Also, “Big Mo” Joe Lieberman's influence as the swing voter has been sharply reduced.