Walt at Random

I’ll hold off on the post I was going to write, in the (probably forlorn) hope that some reader will actually take a crack at the previous post. I can almost hear the silence…

Meanwhile: Started reading the February 2010 Fast Company (in print, and I’m usually about a month behind on magazines). Here’s the first item in the “Fast Fixes” spot at the end of the Letters column–FC’s version of, you know, corrections:

In the October 2009 issue, the China graphic in the Now section misstated the country’s 2009 GDP. The correct number is $4.3 billion.

I vaguely recall the October graphic–I think it showed China’s GDP as $43 trillion, which is clearly improbable.

$4.3 billion, on the other hand, isn’t improbable–it’s flat-out impossible. I’d guess it’s off by three orders of magnitude: That the right number is $4.3 trillion.

Actually, turns out that’s wrong also–according to China’s own numbers, 2009 GDP was $4.9 trillion. (They know their 2009 GDP by February 2010? Really?) But an error of 20% is a whole lot better than being off by a factor of 1,000!

Heck, FC doesn’t run that many corrections; you’d think they’d have someone double-check them…

Background

I read Fortune–the print magazine–mostly because I decided to give Money another try a year or so ago when Time Inc. offered an absurdly good deal…and the deal included throwing in Fortune.

Even though I’m pretty sure I’m not in the target audience (having never been nor planning to be a Captain of Industry or even a Corporal of Capitalism), I’ve enjoyed much of it–some great long investigative pieces, some fine writing. And, as with most magazines that still have the “yucks-in-the-back” tradition, putting something lighthearted on the last editorial page, I like finishing off an issue with something light–in this case, Stanley Bing’s “While You Were Out” column.

Bing in the February 8, 2010 edition talks about “The Big Issues”–four of them that he says we need to resolve in order to move forward. (Unemployment, Deregulation, Debt and Doubt, if you’re wondering.)

I was taken with the section on Doubt–not that I agree with all of it, but I found the second paragraph particularly interesting.

Foreground

Here’s the paragraph:

The fact is, nearly every article I have read in my life has been wrong, at least in part, about anything I know even a little bit about. I can’t tell if they were wrong about the stuff I don’t know about. So why do we listen to these people? I have an idea. Let’s not.

OK, loads of caveats here. Bing’s writing about “mainstream media” or, rather, newspapers and magazines. He writes light stuff for the last page. (His recommendation for Doubt: “Ignore Depressing People.” Well, maybe, but doubtful and depressing shouldn’t be synonymous.)

But…

I know that, when I read articles in magazines that focus on areas I know really well, I tend to find a lot of flaws–frequently just getting the facts wrong, more often failing to provide appropriate facts and context. All the more so if it’s a general-interest publication writing about a specific area.

I’m not flaming journalists. Journalism is hard–and it’s really hard to cover an area you haven’t been steeped in for years. Ask me to do a 600-word writeup on the latest findings in bioarchaeology (is there such a field?)–or, rather, assign me to do such a writeup, in time for tomorrow’s edition or next month’s issue deadline–and chances are I’ll produce something that a bioarchaeologist will find embarrassingly naive and probably wrong in key areas. (And, if I’m really on deadline and some outfit with a good PR firm has been involved in the story, there’s a very good chance my writeup will rely heavily on that firm’s press releases, quite possibly giving the firm or university or lab more credit than it deserves.)

I’d guess that, for most readers, I’m not saying anything you don’t already know (at least implicitly).

Conclusion

I’m not entirely sure there is one, unless it’s the great blues line,

Don’t believe anything you hear, and only half of what you see.

Realistically, though, maybe the message is:

It’s reasonable to assume that media reports in areas you don’t know intimately are no more correct and complete than media reports in areas you do know intimately.

There is, to be sure, the next blues line (at least in “Small Town Talk”)

And if you’re gonna believe in anything, darlin’, believe in me…

Because, you know, I’m never wrong and I never omit context. I just fasten my wings and fly over the scene again to make sure my super-hearing and x-ray vision got everything right the first time. (I don’t always fly over the scene immediately: Sometimes the squadrons of aeropigs get in the way.)

You know about code switching, right?

• How college students can use all sorts of strange abbreviations when texting and write grammatical, fully-spelled-out paragraphs for school.
• How you probably speak differently to your 2-year-old child than you do to your 60-year-old boss…
• Lots of other cases…

This trivial post will add nothing useful to that discussion. I’m just noting that code switching can be accidental and take you by surprise.

To wit, I was reading a quick weather-related FriendFeed note, addressed to the east coast people getting buried in snow, saying Vancouver sure could use some of that, a week before the Olympics, since it was “50″ and sunny…

And I immediately thought: “Geez, how could it possibly be 50 in Vancouver in February? Maybe in Phoenix in July, but…”

Because my mind had automatically, given “Vancouver,” done the Celsius-to-Fahrenheit conversion, given that Canada usually uses Celsius for temperatures. (9/5 + 32, one of the easiest formulas around–and yields 122Fahrenheit, essentially impossible for Vancouver in February unless the sun’s going nova.)

Then I looked at the message again and thought, “Oh, either written by a U.S. person or written for a U.S. audience–they’re using Fahrenheit.” 50F in Vancouver in February doesn’t seem at all unlikely. (It was apparently around 45F in Juneau at that point.)

Unconscious code-switching…I suspect lots of us do it in various areas. Usually, it works just great.

…but I’ve learned that, almost always, when someone begins a message (blog post, FriendFeed post, tweet, op-ed column, conversation, whatever) with that phrase, they’re about to say something offensive and disrespectful.

[Just a thought.]

I’d had a note on my “maybe blog about this” pad for a while about absolutes and universalisms. Today, I was pushed into turning that note into a post–a brief and ill-thought-out post, but a post nonetheless.

I objected to Steve Jobs’ statement that everybody has a smart phone and a notebook (as part of his introduction of the iPad)–just as I’ve previously objected to his assertion that nobody reads books (which came, to be sure, before he introduced a device well-suited to ebook reading).

And a library person said I was setting up a straw man and that when this library person says equally absurd “everybody” things, he means something else–he’s just marketing. I thought about that for a while and reached a conclusion.

Bullshit.

Consider the following three absolutely false statements:

• Everybody uses Windows.
• Everybody has a cell phone.
• Everybody has a smartphone.

Guess what? If you used any of those statements in an advertisement, the FTC could (and probably would) be down on you like a hawk. I’m never quite sure what constitutes “marketing,” but ads and press releases are part of it–and you couldn’t get away with using any of those in either one, without drawing (at least) a lot of derision.

Now, did you recognize one thing about the three statements?

They’re in increasing order of falsehood. Around 94% of PCs in the U.S. run Windows (and most people own some PC of one sort or another). That’s not “everybody.” But it’s close. Let me run that statement by Apple and see how they feel about it…

Not everybody (in the U.S.) has a cell phone; last time I looked, it was around 80%.

As for smartphones: They’re a relatively small minority of cell phones, even in the U.S. I think it’s fair to suggest that fewer than half of Americans have smartphones, probably a lot fewer.

But it doesn’t really matter–they’re all false universalisms.

The strawman accusation

It’s really convenient to dismiss criticism by saying “You’re setting up a strawman.” When you can do that when somebody’s been quoted, you’re doing even better.

What you’re saying is, in essence: “You’re not allowed to criticize what this person’s saying–because you don’t know that they mean what they’re saying. And, you know, it’s OK to say any damn fool thing for marketing purposes, without being criticized for it.”

The librarian offering this theory actually said that, when he uses universalism, he doesn’t mean it–he’s “marketing.” But it’s OK for him to call me out for setting up “straw men,” where it would obviously not be OK for me to call him out on absurd universalisms–because, you know, he didn’t mean it. He just said it.

The death of discussion

At which point, there can no longer be any sort of reasonable criticism or discussion. If people can legitimately say “I didn’t mean that” when they’re correctly quoted, then the whole process breaks down.

From a personal perspective, I might find this interesting. Since I couldn’t really do Cites & Insights at all–after all, any commentary could be dismissed on the grounds of “X not really meaning what X said”–I’d give it up and catch up on reading. But I’m old. I’m not sure “what the hell, nobody really means what they say” works for younger folk.

Saying what you mean

If what you mean to say is “In another few years, anybody in a first-world nation who wants a smartphone can probably afford one”–well, you know, you could say that. (Which does not mean everybody will have a smartphone. Being able to afford something and choosing to have it are two very different things.)

If what you mean to say is “In another few years everybody will have a smartphone,” you’re just plain wrong, and should take a look at the demographics of the world.

In either case, turning that into “everybody has a smartphone” is nonsense–and justifying it by saying “it’s just marketing” or “it’s just hype” is, I think, worse than nonsense. It makes it impossible to carry on any serious discussion.

Oh, and saying “everybody” followed by much of anything other than “needs to eat,” “needs to breathe” or “will eventually die”? Almost certainly wrong.

---

Written in haste, after dinner, with little or no editing. But, you know, if you want to criticize anything I say here, be my guest. You won’t see me saying “I didn’t really mean that–it was just marketing.”

A minor post on a major offense.

I was browsing through various books during the ALA Midwinter exhibits–specifically (but not exclusively) books related to librarianship and my areas of interest.

At one booth, I ran into a book that I’d heard about when it was being written but hadn’t seen “in the binding.” It’s not new. The author and title aren’t terribly relevant; neither is the publisher.

I opened it to a discussion of a social topic that I do care about (involving the breadth of intellectual freedom and freedom of speech in the U.S.). And there, at the beginning of a paragraph, was a sentence that begin (possibly paraphrased):

“No sane person could believe X”

where “X” is something I firmly believe.

I closed the book, offered the author–who I’ve been acquainted with, knowing our opinions don’t always match but thinking he (of course it was a he) had interesting perspectives–a one-fingered salute in absentia, and walked away.

I did read just enough context to be sure the author wasn’t quoting someone else or setting up a strawman. Nope–the author called me insane. Not to my face, not by name, but the author explicitly called me insane.

Call me irritable if you wish, but I don’t see any reason to continue reading something like that. If the author was actually trying to change any minds through reasoned argument, he lost his chance. I suspect that sort of thing happens a fair amount. I find it puzzling, but what do I know? (I know that I now consider this person a former acquaintance.)

A bonus post–not a Friday Funny, ’cause you can’t expect a string of them, but a Friday Peculiar.

In this case, a couple of “news” stories that struck me as, well, interesting.

Low-Cal Frozen Dinners “Have More Calories Than Advertised”

Here’s one version of this story, and here’s The Consumerist’s take.

I’m not dealing with the restaurant aspect; I can certainly understand why restaurant meals will vary significantly in calories, particularly when they’re not quite as controlled as, say, McDonald’s.

I’m only looking at the low-cal frozen dinner aspect–where the difference was 8%.

I eat some of those frozen dinners, specifically Healthy Choice and, sometimes, Lean Cuisine. (Healthy Choice dinners never exceed 600mg sodium, and they’ve been reformulating the dinners with whole-grain starches, even less sodium, and significantly more dietary fiber. And some of them taste pretty decent.)

Here’s the thing: The dinners range from 260 to 400 calories, in most cases. (Lean Cuisine entrees can be even smaller–down to 160 calories, which is a snack, not a dinner.)

8% of 400 is 32. 8% of 260 is 20. So instead of getting 13% to 20% of my daily calories from one of these dinners, I might be getting 14% to 21.5%. Wow.

Most of this is, in other words, a non-story. Realistically, the frozen food makers almost have to err on the side of slight excess: They can be fined if one of those dinners comes in half an ounce shy, but not if it comes in an ounce over.

And speaking of non-stories, or at least oddly interpreted stories…

Digital albums, vinyl and CDs

There’s a legitimate story here, if Nielsen’s tracking is accurate (and I have no reason to believe that it isn’t): That is, Digital music sales continue to cut into physical sales (and “cut into” appears to be the right wording).

But Ars Technica’s version of the story is a little strange… particularly the first graph. To wit, it leaves out one big piece in its year-to-year comparisons: Physical CDs *not* from e-commerce sites. Which, as far as I can figure out, must amount to 272 million CDs–a substantial drop from 335 million in 2008, to be sure, but still the biggest piece of the pie.

And, of course, a piece that makes the whopping 2.5 million LP albums seem a bit insignificant by comparison, even if it’s a HUGE 33% INCREASE from 2008’s 1.9 million. I don’t know if you can call 600,000 LPs–or a physical-album market share increase for vinyl from 0.5% (that is, one-half of one percent) to 0.8%–all that much of a “shocker.”

The interesting thing, actually, is that total music purchases actually increased, if you believe Nielsen SoundScan. And 40% of those purchases were digital–remember that 1.15 billion digital tracks is equivalent to roughly 110 million albums. I would have assumed overall music sales were dropping, given what’s out there and the supposed reign of illegal filesharing. Apparently not. (Here’s the Nielsen report, by the way. It’s an eight-page PDF. Read on to pages 6-8 for some truly odd medium-term items.)

I didn’t do a reflective “looking back 10 years” post (at least not yet), and I really don’t do Resolutions, but maybe a couple of notes are in order.

Honored

I’m delighted to be part of LISNews’ “10 Librarian Blogs To Read in 2010“–particularly since I demurred from self-nomination because (a) I’m technically not a librarian (“geez, Walt, that’s getting old”), (b) the blog really is random–and, I think, much less useful to the profession than Cites & Insights [see below], (c) although I’m always delighted to have more readers, the blog metrics don’t suggest that I’m shouting into an empty hall by any means.

Which makes it all the more improbable and delightful that I’m part of the list–along with four or five blogs I’m already using as sources for Library Leadership Network essays, and one I honesty hadn’t heard of and now subscribe to.

Cites & Insights

There will be a “Midwinter issue,” but it will be another all-repeat, only-there-for-two-weeks special. This time, the name is “Cites ON a Plane 2010,” and the orthography might give you a clue as to the contents. This time also, I’m hoping people will read the thing on “ereaders” (by which, in this case, I mean any device capable of reading and possibly reflowing a PDF–and yes, this one does have PDF bookmarks and will reflow), because it’s, well, not short (50 print pages, just over 39,500 words). There won’t be a set of HTML versions–but the post announcing it will provide links to the HTML originals for the various essays, and there are only six new paragraphs, one of them meaningful.

The dates of availability: January 6-19, 2010, after which it’s gone forever (unless I decide to incorporate it into the trade-paperback version of v. 10, and that’s unlikely given the sheer length). It may turn up sometime tomorrow afternoon…

And, of course, I’m still soliciting donations for C&I, either directly (via PayPal) or indirectly (via C&I books purchases, although I lowered the price of the annual volumes). Thanks to those who already donated. Thanks to all the others who read C&I!

Reflections

I read one 2000-2010 comparison of the technology a particular person was using. Since the person did not even suggest that his usage was typical or likely to become universal, I took the post for what it was: An interesting personal commentary.

That person is, I think, a technology enthusiast and an early adopter. I’m enthusiastic about following technology–but maybe not so much of an early adopter. And I don’t keep records good enough to know exactly how things have changed, technologically or otherwise, over the past decade.

But I do have a couple of notions and semi-faulty remembrances.

Technology

• In January 2000, I was definitely using a Gateway desktop (mid-tower or full tower) PC, almost certainly running Windows 98, probably a Pentium-III at around 200MHz, probably with a 20GB hard disk and 64MB RAM, probably with a 15″ display. I’m not really sure, but it’s likely it was somewhere in that neighborhood. (It probably had a V.90 modem.) I’m sure I had an HP LaserJet, and I’m sure the computer cost upwards of $2,000 and the printer cost as much or more.
• In January 2010, I’m using a Gateway notebook (that really never moves, so it’s basically a silent desktop), running Vista (for now), with a Core 2 duo CPU (two CPUs, each–I think–1.6GHz, but doing a lot more with each cycle than the Pentium-III ever did), with 3GB RAM and a 250GB hard disk–and with a 15″ display on the notebook, but my “primary display” is the 19″ Sony LCD I purchased halfway through the decade. It doesn’t have a modem; I do use broadband. (It has WiFi pre-N class, but since it’s only a few feet from the WiFi router, it’s hardwired Ethernet.) No LaserJet; instead, a Canon Pixma all-in-one inkjet scanner/copier/printer. The computer, now almost two years old, cost around $650; the printer, around $150. The combo is much quieter, probably uses a quarter as much power, and is many times as fast.
• I don’t think my wife was using a computer at home much at all in 2000; now, she’s using a Toshiba that’s roughly comparable to my Gateway (but with 2GB RAM), attaching via Wi-Fi. Also Core 2 Duo 1.6GHz, also Vista. She’s more of a power user than I am in some ways–she does photo-editing and heavy-duty genealogical research.
• Cameras? She’s the photographer, and in 2000 she was using a compact 35mm. camera. She finally moved to digital last year (a Nikon L18). When she upgrades (she’ll eventually need 10x zoom for some specific work), I’ll probably start playing with the little Nikon. Her percentage rate of great photos during travel was so high that the costs of film photography weren’t bad–but she’s learning to love the freedom of digital photography.
• Portable electronics? You’ve come to the wrong place. In 2000, I might have had a portable CD player but didn’t use it very often; we probably had a nice Motorola flip phone, used only for emergencies, but paying AT&T way too much each month for minutes we never used. Now, we have a Samsung flip phone on Virgin Mobile, paying $90 a year to have an emergency phone (and I don’t think I’ll ever use up the minutes at $0.18 each)–and yes, we still have a landline. The portable CD player’s disappeared, replaced by a 2GB (4GB with flash card) Sansa Express MP3 player. At 1″x3″x0.5″ deep (0.6″ at the deepest point), it’s thicker than today’s little media players, but it’s done just fine for a couple of years, for $40 (well, plus another $40 for fabulous Sennheiser folding headphones). That’s about it. If I traveled more for work, I’d buy a netbook. For now, I continue to be offline when traveling.
• TV? We’re watching the same 32″ Sony XBR that we were watching in 2000, but we’re paying less for cable (’cause we have true “basic basic,” 30 channels total). Just as I may upgrade the MP3 player shortly (probably to a Sansa Zune), we’ll replace the XBR one of these days (with a good LED-backlit LCD HDTV, probably). When we get around to it. Oh, and we’re still using an S-VHS recorder, although that too will be replaced with a DVR. Eventually.
• I don’t remember whether we already had a DVD player in 2000. I think not, but maybe we did–probably a Sony 5-disc changer that was a mistake and eventually died. Right now, we’re using a freebie CyberHome that Safeway gave us as part of a store-remodeling celebration (they handed out dozens of these), something like two years ago…but, when we upgrade the TV, we’ll certainly buy a Blu-ray player. (Actually, I’m going out tomorrow to get a “fancier” DVD player, but that’s because of a situation involving our very nice integrated CD stereo system and its busted too-fancy CD handling; it turns out to be a lot cheaper to just add an external CD player than to get it fixed, and the easiest way to buy an appropriate inexpensive CD player is to buy a DVD player. The player may never be attached to a TV.)

Otherwise

• Personally: I was married to a wonderful woman (and professional librarian) and had been for 22 years, with plans for many more. Now? Same woman, 32 years, same plans.
• Professionally: In early 2000, I’d been a LITA Top Tech Trends “Trendspotter” for a year and was on the ITAL editorial board (and that year’s LITA nominations committee). I was writing articles for American Libraries (my column, only running three years, didn’t start until 2002), columns in EContent and Online (CD reviews in EContent, PC Monitor in Online), “Crawford’s Corner” in Library Hi Tech News and the occasional book–and I was speaking six to eight times a year. Now? No official LITA duties, my EContent column (“disContent”–which began in 2001) ended with December 2009, my Online column (a new one) is going fine–and “Crawford’s Corner” morphed into Cites & Insights. Speaking seems to be stuck at around one speech per year. I still write the occasional book. This blog didn’t exist in 2000. Neither did my FriendFeed account (or FriendFeed, for that matter).
• Oh yes: And I worked full-time for RLG as a systems analyst and designer, with my wife also working full-time there, and we’d moved to Mountain View (where RLG was located) a couple of years previously. Now, she’s “retired” (and working on genealogy), I’m semi-retired (and believe I’m doing worthwhile work on the Library Leadership Network), and we’ve moved to Livermore (not all that big a move).

Hmm. Those aren’t really reflections, are they? I don’t see much momentous there. So I guess I’ll keep on keeping on, a practice I can heartily recommend.

As we enter the quietest time of the year (online at least, and probably in academic libraries)–that is, from now until January 4–a few minor notes.

Midwinter Ideas?

Since Midwinter is just three weeks away, I’ve started my skeletal schedule for Boston–and if any of you have suggestions, or want to get together for some reason, let me know. Here’s what I have so far:

• Arrive Friday around 8 a.m., if all goes well.
• Friday plans so far include only 5-7 p.m. LITA Happy Hour
• Saturday plans open, but possibly an ACRL DG 10:30-12.
• Sunday, open except 10:30-12 a.m. and 5:30-8 p.m.
• Monday, entirely open so far. (Leaving early Tuesday morning.)

I’m sure things will fill in somewhat as I find out more about various IGs and DGs, but this one’s mostly just f2f time, exhibits, catching up with people… Staying at the Westin Boston Waterfront.

Suggestions welcome.

Early-bird Prices

A reminder: the reduced price for But Still They Blog: The Liblog Landscape 2007-2009 ($29.50 paper, $20 download) will expire right after Midwinter.

By the way, I believe that three copies were produced with three little glitches–none of which interfered with content in any way. If you have one of those (print) copies and show it to me at Midwinter (pointing out the glitch that I didn’t already mention in the blog), I’ll be happy to autograph it and, if you’re upset about the glitches, refund $5 of your purchase price. The glitches have since been corrected.

Of course, I’m always delighted to autograph any of my books…in person, at least.

Season’s Greetings

We prefer a low-key holiday (and gave up on gifts many years ago). We’ll make the long trek to my brother’s house for Christmas lunch (well, it was a reasonably long trek–an hour or so–until we moved to Livermore; now it’s ten minutes or less, unless we decide to walk it); we’ll join a dear friend for our 32nd Anniversary lunch on New Year’s day. And that’s about it.

I hope your holidays are great, no matter how simple or elaborate.

I wouldn’t bother with this silly post were it not for some know-it-all who phoned in to Talk of the Nation, while they were talking about the “10 worst ideas of the decade,” and proceeded to tell us that the decade won’t be over for another year, and that “mathematically literate people” all knew that.

To which I say, horsepucky.

I’d guess I’m at least as numerate as this fellow (of course it was a fellow), and as far as I’m concerned the decade ends in another 10 days–just as the 20th century ended on December 31, 1999 and the 2nd millennium also ended on that day.

But there was no year zero!

This is, of course, the standard rejoinder or complaint of the “onesians”–those who insist that the next decade won’t begin until January 31, 2011: “There was no year zero; it started with year one.”

Horsepucky. Or, if you prefer, great big gobs of steaming bovine excrement.

It’s true that there was no year zero. But there was also no year one or year two or, well, any year up until 500 or so. Or, alternatively, there was a year zero, and a year -1, and a year -2, and…

CE years were all back-numbered to the presumed birth year of Jesus of Nazareth, and as far as historians can guesstimate that was somewhere around 6 BC. But that backnumbering didn’t happen until the sixth century anyway…

The teens

No, I’m not referring to people who are 13 to 19 years old. I’m referring to simple common sense as regards actual decades, to wit:

• A decade is a period of ten years. Any period of ten years–e.g., my first decade was 1945-1954.
• Maybe the teens isn’t the right word for 2010-2019, but whatever that word is, it will reference the “1″–just as “the oughts” as a term for 2000-2009 references that 0 in the third position. The shorthand works from 0 through 9. The nineties ended in 1999; saying they ended in 2000 is just strange.

You’re entirely welcome to disagree. And if you can show me historical records from the time, with people noting that December 31, 1BC, was immediately followed by January 1, 1AD, I might even listen to you. Somehow, I doubt that such records exist…

Or, you know, you could focus on something more important, which includes almost everything. (Know what made me feel really warm yesterday? We watched the featurettes on New in Town–which was actually quite an amusing movie. The movie’s set in New Ulm, Minnesota, and the cold winter’s definitely a character, but apparently Minnesota wasn’t quite right for the filming. It actually filmed in the vicinity of Winnipeg…in January…including some scenes shot between midnight and 5 a.m. Hearing Harry Connick, Jr. (from New Orleans) talk about making a movie at minus 57 degrees (at that point, Fahrenheit and Celsius don’t make much nevermind, since -57F = about -50C)…priceless. And seeing Renee Zellweger taking pratfalls in the snow at that same -57, and walking around in an above-the-knee skirt in that weather…wow. What some people do to make a movie! )

This meme’s a little silly but entirely harmless–the first sentence of the first post of each month in 2009.

January: 14 shopping days for early birds.

February: This isn’t a proper post-conference summary.

March: What’s new and improved at the PALINET Leadership Network (PLN)?

April: [Seems to be missing at the moment...but it would have been a 4th-anniversary post.]

May: Million Dollar Kid, 1944, b&w.

June: What’s new at the Library Leadership Network?

July: I was reading the July 2009 Consumer Reports (as usual, I’m about a month behind on magazines) and reached a set of ratings for chain restaurants.

August: This one’s a little different.

September: What’s new at the Library Leadership Network (LLN)?

October: Warning: This is another in what’s likely to be a very long set of posts, over several months, related to the project I’m currently calling But Still They Post: The Liblog Landscape 2007-2009.

November: Another post of no known significance…

December: What do ResearchBuzz, The Handheld Librarian, LibraryPlanet.com, The Rabid Librarian’s Ravings in the Wind and wiredfu have in common?

This lineup once again confirms the validity of the third word in the name of this here blog…

You pay the big bucks to install a photovoltaic system on your South-facing roof–paying up front, not on a mysterious contract basis. So you’ve essentially prepaid most of your electric bills for the next 20 years or so (let’s say 80%, since most systems are sized to replace 60% to 80% of the power needs).

Now you can relax and ignore your electricity use, right? After all, you’re almost never going to use more than Tier 1 (assuming tiered pricing by usage), so whatever power you do buy will be cheap.

Why do I say “photovoltaic” rather than “solar”? Well, it’s a much neater word–but also, quite a few rooftop solar installations don’t generate electricity; they’re solar water-heating installations, frequently used for swimming pools. An entirely different technology, with the only real commonalities being the use of the sun as a power source and the use of dark roof-mounted panels.

The paradox

We had good electricity habits before our photovoltaic system went live–we both grew up turning off lights when we left rooms, now that we have air conditioning we set it at a moderate temperature, we were already using CFLs in some appropriate spots, etc. In fact, that made us a poor candidate for some photovoltaic companies–while the American household average use is apparently more than 900kWH/month (900 kilowatt-hours, that is), we ran between 360 and 480 the first few months we were here (and using AC for the first time).

But here’s the thing:

• When PG&E installs the new meter, you see exactly how much energy you’re using (rounded to the nearest 10 watts, when read in conjunction with your inverter’s output reading), and total usage is in big bold numbers.
• At least for a while, it’s a bit of a game: You know your system’s rated maximum output, the inverter shows current output whenever it’s operating, you want to see how close you’re coming at various times of day and weather conditions.
• Even more of a game, actually: “Hmm. We’re generating 1,900 watts and the power meter says the utility is receiving 1,500 watts. What’s using 400 watts in the household?” You get very interested in what the house uses “at idle”–during the daytime with no lights on and no appliances or computers running.
• Somehow, even though you know you’re actually generating better than 80% of the power you’re using, even in mid-November with shorter days and possibly lower efficiency, you want–or at least we want–to see what would lower overall usage even further, without deprivation or anything.

That’s the paradox: Making a change that should make electricity use almost irrelevant, even on an environmental basis, has made us more aware of electricity use. We’re paying attention more–and I’m pretty sure we’re not alone.

The contractor we used, Solar City, makes it even easier to obsess just a little: The systems include SolarGuard, at least for the first five years–a wifi-based monitoring system that reports the system’s current and overall generation every fifteen minutes. Solar City uses that to monitor for signs of trouble–but each customer also has a web page. With a daily graph–showing, half-hour by half-hour, how much you’ve generated (and the total for the day, the total to date, and previous daily, weekly, monthly charts). Oh, and also how many dollars worth of electricity you’ve generated and how many pounds of CO2 haven’t been emitted because you’re using less utility electricity (making some assumptions about the source of that electricity, to be sure).

It’s an interesting setup. They assume you have broadband, and provide a tiny little wifi router that plugs into an available Ethernet port on your system (in our case, on our own wifi router); it communicates with a transmitter in the inverter. (I don’t know who actually builds the wifi router, but it’s “designed and manufactured in the USA”–as were our thin-film panels.)

Favorable unintended consequences

We’re a little more conscious of how and where we use electricity than we were, and we were pretty good before. Is that good, bad or indifferent? I don’t really know. (We figured out that our “idle rate” is between 50 and 80 watts–after realizing that turning on the garage lights while checking the idle rate was skewing it, since those old-fashioned fluorescents themselves use about 80 watts.)

There is, as it turns out, another unintended consequence, one that’s specific to SolarGuard, and that one’s absolutely favorable.

I’d been noticing that on some, maybe most, mornings when I first turn on my notebook PC, it could take anywhere from three to ten minutes of futzing around before I could get a stable DSL connection–sometimes, I’d have to unplug the modem or reboot it.

My wife, who uses wifi for her notebook, had noticed that some afternoons or evenings, after I’d been off my computer (or at least off the internet) for a couple of hours, she’d have trouble getting a connection, and sometimes couldn’t get one at all without rebooting the modem or the router.

I was wondering whether AT&T DSL (or the modem) was simply “forgetful”–that, if not used every so often, it would just drop the connection.

Well… SolarGuard apparently sends info every 15 minutes, whether the inverter’s actually generating power or not.

Since SolarGuard went live, neither of us has had problems connecting. At all. (Cross fingers.)

Maybe being “reminded” once every fifteen minutes is just enough to keep DSL live. If so, it’s a nice little extra.

Hmm… Lemme see here… We just passed 10kWh generation for the day. Not bad for November.

Another post of no known significance…

Since we moved here six months ago, we’ve been getting pizza for dinner on some Saturdays–from a takeout/delivery place just three blocks from here. It’s much better than most chain pizza, although technically it is a chain. Turns out the pizza place hasn’t been there that much longer than we have…

When we do this, I usually call in the order around 5:30 p.m., they usually say “20 minutes or so,” I go over around 5:40, and it’s usually ready between 5:45 and 5:50. There’s usually a reasonable flow of traffic, with deliveries going out every few minutes, people coming in to pick up pizzas every couple of minutes.

So yesterday was Saturday, and I ordered a pizza around 5:30, and they said “20 minutes or so.” (This one was free: they have a really good frequent diner program, one free after six orders.)

But yesterday was also Halloween. The owner had no idea…

I can only conjecture that everybody eats pizza on Halloween–or at least that it’s a natural for Saturday Halloween parties. They were well-staffed, but the desk people didn’t quite catch on to what was happening quite soon enough. And you can only make pizzas so fast in a two-oven facility…

Let’s just say that I got my pizza at 6:20 p.m. By 5:50, they were telling people “45 minutes to an hour, longer for delivery.” The manager did his best, including giving refunds to people who just gave up…although in one case, it took just long enough to give the refund that the person got his pizzas instead. The atmosphere in the increasingly-crowded area around the tiny shop went from bemusement to some anger (on some folks’ part, not mine) to a sort of camaraderie.

The pizza was fine, if a whole lot delayed, and of course I got it fresh out of the oven…

(Yes, we had trick-or-treaters, although not many–maybe 25 total.)

So it’s Monday, not Friday…

After seeing the name for Barnes & Noble’s ebook reader, and pondering the name for Amazon’s device, I conclude that Sony blew it: The Sony Reader should be the Sony Cell, or just the Cell.

Then we’d have the perfect trilogy: Cell, Nook and Kindle.

For those who don’t get it.

If you’re still subscribed to this feed (or coming to this site)…well, watch this space. Significant news coming soon.