Technology Improves Our Lives

This morning I woke up at 6am and ran through my usual morning routine of breakfast. Then I got ready to go skiing. It is early November which means lifts are not really running at Alta and so if you want to ski, you get to hike up the hill and earn your turns. My daughter joined me today.

Yesterday we did the same thing and had the luxury of clear skies. Today we started driving in a rainstorm that turned into snow the higher in elevation we drove. We arrived at the Wildcat lot in a full-blown blizzard. My daughter and I don't care as we live by the philosophy that there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. We got our skis ready and started climbing the hill while it snowed heavily around us. 

I felt incredibly comfortable as I hiked up the hill. We both made sure not to overdress as that would cause us to sweat too much which would freeze and make us cold. Instead the breathability of our Gortex-like shells kept the water out and allowed our perspiration to escape. I thought to myself that even though I was outside, I felt comfortable enough as if inside.

Technology constantly makes our lives better. I would not want to trade places with the wealthiest people of 200 years ago because of our many modern conveniences. Clothing is just one example. The many uses of electricity also come to mind. We can use it to keep us warm in the winter and cool in the summer, not to mention run our computers, light our homes, and power our entertainment devices. Yes, I am happy living right now.

Don't Forget Your Laptop Charger

My oldest son is visiting my youngest son in Ohio for the remainder of the week. I got a text from him this morning that he forgot to bring his laptop charger for his MacBook Pro. He has one of the latest models that still uses an Intel chip. That means he has pretty good battery life but not as good as the recent models that use the M1 chips. It also means that his laptop uses a USB-C connection to charge the battery.

I am not a fan of Apple constantly changing how to charge their devices. It doesn't matter if it is an iPhone, iPad, or a laptop; the charger used today will be changed on newer releases of the hardware. I did like the change to USB-C for their laptops though as it does offer alternatives to using Apple-specific chargers. Hopefully they stick with it for awhile.

When my son mentioned that he left his laptop charger at home, I suggested he try connecting his phone charger to his computer to see if that will work for the week. I know that USB chargers have some intelligence. They will start charging at the lowest specified power and then negotiate to charge at the highest power possible. The Apple-brand charger for their laptops are rated at 96 watts where a phone charger is rated to only a few watts. My son tried that and an hour later after not using the laptop at all, his battery power increased from 16% to 17%. That wasn't going to work.

Ultimately my son had to run into town and get a charger from Walmart. They had one for $40 instead of the usual Apple price of $70 so he could save himself some money. Having left my laptop charger at home on more than one occasion, I could feel my son's pain. Fortunately he came up with a relatively inexpensive solution.

Computers in Your Camper

With COVID-19, there are a lot of people that have turned to camping for recreation. While some are content to use a tent, a fair number of people are purchasing recreational vehicles (RV) and heading off on road trips. My wife's brother just sold his house and bought a large camper trailer for just such a trip. My cousin is doing the same thing. I have sort of been bitten by the bug as well. I don't plan to convert a Mercedes  Sprinter van into a camper but I do love seeing what people have done to create their own tiny homes on wheels.

Yesterday I came across a person that built a very nice RV that seems to be a very comfortable home. I admired all of the thought they put into their build. Unfortunately they ended up doubling their budget for the camper but have something that would sell for 10 times what they paid. However while watching the video I noticed that they over engineered their electrical system and could have saved some significant money. Part of the problem is their mentality of how we use electricity at home vs. while camping and I hope to fix some misconceptions with this post.

A lot of the RVs being built are meant to be used off the grid. That means people want to pull into the forest somewhere and not have to connect to any water or electrical hookups. That is a noble goal and requires careful planning. Thinking of only electricity, this requires several solar panels on the roof combined with a large battery bank. The video I saw yesterday did an excellent job. Then things got expensive for no reason.

Electricity in our homes uses alternating current (AC). There are 2 reasons for this. The first is that it is a more efficient way to get electricity from the power station to your home. The second is that it is easier to fuse. While you can fuse direct current (DC) power systems, large voltages can jump across open circuits as that is what lightning does. We build appliances for our home to run using alternating current because that is what is available. Solar panels and batteries output DC and so one should spend a little time thinking about the losses converting DC to AC as there are some.

While our home appliances run on AC most of our home electronics such as televisions and computers actually run on DC. The power supply in your desktop computer converts the AC power into DC and delivers it to all of the components into your computer. If you look at the power brick associated with your laptop, it will tell you how much voltage AC it expects in and how much it delivers to your actual computer in DC voltage.

Jumping back to the video I watched, they had some massive Lithium-Ion batteries connected to a very expensive 3000 watt pure sine-wave inverter. The purpose of the inverter is to convert the 12 Volts from the batteries into 120 Volt AC power. The fact that it is a pure sine wave means that it closely matches the power supplied in your regular home power outlet. Advertisers for inverters like this say that it is better for sensitive electronics. The truth is that most of your computer power supplies are very robust and will easily convert a non-pure sine wave to the necessary DC voltage. What really needs pure sine wave power are things like electrical motors and refrigerators. Another thing to note is that the pure sine-wave inverter is only 90% efficient at optimum load. That means that the best case scenario is that you are wasting 10% of your electricity.

The thing that really disturbed me about the video is seeing that the inverter had several power strips plugged into it only to have every cord convert that AC power back to DC power. There is also power loss converting AC power to DC. It would be much better to run everything in the camper off of DC power and only use the inverter for things that really need AC power. Let's be honest, if you are building a camper you can find most of your appliances and electronic equipment that will run on DC power. Doing so would allow you to use a less expensive inverter and you could also downsize the number of Lithium-Ion batteries required.

So if you find yourself deciding to build your own camper van, pay attention to your electrical needs. There are a number of products that don't need AC power. You can find fans, lights, refrigerators, and many other electrical devices that run on DC power. If you do a bit of research, you can even figure out how to power your laptop and monitors using DC power. This will save you money in the long run and give you more power given your battery and solar charging capacity.

Lightning

Last night I flew into Salt Lake and when we landed we couldn't pull up to the gate because of a lightning storm. In my 20+ years of air travel, I have never been delayed because of active lightning and so this is not a common occurrence. When the pilot made the announcement that the ground crew could not come outside to direct the plane to the gate, I understood. Unfortunately not everyone on the plane did.

My wife grew up the the Seattle area and spent a good part of her childhood playing outside in the rain. Up there they have cloud-to-cloud lightning and so nobody came inside during a thunderstorm. Here in Utah, as well as other parts of the country, we have ground lightning and that will kill you.

Lightning is one of the more unpredictable forces of nature. We try to control its path through the use of lightning rods but the reality is that lightning will go wherever it wants and there is not much we can do about it. Should you be caught outside and can see lightning go from the sky to the ground, your best bet is to go inside a building or car (as long as it is not a soft-top convertible). Buildings are safe because they will generally keep the lightning away from the middle, which is where you want to be. Cars are safe, not because of the rubber tires but because the electrical charge will stay on the outside of the car body. Planes are equally safe and so sitting outside did not pose any danger to us passengers.

So why are people told to turn off and unplug computers during lightning storms? The best explanation is that your house electrical system is not compatible with the high voltages produced by lightning. If your house gets hit by lightning, the electricity will try to find a way to ground. All of the copper plumbing pipes and electrical wiring make a great path to ground and so lightning will seek it out. If your computer equipment is plugged in and/or has a wired network connection, part of the lightning strike will get into your computer and fry everything. More than likely you will have to replace everything that is electrical in your house should it be struck by lightning.

Going back to the poor ground crew that met our plane last night. I had one vocal passenger behind me ignorant of lightning danger. With all the water on the tarmac, a strike could happen a fair distance from one of the workers yet the person could still receive a lethal shock. While I would have liked to disembark the plane sooner, I would not wanted to have risked the life of ground crew.

The Downside of Staying on a Boat

People are amazed at how inexpensive it is for me to stay on my boat in the Bay Area. They think I have things figured out when it comes to beating the high cost of housing. What they don't know is that there are some sacrifices you make when you stay on a boat instead of in an apartment or house. Most of the time I am fine with those drawbacks. This week I came down with a mild cold and the illness made my life a bit more difficult.

While I have Internet, electricity, and water on the boat, I don't really have a toilet. I do, I just never use it. If I do, I have to empty the holding tank immediately or the boat starts to smell. Instead I just make a long walk to a restroom on shore. The round trip is only about a quarter of a mile but after drinking liquids all day long, that can get to be quite a walk every 20 minutes. It is just my personal observation but warm liquids run through you much faster than cold ones.

Another difference is heating the boat. Tuesday evening I had a serious case of the chills because of my mild fever. While I have 2 electric heaters on the boat that both work well, it still takes about 10 minutes or so to get the boat from below 50 degrees Fahrenheit up to a comfortable 70. I sat with my hands outstretched towards one heater like it was a warm fire. Then I shook uncontrollably as I made one last round trip to the restroom for the evening.

There are also some benefits to staying on a boat when you are sick. For instance, everything is really close at hand. I didn't have to reach very far to get my warm soup from the stove to the dinner table. In fact, I didn't even have to get up. I also could continue playing my video game while I ate the soup because my TV and PS4 both sit on my dinner table. I just have to eat carefully and not spill anything.

My wife always encourages me to check into a hotel when the nights are stormy or I am not feeling well. This week the thought crossed my mind but I opted to stay on the boat. I like my living space and it is very comfortable. I just need to not get sick.

It All Works With Electricity

Thursday night my youngest daughter came to pick me up at the airport in Salt Lake but couldn't bring my car because of a small problem. Instead she drove her car.

Sunday evening my oldest son celebrated his birthday and spent part of his dinner feast extolling the virtues of the new car he purchased recently for him and his wife. He pointed out that if he locked his keys in the car, he could use an app on his smartphone and unlock the car. I asked him what would happen if he left the lights on. His wife jumped in and pointed out that the app also allows you to turn the lights off. I then asked what would happen if you left the lights on and forgot about it, as would usually be the case. She had to agree that the app would not work with a dead battery.

When my daughter tried to pick me up on Thursday evening, my car's battery did not have a charge. A small light in the interior got left on during a trip on Saturday and nobody turned it off. When I got home from the airport I couldn't even open the trunk where the car battery is stored because my trunk latch requires electricity. Fortunately I could use the key to unlock my door and open the hood where there is a second set of electrical terminals for charging the battery.

Technology is advancing and there are a number of great features that now come standard with a number of cars. My son has a new car that he and his wife appreciate. It is just important to remember that electricity is an important part of this new technology and we shouldn't take it for granted. After all, if the car next to us at the ski resort on Saturday had some of this new technology, the owner wouldn't have had to call a locksmith to get into his car. He could have just pulled up an app on his smartphone and unlocked the doors without much fuss.

Power on Airplanes

I spent the last two days flying to Lund, Sweden for meetings here. During the flight from Salt Lake City to Paris I spent most of the time working on a presentation I will be giving during the trip. Fortunately my laptop has a seemingly never-ending battery that lasted the entire flight. However if I had needed it, I could have plugged in my power supply and charged the battery. There is a universal power outlet on most International flights. It will either be between the seats in front of you or down behind your knees.

I started my trip in San Francisco and the young lady sitting next to me had a phone with very little battery life left. She looked at the funny blue light above the outlet on the seats in front of us and asked me if it was a power outlet. After all, a universal power outlet will accept most plugs and so it doesn't look like your standard outlet you would find at home. I told her should could use it to charge her phone which she did.

Not all planes have the outlets and so you can't rely on them being there. However if your plane has them, you should not hesitate to keep your electronics topped up. Almost all of my flight experiences are restricted to Delta, Alaska, and Southwest. My experience is that most Delta planes have the outlets. On Alaska about 60% of the planes have them. Very few, if any Southwest planes have power to the seats. Your mileage may vary.

Saving Electricity

I used to leave my computer on all the time. One nice thing about Linux is that it doesn't require the nightly reboot like Windows used to (and maybe still does). The only problem with never turning off my computer was how much electricity it used. I never really quantified the numbers until recently. I was amazed at what I found.

Since I work out of town during the week and am only home on weekends (except for that one week a month that I get to work from home), I started turning off my computer on Sunday nights and didn't turn it back on until Saturday morning. The next time I got my electrical bill, it was $5 less than the previous month. Now there are a lot of things that can influence electricity usage and so I waited with anticipation for the next bill to arrive. This time it was $20 lower. Then summer hit and my electrical bill goes though the roof because of my air conditioner. However, I noticed that my electrical usage was lower for the same time over the previous year.

So how much money am I really saving by leaving my computer off during the week? Looking at my current electrical bill, I see that I am paying between 8 and 11 cents per kilowatt hour. I know that my computer sitting idle draws about 2 amps at 120 volts. Multiplying those two numbers together will give you 240 watts. So running my computer for about 4 hours is equal to 1 kilowatt hour of electricity. Doing some more arithmetic shows that my computer is off for a total of 5 days or 120 hours. Multiplying 240 watts by 120 hours equates to 28.8 kilowatt hours of electricity. If I use an average cost of 9 cents per kilowatt hour, I see that I am saving myself $2.59 per week. This works out to about $10.36 every month.

So the savings are not as huge as I originally thought. How come my bill seems so much lower? There must be other factors such as a general concern for the environment. At about the same time I started turning off my computer, I may have started working harder to turn off lights that were not in use. Looking at the electrical bill for months that I use the air conditioner, I have noticed that even though the average daily temperature is the same this year over last, I have gone from 68 kilowatt hours per day down to 43. That is huge! Not only is my computer a work device, it is also a space heater. Sometimes being "green" is a great way to save a little "green."

The Sprinkler Paradox

This morning before I got on the plane, I noticed that my sprinklers were not working. I quickly discovered the cause and started them on a cycle to help ensure my lawn stays somewhat green. This got me thinking about "The Sprinkler Paradox."

When I was studying Electrical Engineering in college, I had to take a microprocessor design class. One of the major areas of study was on performance. We looked at how long it took to execute all of the basic steps in any computer or microprocessor. Then we would look at how to speed them up. The first step was to identify the single process that took the longest and optimize it. While it may be obvious how to take a few milliseconds off execution time in a short section, if there are significantly slower ones, it won't make much of a difference. I had a hard time grasping that concept because I thought any speed-up was good. Then I did the math for the performance equations and realized how futile it was to concentrate on short execution steps and how important it was to concentrate on the longer ones.

This brings me to the Sprinkler Paradox. It seems that everyone is concerned about water conservation and so it is common practice of not letting the water run while brushing teeth. Instead you should only turn on the water to rinse your toothbrush or mouth. However, the water used while brushing your teeth pales in comparison to the amount of water used to water your lawn. Thus if you really want to make an environmental impact, you should be less concerned with the water you use brushing your teeth, rip out your lawn, and put cacti in your front yard. Oh and while you are at it, don't let the water run when you brush your teeth. That is the "Sprinkler Paradox."

Another example of the Sprinkler Paradox has to do with cell phone chargers. Recently energy companies have asked everyone to unplug their cell phone chargers when not in use. The idea is that there will be huge energy savings throughout the country. Never mind that some electrical meters spin faster than a buzz saw when an air conditioner is running and more energy can be saved simply by turning up the thermostat a degree or two.

While we all have good intentions to be green and conserve water or energy, let's do all we can and not just make token efforts. Not letting the water run while you brush your teeth is a good start, but it doesn't mean a thing if you're over watering your lawn.