Managing manure

by Aleutia

Manure becomes unmanageable pollutant
[Via All Today's News - Sightline Daily]

Nearly 40 years after the first Earth Day, this is irony: The United States has reduced the manmade pollutants that left its waterways dead, discolored and occasionally flammable.

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It is a real shame that the dung, which could be used for things like biomethane, is mostly just being wasted. In fact the methane, instead of being burned to generate energy and a much weaker greenhouse gas, CO2, is being released to the atmosphere.

Some methods of methane generation generate 270 liters of methane for every kilogram of waste. Or they could just burn the waste, recovering the energy to use for heating the farm as well as using the leftovers, the biochar, for a wide number of uses. Better than spreading it on golf courses or spraying it on farm land.

Of course, I believe methane is one of those greenhouse gases that the EPA has listed as a pollutant but that conservative groups are trying to stop from being regulated. Unregulated manure is causing a huge problem. Capturing methane would seem to be a good step but apparently many companies would rather not be regulated.

Bet on the opposite of what he says

by clementpetit2
Shocking! Rob Enderle, who gets paid by Dell, says the Dell Mini 5 is superior to the iPad
[Via Edible Apple]

Rob Enderle likes to tout himself as an “inquiry analyst”, a seemingly made up title that he defines as an analyst “paid to stay up to date on current events and identify trends and either explain the trends or make suggestions, tactical and strategic, on how to best take advantage of them.”

In his capacity as an inquiry analyst, Enderle’s curiously provides his services to a number of major technology companies, including Dell. In fact, it was only a year and a half ago that Enderle was working closely with Dell to develop an MP3 player that would supposedly dethrone the iPod, never mind the fact that by 2008 the MP3-player war was already over.

I bring up Enderle’s ties with Dell to provide a contextual background for Enderle’s latest opinion piece, where he hypes up Dell’s Mini 5 tablet device as being far superior to Apple’s upcoming iPad. So let’s take a closer look at Enderle’s latest masterpiece.

I’ve been using the Dell Mini 5 for a number of weeks now in stealth mode. I also carry the Kindle DX which has a similar sized screen to the iPad and think Apple may have guessed wrong on this product.

Translation: I’m a corporate shill. I’m obligated to write a positive take on the Dell Mini 5 because I’m on Dell’s payroll. And they actually gave me a Dell Mini 5 to play with a few weeks ago, which I’ve since been using in stealth mode!

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I first wrote about Rob Enderle way back in 2003. He said then:

Prejudices and misconceptions about Microsoft make it hard to evalute the company’s merits. The biggest myths about Microsoft are that its desktop products are overpriced, it doesn’t respect its customers, and reliability and security are poor.

Of course, that seems to actually have been the case, especially the reliability and security “myths”. I had noticed the name Rob Enderle several years earlier. He always seemed to show up in various quotes on tech sites, often promoting MS and spreading pretty wild analysis bordering on FUD about Apple.

It appears he is still around, getting quoted all the time. I guess it is a job but trying to compare devices when one is not even available yet, seemingly misunderstanding what the purpose is, seems about par for the course. More from Edible Apple:

Next, Enderle takes the iPad to task for not living up to the Kindle.

I’ve been tracking my Kindle use and my tendency is to use it for nearly two weeks between charges. This is because I tend to read for long times,

Could of fooled me.

Because the battery isn’t very large it actually charges up really fast as well. However the iPad is intended to be on-line all the time, uses a high power (energy) LCD display and likely will have a battery life for reading measured in single digit hours and not double digit days.

Apple has made a big deal of how power efficient the A4 chip within the iPad is, and his argument here boils down to – “The Kindle is better because it uses e-ink and doesn’t provide a web browsing experience.” Never mind the fact that the iPad does so much more than the Kindle DX at nearly the same price, and never mind the fact that Enderle has no way of knowing how long battery life on the iPad will last when reading e-books offline. Enderle here is conveniently comparing a multipurpose tablet device (iPad) to a singular device with only 1 function (Kindle) and naturally only focuses on that one function.

Without a keyboard or flash it can’t be a better laptop for typing, browsing and real work, without phone features it can’t be a better Smartphone. And at 10” if it had phone features you’d better love headsets or speakerphone use.

That’s just the thing, the iPad isn’t trying to be a better laptop.

Enderle has been wrong so many times, especially regarding Apple, that I have taken to using him as a contrarian analyst. In his analysis of the iPhone, again before it came out in 2007, he talked about how the LG Prada had better specs, that the avalability of the iPhone on only one network would be a problem and the high cost would prevent the iPhone from really taking off. He ends his discussion of the iPhone with this:

So while the comparison is kind of fun, the real problem the Prada represents for Apple is it showcases that the cell phone industry is much more capable of running against the iPhone than the MP3 player industry was capable of running against the iPod. More importantly, by creating the iPhone, Apple itself started the move from MP3 players to phones for media and may not be the best positioned to benefit from that move.

Just for historical purposes, the LG Prada sold 1 million units worldwide in its first 18 months of release. The iPhone sold 13 million units in less than 18 months.

The cell phone industry is still not effectively running against the iPhone. In fact, the best marketing against the iPhone is really against the carrier (Verizon vs AT&T) not the phone itself.

Classically, for Enderle, he also touted a subscription service, in the same 2007 article, called Ruckus that he thought was going to bring down iTunes. By 2009 or so. Too bad it closed down early last year.

Because of insights like that, I would usually come out better if I switch to the other point of view than stick with his analysis. Almost like the Monty Hall Problem. My chances of winning are always better if I wait for him to choose a curtain and then pick another one. Perhaps a trained pigeon could do better.

I’m waiting for April anyway

Apple iPad production hit by ‘manufacturing bottleneck’ – report
[Via AppleInsider]

Availability of Apple’s forthcoming iPad may be limited when it launches later this month, due to an “unspecified production problem” that could restrict the number of shipped units to just 300,000.

[More]

Those 300,000 will be gone fairly quickly. I wonder what the problem is. I hope it is fixed in time for the 3G enabled version, since that is the one I expect to get.

Perhaps someone is trying to run the stock price down somewhat to get a better entry point. Yet Apple’s stock price is up $4 so far today. Just weird.

People really are dumber than pigeons

by foxypar4

NCBI ROFL: Are birds smarter than mathematicians? Pigeons perform optimally on a version of the Monty Hall Dilemma.
[Via Discoblog]

“The “Monty Hall Dilemma” (MHD) is a well known probability puzzle in which a player tries to guess which of three doors conceals a desirable prize. After an initial choice is made, one of the remaining doors is opened, revealing no prize. The player is then given the option of staying with their initial guess or switching to the other unopened door. Most people opt to stay with their initial guess, despite the fact that switching doubles the probability of winning. A series of experiments investigated whether pigeons (Columba livia), like most humans, would fail to maximize their expected winnings in a version of the MHD. Birds completed multiple trials of a standard MHD, with the three response keys in an operant chamber serving as the three doors and access to mixed grain as the prize. Across experiments, the probability of gaining reinforcement for switching and staying was manipulated, and birds adjusted their probability of switching and staying to approximate the optimal strategy. Replication of the procedure with human participants showed that humans failed to adopt optimal strategies, even with extensive training.”

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I think it is great that birds can be trained to respond properly but humans can not, even with extensive training. There has to be some deep rooted need to think that they picked the right door from the beginning, I guess.

The way I worked through the rationale of choice was this way. What is the chance I chose wrong the first time? Two out of three. So if I play the game multiple times, two out of three of those times, it will be one of the other doors. I lose.

But Monty reveals to me which of those other doors is NOT holding the prize. So logically, two of of three times, it will be behind the unrevealed, unchosen door. SInce I have a one out of three chance of being right if I stay but a two out of three chance of winning if I switch, I should switch.

Birds get that. Why don’t humans?

iPad plus laser pico projector equals traveling nirvana

AAXA L1 laser pico projector hands-on by Mr. Murkycam (video)
[Via Engadget]

Oh, you haven’t been introduced to Mr. Murkycam? He’s the darker, more mysterious cousin of Mr. Blurrycam; his services occasionally called upon to show off products like the new AAXA L1 laser pico projector. The device just started shipping and, according to the video, this is the first one captured in the wild. AAXA promises perfect focus on any surface, even curved ones, and while it’s a bit difficult to tell from the video we’ve embedded below it certainly looks to do a decent job. The L1 also features built-in media player functionality and even includes a 2GB thumb drive for you to load up with whatever you like before slotting it in the side. Photo and PowerPoint performance seems a bit mediocre, and sadly the video doesn’t show the thing playing any footage, but it does look like it works as advertised — as it should for that $599 MSRP.

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There is a nice video to watch of this projector and Engadget.

These new laser LED projectors are pretty amazing. They are not only really small but are always in focus allowing projection on any surface. Coupled with an iPad, I can now carry around everything I need for a presentation that weighs in at under 2 pounds. As the availability of the laser LEDs increases, the price should drop.

My current Mac laptop weighs 6 pounds and a regular projector is another couple. But with an iPad plus the pico projector, I could carry everything on my person. And be able to do almost everything I would want to.

The video gives some idea of how it works. Or course, it will not be able to work as well as a dedicated projector for a large auditorium. But for a group around a table, it could be amazing.

Think about being able to present a movie for you row-mates on the plane to all watch. Or just a bunch of people in a class. Or watching a streaming football game for a group of people. I am sure there will lots of other uses.

Say we are having a discussion and someone asks a question about a book. Look it up on Amazon using the iPad and project the results for everyone to see. Particularly is someone at the table is wearing a white shirt.

Simply display it on their shirt. It stays in focus at all points. That is why laser is the way to go for impromptu presentations. And nothing else can do this like an iPad. The iPad will be able to do everything you would need. Keynote can read Powerpoint presentations for display. I would not be surprised to see Microsoft offering an MS Office version for the iPad eventually.

These two pieces of hardware could change everything.

Something for the women

by upyernoz

There’s always a biological excuse…
[Via Observations of a Nerd]

It’s almost a given that, during any discussion about male infidelity, someone will throw out some variation of “men are biologically programmed to spread their seed.”

Why is there this theory that men are more driven to cheat? Part of it has to do with the size of their gametes. If bigger is better, then men are pathetic, for their little sperm are 1/100th the size of a woman’s egg. Because women have such a greater investment in each offspring right from the get-go, the assumption is that women are pickier when it comes to who they allow to fertilize their eggs. Men, since it doesn’t cost them much anyway, are better off getting as many women to agree to let them fertilize. In mammals (like us), this difference in investment is further exacerbated by long, internal pregnancies and lactation, which place even more of the burden on the mother. It just makes so much sense – it’s clear, simple, and like most biological explanations that are clear and simple, it’s nowhere near the whole story. Even still, we’ve internalized this supposed biological explanation so much so that it’s almost an excuse. In an article about why men cheat, for example, it’s carefully explained that “The biological urge to mate with many different partners is stronger in men than it is in women” and that “males mate with multiple females to ensure the survival of the species.” Well, I guess if it’s to ensure the survival of the species…

Perhaps, then, my female readers will appreciate a new study published in Current Biology which suggests that it’s the women whose infidelity is important in ensuring species survival. Indeed, as they explain, females having multiple male partners may be vital in preventing extinction!

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A really nice explanation of research explaining why females might want to mate with a wide variety of males. And it really is to prevent the extinction of the species.

In a monogamous species, if a male has a mutation that results in sperm of one sex to be produced, then it is possible that eventually there might not be enough of each species to mate. But, if the female has sex with other, then it is possible to keep the sex ratios in balance.

This work was done with fruit flies, so it may not be applicable to mammals, much less humans. But it does provide some very strong reasoning for promiscuous females. in fact, it has now been scientifically proven that females must have sex with lots of other males, and not just one, in order to keep the species from going extinct.

[Listening to: Hot, Blue and Righteous from the album "The ZZ Top Six Pack" by ZZ Top]

Partly why so many people get the science wrong

(UPDATED*) AP plus more : An iceberg that threatens the world’s oxygen, a little bit, maybe….WHAT!?
[Via Knight Science Journalism Tracker]

Word is that the AP’s cadre of skilled science writers and editors are supposed to get a chance to look over stories from the hinterlands that touch on their beats. The system may have a hole here (and, as we’ll see, a big share of the world’s media have it too). Otherwise how explain a story on the wire, from Owen Pye in Australia, (note, see UPDATE below for more on a second version of the AP story) that puts in its lede the assertion that two rather enormous icebergs recently loosed from the Mertz Glacier’s floating shelf “could lower the levels of oxygen in the world’s oceans.”

All that due to one gigantic iceberg bonking an ice tongue and breaking it off, doubling the area’s gigantic iceberg burden. Right. I am guessing, but one suspects that questions about these icebergs and their blockage of a small part of the usually-open waters or polynya where cold, oxygen-rich waters sink and feed the global thermohaline circulation, led to a general conversation about said circulation and its role in oxygenating the abyss. And, there have been eras, I seem to recall, in Earth’s deep history when said abyss was so low in oxygen that the entire marine ecosystem was drastically different from today’s. And that if this kind of ice becomes a permanent lid on important Antarctic down-dwelling systems, things could get serious. But I am just guessing. And one supposes it is possible that somehow two icebergs can make a statistically meaningful – meaning not only real but big enough to matter – change in deep water circulation and its O2 content across the globe.

The hole in the story is that outside experts were not consulted and asked about such passages as “There may be regions of the world’s oceans that lose oxygen, and then of course most of the life there will die.” Either tell us more, or don’t tell us that at all.

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So, the media blows up a story making it seem like the world is going to end because of these iceberg, yet no scientists are actually consulted. Yet, the people reading the articles certainly think someone credible must have been involved. The media would not just make stuff up!

Looks like they did in many cases. The media screwed up but the scientists get the blame. Here is a nice list of the articles from major press sites:

• BBC: Vast Antarctic iceberg ‘threatens marine life’ ; Whew, the lede qualifies this immensely, adding “in the region” and mentioning penguins. The story further says that while in principle the deep ocean circulation system is hooked to these icebergs, they alone are not enough to shut it down or alter the global climate system.
• Sydney Morning Herald – Andrew Darby: Iceberg as big as the ACT breaks away from Antarctic glacier ; No, not the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco but a state – the Australian Caital Territory – is the unit. Darby has a little more info, such as that the polynya that might get temporarily plugged is the headwaters for about 25 percent of Antarctic bottom water. And also that this is a natural event offering little reason to say it’s the sort of thing global warming should make more common.
• Guardian (UK) James Sturcke – Giant Antarctic iceberg could affect global ocean circulation ; Ice broken off from Mertz glacier is size of Luxembourg and may decrease oxygen supply for marine life in the area ; ……
• Times (UK) Hannah Devlin : Luxembourg-sized iceberg threatens weather chaos after split ; C’mon! Chaos? And weather ordinarily is so orderly. But she says these slabs of ice might (big word, that might. You can hide a lot of nonsense behind “might”) “disrupts global ocean patterns and weather systems for decades, according to scientists.
• Sun (UK) : Giant iceberg ‘to change weather’ ; It’s the size of LUXEMBOURG, it screams. Ummm – isn’t that one of those countries famous for being little?
• Daily Mail: Why iceberg that size of Luxembourg could mean cold winters ahead for Europe ; Just nuts, but the illus showing where Luxembourg is, and the sequence of events in Antarctica, is hard not to notice. By the way, the story quotes or cites no specific authority for declaring this will chill Europe.
• Reuters – David Fogarty : Giant iceberg beaks off from Antarctic glacier ; And, it says, “could affect ocean circulation patterns.’
• AFP via Montreal Gazette – Marlowe Hood: Mammoth iceberg may alter ocean circulation: Study ;
• and finally, sane by comparison: ABC (Aus): A chip off the old iceberg ; Starts off by saying it’s NOT global warming. Next it says it could have an impact on global environment, but turns around and quotes another scientist who says there’s not enough information to say one way or the other.

The guys who write headlines sometimes really need to get their heads out of their nether regions.

[Listening to: Lyin' Eyes from the album "Their Greatest Hits" by The Eagles]