Thinking Green

April 23, 2008
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I’ve got a decent commute each day – roughly 40 minutes to an hour for 16 miles, twice a day. While sitting in traffic and thinking about the ever-skyrocketing gas costs I can’t help but wonder why we haven’t begun to harness more of the potential energy pent up within everyday objects. Some people are already doing this, such as this seesaw power generator in Africa. This is a start but there are a ton of other places we could trap potential energy.

Here are a few:

1. Our pipes
Every time you use water from pipes there is a chance to harness the energy. When the water flows out of the pipe, or into the building through the water main, energy could be harnessed through small turbines fitted within the pipes. Make the turbines low resistance and they would likely not even cause a noticeable shift in our experienced water pressure. Add the fact that most of our water usage will also be drained back out of the house through pipes and we can harness this energy a second time through the same mechanism.

2. Our heating and cooling
The energy wasted from heating and cooling is enormous. Take a refrigerator for example. The inside gets cool while the back gets warm. Instead of allowing the warmth to vent into the house a slight modification could be made to enclose the heating elements and capture the rising air as it escapes through a small pipe. The then escaping air would then cause a small turbine to spin within the pipe, harnessing energy. The same concept can be applied to the flu for heating and any other place where there is air movement due to temperature differentials. Even the oven could be modified to vent through a pipe fitted with a turbine while it cools off.

3. Our doors
How many times a day do you open a door? Why not generate energy from it? Modified hinges could be used to transfer the force of the spinning hinges into reusable energy.

4. Our human powered appliances
We expend a lot of energy each day that is totally lost. When you push your lawn mower, vacuum the floor, or even sleep in your bed you are just giving away energy. Items like lawn mowers and vacuums could be modified to trap the energy of their turning wheels in a small internal battery, which can then be transferred back to the house through a plug. Beds could be fitted with a small generator that eeks out a small amount of power each time the bed moves up and down. While sleeping you would be able to harness the energy of turning over or getting comfortable. During other activities, a considerably greater amount could be captured.
The basic idea behind all of these ideas comes from one of two places: human generated and gravity generated. Both are systems that are omnipresent and generally result in wasted energy. I realize that some of these will not be cost effective yet as the cost of the generator will be more than the savings, however as our technology progresses these ideas become more and more feasible. In the end, to get out of our current energy crisis, we all have to think outside of the proverbial box.

P.S. I would be interested in hearing (either through a comment here or an email to me) from physicists or engineers regarding the viability of these ideas.


Book review – In the Line of Fire: How to Handle Tough Questions…When It Counts

April 22, 2008
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In the Line of Fire: How to Handle Tough Questions… When It Counts

This was a good book. It starts out by talking about the questions President Clinton had to answer during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and reviewed some rather tough questions he had to field during that time. The book then expanded to cover a formula for answering questions, tough or otherwise. Through reviewing a number of presidential debates and interviews the book gives plenty of examples of how and how not to handle various types of questions.

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If you have ever taken a course in effective/strong/great presentations then much of this information will likely be review, as the concepts are not new. However, if you have not taken such a course the information contained within these pages truly is helpful in any situation where you must answer questions from anyone. As such, I would recommend this book to anyone who will ever be in a situation where they must handle Q&A. While this book is geared towards the CEO actively pursuing an IPO, it is written in such a way that it is relevant to anyone who would be in a presentation situation.


Wal-Mart only kind of sucks (now)

April 21, 2008
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Introduction
Crowded aisles, pushy and oblivious customers, and rude staff can all be used to describe my past experiences at Wal-Mart. While they do have lower prices than most competitors, I found myself gladly willing to pay an extra couple dollars per item in order to avoid the atmosphere of the low cost leader. But I now have a slightly improved view of the company.

We recently set out to find a play set for my daughter and found that a number of different places around town didn’t have it. We went to the Wal-Mart (Store G) near my house and they told us they didn’t have one but called around and found that another Wal-Mart (Store S) nearby had four. So I called Store S and asked if they could hold one for me. No. “We don’t do that.” I asked Store G about it and was told that they do regularly hold items and someone at Store S just didn’t want to deal with it. So I called back and tried again. No. So I went over a couple days later, verified that they still had them in stock, and asked to go ahead and pay then come back in a few hours with a truck. No. “We don’t do that.” Seriously?!?! The manager politely smiled and nodded while I complained but did nothing to help me. Screw it. I’m not giving them my money.


The original playset we were looking for.

Climax
So I called back over to Store G, the one near my house, and they promptly apologized for the actions of the other store, said that they should have held it, and told us they had one in stock now. I asked them to hold it and they said they would. One hour later we showed up and hung around for the next hour while they tried to locate our play set, which consisted of three 10′ boxes weighing ~300 lbs each. The manager finally came out and told us that, despite a note with our names on it and it being placed right outside his office, someone had sold our play set to another customer. So now I had wasted almost an entire day due to the incompetence of Wal-Mart and was pretty annoyed.

Surprise Ending
The manager came out with a slew of staff and they were all extremely polite and apologetic. They informed me they were already reviewing the security cameras to determine who took the play set and take actions (which I could have cared less about except that it showed me they were trying) and then offered to upgrade us to the next play set for a significant discount. The deal was too good to pass up and we agreed. The manager walked us up to a closed register and rang up our purchase to avoid any further waiting. He then apologized more for our poor experience and then monitored a team of employees as they loaded the set into my neighbor’s truck.

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The play set we ended up with.

I found out later that Wal-Mart Store G was ranked number five within the company for customer service. It shows. I will never shop at Store S again but no longer avoid Store G. Wal-Mark, on the whole, still has an image problem but if they could only get the rest of their stores like Store G their company would truly take over the world.