My Hydrogen Hybrid

With 5.00 diesel currently and regular catching up I finally decided to test the claims that you can supplement your gas with Hydrogen created by the estra electricity generated in your car.

Some claims are simple, and some claims are definetely ridiculous, but some of the concept makes sense. One guy claimed you could run the entire car for hundreds of miles on water and a lawnmower carburetor. Others have incredibly complex designs using electrical circuit boards, complex wiring, and instructions an engineer friend of mine couldn't understand (yeah i got suckered into the $30.00 for the bullshit designs).

So the other day I took the simplest of the concepts, one I had around or a long time and made it. It's simple and involves this extensive list of supplies:

One Plastic Peanut Butter Container

12 ga Electrical Wiring

2' of 5/16" rubber vacuum hose

2 Brass 5/16 fittings

(following all stainless steel)

1 3' length of 1/4" threaded bar

12 3/4" washers

12 1/4" nuts

that's it, I'm out $20.00 mostly because I had to buy a 3' length of sst threaded bar $12.00 bucks and I only needed 1'. Anyway it's real simple to build, just an anode and a cathode run the tubing out and into the intake. Here's an example of how the anode and cathode go together:

I'll keep you updated with gas mileage results for now we've been getting almost exactly 24 miles per gallon on average.

I'm Bleeding... Not as much as I should

Feel like gas prices are bleeding you out of house and home, well not as much as they should be. Here's a chart showing the rise of gas prices over the past 6 years in relation to the cost of crude oil. Something that we know goes into it but is never closely looked at by the media.

It's not just the chart, it's true, the cost of crude has risen dramatically faster than the cost of gasoline in the last 6 months, only slightly faster since 2004, and tracked fairly closely prior to that. It could be said that the cost of gas is way underpriced based on the cost of the raw product.

Matter of fact in June 2002 the average cost per gallon of gas in San Bernardino County was $1.33 and Crude $22.00 a barrell. One gallon of gas was 6.05% the cost of a barrell of oil. Today with the a gallon running $4.00 and a Barrell running $133.00 the cost of a gallon of gasoline is a bargain price of only 3.00% of the cost of a barrell of oil. That's half the cost since 2002, so in pure economic devices we are getting a bargain.

Diesel has tracked it a little better and is more in line with the graph of the oil (I Think) I can't seem to get a chart for diesel. It makes sense however because diesel is basically just oil, there's little processing, no additives (such as ethanol) to skew it. Also because it does not get as much media attention it is not held down for the sake of public interest as regular gas may be. I've never heard a congressman questioning the oil industry over the cost of Diesel.

So what does it mean to have such a sudden and hard gap between crude and Gas. In my opinion it means that the government has been asking the gas companies to keep the price low anticipating lower oil prices in the short term. Or they may be doing it simply because of the public pressure. Either way if oil maintaines it's current price or close to expect substantially higher prices in the near future.

As it is you are already paying for the higher diesel in your groceries, and other commodities so soon inflation will have no choice to run rampant over all consumer goods. Gas will catch up, it has no choice, I'm left scared.

New Shows Up at the Podcast

Hey we're back strong.  For those of you that have missed out you got to go and check out the new episodes:

 

www.socaltrafficast.com

 

liz murray
The indians are fighting back
Soboba Casino
Bouncy
Cell pHone law
texting is more dangerous




travis childers
diane warren
truffle
mississippi special election
dare you to move
gina carano
first time ever i saw your face
obstetric fistula
west virginia primary results
model behavior

 

 

20% STD at high schools

I was recently schocked to hear that a blood drive in the Redlands School District, the 2nd highest ranked schoold district in California, had a 20% Sexually Transmitted Disease rate.  How was this discovered?  A blood drive showed that 20% of the schools blood had to be thrown out for various STD's. 

 

Now I am all far teen sex, 100%, no doubt.  I have come to believe in my life that we get WAY to out of wack over sex, who has it, with whom, how often, and what gender. I'm almost envious of porn stars who have discovered how to have guilt free sex with various partners in various ways without the burden of moral stigma.

 

Let's be truthfull, concensual sex has no moral issues.  NO way no how.  How can you have a thoughtfull meaningful fun experience with another person who is as willing and open to it as you and cal it immoral.  It harms no one, it does not break the cardinal rule.  The negative stigma of sex has beeen propigated by churches and mostly foul priests who's goal was only to control the people within their influence.

 

Matter of fact, the old testament had few restrictions on sex.  The greeks were very open to sex and the satisfaction of body and mind.  Spartan women had the option of choosing a mate for sex and another for propigation, allowing them to pick someone who would breed a stronger better child over their chosen sexual partner.

 

Now, we have children with a 20% STD rate....  How does that fit within my belief.  You could say that my philosophy has it's faults, however, it's not my philosophy that has run amuck in our local schools.  Matter of fact it's quite the opposite.  The Conservative Christian Movement is strong in our local city, and has struck down most seperation of church and state laws, including leaving the ten commandments posted in the local court. 

 

The continued removal of proper sex education from the schools and the ignorant belief of religious parents that a promis and a ring will be enough to keep their children from taking part in the natural and overwhelming influence of their hormones to have sex.  We are fighting nature at a time when nature is pressuring us into the very thing we are trying to prevent.  Sex education, preventative measures, honesty, and easily accessible STD testing is the way to help our children. 

 

I can't believe that a parent that was once a teen would believe that Teens will simply "do what we say!"  Teens will experiment, push the limits and challenge authority.  Many times, unfortunately, this comes through lies and misdirection simply to make our parents stay out of our lives.

 

EAT THAT!

Will High Priced Gas Kill Costco

There may be a ray of hope on the distant shores of High gas prices and outrageous transportation costs for local grown grocery stores, farmers markets, and even local manufacturers. The high price of gas my destroy Costco's advantage.

According to a recent study study published by the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, in Ames, Iowa transportation of food products has shot up 22% since 1981 (1). The study did not outline the source of this, but a regional look at the nation will show that since 1981 the increase of mega stores, exotic foods, and cost cutting warehouses have increased. The major factor for the mega low prices of such national chains is the ability for one location to purchase a HUGE amount of food at such a reasonable price that the additional transportation to get it to all it's local stores is more than recouped in the profit.

50 years ago if you had a small shopping list like this:

1. Milk
2. Bread
3. Clothes
4. Bank
5. Fruit and Vegetables
6. Dog food
7. Cough Syrup

You may make 7 stops in your local downtown district at separate specialty stores that either made the item locally or right in their shop. Today you'd make one stop at your local WalMart or Vons and take care of the whole group with no thought as to where it came from. WalMart has all it's manufacturer's basically 'drop off' their goods to them in North Western Arkansas at the best possible price and then, due to historically record low transportation costs in the US, deliver them all over the country in their own fleet of trucks. This is all intended to keep the price down and is LOW COST of Transportation driven.

A return to local values. As $5.00+ gallon gas is likely within the next few years and double that within 10 you may find value again at your local fruit stand, clothing store, and bakery. They keep their transportation costs down by making sure that their raw product or end product only makes one trip; to their store and into your hands. Sure if you live in Arizona this means that a Kiwi is going to be harder to find, and if you live in the North, Oranges are going to be expensive. AND if you live in the middle of nowhere, where there's no sustainable land, YOU might just have to move.

(1) http://www.blogger.com/www.leopold.iastate.edu/pubs/staff/ppp/food_mil.pdf

Knotabus, Shakedown Run

May 1st, 2008
Knotabus took her first shakedown run today. We left San Pedro Harbor at about 11:30 am and ran down wind down to Long Beach Harbor and around Chaffee Island in light breeze until nearing the islands.
After rounding we saw another similar size sloop about 1/4 mile ahead and decided to see what Knotabus had in her, she favors a port tack close hauled and we made up to 6 knots drawing the fleeing boat closer to us with every gust. When we got up to about 10 boat lengths from her she bore away onto a reach and headed for harbor around White island and we continued on a close reach towards the Spruce Gooses Dome Shelter.
After tacking and headed for the breakwater the wind continued to pick up and white caps were forming in the harbor. We tried the reefing system I just got rigged this morning, Bob Lohrs and I made quick work of the two line system and reset the sail, now the sail set even better as the tack line in the sail seems to have shrunk over the years leaving a loose pocket in the main when full up.
Keith our helmsman kept Knotabus pointed straight as an arrow in spite of the strong winds and harsh heal created by the oversized Genoa, we were well past her sweet spot most of the time and you could feel Knotabus pushing hard, relieving the knotmeter from it's wet environment most of the time. Knotabus favors this starboard tack for some reason and we made up to 6 knots at times.
Pushing hard and loading the sails I noticed on Port tacks mast bend to the leeward side and on opposite tacks brought in the turnbuckle which helped our speed and balance from earlier but there's a lot of tuning left to go. Having Bob and Keith was wonderful, Bob's Lifetime of sailing experience helped me to push hard to find out what would break, and stuff BROKE.
We couldn't bring in the Genoa more than 10 % because the furling line got gnarled up in the furler because I forgot to feed it. Stupid mistake but pointed out the need for me to replace the gromets on the gunwale that guided the line and provided a little tension to it.
The new line I replaced the Mainsheet witch is shrinking a little too much under tension and slipped so we had to use the Winch on the Deck to hold the line, and then the winch started to slip up off it's post, the C clip is gone, melted away with time.
The boom shape is controlled all by the mainsheet as it is centrally mounted, meaning the traveller is more important than on most boats. While beating hard and at the winds peak Bob and I both had to yank on the traveler and when we put it back in the cleat, the clam cleat spewed out tiny white ball bearings rendering it useless, but it held that set so we left if there.
On the Port side, the primary Winch works fine in light winds but under a lot of load the locking mechanism stopped engaging so we had to run all tacks on the starboard side, something I don't mind doing, and will do many times when I'm short handed. I hate leaning over the lee side rail to crank a winch.
Oh yeah, and then there's my laptop. I thought secured well enough on the map table, slid off on a hard tack hitting the floor with an all mighty thud. I never buy add on insurance but on this laptop the lady at Dell was giving me such a good deal I did, guess it's going to pay off cause that laptop is BUST.
We got back in with not too much difficulty, just had to pull the Genoa down on deck instead of furl it, and I got some work to do on it, one thing it desperately needs is some tell tales. It's like I'm flying blind up there. All in all a Great day, thank you to Bob and Keith for helping me I owe an insurmountable amount of thank yous.