Don't Drive on my Ass, and You'll Save Lots of Gas

If you give plenty of space, you won't have to tap dance on your brake and accelerator pedals. Not surprisingly, smoother drivers tend to get much better gas mileage.

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Is Your Gas Pump Ripping You Off?

Mark Greenblatt of KHOU in Houston reports that for the first time ever, the state of Texas is suing a company that runs a chain of gas stations - accusing it of deliberately shorting consumers. The company denies any wrongdoing, but they are not alone. Last year the state found nearly 2,000 pumps at other gas stations that were cheating drivers.

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Your Regularly Scheduled Lesson In How Doors Work

Ok, looks like it's time for a reminder again.  This time the lesson is revolving doors.

There's a group of you going through the door, exiting the building.

1)  Each of you take a section.  Do not try to jam in with your friend, it won't work.  Wait the half second for the next one.

2) If someone is coming the other way, stay in sync with how the door is moving.  Don't pause and think about it and make the other person - the one who is actually moving the door? - have to wonder whether or not he's about to slam you with it.  Either get in, or don't.

3) It is permissible to wait on the other side of the revolving door for your friends to get through.

4) When your entire group has come through the door and is out of the building, GET OUT OF THE WAY YOU MORONS!

I mean, fine, it's one thing to stand in front of the revolving door and wait for your friend.  But then all of you sit there and say, "Which way should we go, right or left?  Well, I dunno, what do you want for lunch?  Me, I have to be back at 1, so I was thinking maybe a sandwich..." 

Guess what?  There are OTHER PEOPLE TRYING TO USE THE DOOR. 

MOVE!

Landmines. Think About It!

I am so tired every morning of trying to decide when it is safe to step off the curb and cross the street.  The light is red, the little while "Walk" signal is on (and won't be forever), and yet the car approaching me...is he slowing down or is he going to blow right through it?  Maybe he'll be nice and only stop with his car blocking half the crosswalk so I have to walk around him.  My personal favorite is how they refuse to make eye contact, like "If I don't see you, I don't have to stop for you!"  That's the kind of thing my children try.

Here's my idea.  Ready?

Landmines.  Buried in the crosswalk.  Connected to the traffic light so that they're only enabled for like the first 2 seconds the walk signal goes on, and weight sensitive to only pick up the cars.  So if you don't stop when you're supposed to stop?  *Boom*.  Not a big boom, not enough to generate shrapnel and get pieces of your bloody corpse on my work shirt.  Just enough to maybe wreck your transmission and ruin your day.  Just something so that the pedestrians can walk around you and point and laugh. 

I would enjoy that.

Schwarzenegger Jumps on Obama’s Tire Inflation Bandwagon

Yesterday, several more groups were added to the growing list of organizations that stand behind Senator Obama’s claim that properly inflated tires can indeed reduce gasoline consumption. Speaking on behalf of these groups, and helping to launch the EcoDriving initiative was John McCain supporter Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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One Man's Audacious Plan to Change the Way the World Drives

Shai Agassi is the man behind the future of electric cars. AutoOS, the Better Place operating system, will transform the transportation grid. Here's how....

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I Hadn't Tried Praying, No

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/pray-at-the-pump/

Freakonomics blog discusses Rocky Twyman's claim that a drop in gas prices was caused by prayer.  Being Freakonomics, they go into detail of the research done on the subject and the statistics backing claims for one side or the other.

I cannot tell how far Ian's tongue is planted in his cheek when he says things like, "If God behaves differently in response to testing prayers than to non-testing prayers, then we will not learn whether non-testing prayers help (or hurt). On the other hand, if the null hypothesis is that prayer should have no impact, and we find one in patient-blind randomized control trials, then the atheists have some explaining to do."  But I would guess pretty far. :)

Backpacks on the Subway

You're wearing a backpack.  Medium sized, not one of these honking "trek across America" bags.  You're getting on the subway.  What's better:  leaving it on your back, where you'll take up more room than a person without a backpack, and probably smash it into a few people?  Or take it off and put it on the ground by your feet, so you take up less space..but you have to keep moving it around as you shuffle out of people's way?

Just curious.  I tend to put it on the ground, but I don't love that option.

What would happen if we each used 10% less gas?

For starters, we'd save billions of dollars and keep billions of tons of carbon dioxide out of the environment. So, on that note, support proper tire inflation, not off-shore drilling.

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The 10 Cheapest Cars Per Mile Per Gallon

To get this list, we divided the as-tested price (including options and destination charge) for each vehicle we've recently tested by the car's overall mpg (including city and highway) in our fuel-economy tests. This tells you the price you'll pay for each mpg. We selected only ones that meet our stringent criteria in performance, reliability...

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Hack The Subway?

Lots going on in Boston lately (or at least, related to Boston) as a group of MIT hackers attempted to present their findings on security vulnerabilities of the MBTA subway system at a hacking conference known as DEFCON.

Naturally all the necessary forces of evil came down on their heads to prevent that from happening.

So they published it anyway.

Why do hackers do this?  Publish exploits in this way?  It's really quite simple, and it's disappointing that the appropriate organizations don't see it that way.  Imagine that your neighbor goes to bed every night with his garage door left open.  His house is angled in such a way that only you can see this, though.  So you go tell him that his garage door is open.  "Dude, shut up!" he says.  "No one's broken in yet, and it's too expensive to get a new door.  So quiet down about that and mind your own business."

Realizing that this logic is silly, and knowing that it's in your neighbor's best interest to fix the door regardless of the cost, you put up a big sign in your front yard saying "HEY MY NEIGHBOR KEEPS HIS GARAGE DOOR OPEN AT NIGHT!"

You don't steal anything.  You don't tell people to go steal anything.  You just give your neighbor incentive to fix the door.

 

If there is a security exploit in a system, the bad guys either will find it, or they already have.  Having the good guys say "Dude, there's a problem with your system" does not mean you should either ignore or punish the good guys.

Looked In Your RearView Lately?

Tell me if this sounds familiar. You're trying down the main street, there's a reasonable amount of traffic.  You notice up ahead, on the right, a car at a side street who is trying to come across traffic and make a left turn.  By the time you reach him, he will have waited for about 5 or 6 cars to go by. You have plenty of time to decide whether you'll be the one to stop and let him cross. 

What do you do?
Before you just go zipping past him - hey, what's one more, right? - do me a favor.  Look in your rearview mirror. How many *more* cars are behind you who are going to do the same thing to the guy?  Maybe there's nobody behind you.  In that case, perfect, you can go past and the guy comes out right after. 

But maybe there's another 6 cars. 

Or 10.

So maybe then you say "You know what?  It won't kill me to actually let somebody in," and you slow up on the gas, leaving room for him to come out.

It doesn't kill you, and you can actually feel like you started your day doing something for another person.

Never Too Much Information

Here's how I get onto the train in the morning.  I drive to the parking lot, where a nice man in a little house takes my two dollars.  I park, then walk through a building (where I have the option of going to the rest room, getting something from the vending machines, or waiting in line at the donut shop), then up the stairs, across the walkway bridge, down the other side to the train platform, where there is a large sign displaying the train schedule.  There is also a shortcut to get around the building and just head for the platform.

Now, imagine that you're late.  You've missed your regular train, and you do not know when the next one is coming.  As I approach the parking lot, how late/early am I and how can I tell?  Right now I have to get myself paid, parked, and onto the platform before I discover that the train is not due for 15 minutes.  Or worse, that it just left 2 minutes ago so if I'd driven just a little faster I might have caught that one.

Let's consider better ways to disseminate this information.

* Website.  True.  The commuter rail has a good website.  So if I have time in the morning I can check it.  But what if I forget, or don't have the time, or don't realize I'm going to be in a situation where I need that information?

* Print it.  I can print the whole table and have it with me . This seems like the most logical - but if you consider that I'm going to miss my train for special circumstances maybe once every couple of months, the odds are better than I will lose the paper and not have it when I actually need it.

* Tell the nice man in the little house.  As you pull into the parking lot wouldn't it be nice to know whether you should be rushing or taking your time?   It's a little late in the process, but it's better than nothing.

* How about a train schedule in the building itself?  Do I have time for a coffee?  I have no idea, because I have to go past the coffee and over to the platform to find out . They could take that same sign that's on the platform and put it on a wall next to the coffee machine.

* Telephone service.  Say I was at the dentist, and had no idea what time the appointment would get out.  I'm a good 15 minute drive from the train.  How much should I hurry?  I don't have web access, and lost my printout.  The parking lot man might be able to tell me once I get there, but if I've already missed one that doesn't help me.  How about a service I can call on the cell phone to find out?  This one is so obvious is probably already exists and I just don't know about it.

The Tire Gauge Controversy & Saving Gas?

Politics aside, what's the data? In a recent Time article, the estimates of the Bush Administration state that expanding offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. The US uses about 20 million bbl. per day, so 200,000 barrels per day would meet about 1% of our demand. Tune ups & tire pressure would save 4% & 3%

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5 Things You Must Know About Sleep

Half of your commute involves getting to work in the morning. The energy you bring to that task is directly related to the sleep you got. It's in your best interest to know as much as you can about how sleep works, and how to get better at it.

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Carpool To Relieve Stress

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/brothers/371624_joyce804.html

I had no idea Dr. Joyce Brothers was still around.  To the commuter who wrote in because he feels so angry "when I have to pay a fortune to fill up the tank...and then if I get a cell-phone call or someone cuts me off..." that perhaps a carpool would cut down on his frustration.  I suppose it will at least half the time - when you're the passenger.  But personally, for me, it'd double the stress when I'm the driver! 

I think her advice is off the mark.  First, the guy gets angry that he has to pay a fortune to fill up the tank.  Ok, fine - who is he angry at, exactly?  Just generally being filled with rage all day long is pretty bad.  "I had to pay $4.50 a gallon so I'm going to flip off the next person I see!!!!"  Congratulations, you're contributing the problem rather than the solution.  How about realizing that the guy you're flipping off and threatening to kill also had to pay $4.50 a gallon to fill up, and he's just as mad about it?

Then he goes on to say, "whenever I get a cell phone call."

Does he not see an easy solution to that one?  Turn phone off.  Put phone in briefcase.  Put briefcase in trunk.  There's lots of ways to avoid that particular distraction.

"...or if somebody cuts me off."  I can't make that problem go away, but let me ask this, what lane are you driving in and how fast are you going?  If you're one of the ones that zips across 4 lanes to get to the left hand lane and then tries to do 85 the whole way to work, don't complain about crazy drivers. You want to avoid getting cut off, drive like a reasonable person and stick to the right hand couple of lanes.  The ones in a hurry aren't as interested in weaving in and out of the slow traffic.