April 18, 2008 – 12:49 am
For the past couple of years I have had a question running around in my head and it won’t go away. Maybe by posting it here someone can point me in the right direction to understand it.
If every rooftop in a city was covered with solar panels, would it reduce the overall temperature of the city?
Now, I freely admit that I am way out of my league on this one. There are probably some people out there reading this and laughing at how obvious the answer is. The thing is, I haven’t heard this question asked before.
I have some basic understanding that heat and energy are related. Engines that run hot are less efficient than engines that run cool. I think that the heat (thermal energy?) in that case is wasted energy. I also know that the reflection of the suns rays warms the planet.
So, does it not hold true on some level that solar panels capture the energy from sunlight and therefore the light that is captured is not released as heat? Could it be a measurable amount?
I did a little research tonight and I know there is a relationship between heat and energy. I know that we cannot create energy from nothing. I know that the measure of electricity (Watts) is the rate of heat transfer (Joules per second).
So, does it not hold that widespread use of solar energy would not only reduce the emissions of green house gas, but it would also have a cooling effect that would counter the heat retention effect of some of the greenhouse gasses that are already in our atmosphere?
Can you help me understand this better?
Update: I may have found more information that helps. A Photovoltaic-Thermal System (PV/T) not only converts sunlight into electricity, but also captures the residual heat in a way that both the electricity and heat are usable. I think that supports this theory b/c “residual heat” seems to indicate that some heat is lost lost by standard photovoltaics (though maybe not all). As PV systems become more efficient will there be less residual heat?
I watched last night’s debate with some friends. The whole time we were wondering why they were focusing on such non-issues. Obama was clearly annoyed with it too. As I browse the internet this morning I can see that there is a large percentage of people who feel the same way.
According to ABC, Flag Pins are more important that Gas Prices, Mortgage Crisis, Iraq, Iran, etc. That is pathetic.
What really gets me is that I keep having this interview with Charlie Gibson playing over and over in my head. A few days before the debate someone was asking him about his preparations for the debate. He said two things that really bugged me:
1) He was not really nervous and not really preparing b/c George Stephanopoulos was going to be there. (His lack of preparation and lackadaisical attitude were clearly visible).
2) He made a comment that while they were accepting questions from viewers in PA, they were not sure if they were going to use them b/c they had a better understanding of what the issues really were.
That second comment has me bitter boiling mad. If I was in PA and submitted a question I would be irate that our questions were tossed aside so that ABC could create the least issues focused debate that I can remember ever seeing.
Last week I wrote some thoughts about using the Mac OS X Dashboard for business intelligence. I still think that is a neat idea, but so much has changed in a very short period of time.
The main thing that changed is obviously Google AppEngine. Like with every major tech story these days there has been a mass rush to judgement. The fact of the matter is that it is too soon to tell. Google is a somewhat untrusted (or at least untested) vendor when it comes to mission critical services; Google has also earned more credibility than anyone else when it comes to web applications. So, the jury is still out on whether or not AppEngine will the great or mediocre. One thing we do know is that the addition of Google AppEngine makes Google as a platform more viable. And isn’t becoming the platform the real goal for most tech companies?
Spreadsheets are still the BI tool of choice for most people. Still, Excel has some serious deficiencies for BI. Spreadsheets are typically Shadow Systems by the nature of the way Excel interacts with source of data. (Shadow systems are separate databases outside of the central data repository). This makes spreadsheets cumbersome. You either have to re-import a CSV or tell Excel to update data from an external source (i.e. an ODBC data source) in order for spreadsheets to stay up to date (or option #3 of update it manually). once you share a spreadsheet you now have multiple Shadow Systems.
I am excited by Google docs because they are easy to share and thus reduce the number of Shadow Systems. Unfortunately Google Spreadsheets don’t have the ability to update from a remote data source. This means that to update a Google Spreadsheet you either have to export a csv from your data source and re-import it or you can use the Google API to push data. This is still cumbersome, but the data update can be automated. One big problem with using Google Spreadsheets is that there are limitations on the number of rows you can have. Without being able to query a remote data source you would have to continue pushing data in.
With the beta release of AppEngine developers now have access to a database to use when developing on the Google Platform. It is not a relational database and I don’t expect it will be replacing any mission critical databases. However, I hear that BigTable is fast. Damn fast. I am wondering if it would be a good data warehouse environment. It would require some creative data modeling and there are limited querying functions, but it is fast.
If (and this may be a big if) Google allows BigTable queries from Google Spreadsheets then many of the problems with Excel would be overcome. The spreadsheet would be easy to share without creating Shadow Systems. An added bonus would be that multiple people can collaborate on a spreadsheet at the same time.
BigTable is not designed as a reporting database. It may work as one, but that is not the stated intent. What would be cool is an OLAP database as a part of Google Apps and possible Google AppEngine. I have heard that this may be coming. I am hoping it is sooner rather than later.
April 12, 2008 – 10:44 am
Last week Sabrina and I went to see Rent. For those of you not familiar, Rent is a wildly over-rated broadway production that has some very loyal fans known as “Rent-heads” (yeah, creative, I know). While I think Rent is over-rated, it is not bad. To be honest that is quite a compliment coming from someone who is usually bored by drama (theatrical and, uh, real life drama).
Anyway, in Rent there is this song/theme about going to open up a restaurant in Santa Fe. The idea is that we can escape it all by just going to Santa Fe to open a restaurant. Sure, opening a restaurant is one of the most stressful and risky ways to support yourself, but let’s suspend disbelief for a moment. I am sure we all have a desire to go open a restaurant in Santa Fe from time to time.
I used to know what my pipe dream was. Until I had kids I held on to the hope that one day I would get the balls to just pack it all up and sail around the world solo on an old 1970’s fiberglass sailboat (they didn’t know how string fiberglass was in the 70s and thus made some boats that are as sturdy as a tank). Once I had kids that dream was no longer a reality.
I love my wife and kids, though I do wonder what life would have been like if I did it. It was within reach if I really wanted it. I don’t have regret per se, but it is a what-if.
For the past couple of years I have not had a “pack it all up” dream. Sabrina and I both know that we are happier when we are closer to the ocean. I have always wanted to live on the coast. After spending a week in San Jose with the clear air and palm trees, I am kinda thinking about going to open up a restaurant in San Jose.
