Internet Millions revistited

As you can see, the ads are finally gone! I did a little bit of house cleaning on the comments as well. I suspect that they went hand-in-hand, but to make sure, I've put some additional limitations on those who can leave comments on my blogs. Thanks everyone for putting up with it all for the past year.

For anyone who cares, in the roughly 1 year that I had Google AdSense installed on my blog (this was the only site I was using it on), it earned $1.78. That doesn't seem like a whole lot, but as you can tell, I have not done much to my blog in the last 9 months, so I think its pretty impressive, if you're trying to make a little extra income. If you're running a high volume site and don't mind the clutter, its probably a pretty good way of earning some extra operating money.

For me, its not worth the clutter and the extra moderation required. So now, back to your regularly scheduled programming...

Rising Early

Yesterday morning was overcast and relatively dark (towns always have lights on, for safety) when I woke up at 2:30 with Brayden. He fell back asleep relatively quickly, but unfortunately, I did not. I was preparing to go to Spring Into Focus, a yearly gathering that we have down in Columbus. This year, I kind of "planned" it (by which I mean I rented the facility and told my fellow Focus owners when, where and what I thought they should bring to eat), and I had a few things that I knew I needed to pick up Saturday morning before we all met to head down. Also, at 3:30AM, I think I was pretty hungry and I just didn't realize at the time that the hunger was probably what prevented me from going back to bed for a few more hours. Regardless of all of that, I rolled over in bed and to Rachel that I was going to get up and head out...at 3:30 in the morning. Rachel heard me, but obviously didn't comprehend, since I got a text from her later asking where I was at.

I did spend a little bit of time loading my car up. Any of you that have heard my car know that the fewer times I drive it through any given neighborhood before 8AM, the happier the neighbors are (zero being the ideal number). I have a box full of engine parts from my previous engine build that I was trying to sell and I have stored the box up in the shed behind our house. I was kind of surprised that the city cops weren't called to investigate me, since I was walking around in the dark beside the house and only flicked the flashlight on when I actually entered the shed.

By probably 4:15, I was packed up and ready to go. My first stop was a carwash, as I had been unable to wash the car for months (seriously...I'm not the car guy who freaks out about dust and dirt...I like to drive the things). The car wash card reader was not working, so I had to go up to the front of the gas station and buy a car wash. Apparently that early in the morning, you can't walk into the station, you have to pay through the wall. While I was standing there, I could hear soft strains of heavy metal coming from the tanker truck that was refilling the station. Things are different before the majority of the world wakes up.

My next stop was Wal-Mart. I needed to pick up a couple dozen hamburgers and buns, since I had said that I was going to bring them. Walmart is always open, but it doesn't mean its always presentable. The crates full of "fresh fruits and veggies" had been moved into the main aisle in front of the registers so that the floor could be waxed and polished. I think I was the first customer in a few hours, because shortly after walking in, someone got on the intercom and started barking out orders. As I walked by some of the stockers, I could hear them yelling down the aisle in protest to the intercom's orders. I figured since I was at Walmart, I was going to have the full Walmart experience, so I found a lousy styrofoam cooler, some 75%/25% beef (listed as 100% pure beef...that's good, I don't want to be feeding my friends squirrel unintentionally. At least the 25% fat generally cooks off), and some nutrious Wonderbread Honey Hamburger buns. That's an American picnic at its finest! Oh, and I was starting to realize how foolish I was at this point, so I picked up a small (read standard) can of Red Bull.

By this point, it was a little after 5 and I was not really sure what to do with myself. I had 3 hours before I was supposed to meet another guy in Wooster. Sound thought might have told me go home and go to bed. But, I'd already had my Red Bull and I was obviously not of sound thought. I sat in the car for close to 10 minutes debating things; I wanted to go take pictures, but I hate drawing attention to myself. I figured that any person standing around in the dark taking pictures is more than likely going to be labelled as "a suspicious person". Oh well, it'll be fine...



I first moved over a few parking lots and took some car pictures. They were kind of fun, but there was too much light from Walmart. I had to get farther away...I took a few more pictures of the car at some of the medical buildings near Walmart, but was starting to get a little bit bored of car photography. I've taken a lot of pictures of my car since I've owned it and it hasn't changed enough to warrant millions of pictures. So I began to wander further afield...

I was going to head downtown and take some pictures along Main Street! I love longer exposures of cityscapes at night. The Sodium Vapor street lights really make the color of old bricks really pop out. On my way between the north end and downtown, I became distracted by an innocous behemoth that, until this point in time, had gone largely unnoticed by me. The watertower by Kean Elementary. That lead to other interesting discoveries and I was officially sidetracked (those who work with me know how easily that happens).





The next two pictures are the same subject, taken 1 minute apart. Obviously with different apperature settings.





Finally by about 6:30, I was able to get downtown. By this point, the Eastern sky was lightening, so exposure times were dropping a little bit. However, there were still a few cool pictures to be had before the sun came up and fleshed out the color spectrum, until it was completely muted.







There is always light around us, we just have to open our eyes wide enough and look long enough. Our perception of the world around us is tinted by the light in which we see it. Is it possible that by being exposed to too broad of a spectrum, we are unable to see beauty in the ordinary?

Do you Recall...

You have to know that I couldn't let this topic be for long, seeing my interest in all things automotive. Of course I have an opinion. By now, I'm sure that every person in the world knows of the "gas pedal issue with Toyotas", so I'm not going to get too in-depth on the background.

I don't want to sound as though I'm full of myself, but for the last several years, I've been telling friends that my opinion is that Toyota is heading for a rude awakening. It was pretty obvious to me around 2004, when Toyota started battling with Ford and GM to be the 3rd largest automaker in the world. The problem is that Toyota has built its empire entirely on the premise that they sell quality. Everyone knows that person who obsessively reads Consumer Reports; Toyota always comes out with the Favorable review, while the domestic counterparts often receive a subpar rating. To me, it seemed highly improbable that a company could move more product without tarnishing their reputation for quality. I was right...kind of.

The fact is that Toyota has actually been working on re-inventing the proverbial wheel. They have been looking for ways to improve or at least make cars more efficient, or simple [by simple, please refer back to the initial paragraph of my previous blog entry, where layer upon layer of user interfaces make complex objects appear to function simply].

Take for instance, the now infamous Toyota gas pedals. In 2002, Toyota introduced their first drive-by-wire system in their Lexus brand. Instead of having a cable that connects your foot directly to the throttle-body on the car, your foot now essentially pushes a variable resistance switch, which the car's computer then translates into some degree of throttle plate motion. In typical cable-operated accelerators, you had to worry about the cable stretching, or worse corroding and breaking. So, in the name of reliability, out went the cable and in went the wires and switches. Toyota could recoup the additional cost through their image of reliability, where a lot of "domestic" [the term is used loosely, to define a manufacturer who traces their origins to the United States] automakers would have a hard time justifying the additional expense.

Take also for instance, their regenerative braking, which they use in their hybrid vehicles. I was hoping initially when I did some investigation into their regenerative braking systems that it was something based the KERS [Kinetic Energy Recovery System] system currently employed in Formula 1. With Toyota's involvement in F1, they seemed like one of the manufacturers who would actually take that type of technological innovation and apply it to their street cars. Its cool; basically a 30kg flywheel that gets spun up under braking, then when you get to a straight stretch, you push a button, which pops a clutch and spins out an extra 50 HP for a bit of an advantage [the numbers I threw out are basically guestimates, but give you an idea]. Unfortunately, Toyota is using a relatively mundane energy recovery system. Its the hybrid drive electric motor, that when you depress the brakes, turns into a generator and recharges the battery. Obviously a smarter choice, since the electric motor is already on there, there's not reason to add a KERS system as well.

The problem lies in the fact that its impossible to engineer a perfect system and mass produce it. The drive-by-wire system eliminates a potential problem under the hood, but leaves a relatively vulnerable electrical contact down in the foot-well, where snowy shoes reside. Granted, automotive electrical systems are surprisingly robust, but strange things happen when electricity and water mix. According to Toyota, moisture gets into the accelerator pedal assembly and causes an intermittent signal, resulting in unanticipated acceleration. According to Steve Wozniak, the lovable Techippy founder of Apple, his 2010 Prius has accelerated uncontrollably while in cruise control (including at least one occasion over 100 MPH). He believed it was a software issue, but to me that sounds like some sort of oblique hint at wanting to have a part in Toyota's computer integration.

Regardless of the product issues that Toyota is having at the moment, a large portion of the current problem lies with the end users. I'm not going to absolve Toyota from blame, because a sticky accelerator is never a good situation. However, is it really rocket science to shift the car out of D and into N(or however the CVT synergy drive module is labeled in the Prius)? There was some enthusiast banter about whether its even possible to shift a car out of D while it is in motion, but it seems illogical that you couldn't; that's a last ditch safety feature. Is it possible that consumers have become so out of touch with their transportation appliances that they don't even understand the fundamentals of car operation?

Likewise, the media has exacerbated the whole issue. Maybe I'm just blessed with being a fortunate "domestic" car owner and understand how the whole recall thing works, but apparently every late-model Toyota owner is concerned that their car might have a sticky accelerator (or laggy regenerative braking system, as the case may be) and has been calling their dealership to ask, "is my car broken?". You should get a letter in the mail, an email or some form of contact from Toyota if your vehicle is affected. If your car manufacturer cares about your business, they'll contact you and let you know what you need to do.

My favorite media example is the guy who had just purchased a new pickup truck and wanted to get a refund from his dealer, so he could get a truck he didn't think he was going to have problems with. The dealership refused, so as he got into his truck, the accelerator stuck and he crashed into the dealership. Please. That sounds like the worst contrived story ever. Do you think they'll ever substantiate the claim that the throttle stuck? No. Do I believe for a second that the throttle caused him to crash into the dealership? No. Without knowing how the dealership was laid out, how do you hit a building that you are leaving? Also, if he was just in a parking spot, how did he gather enough momentum in a short period of time to wreck into the dealership? Sounds to me like a disgruntled customer.

As a bit of an aside (without sounding like too much of a blue blooded "domestic" car nut), a number of the Japanese car makers have had some pretty serious issues with their cars that they've been attempting to cover-up for as long as they could. Mitsubishi was having some quality control issues in the late 90s, which nearly put them out of business by 2004. However, they seem to have recuperated and have a reasonably stout product line-up at the moment. Likewise, Toyota also had issues with excessive engine gunk causing premature failure in their V6s. Somehow they managed to completely blame that on service issues, which enabled them to get owners to pay for at least a portion of the repairs. "Domestic" manufacturers have had more than their share of quality issues, but from my experience, they've been fairly open with their customers and have worked with them to resolve their issues, instead of trying to blame as many different factors as they can before they take the blame themselves.

My opinion: There's probably never been a better time to get a great deal on a lightly used late model Camry.