America vs. Iran

No, it's not what you think. Look at this video of a mega-intersection in Tehran (the capital of Iran) and compare it to your local suburban mega-intersection.



This makes me want to go to Tehran, if for no other reason than to observe traffic.

Via The Daily Dish.

What Makes A Profit So Windfally, Anyway?

This is a good editorial:

The "windfall profits" tax is back, with Barack Obama stumping again to apply it to a handful of big oil companies. Which raises a few questions: What is a "windfall" profit anyway? How does it differ from your everyday, run of the mill profit? Is it some absolute number, a matter of return on equity or sales -- or does it merely depend on who earns it?

...

Maybe they have in mind profit margins as a percentage of sales. Yet by that standard Exxon's profits don't seem so large. Exxon's profit margin stood at 10% for 2007, which is hardly out of line with the oil and gas industry average of 8.3%, or the 8.9% for U.S. manufacturing (excluding the sputtering auto makers).

If that's what constitutes windfall profits, most of corporate America would qualify. Take aerospace or machinery -- both 8.2% in 2007. Chemicals had an average margin of 12.7%. Computers: 13.7%. Electronics and appliances: 14.5%. Pharmaceuticals (18.4%) and beverages and tobacco (19.1%) round out the Census Bureau's industry rankings. The latter two double the returns of Big Oil, though of course government has already became a tacit shareholder in Big Tobacco through the various legal settlements that guarantee a revenue stream for years to come.

The best line is the closer:

It's what politicians do in Venezuela, not in a free country.

I hope Obama is pandering.

No Free Pop? Then Let Me Bring My Own!

I don't like this trend.

The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA is objecting to collecting the $1 and $2 fees for nonalcoholic drinks, which US Airways is imposing to counter record fuel costs. Should travelers balk, they probably will not have to pay, the union said.

The ban on liquids is nothing but security theater; it inconveniences everyone with no real commensurate gain in security. For me, personally, the one thing that made it tolerable (yet despised) was that while I couldn't bring my own pop on board (I had brought 2-liter bottles on before the ban), at least I could have all the pop I wanted while on the plane, even if the brands available weren't my favorite.

If Northwest/Delta follows US Airways' lead, and since a passenger departing from Minneapolis is most likely to fly on Northwest, which only serves Pepsi products, and since I'm too nice to put up a fuss about having to pay for something, the net outcome of this trend could be that I will have to pay $1 to $2 for either Sierra Mist (okay) of Pepsi (yuck!). If I'm lucky, they MIGHT have Wild Cherry Pepsi, which is okay.

But all I want (well, not literally ALL) is for my country to allow me to bring my own 2-liter bottle of Vault aboard the plane. Is that too much to ask?

Via Good Experience.

Image from Flickr user liltree available under a Creative Commons license.

Minnesota Rated As Second-Worst for Urban Congestion

According to a study by the Reason Foundation, Minnesota is second only to California for urban congestion.


At first this seemed surprising. Minneapolis has bad traffic, but worse than Illinois (Chicago) and New York (New York)?! But it's a little deceiving because the rankings are at a state level. Illinois and New York both have several small to mid-size cities that "water down" the effect of Chicago and New York, respectively. Minnesota, on the other hand, has pretty much one urban area (the Twin Cities), and since it's congested the whole state ends up looking congested.

With yesterday being the anniversary of the 35W bridge collapse, it's interesting to note that:

Deficient bridges were thrust into the spotlight in 2007 because of the tragic Minneapolis bridge collapse. Minnesota actually ranks 5th best in the nation, with 13 percent of its bridges deficient. Of the nearly 600,000 highway bridges in the country, 24.1 percent were reported deficient and/or functionally obsolete in 2006, a minor improvement from 2005 when 25.5 were deemed deficient. At the current rate of repair it will take 62 years for today's deficient bridges to be brought up to date. [emphasis added]

Via Hit & Run.

Image from Flickr user amme@work available under a Creative Commons license.

Uniblog

I used to think that I would have a separate blog for each of my separate interests. It turns out that was unrealistic, which is why I created the uniblog that is Everything's Dynamic. I've imported all of the posts from Energy for the Future, Mechanical Usability, and I like to complain into Everything's Dynamic, but the comments did not survive the move. Nevertheless, any post that originally contained a comment now has a link back to the original post.





Image from Flickr user Lorrie McClanahan available under a Creative Commons license

Stuff with Bacon

While looking for the picture for my post about tuna fried in bacon grease, I came across a bunch of pictures of interesting food that you wouldn't expect to contain bacon, but do. My favorites:

• Bacon peanut brittle
• Chicken-fried bacon (pictured)
• Bacon mints
• Bacon vodka
• Maple bacon cookies
• Bacon chocolate

Image from Flickr user yi available under a Creative Commons license

Tuna Fried in Bacon Grease

Problem: You've just cooked a pound of bacon in a grill pan and now have a bunch of bacon grease at the perfect temperature...if only I had something else to cook using all that delicious-tasting oil.

Solution: Thaw one frozen tuna steak in the microwave and, at the lowest possible temperature fry in the bacon grease-laden grill pan.

I wasn't sure how this would taste, but I figured anything coated in bacon fat must taste good, and it ended up tasting great. I'll definitely do it again, although next time I'll be more patient and flip the tuna steak less. Some of the outside of the steak ended up with a nice crispy coating, which of course was the best part.

Image (of plush bacon) from Flickr user Sappymoosetree available under a Creative Commons license

'Surge' is the new 'War on'

Radley Balko (mocking John McCain) scares me:

Think of all the other problems "surges" could solve. I’m seeing the "Anti-Poverty Surge," the "Health Care Surge," and the "Anti-Obesity Surge." And of course, all we really need to finally win the drug war is a "surge"—a three-month blast of troops, guns, and ammo ought to do.

I'm not an Obamaniac, but I really hope John McCain doesn't win.

Variable Speed Road Tolls, Part II

If proven successful, the pricing mechanism I describe here could even be used to replace speed limits altogether. Assuming that in the future every vehicle will be tracked by GPS (it's going to happen, get over it), greedy government officials may want to charge drivers with a fine every time they exceed the speed limit. This just isn't practical. People will either be so paranoid of getting a ticket that they'll drive horribly because all they're thinking about is their speed, or so many people will get tickets that there'll be a massive backlash against the system in general.

I think a much more palatable and more effective way to enforce desired speeds would be by charging different rates for different speeds. Imagine a pricing scheme like the example below:

People respond to financial incentives, and this system seems like a much more transparent system than fines (and insurance premiums!) to cajole people into driving the optimal speed. Plus, this would allow police to focus on the truly dangerous act of driving recklessly (which could still include driving faster than conditions allow) instead of having to arbitrarily decide which driver going 10 mph over the speed limit they're going to pull over.

Variable Speed Road Tolls

This post by Tom Vanderbilt, in which he talks about the successful impelementation of variable speed limits in the UK, got me thinking about variable speed limits.

I’m in D.C. for the day, and I’ve been interested to note that an idea that’s had success in places like England’s M25 motorway is being introduced here. It’s called “variable speed limits” (wait, aren’t they all variable, you’re asking?), and the basic idea is that when a section of highway has become congested, rather than having upstream vehicles simply drive at full speed into the gelling pack, those drivers are given instructions to drive at specific speeds, lower than the typical speed limit. Instead of driving into a stop-and-go mess (in which a lot of time and fuel is wasted stopping and restarting), following cars approach at a slower, smoother pace. When the new speeds are obeyed (in the U.K. they’ve mounted cameras to enforce this), engineers have found they can achieve greater “throughput” through bottlenecks.

I agree with the idea that "slower is faster," but I cannot get behind instituting traffic cameras to enforce speed limits. Telling drivers to reduce their speed "for the greater good" or else get punished with a huge speeding ticket seems like a rather heavy-handed, clumsy way of achieving the desired goal.

I think a better way to accomplish variable speeds would be to financially reward people for driving the speed that optimizes the flow of traffic. Assuming that a “pay-per-mile” tolling scheme is in place, drivers could be charged not only for where and how far they drove but also how fast they drove. As drivers approach a traffic jam, there could be one rate for traveling at 65 mph, another for 55 mph, and another for 45 mph, with the cheapest rate assigned to the speed that optimizes traffic flow.

This solution provides a transparent set of incentives for drivers to reduce their speed without resorting to some draconian enforcement mechanism (i.e. cameras that rigidly enforce lower speed limits).