What is Octane?

The octane rating of gasoline measures its resistance to spontaneous ignition under compression in internal combustion engines.  A higher octane level does not mean a higher energy content in the fuel.  In theory, you should be able to go the same distance on any grade of gas. Rather, the higher the octane rating, the higher the activation energy required to ignite it.  This is why high performance engines that have high-compression cylinders require higher octane levels.  Lower octane grade gas would combust prematurely and cause engine “knock.”

There’s some other chemistry involved in calculating the rating, but I don’t care to research at the moment.

Why 85, When The Lowest I’ve Seen Elsewhere is 87?

In the mountains, the thin air does funny things.  As engines take in less oxygen per cycle, they produce less compression than they would at sea level.  Because of the changes in atmospheric pressure, 85 octane at high elevation is the performance equivalent of 87 octane at low elevation.  If you drive from the mountains down to sea level on one tank of gas though, you might experience some knocking.

So no, for normal cars at high elevation, you might as well save some money and go with the 85 octane gas, even when your owner’s manual recommends 87.  From what I could find, it won’t hurt your engine performance, fuel efficiency, or tailpipe emissions.

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With the increasing popularity of red light cameras, it’s not usually worth the risk of a steep ticket.  By installing cameras that discourage drivers from running yellow lights, cities are contradicting their eco-friendly commitments.  To be fair, running a blatantly red light is reckless, dangerous to yourself and others, and should remain illegal.  But if you enter the intersection while the light is still yellow, I think you’ll be perfectly safe and it’s the green thing to do.

Since fuel efficiency is measured in miles per gallon, and cars still use fuel when idling at a stop light, stopping is by definition the least efficient use of resources.  Zero miles traveled divided by any amount of gas is still 0.  Plus stopping kills any inertia energy you’d built up, and accelerating again after the stop is definitely not the optimum operation for your engine.  Cruising at a constant speed maximizes efficiency and running yellow lights can prolong your time spent at that speed.

Slamming on the brakes to stop for yellow results in increased rear-end-collisions and creates unnecessary wear and tear on the vehicle.  Cars at idle burn fuel and create emissions without any benefit — after all they’re not going anywhere.

A yellow light typically lasts 5 seconds.  Then you’ll typically have an “all-red” time of 2-3 seconds, when no one is allowed to go, which is intended to allow the intersection to safely clear.  And then you’ll have another 2-3 seconds before cross traffic drivers react to their new green light and reach the middle of the intersection.  So in total, you have about 10 seconds from when the light turns yellow to when another car could possibly hit you.

In 10 seconds, a car traveling 40 mph will go a distance of 586 feet — almost the length of two football fields!  I think you can make it safely through the intersection.  Maybe even the next one.

So there you have it, running yellow lights is the safe and green thing to do.  If you get a ticket, just tell the officer about this inconvenient truth.

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So I like credit cards.  Some prefer debit cards, and I think this is a mistake for a few reasons:

• Using credit cards can help build your strong credit report.
• When you pay them off each month, it’s always 0% interest.
• With debit cards, the money is gone from your account immediately.  Even if you’re not earning interest, why not let the credit card company float that money for 30 days instead of you?  Then if some emergency comes up, you’ll still have money in your account.
• Credit cards offer an additional layer of protection between your bank account and the outside world in terms of fraud, liability, and identity theft.  Debit cards are directly linked.
• The rewards programs for credit cards are typically stronger than for debit cards.
• Credit cards often come with additional perks, like rental car insurance coverage or extended warranties on purchases.  To my knowledge, debit cards do not.
• For me, I prefer to minimize the number of transactions on my checking account.  Instead of pinging my account each time I make a debit card purchase, I can consolidate a month’s worth of purchases on my credit card, and then make one payment from my checking.  Personal preference.

Other reasons why businesses should like electronic transactions:

• Easier, more accurate accounting.
• Cleaner.
• Less theft.
• Less counterfeit risk.
• Customers spend more.

Why the government likes credit cards:

• More accurate accounting leads to more tax dollars.
• They essentially “privatize” currency, meaning the government didn’t have to spend any money printing the money or creating the coins to fund the transaction.
• To a certain extent, customers spending more is good for the economy.

But there are some drawbacks to a plastic nation.

• Customers spend more than they would if they had to pay cash.
• Some people don’t pay off their cards and get buried in debt.  Never really thought about it before, but it’s the interest payments from those people that are paying for my free flights on rewards miles.  Oh well, no one forced them to spend more than they could afford.
• When enough people use credit cards, stores start passing along the processing fees to the customers, raising the price for everyone.  This especially hurts the people who for whatever reason can’t get a credit card and have to pay cash.  Typically the store pays a monthly fee to be able to accept credit cards, and then a $0.20-0.30 fee per transaction, plus another fee of 1.5-2.5% of each credit card sale.

Those fees are the reason you’ll see stores that don’t accept credit cards or institute a minimum order requirement.  So maybe McDonald’s is only collecting $0.79 for that $1 cheeseburger.  Surprisingly, I can only think of some gas stations that list a separate price for cash and credit customers.  You’d think more businesses would jump on that, but I’m sure they have their reasons not to.

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• “You’re going to like the way you look.  I guarantee it.” — Men’s Wearhouse
• “If we can’t guarantee it, we won’t sell it.” — Les Schwab
• The “Lowest price or it’s free guarantee.” — Mattress Discounters
• “We’re going to win Sunday.  I guarantee it.” — Joe Namath

Famous warranties:

• “America’s Best Warranty.” — Hyundai cars
• “30 Year Warranty.” — Benjamin Moore paint
• “Lifetime Warranty.” — Craftsman tools

In general, guarantees deal with replacing the entire product if it becomes unsatisfactory within a given timeframe, where warranties deal with repairing it or replacing certain components.

Guarantees are simple and can be somewhat subjective.  For example, a “30-day satisfaction guarantee.”  It can be hard for the company to prove your satisfaction.

Warranties, on the other hand, are more complex legal documents with responsibilities and obligations spelled out for both the seller and the buyer.  Yes, your car may come with a 10 year warranty, but if you go 9 years without an oil change, you’ve effectively voided that warranty.

From the customer standpoint, guarantees are usually better than warranties, but for some purchases you’ll get both.  Perhaps a store will offer some sort of 30-day satisfaction guarantee, and after that the manufacturer warranty will kick in.

Both guarantees and warranties are good selling tools, but shouldn’t be relied on too heavily.  A couple years ago Chrysler offered lifetime powertrain warranties on their cars with surprisingly few restrictions, but it did little to improve their sales.  Since most customers don’t buy a product expecting to be dissatisfied with it or expecting it to fail, the guarantee or warranty can sometimes be an afterthought.  It’s a must-have to show a company stands behind their product, but in most cases, it won’t be the most important feature.

I don’t know how much legal weight guarantees carry in advertising.  I got the idea for this post after hearing three different mattress stores promoting their 4th of July weekend sales, all “guaranteeing” the lowest prices.  At least two of them are lying.  Wonder how that sort of thing gets enforced.

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Go here to play the game: http://www.tripadvisor.com/TIQGame

It looks like there’s different settings so you can play a US-only version if that might help your score.

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My hypothesis was that watermelon was basically the cotton-candy of fruits: melt-in-your-mouth deliciousness, but basically no nutritional value beyond sugar.

What I Found

Turns out watermelon does have some value beyond being a low-calorie way to fill up your belly.  A 1-cup serving (who can eat just 1-cup?) contains just 46 calories, with no fat, no cholesterol, and a negligible amount of sodium.  The calories come primarily from carbs: 1g of fiber and 9g of sugars.  I was surprised to find out that watermelon also contains a small amount of protein.  From the seeds maybe?

For vitamins, watermelon is a very good source of vitamin A and vitamin C.  Who knew?  Even more surprisingly, a cup of watermelon delivers 5% of your daily value of potassium, which is about as much as half a banana.  Watermelons are rich in lycopene, a powerful antioxidant most commonly found in tomatoes.

Researchers have linked watermelon consumption to reduced blood pressure, reduced risk of kidney stones, a stronger immune system, reduced cancer risk, arthritis relief, reduced diabetes risk, reduced heart attack risk, improved night vision, and improved asthma symptoms.  What I thought was just sugar-water is pretty much a miracle food.

Haha those studies were probably sponsored by the Watermelon Farmers Association.

Next up, watermelon Jolly Ranchers.

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I was wrong.  Mostly.  Here’s what I found.

History of the Pledge of Allegiance

The original Pledge of Allegiance was penned in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister who also happened to be a socialist.  Gasp!  Don’t tell Fox News!  The original text:

“I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”

I think Bellamy considered his little pledge a unifying salute for a country seeing a huge influx of immigrants and less than 30 years removed from civil war.  It was first recited publicly on Columbus Day 1892, and has been a staple in schools ever since.

In 1924, some clarifying text was added so pledgers would know exactly which flag they were talking about, and so other countries couldn’t steal our pledge:

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands; one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”

And then in 1954, the Pledge we know and love today was finalized with the addition of the words, “Under God.”  This move was almost certainly a Cold War-inspired attempt to put ourselves above the godless commies.

My Translation / Commentary

Here’s my beef with the Pledge.  It’s indoctrination.  Young schoolchildren are made to memorize and recite it daily, long before they have any hope of understanding what the words mean.  It’s like baptizing babies; grown-ups think it’s the right thing to do, but the kids really have no idea what’s going on.

I pledge allegiance — I promise to be loyal

to the flag — to a symbolic piece of cloth, but a piece of cloth nonetheless

of the United States of America — phew, I mean I saw the purple mountain’s majesty and the people protesting stem cell research but just wanted to make sure what country we were talking about

and to the republic for which it stands — a country with such severe insecurity issues it makes millions of kids pledge their unquestioning allegiance every day

one nation — it’s cool, nobody’s trying to secede anymore

under God — haha because God only cares about America…see “liberty” below

indivisible – one nation, indivisible, can’t be broken, united, homogeneous, we got it!

with liberty and justice for all — except those who take issue with any part of this pledge

Why not teach our kids to be good citizens of the world instead of trying to brainwash them with outdated xenophobic recitals?

I find some irony in the fact that our country was founded by a revolution from Britain.  Maybe it never would have happened had they instituted a mandatory pledge of allegiance in the colonies!  The Declaration of Independence is based on this idea of a social contract and the government’s right to rule is granted by the people.  The Pledge of Allegiance leaves all that out, substituting Enlightenment thinking with unquestioning loyalty.  Not exactly what our founders had mind.

Other Interesting Pledge of Allegiance Facts

Originally Bellamy (the socialist author of the Pledge) intended people to salute the flag with an arm outstretched toward the flag.

Does this pose look familiar?  FDR thought so too, so he changed the salute to the less Nazi-esque hand-over-the-heart pose. (Image courtesy of wikipedia.)

Forty-four states require schools to offer the Pledge every day.  Of those, 24 states require students to stand and recite it.  Liberty and justice for all?  Um I believe freedom of speech includes freedom of not-speaking when you don’t want to.

A 10-year old boy made news last year for refusing to stand and recite the pledge until “liberty and justice for all” became reality and homosexuals were granted equal rights.  Love me some pre-pubescent activism!

I love America, we have just weird traditions.

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Simple enough.  The odds of winning are obviously very small, but it can’t be harder than picking a perfect bracket, right?

Let’s say you pick a different .250 hitter each day (wouldn’t be my first choice but it makes the math easier), and that they always get 4 at bats.  In theory, you’ve got it made, if your guy just does average, goes 1-for-4, you’ll soon be collecting that cool $3 mill.  But in real life, your guy is not a robot.  Every 4th at bat doesn’t guarantee a hit; he could go 0-for-9, then get three hits in a row and still be .250.

So what are your odds of Beating the Streak?

First, we have to find a player’s odds of getting at least one hit in a game.  Since the number of hits above 1 doesn’t matter, it is easier to work backwards and find his odds of going 0-fer.  I’m kind of embarrassed to say how long it took me and Bryn to figure this out.  If a player is hitting .250, that means he gets out 75% of the time.  He’ll get out 75% in his first at bat, 75% in his second, 75% in his third, and so on.  So the odds he’ll get out in all four at bats in the game is:

(1 – batting average)^(# of at bats) = Probability of going 0-fer

.750^4 = .3164

Conversely, his odds of getting at least one hit is 1 – .3164, or .6836.

A .250 hitter will hit safely in roughly 68% of his games.  To calculate his odds of hitting safely for 57 games in a row, we raise .6836 to the 57th power.

.6836^57 = 0.00000000038

Put another way, a career .250 hitter has about a 1 in 2.6 billion chance of “beating the streak.”

But of course nobody picks the .250 hitters!  Your odds improve dramatically the better hitters you choose:

• .300 hitters – 1 in 6.2 million
• .350 hitters – 1 in 73,715
• .400 hitters – 1 in 2,729

MLB.com tries to help by showing you the upcoming match-ups where batters have the highest career average against the scheduled opposing starter.  These match-ups look great on paper, but as I learned in Baseball Between the Numbers, they almost always fall within the range of randomness, and given a larger sample size, the numbers will likely revert toward average.  In other words, the career .300 hitter that is batting .500 against the upcoming pitcher is “due” to make some outs, and might not make a great pick to keep your streak alive.

Here’s my game plan: look at the top 10 hitters in the league, and see who has the weakest opponent the next day, taking into account both the opposing team and the pitcher.  I’ll let you know how long I make it.

According to MLB.com, the longest streak ever in this contest is 49 games.  Very impressive!

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Exhibit B – Ohio “Birthplace of Aviation” License Plate:

North Carolina and Ohio seem to be making conflicting claims on their license plates.  What is the basis for their claims and which state is right?

North Carolina

North Carolina claims to be “first in flight,” and they are correct.  In 1903, the Wright brothers took their famous first flight in Kitty Hawk, NC.

Ohio

Ohio makes a more interesting claim, calling themselves the “birthplace of aviation.”  Orville Wright was born in Dayton, Ohio, and the family called Dayton home.  The brothers owned a bicycle shop there, where they developed and built their aircraft.  Ohio was also the birthplace of astronauts John Glenn and Neil Armstrong.  Because of this, the slogan is sometimes changed to the “birthplace of aviation pioneers.”

Official Ruling

In 2003, Congress actually voted on the matter (why?), and Ohio “won” the right to continue calling itself the birthplace of aviation.  The vote was near-unanimous, with the only votes opposing the measure coming from the North Carolina representatives.

The Ohio-contingent likes to point out that Kitty Hawk was nothing more than a test-site, and that all the research and development and aeronautics testing was done in Ohio.  But there must have been something special about the Outer Banks in North Carolina.  Otherwise you’d think Orville and Wilbur could have found a test site that wasn’t 500 miles away.  Maybe they just wanted to go to the beach?

Any number of closer places could have been “first in flight.”  Why Kitty Hawk?  The Wright Brothers actually consulted the National Weather Bureau in Washington DC, and determined that Kitty Hawk had the right combination of necessary winds and soft, sandy landing spots.  I’m not making this up.

North Carolina may be “first in flight” but they apparently supplied none of the brainpower or materials for that first flight.  Just a windy beach.  Nice work on those license plates though.

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Fast forward 500 years.

Cap and Trade is one idea to limit carbon emissions and slow climate change.  The proposal makes carbon pollution an environment “sin,” and mandates good clean behavior.  Sound familiar?  But instead of the threat of eternity in hell, we have fines, and instead of indulgences, we have proposed “pollution permits,” that wealthy companies can buy to make their pollution OK.

I find this uber-liberal narrator uber-annoying, but she gives a good overview of the problems with Cap and Trade.  And if both the climate-change-deniers and the hippies think it’s a bad idea, maybe it’s not that great an idea.

The moral of both the indulgence and cap and trade story is: if you have money, you can do pretty much whatever you want.

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