I'm going to start a series of blog posts about owning a house. I'm learning about this homeownership stuff as I go along, and it's amazing how much there is to learn. Most of it, unfortunately, has to do with the house being a financial burden in unexpected ways.
Here's an example: we had the house remodeled (put in central heating/AC, a laminate floor, and double paned windows everywhere) before moving in. When I got the first water bill on Saturday after moving in, I was stunned by how much it was. It turned out that the previous owner had put in a new lawn, and new lawns have to be watered frequently while they establish themselves. Well, they don't have to be watered that frequently after a month, which was when we bought the house, but of course, I didn't know to turn down the water frequency. Sigh.
Then there's the Radon problem. Turns out that the ground under many parts of California is radioactive. Not in a directly harmful way, but enough so that irradiated air can come up into your home, since your home has a lower pressure than the outside. Well, breathing that air can be pretty bad for you, so we have to do some radon testing. The state of California subsidizes the test, so it's only $5 for a self-test kit. But it's one of those things that nobody seems to know about (about 12% of homes are affected, so it's worth your while to get tested!) Mitigation is relatively cheap, but it's non-trivial.
On the plus side, when it was 90 degrees on Saturday and Sunday, I really enjoyed having a well-insulated and air conditioned home! Boy, it was worth every penny. And it turns out that you can sign up for the smart AC program and get regulation of your AC system at peak demand times, which is pretty cool. And of course, not being in a carpeted environment is expected to do good things for my allergies as well.
I'll get into other housing annoyances as I find them, and I'll try to keep in mind that I really do enjoy living in a house as well.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Yellowjacket Sting OWOWOW
I got stung by a stinging insect on Saturday while riding my bike. I didn't even see it, since I was descending Stevens Canyon road at well over 30mph. First I felt a burning, and then I felt my glove feel extra tight and a burning sensation. Fortunately I was headed home anyway and got home within 15 minutes. By that time, my hand had become incredibly swollen! I had been stung many times before by insects, but never had such a reaction!
What really scared me, however, was that old sting sites started popping out of my skin as my body remembered every sting, every insult inflicted upon my body by insects previously. It was scary. I went to a doctor and he didn't seemed terribly worried, but prescribed me an epipen and prednisone "just in case I wanted to take a more aggressive approach." I did take Claritin right away, since my research on the web told me I should take an anti-histamine and I had it handy.
The next day, the swelling still wasn't down, so I took Prednisone and Benadryl. It took until Monday for the swelling to come down a little, and I stopped taking prednisone then, but kept taking claritin. By Tuesday I could ride and now I'm almost perfectly normal.
I did see my allergist today, however, and she told me what I should have done. First of all, epipen is nothing more than adrenaline, and your body knows how to produce it. So the first thing I should have done was to immediately turn around and hammer up a hill at maximum heart rate to induce my body to generate adrenaline. That works for at least 15 minutes, and apparently there are stories about folks who produced enough adrenaline to eliminate any reaction whatsoever (usually those were folks running from angry beehives!). Then, I should have immediately popped benadryl and then prednisone. Apparently, the sequence of events goes like this: sting -> epipen (works within a minute, lasts about 15 minutes --- long enough to get you to a hospital) -> benadryl (works within an hour) -> prednisone (takes about 6 hours to be fully effective, but starts working after a first hour). The epipen is just to get you to a hospital where the doctors will make you pop benadryl and prednisone. Claritin works too slowly to be of use in insect sting situations. Apparently, if the doctor I saw knew what he was doing, I could have saved myself a lot of grief, and might even have averted a severe reaction. This is not the first time that made me realize that the same huge difference between programmers also leads to a huge difference between doctors.
I asked, "So why don't I just do that and not go to a hospital?" "Because you're not a doctor," came the reply.
In any case, I was warned not to get stung again within the next month (I wasn't planning on it, thank you!), and then to submit to a skin test and then start insect venom immunotherapy sessions. She also gave me a prescription for 2 more epipens, along with instructions to carry benadryl and prednisone while I'm traveling in Japan.
Followup: I'm now on allergy immunotherapy shots
Review:Schlage Keypad Locks
We've had contractors in and out of the house to remodel it before moving in on Saturday. One of the last things to do would have been to change the locks. Then on Sunday I saw Amazon advertise a fingerprint door lock, and thought, hey, that's not a bad idea --- I can go key-less, and then authorize or de-authorize users as I please.
I quickly ruled out fingerprint readers, however, since all it would take is one flat tire on the way home from work and I would not be able to get into the house on account of dirty fingers. A keypad system, however, seemed to be the ideal compromise. For the front door, I chose the dead-bolt, because I wanted locking to be an explicit decision --- I didn't want to walk out to fetch mail and then end up having to press four buttons to get back into the house. For the back, I had no choice but to go with a self-locking handled setup, since the back door didn't have a dead bolt.
Incidentally, the place to order from is factory locks. They charge a bit more, but if you order more than one lock, they'll automagically key all the locks to the same key, which is very nice. Furthermore, if you order more locks in the future from them, you can give them your order number, and they'll key the new lock to the same keys! That's worth the extra cost in my opinion. They also ship extremely fast --- I got mine in 3 days.
I got the locks today and they were installed immediately by one of our contractors. The system works as described by the manual, though programming it is a little tricky because you really have to wait for the interface feedback before proceeding --- since there's no LCD display, you have to wait for the buttons to flash or change color before you start the data entry. But the results are very slick! It's amazing how freeing it is to not have to worry about keys when I leave the house any more. It's also nice to give each contractor and/or cleaning person an individualized pin that you can then enable just for the day of their visit and delete after they're done.
One potential flaw that someone pointed out to me was that the keypad itself could become worn down after a while, and if you stick to using the same pin over and over again, it suddenly becomes apparently which keys are frequently used, so you should switch pins every so often. And then there's the problem that there's a manual key override. What this means is that the lock system combines the security flaws of both the physical keys as well as the security flaws of the keypad system. You could disable the physical key system, but then now you have no backup override if you went for a vacation and the battery on the system drained while you were gone! My take on the whole thing is that security is a massive boondoggle anyway, and the real security you have is to buy in a neighborhood with low crime, because if a really determined person wanted to take your stuff, they'd just break a window and climb in. So I'll just not worry about it.
The big flaw I can see in the system so far is that the batteries will have to be changed, and it's not an easy battery change. You basically have to unscrew the whole door knob or dead bolt to put in a new 9-V battery. If the batteries last for the specified 3 years that's not too annoying, but it does mean that you should leave a manual override key with a relative just in case you go on vacation and come back to find yourself locked out.
Despite all these flaws, this is an incredibly slick system. I really like it, and it's the first thing about buying a house that hasn't been incredibly costly and a major pain in the neck. That makes it highly recommended.
I quickly ruled out fingerprint readers, however, since all it would take is one flat tire on the way home from work and I would not be able to get into the house on account of dirty fingers. A keypad system, however, seemed to be the ideal compromise. For the front door, I chose the dead-bolt, because I wanted locking to be an explicit decision --- I didn't want to walk out to fetch mail and then end up having to press four buttons to get back into the house. For the back, I had no choice but to go with a self-locking handled setup, since the back door didn't have a dead bolt.
Incidentally, the place to order from is factory locks. They charge a bit more, but if you order more than one lock, they'll automagically key all the locks to the same key, which is very nice. Furthermore, if you order more locks in the future from them, you can give them your order number, and they'll key the new lock to the same keys! That's worth the extra cost in my opinion. They also ship extremely fast --- I got mine in 3 days.
I got the locks today and they were installed immediately by one of our contractors. The system works as described by the manual, though programming it is a little tricky because you really have to wait for the interface feedback before proceeding --- since there's no LCD display, you have to wait for the buttons to flash or change color before you start the data entry. But the results are very slick! It's amazing how freeing it is to not have to worry about keys when I leave the house any more. It's also nice to give each contractor and/or cleaning person an individualized pin that you can then enable just for the day of their visit and delete after they're done.
One potential flaw that someone pointed out to me was that the keypad itself could become worn down after a while, and if you stick to using the same pin over and over again, it suddenly becomes apparently which keys are frequently used, so you should switch pins every so often. And then there's the problem that there's a manual key override. What this means is that the lock system combines the security flaws of both the physical keys as well as the security flaws of the keypad system. You could disable the physical key system, but then now you have no backup override if you went for a vacation and the battery on the system drained while you were gone! My take on the whole thing is that security is a massive boondoggle anyway, and the real security you have is to buy in a neighborhood with low crime, because if a really determined person wanted to take your stuff, they'd just break a window and climb in. So I'll just not worry about it.
The big flaw I can see in the system so far is that the batteries will have to be changed, and it's not an easy battery change. You basically have to unscrew the whole door knob or dead bolt to put in a new 9-V battery. If the batteries last for the specified 3 years that's not too annoying, but it does mean that you should leave a manual override key with a relative just in case you go on vacation and come back to find yourself locked out.
Despite all these flaws, this is an incredibly slick system. I really like it, and it's the first thing about buying a house that hasn't been incredibly costly and a major pain in the neck. That makes it highly recommended.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Management
Reed Hastings and I had a conversation in April to catch up. I was reminded of it again when his presentation on corporate culture came to circulate around various social networks. One of the questions Reed asked me at the time we had the discussion was whether I had any thoughts about management in the valley, having worked at more startups than he had (and also being in the less enviable position of not being the CEO at any of the startups).
One thing that conversation did was to get me thinking about the academic model of management that Google espouses. When I say management, I'm really talking about promotions, because that's how company culture reinforces its values (slide 7 in Reed's presentation). In 2004, I was an enthusiastic supporter of the academic peer-driven model. It felt much better than having a manager evaluate an individual contributor --- that model, I felt, always risked the problem of having a manager that was susceptible to brown-nosing. By the end of last year, however, I was seeing weaknesses in the academic model, many of which are articulated better than I ever could in The Trouble with Physics. In particular, what I saw was that certain types of problem-solvers and approaches were systematically under-valued --- and in many ways it's better to be someone who puts out fires than someone who prevents them from happening in the first place (note that it's not just the academic model that has this problem --- the top down model also does this --- in many large organizations, it's far better to quietly prepare a fire-fighting scheme if you see a fire happening than to try to prevent fires). The problem was that I couldn't see a better model, despite all the weaknesses of the peer-driven model. Like Democracy, I thought, the peer-driven model was the worst one in the world, except for all the others.
Reed told me he was a big fan of the traditional top-down model well done. The problem was that at startups (or even most big companies), I had yet to see the traditional top-down model well done. I frequently saw yes-men type middle management who couldn't say no to senior management, and all too frequently talent ignored in favor of hiring yet another manager from outside (something that startups do all too frequently). So I started asking around. I was struck by an insider's explanation of how Silos were broken down at Microsoft: the top 50 or so managers were called "partners", and their compensation was not at all related to their areas of influence, control, expertise, or title. Their compensation was tied completely to how the company performed, which basically made it so that all partners would help each other out if it was important to the company. That's a fascinating approach to solving the Silo problem, and to me, anyway, it provides an alternative to the academic peer-driven model that I saw as being imperfect. The problem is that the top down model still depends very much on having good managers. Even having had the luck to have exceptionally good managers at Google and elsewhere, I still run into enough poor managers at otherwise high quality places to believe that management hiring is anything but a crap-shoot at best --- no amount of interviewing will tell you that this guy who's a super-star on his resume is actually going to lead all your good people to leave over the next 5 years because of the way he plays favorites amongst his reports. This is why I believe that startups should grow managers from inside if at all possible. As Andy Grove once wrote: "People often complain that when you turn a great engineer into a manager, you get a mediocre manager and lose a great engineer. But think about the alternative? What message do you send if you pass over the smartest folks on your team in favor of someone from outside?"
In any case, I see the Netflix culture document as Reed's expression of his ideal approach to management --- it's another data-point in how to approach the fundamental problem of how a company organizes itself. There're also many ways of doing it wrong --- the worst of which is to pick a model that doesn't fit your management style and then coming across as hypocritical to all employees.
Ultimately, however, one must bear in mind that these discussions are moot if the business is unsuccessful --- that Google, Netflix, and Microsoft have to contend with these organizational headaches is a good sign --- failed businesses never have to worry about scale.
One thing that conversation did was to get me thinking about the academic model of management that Google espouses. When I say management, I'm really talking about promotions, because that's how company culture reinforces its values (slide 7 in Reed's presentation). In 2004, I was an enthusiastic supporter of the academic peer-driven model. It felt much better than having a manager evaluate an individual contributor --- that model, I felt, always risked the problem of having a manager that was susceptible to brown-nosing. By the end of last year, however, I was seeing weaknesses in the academic model, many of which are articulated better than I ever could in The Trouble with Physics. In particular, what I saw was that certain types of problem-solvers and approaches were systematically under-valued --- and in many ways it's better to be someone who puts out fires than someone who prevents them from happening in the first place (note that it's not just the academic model that has this problem --- the top down model also does this --- in many large organizations, it's far better to quietly prepare a fire-fighting scheme if you see a fire happening than to try to prevent fires). The problem was that I couldn't see a better model, despite all the weaknesses of the peer-driven model. Like Democracy, I thought, the peer-driven model was the worst one in the world, except for all the others.
Reed told me he was a big fan of the traditional top-down model well done. The problem was that at startups (or even most big companies), I had yet to see the traditional top-down model well done. I frequently saw yes-men type middle management who couldn't say no to senior management, and all too frequently talent ignored in favor of hiring yet another manager from outside (something that startups do all too frequently). So I started asking around. I was struck by an insider's explanation of how Silos were broken down at Microsoft: the top 50 or so managers were called "partners", and their compensation was not at all related to their areas of influence, control, expertise, or title. Their compensation was tied completely to how the company performed, which basically made it so that all partners would help each other out if it was important to the company. That's a fascinating approach to solving the Silo problem, and to me, anyway, it provides an alternative to the academic peer-driven model that I saw as being imperfect. The problem is that the top down model still depends very much on having good managers. Even having had the luck to have exceptionally good managers at Google and elsewhere, I still run into enough poor managers at otherwise high quality places to believe that management hiring is anything but a crap-shoot at best --- no amount of interviewing will tell you that this guy who's a super-star on his resume is actually going to lead all your good people to leave over the next 5 years because of the way he plays favorites amongst his reports. This is why I believe that startups should grow managers from inside if at all possible. As Andy Grove once wrote: "People often complain that when you turn a great engineer into a manager, you get a mediocre manager and lose a great engineer. But think about the alternative? What message do you send if you pass over the smartest folks on your team in favor of someone from outside?"
In any case, I see the Netflix culture document as Reed's expression of his ideal approach to management --- it's another data-point in how to approach the fundamental problem of how a company organizes itself. There're also many ways of doing it wrong --- the worst of which is to pick a model that doesn't fit your management style and then coming across as hypocritical to all employees.
Ultimately, however, one must bear in mind that these discussions are moot if the business is unsuccessful --- that Google, Netflix, and Microsoft have to contend with these organizational headaches is a good sign --- failed businesses never have to worry about scale.
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Gazos Creek Loop
Only Brooks Sizemore was interested in this ride, so I meet him at the corner of Homestead & Foothill at 9:35am. He was joined by 3 other friends, and we rode together up Redwood Gulch on what turned out to be a surprisingly warm day. At the top of Highway 9, the others said goodbye to us and we proceeded down 9. Traffic was unusually heavy down 9 and 236, and indeed when we arrived at Big Basin State Park HQ there was a massive traffic jam.
We filled up our water bottles, ate some bars, and then proceeded down to Gazos Creek road, the highlight of the ride. It's a wide double-track fire road, and in the summer it gets quite loose and dusty, but it's a nice shaded easy grade with no traffic --- until we got past the second gate and ran into the first of two BMWs driving up the road. I guess it can't be too steep if BMWs can drive up it!
The road then got a little steep and gravelly, and in places my bike fish-tailed around a bit as I hit gravel and sand together --- the toughest part was how rough it was, and there were moments when I started seeing triple because I was being bounced around quite a bit.
I kept waiting for the steep and tough part that I remember from many years ago --- dust that came up to ankle deep so I was forced to walk, but it looks like the road had been regraded and we made it all the way down to the pavement without any need to walk whatsoever. The paved part of Gazos Creek road was really pretty, which surprised me --- I had no recollection of doing it before, having done it last about 10 years ago.
Brooks was hungry and had brought no food, so we headed to Pescadero where there was again another traffic jam and we proceeded to wolf down a loaf of that Garlic-Artichoke bread. After that we headed over to North road, and made an easy climb out of Haskins hill and West Alpine before descending Page Mill road. From the top of West Alpine, we could tell it was getting late in the afternoon as we could see fog coming in from the coast, slowly covering up the coastal hills.
I got home around 5:30pm, making it an elapsed 8 hours. A challenging ride with 82 miles, 8091' of climb, 7 hours saddle time, and interesting scenery. Recommended for those who have decent enough bike handling skills for the 11 miles of unpaved fire road portion of Gazos Creek Road. Folks will tell you that 28mm tires are required, but Brooks had 23mm tires and I only had 25mm tires.
We filled up our water bottles, ate some bars, and then proceeded down to Gazos Creek road, the highlight of the ride. It's a wide double-track fire road, and in the summer it gets quite loose and dusty, but it's a nice shaded easy grade with no traffic --- until we got past the second gate and ran into the first of two BMWs driving up the road. I guess it can't be too steep if BMWs can drive up it!
The road then got a little steep and gravelly, and in places my bike fish-tailed around a bit as I hit gravel and sand together --- the toughest part was how rough it was, and there were moments when I started seeing triple because I was being bounced around quite a bit.
I kept waiting for the steep and tough part that I remember from many years ago --- dust that came up to ankle deep so I was forced to walk, but it looks like the road had been regraded and we made it all the way down to the pavement without any need to walk whatsoever. The paved part of Gazos Creek road was really pretty, which surprised me --- I had no recollection of doing it before, having done it last about 10 years ago.
Brooks was hungry and had brought no food, so we headed to Pescadero where there was again another traffic jam and we proceeded to wolf down a loaf of that Garlic-Artichoke bread. After that we headed over to North road, and made an easy climb out of Haskins hill and West Alpine before descending Page Mill road. From the top of West Alpine, we could tell it was getting late in the afternoon as we could see fog coming in from the coast, slowly covering up the coastal hills.
I got home around 5:30pm, making it an elapsed 8 hours. A challenging ride with 82 miles, 8091' of climb, 7 hours saddle time, and interesting scenery. Recommended for those who have decent enough bike handling skills for the 11 miles of unpaved fire road portion of Gazos Creek Road. Folks will tell you that 28mm tires are required, but Brooks had 23mm tires and I only had 25mm tires.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Comments Vampirism and the Segregation of Communities
The last few days have been interesting experiments in the nature of social networking and social networking sites. I mostly write my mid-length articles on my blog, which gets syndicated to FriendFeed and Facebook. The problem is, the two communities are mostly disjoint, and each has their own comments mechanism and database, so the two never meet.
Take for instance, my recent blog post on Politics. It has 1 comment on the blog proper, two comments over at friendfeed, and two comments on Facebook. And none of them talk to each other. Might we have had a more interesting discussion if somehow everything went into one comment database? I'll never know, but I know for sure I'm irritated at having comments split between my blog and 2 social networking sites with no ability to consolidate them or having them indexed by Google, unlike the comments on this blog!
What's good about comments on the social networking sites is that I never have to moderate them (or at least, I haven't had to do so yet), since they only get written to by my friends. The blog itself does get semi-frequent bouts of link-spamming, which is why I have moderation turned on, but what I really want is a service that will consolidate all the comments together in one place and allow a true conversation to take place, regardless of whether you're coming through a social network or through a Google search. Let's think a bit about what features such a service would have:
I'm sure there are other nice things to have such as threading, direct messages, etc., but since I don't run a high traffic blog, just those 4 features would make my blog more useful to my friends, and go a long way towards having real conversations on the web be interesting. Of course, with Facebook's policy of running a walled garden, I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for someone to implement this.
Take for instance, my recent blog post on Politics. It has 1 comment on the blog proper, two comments over at friendfeed, and two comments on Facebook. And none of them talk to each other. Might we have had a more interesting discussion if somehow everything went into one comment database? I'll never know, but I know for sure I'm irritated at having comments split between my blog and 2 social networking sites with no ability to consolidate them or having them indexed by Google, unlike the comments on this blog!
What's good about comments on the social networking sites is that I never have to moderate them (or at least, I haven't had to do so yet), since they only get written to by my friends. The blog itself does get semi-frequent bouts of link-spamming, which is why I have moderation turned on, but what I really want is a service that will consolidate all the comments together in one place and allow a true conversation to take place, regardless of whether you're coming through a social network or through a Google search. Let's think a bit about what features such a service would have:
- Multiple moderation modes: I'd be happy to leave Facebook comments unmoderated, and moderate Friendfeed entries after the fact, but the blog has to have comments vetted since it frequently gets spam.
- Comment mirroring: all the comments from one social network or the blog would get mirrored to all the other social networks. That way, a conversation can happen between folks who aren't signed onto the same social networks, with my blog as the common link. Conversely, if I delete a spam entry, I want all the networks to mirror that deletion as well.
- Identification: I would like to be able to see, "Hey, so and so replied to me from Facebook --- he must have a Facebook account, and I forgot to add him to my friend list, so I'll go do it now."
I'm sure there are other nice things to have such as threading, direct messages, etc., but since I don't run a high traffic blog, just those 4 features would make my blog more useful to my friends, and go a long way towards having real conversations on the web be interesting. Of course, with Facebook's policy of running a walled garden, I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for someone to implement this.
Review: Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream - A Day in the Life of Your Body
Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream is Jennifer Ackerman's science book about your body over a 24 hour period. Amongst the many topics, it discusses the circadian rhythm, how brains, stomach, muscles, and sleep works, all in a very general but literate way (you can tell Ackerman was an English major).
The unfortunate side effect of all that literacy is that Ackerman frequently digresses into personal details, so much of the book talks about her family, her memories, and everything else.
As far as the scientific details are concerned, this book reminds me very much of I am Joe's Body, an extremely high level introduction to the biology of the human body, though clearly Ackerman writes for a much higher level of reading skill than Reader's Digest.
Unfortunately, the result of such broad coverage is shallow-ness. You certainly don't get the in-depth study of sleep seen in The Promise of Sleep, and the section on multi-tasking is no better than what I read in Traffic. This is very unfortunate, since every new fact she came up with I feel like I'd read already in some New York Times article (like the one about exercise actually improving your ability to think) or some other book.
I guess if you're not a science junkie like me, this book might give you something new. Otherwise, give it a pass.
The unfortunate side effect of all that literacy is that Ackerman frequently digresses into personal details, so much of the book talks about her family, her memories, and everything else.
As far as the scientific details are concerned, this book reminds me very much of I am Joe's Body, an extremely high level introduction to the biology of the human body, though clearly Ackerman writes for a much higher level of reading skill than Reader's Digest.
Unfortunately, the result of such broad coverage is shallow-ness. You certainly don't get the in-depth study of sleep seen in The Promise of Sleep, and the section on multi-tasking is no better than what I read in Traffic. This is very unfortunate, since every new fact she came up with I feel like I'd read already in some New York Times article (like the one about exercise actually improving your ability to think) or some other book.
I guess if you're not a science junkie like me, this book might give you something new. Otherwise, give it a pass.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Hubs
Recently, Pardo and I found a click-click-click noise in my 3.5 year Shimano DuraAce 7700 freehub. While it was well past the warranty period, this wheel had only about 10000 miles on it, and was never ridden in the rain, so while we took it apart, overhauled it, immersed the freehub driver in bio-diesel, and re-lubricated everything, we discussed what other hubs would have lower maintenance but still remain relatively light.
The lowest maintenance hubs out there are probably the Phil Wood FSA hubs. As Pardo says, "Cheap, durable, light, pick any two. Oh wait, the Phils are just durable. They're expensive and heavy." But nothing beats Phils for durability --- I bought a pair in 1993, rode them for 10 years or so, and sold them in 2005 for $10 less than what I paid for them. Yes, there's inflation, etc., involved, but still, that's pretty darn good.
Then we looked at another important factor, which is the rear hub flange spacing. To check out the numbers, download Spocalc, and try playing with wR on the rear hub. Then observe how the difference between left and right spoke tensions change as you increase or decrease the distance the right flange is from the center of the axle. A decrease from 20mm to 16mm (just 4mm) results in the right side tension dropping from about 75% of the left side tension to 50%. That's almost 30% loss in strength, which is directly related to the total tension in the spokes on the wheel. (You have less overall tension in the wheel when you can't tighten up the right side spokes)
So we took a survey of various hubs using information we could find online (these are all 130mm cassette hubs):
Yes, for wheel strength, Shimano rules, and Campagnolo sucks. This is by design --- Campagnolo designed their cassettes to require more space on the right side of the hub, which meant that for any given model of hub, the Campy version of the hub is weaker than the Shimano version. But you can see when it comes to actual hub implementation, nobody can touch Shimano. A wheel built using the Campagnolo hub is weaker than one using the same hub and spokes and built using either of the Shimano hubs listed here. (Note that there's quite a bit of variation among Shimano hubs, so it's not enough to just use a Shimano hub, you have to use a good one)
No, this doesn't mean that non-Shimano hubs completely suck. If you build with off-center rims (OC), they help you regain some of that lost strength, which means that it doesn't matter as much that your hubs' right flange isn't optimal (in fact, if you're running Campy wheels, you have to run OC rims to have any wheel strength at all). On the other hand, you can build with a Shimano hub and an OC rim, and that'll be even stronger! In exchange, however, you do have to overhaul Shimano hubs every 5000 miles or so, and until the 7900 debut, you have to deal with cone wrenches and hub pre-load adjustment, which I consider a major pain in the neck! I haven't seen the 7900s yet, so I don't know how much of the "you no longer need cone wrenches" part is marketing.
On the plus side, Shimano hubs do look pretty good, roll nice and smoothly when properly maintained, and have a very quiet ratchet (I'm do like how quiet the freehub is --- you can barely hear it if you're rolling along in a quiet neighborhood).
Obviously, even Shimano hubs can be badly built into wheels, so ultimately good wheel-building technique still trumps all, but given how much time it takes to build a good wheel, you might as well start with the hub that gives you the best results given your effort.
The lowest maintenance hubs out there are probably the Phil Wood FSA hubs. As Pardo says, "Cheap, durable, light, pick any two. Oh wait, the Phils are just durable. They're expensive and heavy." But nothing beats Phils for durability --- I bought a pair in 1993, rode them for 10 years or so, and sold them in 2005 for $10 less than what I paid for them. Yes, there's inflation, etc., involved, but still, that's pretty darn good.
Then we looked at another important factor, which is the rear hub flange spacing. To check out the numbers, download Spocalc, and try playing with wR on the rear hub. Then observe how the difference between left and right spoke tensions change as you increase or decrease the distance the right flange is from the center of the axle. A decrease from 20mm to 16mm (just 4mm) results in the right side tension dropping from about 75% of the left side tension to 50%. That's almost 30% loss in strength, which is directly related to the total tension in the spokes on the wheel. (You have less overall tension in the wheel when you can't tighten up the right side spokes)
So we took a survey of various hubs using information we could find online (these are all 130mm cassette hubs):
| Hub | wR (mm) | Shimano 7700 | 21.1 |
|---|---|
| Shimano 7800 | 20.55 |
| Phil Wood Touring | 18 |
| Chris King | 18.5 |
| White Industries H2 | 18 |
| DT Swiss 240s | 17 |
| Campy Record 2007 | 15.2 |
Yes, for wheel strength, Shimano rules, and Campagnolo sucks. This is by design --- Campagnolo designed their cassettes to require more space on the right side of the hub, which meant that for any given model of hub, the Campy version of the hub is weaker than the Shimano version. But you can see when it comes to actual hub implementation, nobody can touch Shimano. A wheel built using the Campagnolo hub is weaker than one using the same hub and spokes and built using either of the Shimano hubs listed here. (Note that there's quite a bit of variation among Shimano hubs, so it's not enough to just use a Shimano hub, you have to use a good one)
No, this doesn't mean that non-Shimano hubs completely suck. If you build with off-center rims (OC), they help you regain some of that lost strength, which means that it doesn't matter as much that your hubs' right flange isn't optimal (in fact, if you're running Campy wheels, you have to run OC rims to have any wheel strength at all). On the other hand, you can build with a Shimano hub and an OC rim, and that'll be even stronger! In exchange, however, you do have to overhaul Shimano hubs every 5000 miles or so, and until the 7900 debut, you have to deal with cone wrenches and hub pre-load adjustment, which I consider a major pain in the neck! I haven't seen the 7900s yet, so I don't know how much of the "you no longer need cone wrenches" part is marketing.
On the plus side, Shimano hubs do look pretty good, roll nice and smoothly when properly maintained, and have a very quiet ratchet (I'm do like how quiet the freehub is --- you can barely hear it if you're rolling along in a quiet neighborhood).
Obviously, even Shimano hubs can be badly built into wheels, so ultimately good wheel-building technique still trumps all, but given how much time it takes to build a good wheel, you might as well start with the hub that gives you the best results given your effort.
More Right Wing Stupidity
Ben Stein suggests that providing healthcare is the province of charity and the states:
I am bound to say I feel queasy even writing this, because I do sincerely feel it is wrong for the poor not to have good medical care. But maybe this is the province of the states or of charity. Maybe it is something that can be worked out without the federal government dictating terms to the affluent. Maybe as important as health care is, individual freedom and private property are indispensable, too. The whole subject is almost terrifying.
Just as one person, I would give a lot to charity to save my family and the future from this kind of redistribution that could mean eliminating freedom and devastating the financial plans of the most productive among us.
The states are pretty much tapped out. Total charitable contributions in 2007 was $307 billion (and it's gone down since). The Medicare budget for 2007 was $394 billion. And that leaves the 40+ million Americans uninsured!
That's right, you could direct all the charitable contributions into healthcare, and not come close to even being able to sustain Medicare. That's right wing ideology for you --- ignorance of facts, and inability to look at numbers --- jingoism and free-market ideology will get us through!
I am bound to say I feel queasy even writing this, because I do sincerely feel it is wrong for the poor not to have good medical care. But maybe this is the province of the states or of charity. Maybe it is something that can be worked out without the federal government dictating terms to the affluent. Maybe as important as health care is, individual freedom and private property are indispensable, too. The whole subject is almost terrifying.
Just as one person, I would give a lot to charity to save my family and the future from this kind of redistribution that could mean eliminating freedom and devastating the financial plans of the most productive among us.
The states are pretty much tapped out. Total charitable contributions in 2007 was $307 billion (and it's gone down since). The Medicare budget for 2007 was $394 billion. And that leaves the 40+ million Americans uninsured!
That's right, you could direct all the charitable contributions into healthcare, and not come close to even being able to sustain Medicare. That's right wing ideology for you --- ignorance of facts, and inability to look at numbers --- jingoism and free-market ideology will get us through!
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Review: ProBar High Performance Nutrition Bar
Cynthia Wong recommended this bar to me, despite it being extremely expensive. Since she's almost as much of a cheap-skate as I am, I bought an entire box, figuring that if I didn't like it I could sell it to her. (Plus, I'm a sucker for Banana flavored anything --- I love bananas!)
I tried it yesterday on a short ride with 42 miles and 5300' of climb. The bar is small and compact, which is great if you're trying to carry a lot of calories in a small package (each bar is 380 calories) The first impression you get when you bite and chew is that wow, this thing has great flavor. The next impression is, "wow, it's kinda dry, good thing I'm next to a water fountain." It does have honey in it, so it's not completely dry, but there's enough food that you have to down it with a significant amount of water, so it's not a good choice on a really hot day if water supplies are far and few between. Lisa liked the flavor, but found that she couldn't finish it all in one go during a short hike, because of the amount of chewing required, and the dryness.
All in all, the bar is not terribly cost effective --- most food bars a $1/200 calories, and this one is more like $1/165 calories. On the other hand, it tastes pretty good and is nice and compact (3oz/bar) for high calorie density, so I expect that I'll be using it on tours when energy density is a prime requirement and water is plentiful.
I tried it yesterday on a short ride with 42 miles and 5300' of climb. The bar is small and compact, which is great if you're trying to carry a lot of calories in a small package (each bar is 380 calories) The first impression you get when you bite and chew is that wow, this thing has great flavor. The next impression is, "wow, it's kinda dry, good thing I'm next to a water fountain." It does have honey in it, so it's not completely dry, but there's enough food that you have to down it with a significant amount of water, so it's not a good choice on a really hot day if water supplies are far and few between. Lisa liked the flavor, but found that she couldn't finish it all in one go during a short hike, because of the amount of chewing required, and the dryness.
All in all, the bar is not terribly cost effective --- most food bars a $1/200 calories, and this one is more like $1/165 calories. On the other hand, it tastes pretty good and is nice and compact (3oz/bar) for high calorie density, so I expect that I'll be using it on tours when energy density is a prime requirement and water is plentiful.
Politics
I once dated a lady who told me that politics is for young people. "Older people," she said, "have no time for it." Yet I've found for myself that as I get older, I become more concerned about it, and not just because Healthcare and Health Insurance Policy affects me deeply and personally.
A colleague and I were having dinner the other day, and he complained to me that his significant other wasn't taking her impending job loss seriously, either by searching for another job, or starting her own business. My response, "Well, I used to puzzle over that, and then I realized that I went to school working two jobs rather than taking on debt, while others were happy to go to school full time, and I take vacations that are ambitious and difficult. The number of people in the world willing to work as hard or hustle as much as you and I are is very limited, which is why when I meet them I am willing to invest in them."
When Pengtoh and I were roommates in college, he was on a scholarship while I was working my way through school. He and I started doing system administration in Silicon Valley as a side-job --- we would drive down in the evenings around 7pm, and work till 6am setting up workstations for Crescendo Communications, which would pay us $20/hour. I would then stagger into the class I was the TA for (I was an undergraduate TA) at 8am with bloodshot eyes and graded papers, scaring the heck out of my students.
With that kind of background, you would think that I would grow up to be one of those wild-eyed libertarians, and to be honest, I've had one date accuse me of being a Republican during our first date (needless to say, we didn't have a second). But the truth is, what I've noticed is that it's usually the white, over-privileged types that become Libertarians, not those of us who struggled and hustled like mad when we were younger.
The reason is that most of us who were under-privileged were grateful to our lucky breaks. In my case, the Pell grant paid for my first year's tution, and the work-study program paid for my second year's, whereupon I had built up enough credit and reputation (together with a half year's paid internship) to land both the gigs I discussed above, and then a career in Silicon Valley. Without those breaks, my life would have been even tougher.
The federal government and the state of California invested in my brothers and I in terms of our education (Berkeley's tuition is an incredible bargain). At this point, that investment has paid off hundreds of times, maybe even thousands, in terms of taxes we've paid back to the state and to the federal government. That's one reason why when several folks I knew were fleeing for lower-tax regimes, I didn't feel like I had to join them (the other reason was --- if I'm rich enough to retire, I'm going to do it some place where the weather is actually decent --- you're not rich if you can't afford good weather so you can go cycling/sailing/hiking year round).
What amazes me, though, is that the Libertarian party line seems to be that investing in smart, under-privileged people (in other words, people who are under-valued by the market) is considered robbing the deservedly wealthy to giveaway to the undeserving poor, rather than investing in under-valued properties that has potentially high returns (sure, not all such investments make back the money --- but just like with startups, you only need one such good investment per hundred to pay off all the non-performing ones). No wonder Libertarians have given up on Democracy! With that kind of anti-social attitudes, no wonder so many of them dream of building their own country --- they have to, because if they moved to a tax-haven, their own body guards would be tempted to murder them. I'm going to be very entertained to see if such Libertarian paradises work out (I suspect they won't, unless they're simply monarchies owned by the "libertarian").
What amuses me more is that many Libertarians try to hide their anti-social attitudes (which is really more like, "I've made my millions, screw you!") by posing as defenders of freedom. I grew up in Singapore --- I've seen what it's like in a totalitarian society --- the people who defend freedom are the ones going to jail there, not these posers, who're really only out to cut taxes on themselves. They certainly aren't the ones speaking out on behalf of civil liberties, and are in fact, frequently complain that giving women the vote was a bad idea.
I had a conversation with Brad Delong a few years ago when he visited Google. I asked him if he had any hypothesis on the number of libertarian programmers out there. He had what I think was a very plausible theory: "There is a need for a 23-year old to justify his sudden wealth. It's against his ego and self-image to imagine that he had been lucky, somehow he must deserve it." Hence, I call Libertarianism a religion --- it makes you feel good about yourself, gives you justification to consider outsiders worthless, and makes you think that democracy is a terrible idea and theocracy is a better one. Too bad the recent financial crisis has given the lie to the free market ideology.
A colleague and I were having dinner the other day, and he complained to me that his significant other wasn't taking her impending job loss seriously, either by searching for another job, or starting her own business. My response, "Well, I used to puzzle over that, and then I realized that I went to school working two jobs rather than taking on debt, while others were happy to go to school full time, and I take vacations that are ambitious and difficult. The number of people in the world willing to work as hard or hustle as much as you and I are is very limited, which is why when I meet them I am willing to invest in them."
When Pengtoh and I were roommates in college, he was on a scholarship while I was working my way through school. He and I started doing system administration in Silicon Valley as a side-job --- we would drive down in the evenings around 7pm, and work till 6am setting up workstations for Crescendo Communications, which would pay us $20/hour. I would then stagger into the class I was the TA for (I was an undergraduate TA) at 8am with bloodshot eyes and graded papers, scaring the heck out of my students.
With that kind of background, you would think that I would grow up to be one of those wild-eyed libertarians, and to be honest, I've had one date accuse me of being a Republican during our first date (needless to say, we didn't have a second). But the truth is, what I've noticed is that it's usually the white, over-privileged types that become Libertarians, not those of us who struggled and hustled like mad when we were younger.
The reason is that most of us who were under-privileged were grateful to our lucky breaks. In my case, the Pell grant paid for my first year's tution, and the work-study program paid for my second year's, whereupon I had built up enough credit and reputation (together with a half year's paid internship) to land both the gigs I discussed above, and then a career in Silicon Valley. Without those breaks, my life would have been even tougher.
The federal government and the state of California invested in my brothers and I in terms of our education (Berkeley's tuition is an incredible bargain). At this point, that investment has paid off hundreds of times, maybe even thousands, in terms of taxes we've paid back to the state and to the federal government. That's one reason why when several folks I knew were fleeing for lower-tax regimes, I didn't feel like I had to join them (the other reason was --- if I'm rich enough to retire, I'm going to do it some place where the weather is actually decent --- you're not rich if you can't afford good weather so you can go cycling/sailing/hiking year round).
What amazes me, though, is that the Libertarian party line seems to be that investing in smart, under-privileged people (in other words, people who are under-valued by the market) is considered robbing the deservedly wealthy to giveaway to the undeserving poor, rather than investing in under-valued properties that has potentially high returns (sure, not all such investments make back the money --- but just like with startups, you only need one such good investment per hundred to pay off all the non-performing ones). No wonder Libertarians have given up on Democracy! With that kind of anti-social attitudes, no wonder so many of them dream of building their own country --- they have to, because if they moved to a tax-haven, their own body guards would be tempted to murder them. I'm going to be very entertained to see if such Libertarian paradises work out (I suspect they won't, unless they're simply monarchies owned by the "libertarian").
What amuses me more is that many Libertarians try to hide their anti-social attitudes (which is really more like, "I've made my millions, screw you!") by posing as defenders of freedom. I grew up in Singapore --- I've seen what it's like in a totalitarian society --- the people who defend freedom are the ones going to jail there, not these posers, who're really only out to cut taxes on themselves. They certainly aren't the ones speaking out on behalf of civil liberties, and are in fact, frequently complain that giving women the vote was a bad idea.
I had a conversation with Brad Delong a few years ago when he visited Google. I asked him if he had any hypothesis on the number of libertarian programmers out there. He had what I think was a very plausible theory: "There is a need for a 23-year old to justify his sudden wealth. It's against his ego and self-image to imagine that he had been lucky, somehow he must deserve it." Hence, I call Libertarianism a religion --- it makes you feel good about yourself, gives you justification to consider outsiders worthless, and makes you think that democracy is a terrible idea and theocracy is a better one. Too bad the recent financial crisis has given the lie to the free market ideology.
Review: The Language of Power
The Language of Power is the latest in Rosemary Kirstein's imaginary future Earth. As with the previous books, it advances the overall plot only by a little bit, which seems to be Kirstein's modus operandi. I guess she's hoping to milk this series all the way to retirement age (and maybe beyond, if that's Robert Jordan's is what the trend is with novels).
This time, Rowan, the scientist/adventurer/protagonist heroine of the series settles in a city to do research on who the leader of the wizards is. While doing so, she encounters an old friend, and finally gets exposure to what she thinks of as magic, but the reader realizes is just technology too advanced for a world of fantasy.
What annoys me about this series is that every book reveals more questions than it answers, and the reveals are rather parsimonious with respect to the overall plot. A few more books like this and I'm going to start pining for the days when books weren't trilogies.
This time, Rowan, the scientist/adventurer/protagonist heroine of the series settles in a city to do research on who the leader of the wizards is. While doing so, she encounters an old friend, and finally gets exposure to what she thinks of as magic, but the reader realizes is just technology too advanced for a world of fantasy.
What annoys me about this series is that every book reveals more questions than it answers, and the reveals are rather parsimonious with respect to the overall plot. A few more books like this and I'm going to start pining for the days when books weren't trilogies.
Review: After the Software Wars
After the Software Wars is Keith Curtis' book (with free download) about the future of software. In this case, you pretty much get what you pay for.
The first section of the book is interesting --- Curtis believes that the the software field will only progress when software is open-sourced and GPL'd. His argument is that today's software industry is a lot like alchemists in the middle-ages: all sorts of software techniques are considered secrets, and so very little information occurs --- that means improvements don't accumulate from company to company, and one discovery doesn't benefit the next engineer since it's either buried and embedded in a product that you don't have source code to, or it's documented but the source code is not available.
I definitely believe in this theory, since one reason gtags was open sourced was so that I would never have to re-create the code again, if I were ever to work for another company with a huge source base. I don't believe that this means that GPL software is destined to takeover, however --- we've had Linux for well over 15 years, and Linux still isn't something I could give my mom to use, and printing is still a disaster for me in the office.
If he stopped there, I think it would have made a great web article or blog entry. But like many newly converted, he gets carried away with grand visions and soon goes into irrelevancies like Space Elevators and Carbon Nanotubes. He then proceeds to destroy all his credibility by pontificating on his favorite subject, the religion of Libertarianism (which some day I'll write more about).
All in all, this book is not worth paying money for, and I've summarized the most important part of the book so you can skip it. But since the download is free, if you have a Kindle, go ahead and download it and skim the relevant parts. Not recommended.
The first section of the book is interesting --- Curtis believes that the the software field will only progress when software is open-sourced and GPL'd. His argument is that today's software industry is a lot like alchemists in the middle-ages: all sorts of software techniques are considered secrets, and so very little information occurs --- that means improvements don't accumulate from company to company, and one discovery doesn't benefit the next engineer since it's either buried and embedded in a product that you don't have source code to, or it's documented but the source code is not available.
I definitely believe in this theory, since one reason gtags was open sourced was so that I would never have to re-create the code again, if I were ever to work for another company with a huge source base. I don't believe that this means that GPL software is destined to takeover, however --- we've had Linux for well over 15 years, and Linux still isn't something I could give my mom to use, and printing is still a disaster for me in the office.
If he stopped there, I think it would have made a great web article or blog entry. But like many newly converted, he gets carried away with grand visions and soon goes into irrelevancies like Space Elevators and Carbon Nanotubes. He then proceeds to destroy all his credibility by pontificating on his favorite subject, the religion of Libertarianism (which some day I'll write more about).
All in all, this book is not worth paying money for, and I've summarized the most important part of the book so you can skip it. But since the download is free, if you have a Kindle, go ahead and download it and skim the relevant parts. Not recommended.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Review: Virtuality
Virtuality was Ron Moore's post-Battlestar pilot. It provides an interesting view of space travel, and characteristically enough, uses known technology to portray an exploration of the universe --- no obvious laws of physics were broken in the movie, which by itself makes it almost unique!
As with Battlestar Galactica, the use of negative spaces in the movie is prevalent --- reality-tv like filming techniques are used throughout the entire movie, which lends the movie a very immediate experience. What's fascinating to me is that the traditional movie-making approach is only used inside the virtual reality-experiences, heightening the viewer's dislocation and discomfort with distinguishing what is real and what is not --- which is probably one of the points Ron Moore is getting at.
I think this movie's very much worth watching, though it does (like any good TV pilot would) leave you wanting more.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Review: The Lost Steersman
The Lost Steersman is Rosemary Kirstein's third book about her fantasy universe which is really set far in the future, after an unknown form of environmental catastrophe has hit the planet.
As with a lot of science fiction, the characters really are wooden. In particular, the protagonist, Rowan, seems all too easily deceived, despite her previous experiences. And after the build up of the past two novels, we're hoping to get some resolution to many of the questions --- what are the wizards, and why did they do what they do? What are the demons? Are they robots? How did the steerswomen get founded.
One of those questions gets answered, but not very well, and and the others --- let's just say that at this point, I feel like Kirstein is dragging this out to be a fifty book series --- the reveals are coming way too slowly for the overall plot to move very fast and for reader satisfaction.
I will probably read the next book in the series, but only by checking it out from the library.
As with a lot of science fiction, the characters really are wooden. In particular, the protagonist, Rowan, seems all too easily deceived, despite her previous experiences. And after the build up of the past two novels, we're hoping to get some resolution to many of the questions --- what are the wizards, and why did they do what they do? What are the demons? Are they robots? How did the steerswomen get founded.
One of those questions gets answered, but not very well, and and the others --- let's just say that at this point, I feel like Kirstein is dragging this out to be a fifty book series --- the reveals are coming way too slowly for the overall plot to move very fast and for reader satisfaction.
I will probably read the next book in the series, but only by checking it out from the library.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Doubts about Asset Allocation
There's definitely been a recent bunch of articles about the so-called failure of asset allocation. I'm amused and horrified at the same time. My amusement comes from the use of the last 2-3 year's worth of results to argue that the past 70 years or 100 years of studies on asset allocation are invalid. As I've pointed out, financial planning is a multi-decade process! The only reason why equities can perform as well as they do is that once in a while you get a really good buying opportunity, and if you don't rebalanced into that opportunity when the time comes, don't expect your results to be any good!
My horror stems from the idea that this would lead folks to jump off their financial plans. Now this is understandable. It's very easy to say, "I'm willing to tolerate a 50% drop in my equity portfolio" when times are good. It's another to actively rebalance into that same losing portfolio when times are terrible. The last few years have been tests of conviction for those who might have been uncertain about what their risk tolerance is.
In 2007, when William Bernstein visited Google, he made the point that during a financial crisis, all assets correlate to 1. In other words diversification fails you when you need it the most. But that's why you don't put everything in stocks --- even if in a financial crisis, your bond portfolio takes a hit, it's not as big a hit as it is in stocks. And you do want to position yourself for when the correlations are not 1 --- i.e., when the crisis is over. The unfortunate problem is that nobody knows when that is, so the best plan, as always, is to stick to your asset allocation.
My horror stems from the idea that this would lead folks to jump off their financial plans. Now this is understandable. It's very easy to say, "I'm willing to tolerate a 50% drop in my equity portfolio" when times are good. It's another to actively rebalance into that same losing portfolio when times are terrible. The last few years have been tests of conviction for those who might have been uncertain about what their risk tolerance is.
In 2007, when William Bernstein visited Google, he made the point that during a financial crisis, all assets correlate to 1. In other words diversification fails you when you need it the most. But that's why you don't put everything in stocks --- even if in a financial crisis, your bond portfolio takes a hit, it's not as big a hit as it is in stocks. And you do want to position yourself for when the correlations are not 1 --- i.e., when the crisis is over. The unfortunate problem is that nobody knows when that is, so the best plan, as always, is to stick to your asset allocation.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Bicycle Wheels: Loctite or Not
One topic not covered by our lectures on the bicycle wheel is the loctite issue. Many wheelbuilders swear by loc-tite or spoke-prep when building wheels, and it's a question that comes up on a regular basis on cycling forums.
I don't build using loc-tite. If you pay attention to the lectures, you'll see that at one point, I say, There's no such thing as too much lubrication. I emphasize this especially when building with modern rims such as the Velocity Aerohead, which have no eyelets or sockets whatsoever, but also when it comes to the spoke-thread/nipple interface.
To consider why loctite is unnecessary if your wheel is built to the correct tension, consider why a spoke can unscrew itself. The spoke is effective a very long screw under tension. As long as there's tension in the screw, the screw can't unscrew itself! It can only do so when there's no tension. The loss of tension comes from there being a big load on the wheel, which is absorbed by the spokes loosing tension. If the spokes aren't sufficiently tensioned, then the spokes will unscrew themselves, which will lead to the wheel becoming untrue. When the wheel becomes untrue, then, that's your warning that your spokes were insufficiently tensioned, and you should re-tension your wheel.
What happens when you loc-tite the spokes instead, is that the spokes don't unscrew, but they do flex a bit, usually at the elbow (spokes flex even if they are lubricated and unscrew, so it's not a good idea to under-tension wheels, regardless). Eventually, if the elbow flexes enough times, the spokes break and then your wheel really becomes untrue.
So you have a choice: have your wheels go untrue so you notice the problem, or have the spokes break eventually. Now you know why so many professional wheel builders loctite their wheels --- a wheel becoming untrue happens really quickly, but spoke breakage can take many cycles (and a lot of people just don't ride their bikes enough to do that). In general, then, I consider use of loctite/spoke-prep bad practice, and usually used to cover up sloppy wheel building. There might be reasons to justify it, but if you're building wheels for your own use, just use lots of lubricant and none of those "miracle" preparations.
I don't build using loc-tite. If you pay attention to the lectures, you'll see that at one point, I say, There's no such thing as too much lubrication. I emphasize this especially when building with modern rims such as the Velocity Aerohead, which have no eyelets or sockets whatsoever, but also when it comes to the spoke-thread/nipple interface.
To consider why loctite is unnecessary if your wheel is built to the correct tension, consider why a spoke can unscrew itself. The spoke is effective a very long screw under tension. As long as there's tension in the screw, the screw can't unscrew itself! It can only do so when there's no tension. The loss of tension comes from there being a big load on the wheel, which is absorbed by the spokes loosing tension. If the spokes aren't sufficiently tensioned, then the spokes will unscrew themselves, which will lead to the wheel becoming untrue. When the wheel becomes untrue, then, that's your warning that your spokes were insufficiently tensioned, and you should re-tension your wheel.
What happens when you loc-tite the spokes instead, is that the spokes don't unscrew, but they do flex a bit, usually at the elbow (spokes flex even if they are lubricated and unscrew, so it's not a good idea to under-tension wheels, regardless). Eventually, if the elbow flexes enough times, the spokes break and then your wheel really becomes untrue.
So you have a choice: have your wheels go untrue so you notice the problem, or have the spokes break eventually. Now you know why so many professional wheel builders loctite their wheels --- a wheel becoming untrue happens really quickly, but spoke breakage can take many cycles (and a lot of people just don't ride their bikes enough to do that). In general, then, I consider use of loctite/spoke-prep bad practice, and usually used to cover up sloppy wheel building. There might be reasons to justify it, but if you're building wheels for your own use, just use lots of lubricant and none of those "miracle" preparations.
Review: Pushing Ice
Pushing Ice is Alastair Reynold's novel of alien contact. Janus, the moon of Saturn, turns out to be an alien artifact that starts accelerating out of the solar system at an unusually high speed. A mining ship, The Rockhopper turns out to be the only ship capable of intercepting it, and the crew, led by Bella Lind, votes to pursue it.
The first third of the book introduces the ship as well as the folks on board, including engineer Svetlana, who uncovers something sinister about the company who owns the ship and has sent them on this chase.
As the plot unfolds, we see the collision between Bella and Svetlana, first as friends, then as unyielding enemies, and then finally uneasy allies. Nevertheless, the novel never forgets that it's science fiction, with a big emphasis on science --- there's tech galore, time dilation, relativistic effects, as well as nano-technology.
And yes, Alien contact. Not just one, but multiple alien contacts. Unlike the kind of aliens you run into in Star Trek, these are real aliens, with different politics, and interesting objectives. I was in any case quite impressed by the ending.
While not particularly deep, and obviously an early work, Pushing Ice is still recommended as a good airplane novel.
The first third of the book introduces the ship as well as the folks on board, including engineer Svetlana, who uncovers something sinister about the company who owns the ship and has sent them on this chase.
As the plot unfolds, we see the collision between Bella and Svetlana, first as friends, then as unyielding enemies, and then finally uneasy allies. Nevertheless, the novel never forgets that it's science fiction, with a big emphasis on science --- there's tech galore, time dilation, relativistic effects, as well as nano-technology.
And yes, Alien contact. Not just one, but multiple alien contacts. Unlike the kind of aliens you run into in Star Trek, these are real aliens, with different politics, and interesting objectives. I was in any case quite impressed by the ending.
While not particularly deep, and obviously an early work, Pushing Ice is still recommended as a good airplane novel.
Monday, July 06, 2009
Paris 1998
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| Paris 1998 |
This was a tough trip. First, my boss cut down my vacation from 3 weeks to 1, so I had to put off the cycling part till the fall. Secondly, this was my first trip to continental Europe, and it was very rough. I spoke next to no French, I had yet to learn the Lonely Planet isn't all that reliable, and I could not deal with the jet-lag at all. I also had diarrhea on this trip.
And then, in an attempt to escape Paris, we ended up on the TGV to Lyons, where due to the Soccer World Cup, all the hotels were taken, save one. And that was my very first encounter with that delightful life form, the bed-bug!
All in all, it was a good thing that Christina had patience. Or maybe not --- we haven't done a trip together since. :-)
Crater Lake National Park and the Northern California Coast
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| Crater Lake National Park and the Northern California Coast |
In the summer of 1999, my parents and I took a short trip to visit Crater Lake National Park. This was the most disorganized trip that I had ever arranged --- I packed a tent and forgot the tent poles, for instance, and we were forced to buy a cheap $20 tent at a general store late one evening when we discovered that!
On the way back, we took a short visit to some of my favorite sites in the Northern California coast. I had all but forgotten about this trip when my scanning project dug up these slides!
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