Who Killed the Electric Tram

Yesterday I finished reading Edwin Black's book "Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil, and Derailed the Alternatives".

The material in Black's book ought to be a part of the history curriculum of every high-school student in the West, since as we know, those who cannot learn from the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.

And this is stuff everyone should know.

Doomed is the right word.

Everyone should know how GM was convicted in 1949, along with its co-conspirators Firestone Tire & Rubber, Standard Oil, Pacific City Lines, and National City Lines of a conspiracy to monopolize the transit business for their own oil, tires and buses.

GM was the leader of the conspiracy, setting up the companies National City Lines & Pacific City Lines as a front through which to funnel their acquisitions of electrified transit systems.

The words conspiracy and monopoly have legal meanings here.  While they are emotive for us as members of the public, and have meanings that conjure all sorts of images, remember that these corporations were convicted on charges framed in these very terms.

If you want lurid, you only have to look on in the book to the involvement of gangster Kid Cann, and BM Larrick, of National City Lines in the destruction of the streetcars in Minneapolis and St Paul, where these men and their cronies resorted to shunting cars onto sidings and torching them to speed up the "conversion" process: 

Then that last trolley that had brought so many people so many places for so many years was gleefull ignited by Osanna himself.  The prone, burning streetcar, embodying the long crusade against electric traction, quickly exploded into sky-reaching flames.  Dressed in spats, Ossanna smiled for the cameras as the immolation rose behind him.

In my review of the book I mention that Black's main achievement here is a throroughly researched journalistic survey of a century of corporate malfeasance and dirty dealings around energy and transit.

The take away lesson which we must not forget is that corporations cannot be trusted to do the right thing by the people.

This might seem obvious to many.  But the outgoing President of the USA and many others still in power believe in the free market, and entrepreneurial spirit as the only way forward.

Emissions trading schemes, tax incentives, research grants and a plethora of government handouts have supported this idea that private enterprise will do the right thing given the chance.  See my previous article on the failure of such schemes as a complete solution for this reason.

Reading this book will demonstrate why we are doomed if we believe this, that is if we fail to learn from the lessons of the last century.

A good product will fail in the face of a bad product peddled by monopolists, price-fixers, and corporate raiders.  The idea that a good product at a fair price will win out is flawed when the playing field is not just out of level but precipitously pitched in favour of ratbag corporations, and the categorically ruthless money men that run them.

Clean and sustainable solutions will be forgone for dirty, short term solutions where the true costs are not paid by the profiteers.  As Black points out this has happened over and over again in history.  And it is happening now, even as people die in Katrina style climactic events.

Where I part ways with Black is over his proponency of hydrogen as a solution.  Hydrogen is an interesting research area, however it has never been used as a large scale motive force in transit.

Electricity has.

Electric motors and batteries have been quietly in service in cars, trucks, buses and rail systems throughout the last century.  Black describes in the chapter "Derailed" how the innovative Olympian train hauled over the scenic Milwaukee Road using regenerative braking to economize on electric power.  It did this in the era of World War One.  If it hadn't been for the efforts of various corporate crooks electric transit would have been far more prevalent today.

Whatever your view of electric cars, they are here now, on the road, working as a real solution today.  From the exotic Tesla, through the workaday Th!nk these modern electric marvels are not on a drawing board somewhere, they are proven working vehicles.

Where as for hydrogen:
A 2008 report from the National Research Council estimated it would take $200 million from government and industry over the next 15 years to commercialize hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to the point they could be competitive with gas vehicles.

(Reported by reuters)

The problems of practical transport using hydrogen are well known - see this article in Popular Mechanics for an even handed analysis.

Hydrogen has its hands as dirty as oil, since it is traditionally made from natural gas, a fossil fuel.  Companies mentioned by Black in his chapter on hydrogen, such as Linde, and Air Liquide are now leading members of the National Hydrogen Association, along with guess who: General Motors and Shell.

Hydrogen futurists such as Dr Alan Lloyd were pivotal in killing off the California zero emissions mandate.  The ZEV laws brought in by the California Air Resources Board to fight chronic smog had led to a huge flurry of electric vehicle activity in California.  In the period where Lloyd was the Chairman of the California Air Resources Board and Secretary of the California EPA the electric vehicle innovation and recharge point infrastructure rollout was crushed literally, and replaced with a highly touted hydrogen program.

Lloyd was also Chairman of the California Fuel Cell partnership.  He vehemently denied that this was a conflict of interest.

Of course proponents of hydrogen with vested interests ranging from pet research to major investment, are ready with all sorts of arguments against the view that electric is superior to hydrogen for transport.  Even if they're not all Lloyds with a cash register tune playing in their ears, their views are based on theory.

Electric cars are - I say it again - here now.  Working, on our streets.

But today (the 12th of May 2009) newspapers are reporting the Obama administration's slashing of funding for hydrogen initiatives in favour of battery research and other initiatives.

We know that Obama has had a concerted campaign to throw out from Washington the vested interests, the lobbyists and the revolving door politico-corporate types.  In their place he has filled his administration with scientists and innovators.

The result: electric cars the reality is chosen over a solution that is still on a drawing board 10 years away.

Make your own glass RPG map top

I'm about to start a new D&D campaign.  I wanted to be prepared, and have a good solution to one of the problems of running the game: how to represent the game map.

Here are some of the issues I wanted to resolve:

• work with pre-printed D&D maps
  
• work with pre-printed D&D dungeon tiles
  
• prevent tiles and maps from moving around and becoming misaligned
  
• stop spills, snack related damage and enthusiastic play from damaging maps and tiles
  
• mark up map details over those pre-printed items without damage
  
• have a grid available for impromptu free-form maps and buildings
  
• be able to "game off the edge" when tiles or maps run out

I had thought of laminating the maps, but the tiles don't suit that approach at all.

Glass seemed like a great idea, after seeing a friends glass kitchen table top with a map of the world underneath it.

But I knew the glass would need to be small enough to easily lift with one hand, and slide maps and tiles in and out during gaming.

Spec point one:  glass 800mm x 600mm or 24" x 32" in size.  

This is a good manageable size.  The glass should be 5mm thick float glass, with a beveled edge.

The bevel makes the edges of the glass a bit stronger and less likely to damage fingers and hands whilst in use.  If in doubt ask the glass supplier for "furniture glass", or "glass suitable for a coffee table top".

Such a bit of glass is likely to set you back $70AUD (around $50US at the time of writing) but you might be lucky and get an off-cut if you visit the factory.

The other issue was how to "game off the edge" - a standard D&D 1 x 1 inch grid was needed on the glass to extend over the whole surface of the glass.

I researched a number of ways to mark up the glass.  

Glass-workers use diamond and other hardened tools to cut fine scratches into glass, but the glass is weakened and much more likely to break.  In fact this is the idea of most of these tools.

Glass companies offer a range of decorative glass and can print a design onto the glass.  Also there are various types of printed film.  Most of these options looked far too expensive.

Spec point two: Sakura Solid Paint markers, ordered from Graffonline.  

I got two, just because the minimum for delivery was $10, all up it was $18AUD for two markers delivered and they turned up a few days later.

The markers are like a soft crayon made of paint: they make an instant line, and don't dry out like felt tips.  

One problem I hadn't anticipated is that the marker paint gets on the straight edge.

Apparently it can be easily removed with the alcohol based cleaner.

Like a crayon the line is hard to control, but I wasn't too worried about that for my first go-around.  I have plenty of marker left, so I plan to clean off the glass and do it over sometime with a practiced hand and a bit more time to spend.

I'm pretty happy with the results (top picture) even tho' the lines are pretty rough.  The painted lines are durable and dry enough after only 20 minutes that I can put the glass lines-side-down without the paint coming off. 

Marking up the glass with dry erase (whiteboard) markers is easy - that's the "house" that the miniatures in the bottom-right hand corner of the picture are in.  The dry-erase markers wipe off clean from the glass.

Since the paint is on the underside of the glass, marking and erasing does not affect the painted grid.

I think I hit most of my requirements, but I'll post back here with how it goes in the front line duty of my campaign.

Amazon sea freight fail

I like Amazon.

Good service, generally a great company to deal with.

But somehow I managed to buy a some stuff recently and click the sea freight button.

Don't do that.

First off its painfully slow. But then theres the damage endured by the package.

Either the ship was attacked by pirates, or the shipboard soccer team kicked the package around the deck.

Miraculously - probably due to all the airbags the damage to the book inside was minimized - but it was far from unscathed - note the apparent moisture damage and dog-eared corner.

Sigh.

I doubt I will take advantage of Amazon's return policy - the book is readable, and I don't have the time to parcel it up and send it back.

But next time - air freight thanks.

Cursed comment spam

"I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. i thought i would leave my first comment. i don't know what to say except that i have enjoyed reading. nice blog. i will keep visiting this blog very often."

Sounds very genuine doesn't it. "My first comment". Makes you feel very - touched. How nice.

A search for this phrase on Google returns 249, 000 matches.

This. Exact. Phrase.

So despite the fact that it got past the Google comment anti-spammer check, it is not a real comment.

I don't know if this is a script, bot, virus or just a plain army of low paid turks. Whatever, it is very annoying.

I went looking at some of the 249,000 victim websites.

Many that I looked at had this exact "post" inline with many other actual real posts.

In some cases the website owners/original posters had responded back thanking "Elaina" or whoever for their thoughtful comment.

The author of the original article and the other commenters likely have no idea in all of those 249,000 cases.

The weird thing is that for a fairly sophisticated exploit, the website the URL's are pointing to are very plain - they seem to follow this pattern:

• a basic looking wordpress site with 2-3 posts
• no real obvious google-traps, or large collections of advertisements
• commercial sort of angle, real-estate and so on - but no immediate money spinner
• site purportedly run by a single person, with a personal profile
• some javascript links all looking to have something to do with Wordpresses K2 sidebar
  

My current theory for what is going on is that the captcha's are being beaten by a "Turk" type setup.

It could work like this. I want to promote my dodgy website, and pay a service called "Evil Promotions" that promises to raise it up in Google rankings.

The service recruits a small army of low paid workers - or perhaps they are paid in kind with gambling credits or pornography. The workers log into a web interface on "Evil Promotions" website and click a button.

Behind the scenes Evil Promotions run a set of scripts that go around millions of websites, looking for ones that have a comment facility.

Then the automated script finds such "Victim" websites, in their hundreds-of-thousands and it "clicks" on the buttons and makes a post. The script drops the very human sounding text above into the comment field.

The "Victim Site" sends back a captcha - an image with some distorted text, which only a human could read - the script passes the captcha on to the workers via Evil Promotions website. The worker types the response to the captch and clicks a button.

The Evil Promotions script sends the captcha response back to the victim website, which faithfully logs it as a human comment.

The worker just types responses, and clicks, over and over again, never seeing the websites that the responses are going to. I don't know what they could get out of such mindless repetitive work, but I hope for their sakes its worth it.

To me, if I'm half right, the whole thing stinks.

A low act.

Now - I have had an idea - maybe I can fight back. I just left comments on two of the websites I found, explaining what I just found. I asked the authors to do two things:

• delete the comment
• contact two other sites that had been spammed and suggest they do the same

Lets see what happens.

Lighting in D&D

For ages the rules in Dungeons and Dragons about lighting and concealment have driven me mad.

Not only are the details around these critical elements of the classic pencil-and-paper roleplay game spread throughout the players handbook in sections on stealth, perception and combat - but also in the latest 4th edition rules new errata sections released by Wizards of the Coast have changed how the rules work.

Now I finally understand.

So I have written a lengthy and carefully detailed article about the subject.

It includes:

• details on portable light sources and how they work in the game
• explanations of how the 4th ed errata affect the rules (and where to find the errata)
  
• an explanation of hiding and how it works in combat
• tips for DM's on how to run games where light, concealment and combat are involved

Hopefully it sheds some light on this tricky area for those of you who were in the dark on it.

Roll a will save vs bad puns, or take 2d6 psychic damage...

Busway

This won't be news to my friends in Brisbane.

But over here the answer to the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport rail service) is a thing called the Busway. 

A clean, ultra-modern, high-speed dedicated mass-transit system, it is built on clean running natural gas powered buses, like this Translink Transit Authority articulated bus.

I'm not normally one to pat the backs of the incumbent administration about anything, but I think all those in Brisbanes infrastructure teams, councils and bus administration should be proud of this hi-tech, environmentally sound and user-friendly mass transit system.

After living in Silicon Valley, home of high-tech everything, and traditional source of world leading transit systems like the BART and cable cars, it is great to see Brisbane leading out with a technology solution.

The buses themselves are a big part of the success of the busway.  Air-conditioned against Queenslands often stifling heat and humidity, they are typically clean, safe and comfortable.  Although not as quiet as an electric solution would be, the buses are flexible (literally in the case of the articulated bus) and can route around road-works or other problems that cause trains to stop in their tracks.

While trains can be electrified mass-transit marvels, often they are loud, inflexible and don't play nice with other linking transport systems. The BART in California and the VTA trains that it meets with are still noisy and create many eyesores. Certainly they get more folks out of car trips and using mass-transit, but while there I saw low utilization and lots of environmental impact.

The busway stands out because it mixes the best that rail can be - high-speed dedicated routes & customized large capacity low-emissions transports - with the best that road can be - flexible, resistant to disruption and well integrated with feeder transports and peripheral systems like bikeways, and pedestrian routes.

The shot above shows the busway station at Mount Gravatt in Brisbane Australia. Its immediately adjacent to a large shopping centre, but the buses fly underneath all the commuter and shopping vehicular traffic through fast tunnels, and then emerge to race down parallel with the freeway towards the city. Pedestrians can access the inbound and outbound lanes safely and quickly via overhead access ways that are at the level of the shopping centre.

Travellers with mobility issues can use a lift to get to the platform, and many buses can "kneel" providing level access for wheelchairs. In many cases buses can take bicycles on a front mounted rack.  Lockers are available also for bikes, with keys available from the Busway folks on request.

Ticketing really was the last piece of the puzzle to make this a breeze-on / breeze-off service. A proximity card holds a current balance, and the card can be updated via the internet, or at a busway kiosk. Zap the card when boarding and then again when leaving the bus - the fare is calculated and deducted with no hassles about pricing, figuring out your destination with the driver or fumbling for small change.

This also makes loading the bus much faster during commuter peak times.  Given the frequency of busway buses timetables are optional too.  Just rock up and jump on - in commuter times the electronic displays on the platform usually let you know you have less than 10 minutes to wait.  

Down at the Technology Park at Eight Mile Plains, one stop away from the one shown above, you can see a great testament to the success of the Busway. The park-n-ride areas are full of cars, even despite works recently that have seen the areas more than double in size. All those cars represent commuters who have been lured out of their one- or two-occupant vehicles, and who are travelling in highly utilized air conditioned comfort.

So until my electric car arrives, I at least have a high-tech transport solution that gets me there without a carbon footprint, and without getting hot and bothered.

Ikea Matter Transfer Service

As Jonathon Coulton points out in his great song, everyone knows how to furnish their home using Ikea:



So what's new?

Ikea also offers a great Matter Transfer Service!



In this shot an Ikea employee dispatches a load of furniture via the Matter Transfer Service.

How it works.

At the source location, you tear down your existing furniture by flogging it off on Craigslist, transferring its constituent parts into your bank account in the form of cash.



An Ikea furniture item travels thru time and space

At the destination on the other side of the planet, you simply visit the local Ikea store, streaming dollars out of your bank account into the Ikea machine.

At this point the exact same cabinet is reconstituted.

Amazing!

The weird thing is that you also wind up with a pot-rack, floor rug, and two lamps as well.

So clearly there's a few bugs.