Hydrogen: A Red Herring

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While I'm glad that President Bush has stopped pimping for Big Oil long enough to endorse hydrogen as an alternative energy strategy, I have to point out that hydrogen is not an energy source. How do you get hydrogen? Well, that's simple, you run electricity through water and collect the hydrogen, right? Then, you burn the hydrogen in your car. How much energy do you get from burning it? Less than you used to separate it from the water in the first place, quoth Wikipedia:

It is currently very difficult to obtain hydrogen gas without expending energy in the process. The process of splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen using electrolysis consumes large amounts of energy. It has been calculated that it takes 1.4 joules of electricity to produce 1 joule of hydrogen (Pimentel, 2002). If oil or gases are used to provide this energy, fossil fuels are consumed, forming pollution and nullifying the value of using a fuel cell. It would be more efficient to use fossil fuel directly

That said, I think hydrogen could be useful to power our cars, as long as we use nuclear, solar, or wind energy to get it from our water, with nuclear making the most sense. So now, to power our fleet of hydrogen cars, we just need a bunch of new nuclear plants, which most "green" activists won't abide. So now what?

Bad Service

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I had some abysmally bad customer service from Gateway yesterday, I only wish I was able to save the transcript of the online chat session I had with one of their techs. I was helping a student who had to reinstall Windows on his laptop, and Gateway didn't have the drivers on their web site for his network card. He'd managed to lose the Restore CD for his laptop, but had purchased a copy of Windows XP, so this should have been no problem, right? Wrong. Even though I'd already said that I had the wireless drivers working (which are on their site), the tech insisted twice that those were the network drivers I needed. After I made it clear that I was after WIRED networking drivers, he tried telling me that the only way to get those were off the restore CD. So, I asked what chipset was in the laptop, and after 10 minutes he came back and told me it was a Marvel-Yukon Gigabit PCI-Express chipset. I said "I guarantee to you that this laptop does not have that chipset". The laptop wasn't ancient by any means, but it was more than a year and a half old, and sure enough, while the tech was insisting I was wrong, I found that the laptop actually used the Broadcom 4401 chipset, and downloaded and installed those drivers with no problem, though the tech still insisted I was wrong...

Needless to say, "Simon" got a negative rating in the feedback section from me...

DBA Wanted

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They're hiring an assistant DBA here at work:

NECESSARY QUALIFICATIONS: Bachelor's degree in computer science or related field plus at least two years of application development experience using a relational database required, preferably in a UNIX environment. Skills with business application development, including designing/administering a relational database preferably with ORACLE on Solaris preferred. Understanding of data security, integrity and consistency; familiarity with backup, recovery, database utilities, tuning and performance monitoring; knowledge of database market and technology trends; design of relational data structures; and excellent communication and customer relations skills preferred.

Microsoft Natural Ergo Keyboard 4000

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I got my new keyboard yesterday, and I'm already in love. My favorite keyboard was the original Microsoft Natural Keyboard, not the one with the stupid diamond arrow keys, that's the "Elite" version, and it's an abomination. I'm talking about the one before that, which had the inverted T. Mine suffered an unfortunate meeting with a glass of water, so I tried a number of generic "ergonomic" keyboards for a while, though John tried to get me to use the Kinesis keyboards that he loves for a time. For the last few years, I'd settled on using Microsoft's Wireless Natural keyboard. It came in a package with a crappy wireless mouse that I didn't use, but at least the keyboard was comfortable, though I really don't care about having a wireless keyboard, as having to replace batteries and worry about interference is a bit of a pain.

Well, my pain is over. I really love their new keyboard. The keys have a nice feel and they are quieter than the older models were. They added some type of artifical leatherette wrist-rest, and some more hot buttons I'll never use, but the most important thing is, it's comfortable!

ZR300 Deal

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There's a great deal on Canon's ZR300 camcorder at Dell, it supports widescreen shooting, comes with a remote control, and can be used to capture analog video to digital through your computer's firewire interface. It'll work great with iMovie on a Mac, as well.. There's a review here. First, add the camera to your cart.

Next, add something cheap to your cart to get your total over $500, like a $9.86 ethernet cable.

Now, apply coupon code JQWFN3RR7NJ?F5 to save $60.

Then, apply coupon code 2S32?67G18S33Q to save 25%.

Now, print out and send in this $50 rebate.

Total cost, after rebate, free ground shipping, and no tax (at least for me) will be $278.10. Since list price on this camera is $499, this is a great deal...

If you want an even lower-cost deal on a JVC mini-DV cam, this one is also from Dell.