Vote "No on 8" to save marriage

Hi, my name is Sarah Smith.

That's my photo up there at the top of this web page.

My husband's name is Raymond Smith. We've been married since 2005, and things are solid with us.

Nothing is going to break up our marriage.

We're lucky.

Some married couples are not so lucky because there are folks that want to destroy their marriages.

How would you feel about something that wanted to break up marriages?

But that is exactly what is coming down the road towards us.

A change to the Constitution that will break up marriages. Its called Proposition 8.

The change to the Constitution will read:

Only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

A choice of "Yes on Prop 8" in the upcoming California vote, will support putting this into the Constitution.

Fact: a vote of "Yes on Prop 8" is a vote for destroying marriages.

Like Heather Gold's marriage.

Real people; their rights - taken away, by this amendment.

The campaign of propagandists supporting prop 8 are afraid that Americans won't vote for it, if those informed voters know about how Proposition 8 will take away rights.

The marriages of gays and lesbians have had no impact on my marriage. Has anyone you know had their "traditional marriage" affected by same-sex marriage?

People who want to amend the Constitution to eliminate these rights say a lot of bizarre things. They say gays and lesbians already have the same rights, because they can have registered domestic partnerships. When your spouse is sick in hospital domestic partnerships mean nothing if you're trying to visit your loved one but the hospital staff will only allow the legal spouse in.

Let me tell you I am happy with my marriage and if I was told I should be satisfied with just a domestic partnership, then my answer is "No!".

Other propaganda claims that ministers and churches will be told they can't use certain language, or that lawsuits will occur because the current right to marry is legally upheld. There are lurid stories and claims of all kinds.

Proposition 8 propaganda is lying to the public about school curriculums, lying about church tax exempt status and lying about freedom of speech. It will stop at nothing, to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt.

So let me just repeat this fact one more time.

Marriages. Annulled. Prevented. Stopped.

Is that what you want?

If No, then say "No on Prop 8".

Even if you're a Californian who stays at home on voting day, and lets the fears and doubts of the poorly informed carry sway - then the rights of your fellow Californians will likely be taken away.

So, please, go and vote No on Prop 8.



Thanks,

Sarah Smith

Think: Mobility as a Service

Wouldn't it be great if you could pay for your car as you go?

My next-door neighbour who is quite lucratively into broadcasting, bless her cotton-socks, has two cars - ones a high-powered late models Mercedes Benz sports, that just says success in a language any entrepreneur would understand.

But the one she drives every day almost is a Prius. Adorned with its government stickers allowing access down the diamond lane on the freeway, she buzzes around in 45mpg comfort for almost all trips - while the Merc languishes until she needs to take a client out somewhere.

A few of my workmates who live in San Francisco are members of car-sharing organizations like ZipCar and they book a car online when they need one. Living in San Francisco means owning a car is a very expensive luxury, and when you're at the hub of everything you mostly don't need one.

Somewhere in between all this service and ownership there has to be a model that fits. Where is the software-as-a-service
for cars? Who is going to invent AJAX for transportation?

Think. That's who.

In the 90's Norwegian company Pivco were shipping cars to the USA for use in car-sharing programs, and while their first cars were sub-standard by US lights, their new Think Citi brought them to the attention of Ford, the US car giant.

California had created its ZEV initiative requiring manufacturers to have a zero-emissions vehicle in its line-up, and as a result in 1999 Ford bought Pivco and pumped $150M into it, writes Todd Woody in a July 2007 article for money.CNN.com. Under Fords steward-ship Think's designers worked on an updated Think City, but when the ZEV initiative was out-manouvred by the anti-ZEV lobby, Ford dropped Think like a hot potato, citing "poor sales". Think rapidly went into decline.

Woody describes how cashed up green entrepreneur Jan-Olaf Willums, bought Think for a song in 2006, and set about changing it to a new business model.

Their factory in Aurskog, 30 miles from Oslo in Norway, runs on lean, just-in-time manufacturing principles. Cars are built from commoditized components bought from Asia and Europe, some partly assembled. Polymer body panels from Turkey are fitted to alloy chassis from Denmark. Some batteries are supplied by Tesla. Final quality control is done at the environmentally friendly paperless factory, which Willums plans to duplicate whereever their demand is located.

Last week I met Dipender Saluja of automatiks a Silicon Valley startup who are innovating in vehicle navigation and in-car computing. Saluja had with
him two Think models - the new Think Open convertible prototype, and the current model Think City.

There's two really interesting things to notice about the Think.

One: Its a platform for innovation.

The local factory can easily retool to produce a version suited for the local conditions. Vendors can easily make add-ons and high-value integrations - which is where Saluja's company comes in. Different battery options are available depending on climate conditions or load/usage patterns.

Two: Its a conduit for service delivery.

The lightweight panels and chassis are fraction of the cost and weight compared to the batteries, which are the principle cost of the car. So what about replacing them when they wear out?

As Willums says, with the Think you are not buying a "Thing".

You don't replace the batteries - because when you buy the car for under $20,000, the batteries stay the property of Think, and for a monthly fee just like your phone or internet account the batteries are tracked and serviced when needed. You, or the next owner of the Think never has to worry about the battery life, replacement or recycling. Peace of mind, and known costs.

How does Think know about the battery condition? The car is internet enabled. As well as Think factories being able to keep tabs on it, so can you - battery charge levels can be checked remotely, and you can send Google maps to the cars on-board computer to be used in its navigation system.

The vehicle is a mobile technology platform, allowing you to send emails and potentially do anything your internet enabled computing device can do, from the convenience of your drivers seat - not while you're driving of course.

And the City is all about convenience. The glass of the rear hatch goes from the hatch floor up to the hinge, making the tiny car - its shorter than a Mini Cooper and about as punchy - seem much more spacious than you'd expect, and easy to load.

Racing around the carpark, the Think turns on a dime and nips into tiny parking spots that don't exist for other vehicles. As a second car you'll still have most of your second car park available for stashing that old computer junk you're waiting to recycle.

Whether you're newly green and looking for that convenient car to park next to the Mercedes, or a shopping cart and office commuter to complement your already green lifestyle the Think seems to have it all sown up.

Buying your 4-wheeled personal transportation the way you buy your mobile phone - that seems to make so much more web 2.0 21st century sense.

Ship of Fuels

Am I the only one that finds it amazing to be on the same side of the spectrum as The Economist, when it comes to climate issues?

September 6th issue, in their Technology briefing:

...carmakers that 10 months ago were lining up to lobby Congress against proposed legislation that would oblige them to achieve a fleet average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020. It simply could not be done they wailed.

According to the Economist while the grumbling continues the carmakers have woken up to the fact that customers are voting with their wallets, and ditching gas guzzlers because of prices at the pump. No doubt environmental concerns are in the equation too, but its easier to be green when it saves the folding stuff too.

BMW, Daimler and VW (makers of Audi) are leading the charge along with Hyundai, Fiat and Toyota in producing lower-emissions vehicles. These low-polluting foreign cars that are also cheap to run look so good to consumers that USA manufacturers are realizing that their profits are at stake if they don't follow suit.

While the oilmen keep saying "drill, drill, drill", its the volatility of oil as much as its current high prices that has got people moving. Sure we can - maybe - get more oil; and hopefully peak oil maybe won't happen. But I don't know if I'm going to turn up at the pump next week and half my paycheck is gone on fuel, due to some crisis or other.

One interesting thing the Economist says is that the hybrid is just a bridging solution. Its a painless introduction to green, and to electric power. The new hybrids are all plug-ins, says the money magazine, and it will be an easy step for those who are used to their Prius intricacies to find that the 2009 model comes with a 3-pin accessory.

Another recent article (Fall 2008, SWE Magazine, by Charlotte Thomas) discusses the current slew of fuel replacements that tech firms, car manufacturers and universities are working on.

Here the message concurs with what I have been saying - locality is the key. No one solution multiplied wider and deeper is going to work. There are promising new ways to produce fuel-cells, and advances in cellulosic acohol. But for example corn ethanol is not going to provide a country-wide solution, because scale is a deal-breaker.

I loved this quote from MIT Professor Daniel Nocera (quoted in Thomas' article):

Three factors will force governments, industry and consumers to curtail a voracious fossil fuel habit... economics, geopolitical instability, and public awareness of the adverse affects of fuels on the environment.

Fuels are necessarily a tiny part of the end solution because of the massive cost of processing them - many of the processes use much more energy to create the fuel and distribute it than is in the fuel itself. Electricity on the other hand already has a distribution system.

So as interesting as these fuels are they are all bridging solutions too. The hybrid has allowed us to have our long range vehicle - even tho' statistically we never use it.

With alternative fuels, biodiesels and so on, we have an environmentally palatable internal combustion nicotine patch.

So the medicine to break the oil addiction is going to be a lot cheaper on the environment, but its still a stage in the evolution of transportation to a truly sustainable pattern.

Hum Cycle

Predictions on this blog have talked about how style, speed and prestige will define the new electric vehicle.

The Hum Cycle is certainly charging into this future - on two wheels.

A small gang of entrepreneurs are kicking the shins of the venture capitalists and blazing the streets of Silicon Valley with their potent new Hum Cycle - an uncompromisingly sportissimo, all-electric motorcycle.

I met with Forrest Deuth, and Jit Bhattacharya - two young guys looking very pleased with themselves - and a small crowd of onlookers to see the new Hum prototype in the flesh.

Deuth - an alumni of Tesla motors - was careful to elaborate that this prototype would vary in many ways from their final product.

But still some of the most obvious features that the prototype has that we're likely to notice in the real thing are that which are missing: no clutch handle, and no gear shifter by the left footpeg. It makes the left-hand side of the bike look decidedly bare.

Apart from that at first approach from the front it looks very much like many other sport bikes - modern full-fairing, stiff trellis frame (which will later be replaced by a fully custom frame, according to Deuth).

Then you notice between the frame and down under the belly of the bike telltale patches of yellow. These are the Lithium-Ion battery packs that power the Hum. Them, and a whacking great electric motor, its cylindrical bulk nestling down where the gearbox would be in a
conventional machine.

The chain sprocket goes directly onto the motor, and drives via an oversize chain and back sprocket to the back wheel. Riders I talked to that day reported plenty of pull from the prototype motor. Plans are afoot for a different drive set-up to elide the oversize gearing, and a more powerful motor.

The bike has regenerative braking - this is configurable, and was dialled down today since conventional riders are not used to their mounts being so very responsive on relinquishing the throttle.

And of course you can't blip the throttle when you're at the lights - not that you'd get any noise if you did.

This machine is almost completely silent. The only thing announcing its approach is the chatter of the chain. The makers are talking about the possibility of a belt drive, if the relative gearing of the drive train allows it.

Deuth and Bhattacharya say they're pitching right at the sports market with their first production machine - it will be a high-performance bike, with a decent range, suitable for the ride to work or short touring/sport riding.

Its something both the green community and the motorcycling community will be eagerly awaiting.

Me too.

RE < C

Earlier this month:

Vapourware in the energy business...

And this:

I think we have vastly oversold the role of the market in the solution to this problem...

This is pretty radical stuff - was it those lefty Unionists again? Some hack in the marginal publications, some opinionated blogger?

This is from no less an august figure in Energy Policy than Professor David Victor, Director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development (PESD) based at Stanford University. Professor Victor is also a Law Professor at Stanford, and as it happens very knowledgeable about the action of world markets in coal.

One of the great challenges of the climate change crisis is to make renewable energy cost less than coals and high carbon footprint fuels. This is RE < C.

This can be done by increasing the cost of using such fuels, effectively making polluters pay for the cost of actually putting polluting substances into the environment, for example by schemes such as cap-and-trade.

But the other side of the picture is what is the economic realities affecting trade in coal?

Coal is still plentiful, and surprisingly at least to me is still a massively oversubscribed commodity. The USA are still commisioning new coal fired plants - in spring of 2007, 150 new plants were either in planning or under construction. This is surprising because the news has been full of how planned coal plant projects are being scrapped - but this is 59 or so by some accounts, plenty more are still going ahead.

China has recently become a net importer of coal, despite its massive reserves. To put how amazing this is into context, it is very expensive to ship coal - it can't be pumped and is heavy and difficult to handle, compared to its value. At least until recently - prices have been going up for coal such that there are now markets and trade in coal along routes that would not have been thought viable, according to Professor Victor.

Professor Victor highlighted the failure of the ETS scheme in Europe - one of the early innovators in market based schemes to reduce industry carbon emissions. He pointed out that in recent times the trading prices for carbon were at around 25 euros/ton - but it would need to be twice that to be in parity with gas. Here parity meaning that costs would be sufficient to cause polluters to switch to the next clean fuel alternative, being gas with solar, wind and so on dearer alternatives still.

I am not a political scientist, but I don't believe in strong, heavy government - I would like to believe that a light touch at the helm would result in the best outcomes for our nation states. However I also believe that the state must act to protect its citizens from direct and immediate harm - whether its comets from space, or asbestos in our ceilings; the State fails or succeeds in its duty to the extent that it can react potently and swiftly in the face of widespread imminent harm to its people.

With climate change, droughts, cyclones, and many other nightmare scenarios awaiting, it seems that allowing the market to decide on these matters is such a failure.

Again from Professor Victor:

My own view is that the carbon markets are a mistake - its created a casino. Should be a tax.

My guess which governments of the world will be the first to realize the sense of this? I am betting it will be Russia and China before the USA and the West, precisely because of our blind worship of the market.

Redirector

So the move to Googles cloud continues.

There's been lots of disruptions, but its well on the way now.

The big watershed has been getting my Storybridge Redirector app working on Google's AppEngine.

It redirects any URL I want to URL's in the new Google sites/blogger structure.

For example folks who used to go to my blog from http://storybridge.org/wordpress can now do that again. Since AppEngine logs any URLs sent to it I can see which ones are not matching and add redirects for them too.

Its not exactly rocket science but its good enough that it might be handy for other folks doing what I am - namely trying to bring over 10 years of internet history (in the form of in-bound links from other sites) over to a new structure.

I have put the code up on Googles code hosting site, and logged a few bugs that I am aware of.

Material on the new sites already include:

• my London Journal
• political-philosophical essays in the Phylactery
• tech articles in my new "compute" site
• and of course Storybridge games
  

Generally I'm pretty happy with the Google Apps for Domains experience. The sites themselves seem like a good product. My main goal was to get something low maintenance and low cost - so scoring a lovely round figure of zero on both those counts has to be a big plus.

But the loss of flexibility is tangible. Hopefully with more uptake Google will add extra features to the Sites product. In particular I miss the ability to add the widgets, url lists, and so on in the margins like you can with Blogger. Sites has very little flexibility in this regard. Maybe I have just not found it yet.

I would love to get some feedback on anything y'all feel like mentioning - speed of loading, look-n-feel, ease of commenting - would like to know how it looks from "the other side of the glass" so to speak.

Thunderbox

Did I squeeze this picture in Photoshop?

No, this incredibly space-conscious mighty-mite is the all-electric Tango T600 from Commuter Cars. Tech blogs and the press have been a-buzz with this thing since the first ones were delivered back in late 2005.

As you see here folks are using them to get to work and back. This one is plugged into a bank of solar panels overhead, so its carbon footprint is basically zero.

According to the brochure it uses 4kWh of electricity on a standard commute - that is around what you use to tumble dry your load of laundry: even if you don't have a handy solar-powered carport with electricity at todays rates a weeks commuting is $2.40.

Despite its small size it is no lightweight. Even with its carbon-fiber and kevlar body to offset the weight of the batteries, it weighs in at around 3000lbs.

As far as I know Tango still uses lead-acid batteries - with the latest prismatic Nickel-metal hydride or Lithium ion batteries weight would greatly reduce that figure, and produce better performance, perhaps allowing for more conventional and cheaper materials. Commuter Cars plan to make available two lower spec vehicles the T200 and T100. There is talk of different battery technologies on their website. The other issue with batteries is of course patents.

Still, in this configuration the Tango T600 has blistering performance stats - a claimed 0-60mph in 4 seconds, and the standing quarter in 12 seconds. On the track it corners like its on rails due to its very low center of gravity.

But.

The price tag on the T600 is currently around $100k - similar to the Tesla. And the Tango is a kit - you have to put it together yourself.

So the Tango has got the right performance, the right high-tech credentials, and the right environmental footprint.

But a kit-car? And its so small?

One of my predictions about electric cars is the trend will continue growing for an electric car to be a prestigious status symbol in the same way that turbocharged sports sedans with leather trim from well-known European marques are today.

The hoi-polloi will smile knowingly when lesser mortals talk about their fuel-guzzling internal combustion engined vehicles. The well-to-do will be buying top-of-the-line, completely silent, outrageously fast and very stylish electric vehicles - which all manufacturers still alive will be producing, as they struggle to catch up to market and prestige leaders like Lightning Cars of the UK, and Tesla of California.

Public feeling is changing in a ground-swell about cars.

Admittedly, conspicuous consumption of petrol is still a powerful style statement amongst those with the who hide their credit card statements under the rug.

But high-technology in the form of keyless entry, GPS, electronic traction control, and in fact electronic just-about-everything is really what it takes to impress folks these days.

And lighting a firing up fossil-fuels in the old pot-boiler under the hood somehow just doesn't gel with that trend towards the hi-tech performance model.

This is where Tesla and Lightning are early riders of a gathering wave. Prestige, performance - and saving the planet.

Tango could be up there too, but they need to show how their trademark small size is a luxury bonus; ditch the kit-car angle, and raise their tech level to include new battery technologies, reduce the price tag, and start featuring items like GPS.

I hope that they can beat these niggles because I would love to see more electric cars on the roads.