Fuzzy Math

I read an article title "AOL Unplugs 10,000 Servers, Saves $5 Million."Take a minute and read the article for yourself, it is interesting. AOL won a contest by making these cuts.

Okay, so you didn't read the article, but you would expect from the title to learn that AOL got rid of 10,000 servers and saved $5 Million, right?

Now, lets look at the facts!

"AOL decommissioned 9,484 servers last year." To me 9,484 rounds up to 9,500, not 10,000, but whatever, I'll give them that one. It isn't a big deal.

"It's savings included $1.65 million in energy bills, $2.2 million in OS licenses and $62,000 in hardware maintenance costs." Great, I'll go along with these savings, for now.

The article continues and states that AOL also sold or recycled the servers for $1.2 million. Unplugging all of these servers will also lower the carbon emissions by 20 tons. The $1.2 million is for sure a number that is accountable, the 20 tons of carbon emissions, who knows, whatever.

Finally, at the end of the article is the following sentence, "AOL bought new hardware to replace most of the decommissioned servers, so it cut its server count by only 1,000."

Whoa, wait a minute, what are they doing here.

So they got rid of 9,484 servers, then bought about another 8,484. I assume these servers use electricity so they didn't lower their electric bill by $1.65 million. I also assume these servers have operating systems on them so they didn't lower their OS licenses by $2.2 million. I would imagine that their carbon emissions were not really reduced by 20 tons either then. Especially, if they resold some of those servers and other companies are using them.

Let's also assume that each server purchased cost $5,000 (this is a very low number, the actual cost is probably closer to $10,000 or more). So $5,000 times 8,484 equals $42,420,000.

Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. AOL spent at least $42 million to save way less than $5 million! Good job guys, give the CEO a bonus! And they won the contest at the Uptime Institute as well. Unreal.

Is this it for the world?

ABCNews is producing a special called Earth 2100 to broadcast this September. They ask a few questions to promote or hype the interest. Here are the questions:

"Are we living in the last century of our civilization? Is it possible that all of our technology, knowledge and wealth cannot save us from ourselves? Could our society actually be heading towards collapse?"

These questions were all answered long ago by One who is more knowledgeable than any so called scientist today.

Q: Are we living in the last century of our civilization?
A: This answer is impossible to know. In Matthew 13:32 Jesus tells us, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

Q: Is it possible that all of our technology, knowledge and wealth cannot save us from ourselves?
A: Correct, man cannot save themselves. In John 14:6, Jesus again gave us the way to salvation, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

Q: Could our society actually be heading towards collapse?
A: Absolutely. We are in the end of times. Jesus is asked this question and gives a through answer as to what expect (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21). There will be wars and rumors of wars. Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. Children will rise up against their parents. Brother will betray brother.

Don’t waste your time watching this or any other special that tries to answer or solve the problems to avoid the world’s destruction. The end of the world will occur at the designated time. There isn’t anything we can do about it, except to be prepared!

Al Gore

Once again, I was thinking about this global warming stuff. Is it real or simply hype, I don’t know. I know we should not abuse the environment, but we can’t worship it either.

Anyways, I was thinking, in particular, about our friend Al Gore. He has gone from barely being a millionaire in 2001 to being worth possibly over $100 million today.

Is he an idiot or a marketing/business genius? He has created fear over the environment. To alleviate that fear, he has also created companies that he personally benefits from. Plus, he lectures for a fee and is also a member of numerous board’s which he gets a fee from many of them.

I ask again, is he an idiot? Maybe, but I’ll bet he is laughing all the way to the bank at the other idiots that give him all this money! Of course, the mentality of people like this tend to start to believe in the lies they tell. Think of the Clinton’s, I believe they think they tell the truth! Al Gore isn’t much different.

No wonder he didn’t want to run for President, the President only makes $400,000 a year. Al Gore only needs to give 4 lectures to make $400,000! What a deal.

Global warming a fraud?

As my regular readers know my thoughts about Global Warming, I wanted to share a link to someone else's opinion.

John Coleman, the founder of the Weather Channel, has called Global Warming, "the greatest scam in history" on his blog.

What he says makes sense. If you look at the daily temperature records for your area, you will see that there are wide swings. For example, yesterday in Johnstown, the record high temperature was 71 degrees. The record low temperature was 11 degrees. The actual high and low temperatures yesterday were 61 and 39 degrees respectivly. I used the accuweather website for this information.

The US is going to look pretty foolish, wasting a bunch of money on something that doesn't exist. Furthermore, we can't control the weather. This is plain and simple a political matter, just another way for Congressmen to scare people into getting money for their pet projects to get them reelected. That being said, we do need to have the proper stewardship of our environment, but Global Warming (as we know it) won't be the end of the world. There is another plan for that!

Look who's famous (again)!

I received the December 2007 issue of Kiplinger's magazine yesterday. Upon turning to the "Letters" page, you will see a letter from yours truly!

I sent them a letter regarding their "Green Issue" a few months ago. In fact, last month the editor mentioned my letter to him in his opening statement, but did not mention my name. I called their Green Issue the worst issue ever and he responded otherwise.

This month they printed another part of my letter expressing my disappointment with the entire Green Issue.

Strongstown is on the map.

Great News!

I am so glad the inventor of the Internet has finally been awarded a Nobel Prize, even if it is for his work on Global Warming. What were we thinking? Why didn’t we take the opportunity to have this guy as our President? Shame on us.

"I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize," Gore said. "We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity."

What? A spiritual issue? That is just like our wonderful Governor of Pennsylvania telling us Jesus, Moses, and Mohammed would support his healthcare plan. (by the way, Gov. Rendell did make this statement earlier this year!) It just so happens that when I was reading the article on YahooNews, the advertisement that popped up on the right was from……The United Methodist Church. “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors”

Wal*Mart – Lights on for Safety?

Below is an e-mail I sent to the local Wal*Mart.
************

I shop at the Ebensburg (Pennsylvania) store every (day inserted here) evening usually from about (times inserted here). I notice that the outside parking lot lights are on at this time. Obviously, during the summer it is still light outside and those lights do not need to be on.

If Wal*mart is trying to be "green" then shutting off the outside lights during the day or early evening would help conserve resources right?

************

I wonder if I’ll get a response? Better yet, I wonder if they will turn off the lights! I figure if turning off the lights will lower Wal*Mart’s costs, then maybe they will pass that savings on to me.

Always thinking of something here at Doe Valley.

Solar Energy

In theory solar energy is a great idea, in practice however, it is unpractical to use on a large scale basis. It does work great for things like calculators, trickle charges, etc.

The average American household uses about 866kwh per month of electricity. A typical home solar system can product 1600kwh per YEAR in a sunny climate and only 750kwh per month in a cloudy climate. Most systems have a lifespan of between 10 and 20 years. As with anything, there are routine maintenance items that need to be considered in reality, but are excluded from this discussion.

The basic household solar system has an initial cost of around $10,000. Therefore it will take over 60 years to recoup your initial cost in a sunny climate and over 123 years in a cloudy climate. (Assuming $0.08 per kwh plus a $12 fixed cost for electric, the monthly bill would be about $81. $10,000 divided by $162 for sunny climates and $10,000 divided by $81 for cloudy climates).

Assuming a lifespan of 20 years, a $10,000 solar project would cost the homeowner around $0.31 per kwh in a sunny climate and $0.66 per kwh in a cloudy climate.

Why mention this?

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 authorizes funds for a solar panel wall project at the Department of Energy’s Forrestal Building in Washington D.C. The bill authorized the use of $20 million for this project in 2006. The project was put on hold. In February of 2007, HR 798 authorizes the use of $30 million for this project.

Do we really need the federal government spending $30 million on an inefficient way of producing electricity? The federal government already has enough inefficiency’s! We don’t need any more.

Just my thoughts.

The "Science" of Global Warming

Today, I am still on this “An Inconvenient Truth” kick. Another item that Al Gore mentioned in his movie was in regards to the North American ice that was around many years ago (maybe 10,000 or more years depending on which scientist you talk to). When this ice melted it created the Great Lakes and other rivers in northern North America. The ice then cooled the Northern Atlantic Ocean causing problems for Europe and Russia.

Lets assume that this occurred as the scientists say. What caused it? Global Warming? Ok, what caused Global Warming then? People, no I don’t think so. Industrial Revolution, no way, it didn’t exist! It seems to be a natural process. Maybe that is what is happening again, a natural process of the Earth warming.

I find it funny that the liberal left are very conservative with regards to the environment and the conservative right are very liberal with regards to the environment. When I say I am relatively conservative, I mean in everything, politics, finances, environment, social issues, etc.

I do think we need to “protect” our environment from abuse. However, it is a resource that has been provided for us to use and we should indeed use it. The problem lies in defining what environmental abuse is. Until we can answer that question with clarity, there will be more “heated” debates about the environment.

Still no palm trees at Doe Valley.

Boiling Frogs

In “An Inconvenient Truth” Al Gore mentions that a frog placed in boiling water would jump out, however, a frog that was placed in water and then gradually heated to a boil would not jump out. It would boil and die in the water.

This morning, I decided to find out. Currently, it is too cold to catch frogs from our pond, so I was unable to actually perform the experiment. Therefore, I looked into the advice of the experts and here is what I came up with.

The consensus is that a frog would indeed jump out of boiling water as well as jump out of water that got too hot for it!

It is an amusing story, but we must not be optimistic or pessimistic, just face the reality.

It is funny to hear these scientists talk about how bad Global Warming is and will be and then read other information about evolution and how the species adapt to their surroundings. If evolution is correct and species can adapt to their surrounds, then Global Warming should be a non-event.

Waiting to see palm trees at Doe Valley!

An Inconvenient Truth

I got to see this “documentary” last night. It really isn’t worth your time or money to see it. Al Gore doesn’t really have any new information or insight into the theory of Global Warming. I suppose if you knew nothing about the topic you would probably be very frightened after seeing this movie.

The movie is extremely bias to the liberal left environmentalists. There are also scenes in the movie that have nothing to do with Global Warming, such as the accident of his son and the death of his sister. No doubt, they were life-changing events for Mr. Gore, but they didn’t have anything to do with Global Warming.

There were charts in the movie that just showed zigzag lines going up, but there were no x or y axis or numbers on the chart, just zigzag lines going up! Talk about scientific!

The two main assumptions that you need to make are: One there is “Global Warming” and Two people are the cause of Global Warming. According to much of the research today, the numbers “prove” a link between Global Warming and humans. Read “Freakonomics” by Steven Levitt for more analysis of scientists drawing conclusions as soon as they see a good fit. There are also other books that demonstrate how you can use statistics to prove your point even if there is no point to prove!

I went to their website (Climate Crisis) to calculate my impact on Global Warming. The national average is 7.5 tons of Carbon Dioxide per year. Mine is 13.15 tons of Carbon Dioxide per year! Almost twice the nation average! Shame on me, what can I do?

Well, we already use some CFL’s, we have a programmable thermostat, the filters are changed regularly, the heat is set around 66, the a/c is around 78, we have a new energy efficient home, we don’t eat much meat, we recycle and reuse things, Doe Valley has lots of trees, we cannot possibly reduce the number of miles we drive, my vehicles are inspected weekly for efficient operation, there are no cost effective 4wd hybrid vehicles for me to replace my current vehicle!

Again I ask the question what can I do? I already conserve as much as possible and still I am almost twice the national average! The numbers don’t add up.

After watching the movie last night (with my winter hat on and a heavy blanket on me). I was very tempted to actually turn the heat up!

I am not against the idea of recycling, reusing, and reducing our waste. In fact, I think America really needs to be more conservative with their resources. Indeed, there does need to be a change in American lifestyles, however, that has nothing to do with Global Warming.

Global warming in ComputerWorld Magazine

I just finished reading an opinion column about global warming in my computer magazine. So I felt the immediate need to respond to the author. The article can be found on ComputerWorld's website.


Opinion: E-waste Not

Global warming?

“The scientific consensus is that the release of greenhouse gases through the consumption of fossil fuels causes global warming.” (Mark Hall, Computerworld magazine February 19, 2007 Vol 41. No. 8, page 20)

The scientific consensus also believed the world was flat until Christopher Columbus proved them wrong in 1492. Science isn’t always right. There are many scientists that do not buy into the global warming debate as being as drastic as Al Gore and others make it out to be. Notice, I could have used many nicknames for Mr. Gore, but I restrained myself, unlike you, calling the President of the United States names. I realize we have freedom of speech and press, however, a distinguished journalist would not stoop to such levels.

Is global warming happening? Who knows for sure, but one day the earth will definitely be very hot, read Revelation 20 for more information.

For more information about global warming read these articles:
PhillyMagazine
USA Today