Even with its remarkable, 85-kW-hr battery, the Model S' EPA-certified 265-mile range is about 100 miles short of spanning California's two biggest cities. And if you can't manage that, how would you ever get to New York? To answer that, Tesla recently unveiled the first five of what it calls its Supercharger stations along routes connecting L.A. to Las Vegas and San Francisco, and S.F. to Reno. (A sixth is located at SpaceX's Hawthorne factory.) These Superchargers are veritable electron fire hoses, delivering DC energy directly into the battery at rates up to 80 kW, bypassing the on-board 10-kW (or optional 20-kW) inverter(s), and gaining 150 to 160 miles in range in 30 minutes. As Tesla says, stops on long drives often take that long anyway, if you use the bathroom, stretch, and grab a snack.
Moreover, charging will be partially sun-powered -- the stations' roofs are covered with Musk's Solar City photovoltaic cells, but don't worry, you can recharge at night -- and it's permanently free to Model S owners with the 85 kW-hr battery, and 60 kW-hr cars with supercharging capability. As Musk says, as long as you bring enough sandwiches and drinks, you could drive across the country without your wallet. Tesla predicts 100 stations nationwide by 2015.
Posted November 8th, 2012 @ 09:45am by Erik J. Barzeski
So, Marco's "The Magazine" has been around for a few issues now. What's the general take? Worth the $2/month? Worth it if you have to read it on your iPhone 5 only (no iPad)?
Posted November 5th, 2012 @ 07:21pm by Erik J. Barzeski
I continue to think it's stupid that California gets 54 or 55 electoral college votes, despite margins that are nowhere near 100% victory for any one candidate.
What would be so bad about this:
- Keep the electoral college count the same way it is now.
- Round to the nearest whole number the electoral college votes along the lines of the popular vote count.
- In case of a tie, popular count across the whole country decides the winner.
In other words, if California voted 57% for candidate A and 42% for candidate B (and 1% for C), then you'd split the votes (assuming 55):
- 55 * 0.57 = 31
- 55 * 0.42 = 23
- 55 * 0.01 = 1
The way the current system works Texas tends to get 38 Republican votes and New York and California award 29 and 55. Win two states - even by a 50/49/1 margin - and you've got 84 of the 270 votes needed to win (31%!).
Posted November 3rd, 2012 @ 02:55pm by Erik J. Barzeski
Simply put, how can I create a document with two views of the same table?
I'd like this table:
To have a printable view that looks a bit like this:
(Not that it matters but you can click for larger versions of each of those images.)
The second table (which I'd like within the same file - if it's on a separate Sheet that's fine) eliminates a few columns, reorganizes them, resizes them, and changes some cell sizes (font sizes, widths, heights). The second table should grow (or shrink as I add or subtract rows from the first table.
Posted November 2nd, 2012 @ 01:58pm by Erik J. Barzeski
This column view bug - which I first noticed in Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) still exists in 10.8.3 (Mountain Lion). It's a pain in the rear, too, because if you select all and try to open (or move, copy, or some other things), you get an annoying error message:
This is what happens when you try to force an app (the Finder in this case) to function in a weird way.
Posted November 1st, 2012 @ 01:57pm by Erik J. Barzeski
I'm beginning to make some headway in getting disc golf course(s) built in Erie, PA (the county, not the city itself :D). Soon I'll be soliciting donations from area businesses and individuals.
The first step is, I imagine, to set up a local checking account, probably as a "DBA" account with something like "Erie Disc Golf Club" as the official name. I believe we'll first need to get about $6k for a local nine-hole course (baskets to start, tee pads and signs to follow once we're sure we like the layout and lengths), so it will be nice for donators to be able to write checks to "Erie Disc Golf Club" and not to me personally or something. It will also provide a clean balance sheet, etc.n