My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on January 11, 2012

Without getting too political, I question whether Mercedes-Benz Chairman of the Board of Management Dieter Zetsche was thinking clearly as he gave his presentation at CES in front of an enlarged photo of Che Guevara?

“Some colleagues still think that car-sharing borders on communism," Dieter Zetsche said "but if that’s the case, viva la revolucion!"

I suppose the German car company could have gone with an even more dysphemistic German figure for shock value … if that was their intent, but the folks at Mercedes need to have their head examined if they think this marketing works on most Americans considering a Mercedes-Benz, or maybe it is just me?

For the record, they were not celebrating Guevara or even promoting their next expensive luxury sedan, but highlighting “car sharing” … but then you be the judge regarding using Che at the CES presentation. LINK

"Viva la revolucion!"

Mercedes-Benz may not seem like the kind of company that would promote the social use of its vehicles, but at CES today, it was doing just that.

During the company’s CES press conference, Daimler’s chairman of the board of management, Dieter Zetsche, laid out a vision for car sharing that may be intimately tied to Mercedes cars in the future.

Read more here and here.

Category: Automotive, Marketing, Mercedes, Politics | No Comments »
Tags: ces, che guevara, mercedes, zetsche

Posted By RichC on January 10, 2012

A WSJ article illustrated what economists monitoring the U.S. employment market have known, but have failed to communicate successfully; we as a nation are on a long-term trend of  fewer decent paying middle class career jobs with dim prospects unless things change. (we deny it, make excuses and kick the can down the road just as we have with the debt, deficits and underfunded and bloating entitlements)

By a wide range of measures, the U.S. labor market has over the past two decades lost much of the edge it enjoyed over other developed countries. The big gains in education in the early 20th century have slowed. Americans are moving less frequently and changing jobs less often, making the job market less flexible. And most critically, a smaller share of Americans are working.

We all to often focus on short term changes measured in months or maybe even a year, but the long term trend for U.S. economic competitiveness and living wage jobs have been weakening for longer than just the current administration or second half of the prior administration. As a country we need the kind of change that makes the United States the most attractive place to manufacture products, run companies and raise a family, but until we focus on the reason companies move elsewhere we are doomed to continue the downward trend.

The risk, economists say, is that the U.S. will develop an underclass of semipermanently unemployed workers, with severe consequences for productivity, public finances and even social stability. Europe, which faced a similar problem in the 1980s, is still dealing with the consequences.

With Europe hoping to hang on to their socialist ways and heading into a recession, we have an opportunity to learn from their entitlement failures and buck the current trend. It is not too late, although the deeper government dependency grows, the more difficult it will be to return America to the principles which founded our country. The individual is key – return decision making and self-determination to the individual and reduce government dominance where ever possible.

How about starting with these three points:

1. A regulation friendly environment and infrastructure for companies and the investors who take risk in them with capital
2. Competitive, fairer and simplified corporate federal, state and local taxes (high US corporate taxes … unless they are wealthy enough play the tax game)
3. Ambitious and educated workforce AND an education system which focuses on teaching what students need to excel in the workforce

Category: Financial, Politics | No Comments »
Tags: economy, jobs, unemployment, wsj

Posted By RichC on January 9, 2012

A couple of“rat” stories (and a photo above) caught my attention today — and I thought all the “rats” in Washington DC were on vacation?

City: Rat population has ‘exploded’ around Occupy D.C. camps

By Annie Gowen

The rat population around the two Occupy D.C. camps at McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza has “exploded”since protesters began their vigil in October, according to Mohammad N. Akhter, the director of the District’s Department of Health.

Akhter said in an interview Monday that city health inspectors have seen rats running openly through both camps and spotted numerous new burrows and nests underneath hay-stuffed pallets occupiers are using for beds.

MORE at Washington Post blogs

Category: Blogs, Humor, News, Politics | No Comments »
Tags: #odc, #ows, bronx, footlocker, rats, Washington DC

Posted By RichC on January 9, 2012

Before you “leap” … how do you know the bungee is going to hold? I enjoy an adrenaline rush as much as the next guy, but the older I get the more control in the outcome I want to have; I’m not sure I like the idea of trusting a bungee cord.

One lucky bungee jumper was fortunate to survive not only the “leap”and impact, but the swim to shore.

Category: Travel, Video | 1 Comment »
Tags: bungee, jumping, Travel

Posted By RichC on January 9, 2012

Although I’m not at all disappointed with my current single 135W Kyocera solar panel, I don’t want to be wasting amps and not returning them to my battery bank. I was reading an article debating the different controllers regulating charging and began doing some of my own research since I’m thinking about adding an additional panel (2 x 135w).

If indeed I could increase efficiency and minimize loss … perhaps a 3 stage charge control like the one from Blue Sky Energy is a good idea? Thoughts from those already heavily into solar?

12V / 25 amp low cost MPPT charge controller

Patented Maximum Power Point Tracking technology allows Solar Boost 2512i and Solar Boost 2512iX to increase charge current up to 30% or more compared to conventional charge controllers. Don’t waste your money by throwing PV power away! Get the power you paid for with a Solar Boost charge controller.

The low cost Solar Boost 2512i provides an advanced fully automatic 3-stage charge control system to ensure the battery is properly and fully charged, resulting in enhanced battery performance with less maintenance. A partial IPN™ network interface is also included to allow use of the IPN-Remote or IPN-ProRemote displays.

Additional features provided in the Solar Boost 2512iX include automatic or manual equalization, battery temperature sensor input, full IPN network compatibility, and an auxiliary output. The user configurable auxiliary output can serve as either a 25 amp load controller, or as a 2 amp auxiliary battery charger. The load control feature can be used to limit excessive battery discharge in
unattended remote systems, where as the auxiliary battery charge feature is ideal for charging a separate battery such as the engine battery in an RV.

Blue Sky Energy’s advanced Integrated Power Net™, or IPN Network, allows up to 8 IPN capable charge controllers to communicate with each other and operate as a single machine rather than separate charge controllers. The IPN network also allows networked controllers to share an optional battery temperature sensor and remote display. The IPN network does not require a display or other special hardware to operate.

Category: Energy, Sailing, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: blue sky energy, encore, kyocera, power, sailboat, sailing, solar

Posted By RichC on January 8, 2012

In Autoblog’s 2011 VW Jetta TDI longterm update there were a couple less than flattering comments about the VW’s comfort and the manual gearbox. Besides disliking the firm Volkswagen seats, the follow up was that the 2011 TDI had a "much-disliked" and "tricky" gearbox.  Having driven a variety of manual transmission cars and owning two A4 TDIs with 5-speeds, I’m puzzled of the disappointment in the new 6-speed manual. Any thoughts from owners or those who may have test driven 2011 or 2012 manual transmission TDIs?

… the interior seems to be more broken-in, though it isn’t showing any noticeable signs of wear. That said, it still isn’t a very pleasant place to be. I didn’t love it on my cross-country journey a few months ago, and while it’s more comfortable now that more butts have been in the driver’s seat, there simply isn’t anything to rave about.

Fuel economy, however, is as great as ever – I commonly see numbers over 40 mpg. The car’s much-disliked gearbox is still tricky, and we broke a sweat trying not to stall while starting out on some of those steep San Francisco hills (especially when cars were behind us). But with some serious concentration, we managed with minimal problems.

LINK

Category: Automotive, Diesel, Volkswagen | 6 Comments »
Tags: diesel, jetta, tdi, vw

Posted By RichC on January 7, 2012

Category: Misc | 2 Comments »
Tags:

Posted By RichC on January 6, 2012

Audi Vail expect to be similar to the Q3 (above)

What are the chances that Audi’s new “Vail” CUV concept expected at the Detroit Auto Show this year will sport a TDI diesel engine like their A3 does here in the U.S. – I’m guessing slim?

Audi will use the Detroit motor show next week to unveil a concept “Vail” version of the compact Q3 SUV for the U.S. market and plans to build a sedan version of the A3 hatchback after the newest model comes to market this year, Chief Executive Officer Rupert Stadler said in an interview.

Bloomberg

Category: Automotive, Diesel | No Comments »
Tags: audi, diesel, q3, tdi

Posted By RichC on January 5, 2012

The Kickstarter company Lubricheck, mentioned in May of 2011, has improved their oil analyzer device to include diesel engines. Outstanding … although they aren’t shipping just yet – order link.

We are pleased to report that our software development and testing has been successfully completed! During this process, we found several changes that were required in the hardware as well, including the need to change to a more powerful IC chip. The first test units are now working beautifully, producing highly consistent, repeatable results. We are now poised to build multiple units for field testing. Arrangements have been made to send several of these pre-production units to one of the largest oil testing labs in the US. Here, Lubricheck test results will be compared to the results from sophisticated lab equipment, on dozens of oil samples. We expect that publishing this data will help to convince even the most skeptical reader that the Lubricheck really does do what we claim.

But Wait! There is More!!

A good portion of the delays over the past few weeks have been due to our clandestine efforts to design the standard gasoline model Lubricheck to work on diesel engines, too. We had not mentioned this effort earlier because we were not sure it was possible to do, and we did not want to raise false hopes. We are delighted to report that our test results prove the standard Lubricheck works equally well on gasoline AND diesel engines! This should be very good news to the numerous backers who have passionately urged us to develop a diesel capable unit ASAP. In addition, this new capability will open opportunities for us in the vast market of commercial trucking, where regular, expensive laboratory oil testing is a way of life.

We wish to thank our backers again for the wonderful support and patience they have extended to us! As soon as our circuit changes are implemented, and the bill of materials is updated to reflect our modifications, we will get fresh pricing from our vendors, and begin ordering parts for production. It will take several weeks to get all of these parts ready to go. We will keep you informed on estimated production delivery dates as they become available.

Happy New Year and warmest regards,

The Lubricheck Team

Category: Automotive, Technology, Tools | No Comments »
Tags: analysis, lubricheck, oil, tool

Posted By RichC on January 4, 2012

Not that it matters much, but Gov Mitt Romney and Rep Rick Santorum were the two top vote getters in Iowa on Tuesday night as it took until the wee hours of the morning before a winner could be declared – Romney by 8 votes. The 24.55% vs 24.54% split barely made up the majority of votes in what came down to a four or maybe five horse race in Iowa: Romney, Santorum, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry. As the press conferences wrapped up, many believe the GOP is realistically down to the top 4 finishers … and of those one is not electable as a Republican (Paul).

As the campaigns head to New Hampshire where Gov Romney holds a 2 to 1 lead over the nearest competitor, serious campaigners focus on the South Carolina and Florida primaries where most likely the Republican will decide who will run against President Obama.

What is interesting is that the Republican party currently has different candidates. With Romney most see someone with personal morals, convictions and respected business credentials, but a less that conservative political track record. Santorum also has conducted his personal and family life with integrity, but lacks the business and economic resume of Romney. Speaker Gingrich, who many boast as the “smartest man in the room,” slips a notch or two when dissecting his personal life and volumes of lectures, writing and years of political negotiating. Still he is the most formidable campaigner and debater of the bunch … something that many expect may be needed when going up against the billion dollar campaign war-chest the Obama campaign has amassed.

For the pragmatist, I think Romney is the guy … for the ideologue, they may just have to hold their nose or may do what the Republican establishment fear and say home.

Category: News, Politics | 2 Comments »
Tags: gingrich, gop, obama, paul, perry, republican, romney, santorum