About 25 years ago, the first modern electric cars began to appear. The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) realized with alarm that ordinary consumers would soon be attempting to charge cars from household circuits, the first time in history that people with limited electrical competence would be making and breaking connections drawing more than 15 amps. They knew that it was only a matter of time before someone tried to charge a car at 40 amps using an 18 gauge lamp cord and start a fire. Previously, anyone making these sorts of more powerful connections--household ovens and the like--would either be an electrician, or someone with enough competence to not make such a mistake. E.g. a welder.
The approach they came up with was called J1772. Basically, they mandated that all electric car chargers would require a standard plug which would inform the car of what it was connected to, so the car wouldn't draw too much current. The way this worked was a control wire, called the "pilot", which implements a square wave where the duty cycle says what the maximum current can be. The pilot signal would be generated by a device called an EVSE: Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment. An EVSE contains a circuit which generates the specific square wave, and some number of "contactors", which are big relays that can tolerate make/break of the full current. Whether the contactor is open or closed depends upon whether the charge circumstances the EVSE sees are deemed safe. The EVSE does no power conversion--it's just passing whatever power it receives on to the car. The car must contain a battery charger appropriate to the battery in the car, and reciprocal electronics to behave correctly according to the signal it's receiving from the EVSE.
Part of this design is that the plug on the EVSE is specific to the power limits of whatever it's plugged into: a NEMA 5-15 can draw no more than 80% of 15 amps. A NEMA 14-50 no more than 80% of 50 amps, and so forth. Replacing the plug on an EVSE or plugging it into an extension cord foils the safeguards that are the whole point of the EVSE's existence. Therefor, most EVSEs are intended for a single voltage/current application. A few of them have a couple of modes, which are typically controlled by switches, to adapt to different power sources.
There's a second factor too. J1772 defines two levels: Level 1 and Level 2. In the North America, this is the distinction between 120 and 240 volt power, sometimes incorrectly called one phase and two phase. 120 is wired with Hot, Neutral and Ground, where 240 is wired with Hot1, Hot2 and either Neutral or Ground or both. (connectors without a ground have been disparaged since the 1960s and became illegal for new construction in the '90s). Typically, EVSEs are configured for either L1 or L2.
Tesla came up with something clever: Their portable EVSE (which they call a UMC: Universal Mobile Connector) comes with a connector that allows different adapters to be plugged in. Thus, if it's got a 14-50 adapter, on it, it tells the UMC to send the signal for 40 amps. if it's a 5-15, it says 12 amps. (this is simply a resistor that's tuned to the particular R/C circuit in the EVSE). The UMC also detects whether the source power is 120 or 240 and modifies its behavior. They have a half dozen adapters for this. Interestingly, the adapter does not care if 240V power is plugged into an adapter intended for 120V. As long as the wires are correct, it simply passes the power along. If you're careful to make sure everything upstream is safe for the volts and amps, it all goes smoothly. If it's not wired correctly, the car gives you an error message, and you can fix your adapter. Obviously this is dangerous to play with if you don't understand what I mean by all of this.
Tesla is doing a separate thing, which they call "supercharging", which requires much bigger conductors in their charging system. Their approach was to have their own, incompatible connector, so people don't naively plug non-compatible cars into their super high powered charge stations. They provide a small adapter so people can charge Teslas with standard J1772 connectors--all the electrical stuff is identical between J1772 and Tesla connectors.
I've studied quite a few EVSEs and I'm pretty convinced the Tesla UMC is the best on the market. It's well designed and built--even though there's a pretty exterior, the whole thing is basically potted in a huge block of rubber, and it would take pretty extreme treatment to break it. It's also priced pretty reasonably: $550. You can buy a version with the tesla plug replaced with a standard J1772 plug here. Quickcharge also has their own 16 amp J1772 adapter for quite a bit less money. QCP is run by a guy named Tony Williams who is both knowledgeable and reputable. There are a bunch of others. Probably the most complete line is Clipper Creek.
10 December 2017
07 December 2017
Ice
My dad grew up on the North Shore of the Boston area, and when he was a child, there were still ice houses in operation. They would cut up the ice in the from frozen ponds there, transporting it on big sleds into bigger buildings where it would be stored, packed in sawdust, until it could be shipped all around the world.
Frederic Tudor (1783-1864) dreamt up the scheme when he was 22, thinking to sell ice to rich plantation owners in the American south and the Caribbean. Ships would come to Boston and the North Shore with cotton and other raw materials for New England manufacturing, and return with finished goods, which occupied less space and weighed much less. So he could buy space on those return trips for very little. It took him several attempts to overcome skepticism, and figure out how to keep the ice from melting, losing thousands of dollars at each attempt, until he figured it out. But eventually he did figure it out, and ponds all over the north shore were used, and New England ice was shipped as far away as India. Tudor became known as "The Ice King". Walden Pond was one of the sources of ice they used and Henry David Thoreau wrote admiringly about the ice harvest in Walden.
When it was discovered that food packed in ice would stay fresh a lot longer, other businesses copied the practice, and in the 1850s, ice houses began to be built around the country, especially along railroad tracks. Special cars, called Refrigerator Cars, were built insulated sides and ice bunkers on their ends, and filled with meat and other perishables. The ice would melt and drain out, so they needed to be refilled every few hundred miles along their trip. In addition, most homes had an "Icebox", which was just an insulated box into which ice and food was placed. Although invented much earlier, mechanical refrigeration finally became practical in the 1920s with the widespread adoption of electricity, but it took a long time for it to be accepted. My grandfather was a relatively early adopter, buying a mechanical refrigerator in the 1930s, despite living in the home of worldwide ice, and my father barely remembers a time when they didn't have a mechanical refrigerator. Yet my grandfather continued to call the refrigerator an "Icebox" until he died in the late 1970s.
The ice business illustrates several interesting things about economics. The first is about entrepreneurship. Tudor was born into a family that was already very wealthy. Each of his early failed attempts to ship ice cost thousands of dollars, in a time when $500 a year was a 90th percentile income. In today's money, he lost half a million dollars each time he failed, and he failed a lot. He spent time as late as 1813 in debtors prison, until his family bailed him out and he tried again. Finally, by 1816 it was a going concern, and by 1825 he was a very wealthy man. Something similar is true today: there are very few successful entrepreneurs who are making bets that would result in their families going hungry. They may have a bankroll earned in a previous job, a rich relative, outside investors. But if they lose, they lose only what they put in. Their families don't starve to death. This safety net is critically important.
Secondly, several times in the 150 year timeline of natural ice refrigeration, big businesses continued to do things in the old fashioned, labor intensive, much more expensive way despite the obvious superiority of the new way. I'll mention two: prior to 1850, food needed to be used very close to where it was harvested. In the case of meat, this meant shipping the animals alive to a slaughterhouse near where it would be eaten. This was very hard on the animals and unless they gave them rest, food and exercise, a lot would die in route, spoiling a lot of the rest. This was time consuming and expensive. The ice refrigerator became practical in the late 1850s and the basic design was in place by 1880 and would last into the 1970s. Yet shipments of livestock continued until well into the 1930s. The railroads had a monopoly though. (part of this was that they'd centralized meatpacking in Chicago: live animals would be shipped to Chicago. Meat would be distributed on ice from Chicago to the rest of the country)
In 1940, a man named Fred Jones received a patent for for a portable mechanical refrigeration unit that would eventually be the basis for what railroads and trucks would use to this day. He and a businessman friend (Joe Numero) founded a company called ThermoKing. In the late 1940s, the fleet of ice refrigerator railroad cars was pretty much worn out, their usual cycle of replacement being interrupted by the war. Pacific Fruit Express, which owned the largest number of those cars, decided to replace them with updated ice refrigerator cars, requiring the physical plant and labor to be continued, even though ThermoKing's product was obviously completely viable and a lot cheaper, and PFE's near monopoly meant that ice refrigerators continued to be used on American railroads into the 1970s. (That Jones was an African American may have contributed to this, although most likely it's just ordinary conservatism). There was no such monopoly on the highways however, and many trucking companies installed ThermoKing refrigerators on their trucks. Despite the gigantic advantages of the railroads in driving costs, fuel and more, this was sufficient to move the refrigerated transport business almost entirely to the roads, where it persists to this day.
At the same time, passenger service was also moving from rail to highway, and also to air, and the interstate highway system made shipping of unrefrigerated freight by road closer to cost and time competitive with rail. Together, this came very close to killing the railroads despite their gigantic inherent advantages. Through consolidation and government subsidy, they've survived, but it was a near thing.
Frederic Tudor (1783-1864) dreamt up the scheme when he was 22, thinking to sell ice to rich plantation owners in the American south and the Caribbean. Ships would come to Boston and the North Shore with cotton and other raw materials for New England manufacturing, and return with finished goods, which occupied less space and weighed much less. So he could buy space on those return trips for very little. It took him several attempts to overcome skepticism, and figure out how to keep the ice from melting, losing thousands of dollars at each attempt, until he figured it out. But eventually he did figure it out, and ponds all over the north shore were used, and New England ice was shipped as far away as India. Tudor became known as "The Ice King". Walden Pond was one of the sources of ice they used and Henry David Thoreau wrote admiringly about the ice harvest in Walden.
When it was discovered that food packed in ice would stay fresh a lot longer, other businesses copied the practice, and in the 1850s, ice houses began to be built around the country, especially along railroad tracks. Special cars, called Refrigerator Cars, were built insulated sides and ice bunkers on their ends, and filled with meat and other perishables. The ice would melt and drain out, so they needed to be refilled every few hundred miles along their trip. In addition, most homes had an "Icebox", which was just an insulated box into which ice and food was placed. Although invented much earlier, mechanical refrigeration finally became practical in the 1920s with the widespread adoption of electricity, but it took a long time for it to be accepted. My grandfather was a relatively early adopter, buying a mechanical refrigerator in the 1930s, despite living in the home of worldwide ice, and my father barely remembers a time when they didn't have a mechanical refrigerator. Yet my grandfather continued to call the refrigerator an "Icebox" until he died in the late 1970s.
The ice business illustrates several interesting things about economics. The first is about entrepreneurship. Tudor was born into a family that was already very wealthy. Each of his early failed attempts to ship ice cost thousands of dollars, in a time when $500 a year was a 90th percentile income. In today's money, he lost half a million dollars each time he failed, and he failed a lot. He spent time as late as 1813 in debtors prison, until his family bailed him out and he tried again. Finally, by 1816 it was a going concern, and by 1825 he was a very wealthy man. Something similar is true today: there are very few successful entrepreneurs who are making bets that would result in their families going hungry. They may have a bankroll earned in a previous job, a rich relative, outside investors. But if they lose, they lose only what they put in. Their families don't starve to death. This safety net is critically important.
Secondly, several times in the 150 year timeline of natural ice refrigeration, big businesses continued to do things in the old fashioned, labor intensive, much more expensive way despite the obvious superiority of the new way. I'll mention two: prior to 1850, food needed to be used very close to where it was harvested. In the case of meat, this meant shipping the animals alive to a slaughterhouse near where it would be eaten. This was very hard on the animals and unless they gave them rest, food and exercise, a lot would die in route, spoiling a lot of the rest. This was time consuming and expensive. The ice refrigerator became practical in the late 1850s and the basic design was in place by 1880 and would last into the 1970s. Yet shipments of livestock continued until well into the 1930s. The railroads had a monopoly though. (part of this was that they'd centralized meatpacking in Chicago: live animals would be shipped to Chicago. Meat would be distributed on ice from Chicago to the rest of the country)
In 1940, a man named Fred Jones received a patent for for a portable mechanical refrigeration unit that would eventually be the basis for what railroads and trucks would use to this day. He and a businessman friend (Joe Numero) founded a company called ThermoKing. In the late 1940s, the fleet of ice refrigerator railroad cars was pretty much worn out, their usual cycle of replacement being interrupted by the war. Pacific Fruit Express, which owned the largest number of those cars, decided to replace them with updated ice refrigerator cars, requiring the physical plant and labor to be continued, even though ThermoKing's product was obviously completely viable and a lot cheaper, and PFE's near monopoly meant that ice refrigerators continued to be used on American railroads into the 1970s. (That Jones was an African American may have contributed to this, although most likely it's just ordinary conservatism). There was no such monopoly on the highways however, and many trucking companies installed ThermoKing refrigerators on their trucks. Despite the gigantic advantages of the railroads in driving costs, fuel and more, this was sufficient to move the refrigerated transport business almost entirely to the roads, where it persists to this day.
At the same time, passenger service was also moving from rail to highway, and also to air, and the interstate highway system made shipping of unrefrigerated freight by road closer to cost and time competitive with rail. Together, this came very close to killing the railroads despite their gigantic inherent advantages. Through consolidation and government subsidy, they've survived, but it was a near thing.
17 November 2017
Tesla Semi Charging.
Tesla has announced their long awaited Tesla Semi, along with a surprise: a new version of the Roadster.
The Semi is a class 8 truck. Class 8 are the biggest trucks in regular use on the roads. They're used for long haul trucking, dump trucks, cement trucks and so forth. The prototypes they've showed have a slick aerodynamic cab and a close-coupled trailer. My suspicion is the trailer will revert to the more conventional ones in most cases. It has a center driving position in the cab, two large touch screens, and software that controls the independently powered wheels to prevent jackknifing. He says it'll have 400 mile range, and a new, bigger than supercharger that they call a megacharger, which supposedly can charge the battery in half an hour.
400 mile range implies something between 600 and 1000 KWH of battery. The biggest batteries sold with Teslas now are 100KWH. Mine has an 85KWH battery, which others have discovered actually puts out more like 81KWH.
Charging a 1000KWH battery with J1772 protocol at 80 amps (e.g. HPWC) will take approximately 50 hours.This is obviously not suitable for a commercial truck. A conventional 125 KW supercharger brings this down to 8 or 9 hours, but Tesla is not presently selling these for commercial installation. They showed the truck side of the receptacle for charging the truck with a "megacharger", which appears to have 8 holes in it, each a little smaller than the present charge orifice. The present supercharger cable is pretty close to the limit of what a relatively frail adult can handle. 8 of them all at once is likely beyond what even Hafþór Björnsson could handle. (He's the actor/strongman that plays "The Mountain that Rides" on Game of Thrones). The strands might be connected individually, but more likely this connection is handled by a machine, such as the one Tesla demonstrated a few years ago.--the truck drives close enough to the charger and the cables are moved into place by a large robot arm.
Anything less than about 400KW is unsuitable for long haul trucking. Long haul truckers may drive 11 hours in a 14 hour day. 400 miles is only about half of that. So they need to charge twice a day, and in the case of drivers who share their truck, they may need to charge more than that. This may be adequate for a lot of Class 8 truck applications though: Cement trucks and dirt trucks spend a big part of their day loading and their routes are often start and stop and stay close to home. Trucks being used to move containers around within container terminals tend to spend well over half their day waiting in line. A 100KW charger may well be adequate for these. Tesla may choose to sell something resembling an existing supercharger for these applications, where the trucks spend their off duty time hooked to the charger. And they may not need much more than an 20KW HPWC for trucks that serve local chains, like grocery stores, where the truck spends a half hour or more loading or unloading for every 20 minutes actually on the move. But long haulers need more
I'm estimating about 1000 truck stops around the US. Tesla would need to install megachargers at a large number of these. A megacharger installation would resemble existing diesel refueling stations in that the chargers will need to be drive-through, like gas stations. There will need to be enough of them at each location that nobody has to wait too long--remember that 14 hour limit. The interesting part though is that the transformer for each megacharger plug needs to be about as big as a 12 bollard supercharger. They can do the same charger sharing, so a 12 megacharger station needs transformers the size of that needed fo 72 individual supercharger bollards. Enough to power hundreds of houses
Interestingly though, on the scale of our national demand, it's not that big a deal. 250*12*400,000 is only 100MW. 25-50 of those big windmills.
adenda 18Nov17:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/17/1716536/-Further-thoughts-on-Tesla-s-EV-Truck-announcement-from-a-former-fleet-owner
The Semi is a class 8 truck. Class 8 are the biggest trucks in regular use on the roads. They're used for long haul trucking, dump trucks, cement trucks and so forth. The prototypes they've showed have a slick aerodynamic cab and a close-coupled trailer. My suspicion is the trailer will revert to the more conventional ones in most cases. It has a center driving position in the cab, two large touch screens, and software that controls the independently powered wheels to prevent jackknifing. He says it'll have 400 mile range, and a new, bigger than supercharger that they call a megacharger, which supposedly can charge the battery in half an hour.
400 mile range implies something between 600 and 1000 KWH of battery. The biggest batteries sold with Teslas now are 100KWH. Mine has an 85KWH battery, which others have discovered actually puts out more like 81KWH.
Charging a 1000KWH battery with J1772 protocol at 80 amps (e.g. HPWC) will take approximately 50 hours.This is obviously not suitable for a commercial truck. A conventional 125 KW supercharger brings this down to 8 or 9 hours, but Tesla is not presently selling these for commercial installation. They showed the truck side of the receptacle for charging the truck with a "megacharger", which appears to have 8 holes in it, each a little smaller than the present charge orifice. The present supercharger cable is pretty close to the limit of what a relatively frail adult can handle. 8 of them all at once is likely beyond what even Hafþór Björnsson could handle. (He's the actor/strongman that plays "The Mountain that Rides" on Game of Thrones). The strands might be connected individually, but more likely this connection is handled by a machine, such as the one Tesla demonstrated a few years ago.--the truck drives close enough to the charger and the cables are moved into place by a large robot arm.
Anything less than about 400KW is unsuitable for long haul trucking. Long haul truckers may drive 11 hours in a 14 hour day. 400 miles is only about half of that. So they need to charge twice a day, and in the case of drivers who share their truck, they may need to charge more than that. This may be adequate for a lot of Class 8 truck applications though: Cement trucks and dirt trucks spend a big part of their day loading and their routes are often start and stop and stay close to home. Trucks being used to move containers around within container terminals tend to spend well over half their day waiting in line. A 100KW charger may well be adequate for these. Tesla may choose to sell something resembling an existing supercharger for these applications, where the trucks spend their off duty time hooked to the charger. And they may not need much more than an 20KW HPWC for trucks that serve local chains, like grocery stores, where the truck spends a half hour or more loading or unloading for every 20 minutes actually on the move. But long haulers need more
I'm estimating about 1000 truck stops around the US. Tesla would need to install megachargers at a large number of these. A megacharger installation would resemble existing diesel refueling stations in that the chargers will need to be drive-through, like gas stations. There will need to be enough of them at each location that nobody has to wait too long--remember that 14 hour limit. The interesting part though is that the transformer for each megacharger plug needs to be about as big as a 12 bollard supercharger. They can do the same charger sharing, so a 12 megacharger station needs transformers the size of that needed fo 72 individual supercharger bollards. Enough to power hundreds of houses
Interestingly though, on the scale of our national demand, it's not that big a deal. 250*12*400,000 is only 100MW. 25-50 of those big windmills.
adenda 18Nov17:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/17/1716536/-Further-thoughts-on-Tesla-s-EV-Truck-announcement-from-a-former-fleet-owner
05 November 2017
Compromise and the Election of 1860
The election of 1860 was one of the most consequential in our history. The issue of slavery had come to a head and the previous two presidents had tried to find compromises and had only succeeded in exacerbating tensions. Both of the two parties had split up into two, irreconcilable factions:
The Democrats had split into Southern, pro slavery Democrats, with John Breckinridge as their candidate, and Northern, moderate, pro appeasement Democrats, with Stephen Douglas. The Whigs had split into anti-slavery Republicans, with Abraham Lincoln, and pro compromise, pro union Constitutional Union, with John Bell.
Lincoln got the most votes and won the election, with more votes and electors than any two of the other candidates, but his policies were viewed as too extreme by all the southern states, and they seceded long before Lincoln took office. But New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania had different ballots, that included a Fusion party. The two compromisers plus the Fusion got more votes than Lincoln, and together, Lincoln and the Fusions got 6 times as many votes as Breckenridge.
What would have happened had the two appeasement parties been able to get together and put forth a single "Fusion"candidate? Politics is often more about individual candidates than policy so it's hard to really know, but here are the numbers for Lincoln, Breckinridge and an imaginary Fusion candidate who I'll call Douglas Bell:
Lincoln Breckinridge Douglas+Bell
AL: 0 48669 41453 No Change 9 D Electors
AR: 0 28732 25420 No Change 4 D Electors
CA: 38733 33969 24542 No Change 4 R Electors
CT: 43488 14372 16959 No Change 6 R Electors
DE: 3822 7339 4954 No Change 3 D Electors
FL: 0 8277 5024 No Change 3 D Electors
GA: 0 52176 54541 D+B wins 10 F Electors
IL: 172171 2331 165129 No Change 11 R Electors
IN: 139033 12295 120815 No Change 13 R Electors
IA: 70302 1035 57402 No Change 4 R Electors
KY: 1364 53143 91709 D+B Wins 12 F Electors
LA: 0 22681 27829 D+B Wins 6 F Electors
ME: 62811 6386 31739 No Change 8 R Electors
MD: 2294 42482 47726 D+B Wins, 8 F Electors
MA: 106684 6163 56701 No Change 13 R Electors
MI: 88481 805 65472 No Change 6 R Electors
MN: 22069 748 11970 No Change 4 R Electors
MS: 0 40768 28407 No Change 7 D Electors
MO: 17028 31362 117173 D+B Wins 9 F Electors
NH: 37519 2125 26299 No Change 5 R Electors
NJ: 58346 0 62869 D+B Wins 7 F Electors
NY: 362646 0 312510 No Change 35 R Electors
NC: 0 48846 47866 No Change 10 D Electors
OH: 231709 11406 199615 No Change 23 R Electors
OR: 5329 5075 4354 No Change 3 R Electors
PA: 268030 0 195636 No Change 27 R Electors
RI: 12244 0 7707 No Change 4 R Electors
SC: No popular vote No Change 8 D Electors
TN: 0 65097 81009 D+B Wins 12 F Electors
TX: 0 74454 15401 No Change 4 D Electors
VT: 33808 1866 8866 No Change 5 R Electors
VA: 1887 74325 90679 D+B Wins 15 F Electors
WI: 86110 887 65182 No Change 5 R Electors
Final Tally:
Lincoln 176 Electors
Douglas+Bell 79 Electors
Breckinridge: 48 Electors
Reality:
Lincoln: 180 Electors
Douglas: 12 Electors
Breckinridge 72 Electors
Bell: 39 Electors
The bottom line is that had the two compromise candidates been on the same ticket, there would have been no difference in the outcome, but there would have been one more election where the popular vote didn't match the electoral college outcome. Where there was a big change is that in the border states: Missouri, Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, even Georgia, the compromisers were much more popular than the pro-slavery faction.
Is General Kelly right that a compromise could have avoided the Civil War? No. There is no such thing as half a slave (at least if he is to remain alive), so there is no compromise possible. The compromises that had been made were what lead to the tensions. There were more people that hoped for the impossible compromise than either of the more extreme factions, but that simply wasn't going to happen.
One of the interesting things I learned from doing this exercise is how many states had 0 votes for the opposing candidate. I doubt that these states actually had zero voters for those positions, but that voter manipulation or intimidation kept such voters away from the polls or their ballots from being counted.
The Democrats had split into Southern, pro slavery Democrats, with John Breckinridge as their candidate, and Northern, moderate, pro appeasement Democrats, with Stephen Douglas. The Whigs had split into anti-slavery Republicans, with Abraham Lincoln, and pro compromise, pro union Constitutional Union, with John Bell.
Lincoln got the most votes and won the election, with more votes and electors than any two of the other candidates, but his policies were viewed as too extreme by all the southern states, and they seceded long before Lincoln took office. But New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania had different ballots, that included a Fusion party. The two compromisers plus the Fusion got more votes than Lincoln, and together, Lincoln and the Fusions got 6 times as many votes as Breckenridge.
What would have happened had the two appeasement parties been able to get together and put forth a single "Fusion"candidate? Politics is often more about individual candidates than policy so it's hard to really know, but here are the numbers for Lincoln, Breckinridge and an imaginary Fusion candidate who I'll call Douglas Bell:
Lincoln Breckinridge Douglas+Bell
AL: 0 48669 41453 No Change 9 D Electors
AR: 0 28732 25420 No Change 4 D Electors
CA: 38733 33969 24542 No Change 4 R Electors
CT: 43488 14372 16959 No Change 6 R Electors
DE: 3822 7339 4954 No Change 3 D Electors
FL: 0 8277 5024 No Change 3 D Electors
GA: 0 52176 54541 D+B wins 10 F Electors
IL: 172171 2331 165129 No Change 11 R Electors
IN: 139033 12295 120815 No Change 13 R Electors
IA: 70302 1035 57402 No Change 4 R Electors
KY: 1364 53143 91709 D+B Wins 12 F Electors
LA: 0 22681 27829 D+B Wins 6 F Electors
ME: 62811 6386 31739 No Change 8 R Electors
MD: 2294 42482 47726 D+B Wins, 8 F Electors
MA: 106684 6163 56701 No Change 13 R Electors
MI: 88481 805 65472 No Change 6 R Electors
MN: 22069 748 11970 No Change 4 R Electors
MS: 0 40768 28407 No Change 7 D Electors
MO: 17028 31362 117173 D+B Wins 9 F Electors
NH: 37519 2125 26299 No Change 5 R Electors
NJ: 58346 0 62869 D+B Wins 7 F Electors
NY: 362646 0 312510 No Change 35 R Electors
NC: 0 48846 47866 No Change 10 D Electors
OH: 231709 11406 199615 No Change 23 R Electors
OR: 5329 5075 4354 No Change 3 R Electors
PA: 268030 0 195636 No Change 27 R Electors
RI: 12244 0 7707 No Change 4 R Electors
SC: No popular vote No Change 8 D Electors
TN: 0 65097 81009 D+B Wins 12 F Electors
TX: 0 74454 15401 No Change 4 D Electors
VT: 33808 1866 8866 No Change 5 R Electors
VA: 1887 74325 90679 D+B Wins 15 F Electors
WI: 86110 887 65182 No Change 5 R Electors
Final Tally:
Lincoln 176 Electors
Douglas+Bell 79 Electors
Breckinridge: 48 Electors
Reality:
Lincoln: 180 Electors
Douglas: 12 Electors
Breckinridge 72 Electors
Bell: 39 Electors
The bottom line is that had the two compromise candidates been on the same ticket, there would have been no difference in the outcome, but there would have been one more election where the popular vote didn't match the electoral college outcome. Where there was a big change is that in the border states: Missouri, Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, even Georgia, the compromisers were much more popular than the pro-slavery faction.
Is General Kelly right that a compromise could have avoided the Civil War? No. There is no such thing as half a slave (at least if he is to remain alive), so there is no compromise possible. The compromises that had been made were what lead to the tensions. There were more people that hoped for the impossible compromise than either of the more extreme factions, but that simply wasn't going to happen.
One of the interesting things I learned from doing this exercise is how many states had 0 votes for the opposing candidate. I doubt that these states actually had zero voters for those positions, but that voter manipulation or intimidation kept such voters away from the polls or their ballots from being counted.
01 November 2017
Without the Asteroid
About 65 Million years ago, an asteroid or comet 10-15 miles in diameter struck the earth in what is today the Yucatan Peninsula, forming what is called the Chicxulub crater, causing climate change and killing most plants and animals, large and small, and making extinct all large creatures, including the giant lizards we call dinosaurs. Some small creatures: small birds, small mammals, small lizards, insects, etc., managed to survive and almost all animal life larger than about the size of a human fist descends from the few survivors, including us humans. There are a few exceptions of larger creatures that survived, but all of them live mainly in water, such as sharks and crocodiles, but it's clear that only a small number of individuals actually made it.
If the asteroid had missed the earth, the big dinosaurs would probably still be among us. Without them, mammals were able to evolve to fill the top predator niches, but had the asteroid not killed them, dinosaurs would still be eating everything that's not good enough at hiding or running away. The things that evolved into monkeys and apes would have had a much harder time competing until they grew the intelligence to turn the tables on the dinosaurs.
Were there intelligent dinosaurs? Clearly yes. Those surviving dinosaurs: crows and ravens, are nearly as smart as dogs and in some ways smarter. They are more social than most other types of birds, and it seems like that ability to work together provokes the development of communication, and that feeds back into speakers ability to come up with increasingly cunning plans. Other dinosaurs also worked together--The movie portrayal of Velociraptors is hyperbole to make a good story, but they did work in teams probably planned traps. It's not that big a step to sitting around after dinner telling stories and making plans for the next day. Our hands evolved from claws that are effective at climbing and catching prey to things that are better at using and making tools and weapons, which gave us a huge opportunity to generalize: select the right tool for the task, rather than being stuck with the one at the end of your arm. Things like spears are essentially impossible for non tool using creatures.
Without the asteroid, a dinosaur would have evolved to fill this niche. Perhaps it would have developed the sort of awareness that we call intelligence. It probably wouldn't have been one of the giants: a top predator has fewer evolutionary pressures than the middle sized ones. It's easy to imagine them being bipedal (so they can specialize their hands and not need them for walking), neither too big nor too small; probably 3 to 7 feet tall, living in groups of a few families. It's unlikely they could fly--all vertebrates with wings use the same limbs that hands are on, which would preclude them from handling and making tools. But they might have feathers and tails. There's nothing particularly magic about 5 fingers, but the opposable thumb is crucial, although it might be implemented in a variety of ways. Could have 3 fingers and two thumbs, or 6 fingers and one thumb. But being a vertebrate, they'd have the head on top and 4 limbs, which constrains the possibilities quite a bit.
In addition the smarter birds, there are several other critters that have developed pretty high levels of intelligence. Dolphins are pretty smart. Groups of them will make sophisticated hunting plans. They clearly have a relatively sophisticated language. Their lack of hands limits them. Of course they developed well after the K-T asteroid--their evolution would have been different had the big dinosaurs survived. Octopuses are also pretty smart and they don't use it for teamwork. They are capable of pretty significant manipulation with their tentacles. And they do predate the K-T asteroid.
If the asteroid had missed the earth, the big dinosaurs would probably still be among us. Without them, mammals were able to evolve to fill the top predator niches, but had the asteroid not killed them, dinosaurs would still be eating everything that's not good enough at hiding or running away. The things that evolved into monkeys and apes would have had a much harder time competing until they grew the intelligence to turn the tables on the dinosaurs.
Were there intelligent dinosaurs? Clearly yes. Those surviving dinosaurs: crows and ravens, are nearly as smart as dogs and in some ways smarter. They are more social than most other types of birds, and it seems like that ability to work together provokes the development of communication, and that feeds back into speakers ability to come up with increasingly cunning plans. Other dinosaurs also worked together--The movie portrayal of Velociraptors is hyperbole to make a good story, but they did work in teams probably planned traps. It's not that big a step to sitting around after dinner telling stories and making plans for the next day. Our hands evolved from claws that are effective at climbing and catching prey to things that are better at using and making tools and weapons, which gave us a huge opportunity to generalize: select the right tool for the task, rather than being stuck with the one at the end of your arm. Things like spears are essentially impossible for non tool using creatures.
Without the asteroid, a dinosaur would have evolved to fill this niche. Perhaps it would have developed the sort of awareness that we call intelligence. It probably wouldn't have been one of the giants: a top predator has fewer evolutionary pressures than the middle sized ones. It's easy to imagine them being bipedal (so they can specialize their hands and not need them for walking), neither too big nor too small; probably 3 to 7 feet tall, living in groups of a few families. It's unlikely they could fly--all vertebrates with wings use the same limbs that hands are on, which would preclude them from handling and making tools. But they might have feathers and tails. There's nothing particularly magic about 5 fingers, but the opposable thumb is crucial, although it might be implemented in a variety of ways. Could have 3 fingers and two thumbs, or 6 fingers and one thumb. But being a vertebrate, they'd have the head on top and 4 limbs, which constrains the possibilities quite a bit.
In addition the smarter birds, there are several other critters that have developed pretty high levels of intelligence. Dolphins are pretty smart. Groups of them will make sophisticated hunting plans. They clearly have a relatively sophisticated language. Their lack of hands limits them. Of course they developed well after the K-T asteroid--their evolution would have been different had the big dinosaurs survived. Octopuses are also pretty smart and they don't use it for teamwork. They are capable of pretty significant manipulation with their tentacles. And they do predate the K-T asteroid.
27 October 2017
2018 Calendar
Tue 1 Jan New Year's Day
Mon 15 Jan Martin Luther King Day (Holiday)
Fri 2 Feb Groundhog's (midwinter) Day
Sun 4 Feb Superbowl LII, Minneapolis, MN
Fri 9 Feb Winter Olympics XXIII Opening Ceremony PyongChang, Korea
Fri 16 Feb Chinese New Year, begins year of the Dog, 4716
Mon 19 Feb Presidents Day (Holiday)
Sun 25 Feb Winter Olympics XXIII Closing Ceremony, PyongChang, Korea
Sun 11 Mar Daylight Savings Time begins
Mon 20 Mar 16:15UT (9:15PDT) Spring Equinox
Fri 30 Mar Passover begins at sundown
Sun 1 Apr Easter
Sat 7 Apr Passover ends at sundown
Tue 1 May May Day (midspring)
Tue 15 May Ramadan begins
Mon 28 May Memorial Day (Holiday)
Thu 14 Jun Ramadan ends
Thu 14 Jun World Cup begins in Russia
Thu 21 Jun 10:07UT (3:07PDT) Summer Solstice
Wed 4 Jul Independence Day (Holiday)
Sun 15 Jul World Cup ends in Moscow, Russia
Wed 1 Aug Midsummer day
Mon 5 Sep Labor Day (Holiday)
Sun 10 Sep Sundown Rosh Hashana begins year 5779
Tue 18 Sep Sundown Yom Kippur
Sun 23 Sep 01:54UT (22 Sep 18:54PDT) Autumn Equinox
Mon 8 Oct Columbus Day (Holiday for some people)
Wed 31 Oct Hallowe'en
Thu 1 Nov Mid autumn day
Sun 4 Nov Daylight Savings Time ends
Tue 6 Nov Election Day
Sun 11 Nov Veterans Day
Thu 22 Nov Thanksgiving (Holiday)
Fri 23 Nov Holiday
Sun 2 Dec Sundown Hannuka begins
Mon 10 Dec Sundown, Hannuka ends
Fri 21 Dec 22:23UT (14:23PST) Winter Solstice
Tue 25 Dec Christmas (Holiday)
Days off work in bold
Astronomical and calendar events in italic
Mon 15 Jan Martin Luther King Day (Holiday)
Fri 2 Feb Groundhog's (midwinter) Day
Sun 4 Feb Superbowl LII, Minneapolis, MN
Fri 9 Feb Winter Olympics XXIII Opening Ceremony PyongChang, Korea
Fri 16 Feb Chinese New Year, begins year of the Dog, 4716
Mon 19 Feb Presidents Day (Holiday)
Sun 25 Feb Winter Olympics XXIII Closing Ceremony, PyongChang, Korea
Sun 11 Mar Daylight Savings Time begins
Mon 20 Mar 16:15UT (9:15PDT) Spring Equinox
Fri 30 Mar Passover begins at sundown
Sun 1 Apr Easter
Sat 7 Apr Passover ends at sundown
Tue 1 May May Day (midspring)
Tue 15 May Ramadan begins
Mon 28 May Memorial Day (Holiday)
Thu 14 Jun Ramadan ends
Thu 14 Jun World Cup begins in Russia
Thu 21 Jun 10:07UT (3:07PDT) Summer Solstice
Wed 4 Jul Independence Day (Holiday)
Sun 15 Jul World Cup ends in Moscow, Russia
Wed 1 Aug Midsummer day
Mon 5 Sep Labor Day (Holiday)
Sun 10 Sep Sundown Rosh Hashana begins year 5779
Tue 18 Sep Sundown Yom Kippur
Sun 23 Sep 01:54UT (22 Sep 18:54PDT) Autumn Equinox
Mon 8 Oct Columbus Day (Holiday for some people)
Wed 31 Oct Hallowe'en
Thu 1 Nov Mid autumn day
Sun 4 Nov Daylight Savings Time ends
Tue 6 Nov Election Day
Sun 11 Nov Veterans Day
Thu 22 Nov Thanksgiving (Holiday)
Fri 23 Nov Holiday
Sun 2 Dec Sundown Hannuka begins
Mon 10 Dec Sundown, Hannuka ends
Fri 21 Dec 22:23UT (14:23PST) Winter Solstice
Tue 25 Dec Christmas (Holiday)
Days off work in bold
Astronomical and calendar events in italic
18 October 2017
Dumb Wheels
For some reason, just about all the car companies have been going with big rim, low sidewall tires, and the aftermarket is going even kookier.
To be perfectly clear, any performance advantages of these is only marginally discernible and couldn't possibly make any difference to you unless you're in a racing situation. Otherwise, unless you count appearance, it's all bad.
The good:
Low sidewalls provide a somewhat stiffer ride and are less compliant. This affects lateral stability slightly at the extremes and might give you slightly better cornering on a smooth road. So slightly that if you can actually feel it, you can probably make a pretty good living driving race cars.
Large rims allow larger diameter brake rotors. This doesn't improve braking at all. It does allow better brake cooling, which could only possibly be meaningfully relevant if you're decelerating at more than about half a G several times a minute. Basically, fairly serious racing. It would also help you if you do the stupid thing and forget to downshift for a long downhill and ride the brakes instead.
The metal rim can be slightly lighter than the rubber tire, reducing unsprung weight. Again, if this actually makes a difference for you, you're probably making a living driving race cars.
The bad:
Low sidewalls provide a somewhat stiffer ride and are less compliant. This gives you a bumpier ride, resulting in a loss of traction unless it's compensated for in the suspension.
Low sidewalls require the surface of the tire to be stiffer, which in addition to reducing compliance, results in poorer traction on slippery surfaces like leaves and ice. So much that people who use them and live in snowy areas need to replace them with higher sidewall tires for winter.
Low sidewalls have limited deflection. If you hit a rock or some other hard thing, the sidewall may completely depress, translating the impact to the rim and damaging it. At the extreme, the thinnest sidewalls cannot tolerate the one inch curb in front of a driveway.
Sidewalls thinner than standard curbs do not protect the rim from lateral impacts when you take a turn a little too close. This is such a problem that there's a business selling aftermarket rim protectors.
The are stiffer and less compliant, which results in reduced fuel economy. For example, Tesla measures slightly over 2% range reduction when switching from 19" to 21" rims.
Formula 1, IndyCar, NASCAR, and many other high end motor racing series do not use these things and manage to get pretty good performance nevertheless. Some sports car racing does, but most of the top cars do not, and have sidewall/rim ratios comparable to ordinary road cars. They have much wider tread, but that's not the same thing at all.
The silly standard way the measurements of tires are specified is part of the problem. My Tesla Model S takes 245/45R19 tires. This is 245mm wide, on a 19 inch rim. The sidewalls of the tire are 45% of 245, which is 110 mm, which is 4.33 inches. So the total tire diameter is 19+2*4.33 = 27.66. Aftermarket 21 inch wheels use 245/35R21, which gives a 3.38" sidewall or 27.76 total tire diameter--basically the same. In addition to using two separate measuring systems (mm and inches), emphasizing sidewall/width ratios has confused people so that they think that's important. In addition, you have to do some calculation to figure out whether your wheelwell can accommodate any particular tire (I'm good at math, but I had to use a calculator to figure out what 45% of 245 was and convert it to inches)
I think they look stupid and I know the are almost entirely a negative for ordinary driving.
Way back in the olden days of tires with tubes, they had to be pretty close to 100% aspect ratio to accommodate the round tube. Tubeless tires and radial cords allowed wider tires and significantly better traction, but for a road car, less than about 60% is just silly.
To be perfectly clear, any performance advantages of these is only marginally discernible and couldn't possibly make any difference to you unless you're in a racing situation. Otherwise, unless you count appearance, it's all bad.
The good:
Low sidewalls provide a somewhat stiffer ride and are less compliant. This affects lateral stability slightly at the extremes and might give you slightly better cornering on a smooth road. So slightly that if you can actually feel it, you can probably make a pretty good living driving race cars.
Large rims allow larger diameter brake rotors. This doesn't improve braking at all. It does allow better brake cooling, which could only possibly be meaningfully relevant if you're decelerating at more than about half a G several times a minute. Basically, fairly serious racing. It would also help you if you do the stupid thing and forget to downshift for a long downhill and ride the brakes instead.
The metal rim can be slightly lighter than the rubber tire, reducing unsprung weight. Again, if this actually makes a difference for you, you're probably making a living driving race cars.
The bad:
Low sidewalls provide a somewhat stiffer ride and are less compliant. This gives you a bumpier ride, resulting in a loss of traction unless it's compensated for in the suspension.
Low sidewalls require the surface of the tire to be stiffer, which in addition to reducing compliance, results in poorer traction on slippery surfaces like leaves and ice. So much that people who use them and live in snowy areas need to replace them with higher sidewall tires for winter.
Low sidewalls have limited deflection. If you hit a rock or some other hard thing, the sidewall may completely depress, translating the impact to the rim and damaging it. At the extreme, the thinnest sidewalls cannot tolerate the one inch curb in front of a driveway.
Sidewalls thinner than standard curbs do not protect the rim from lateral impacts when you take a turn a little too close. This is such a problem that there's a business selling aftermarket rim protectors.
The are stiffer and less compliant, which results in reduced fuel economy. For example, Tesla measures slightly over 2% range reduction when switching from 19" to 21" rims.
Formula 1, IndyCar, NASCAR, and many other high end motor racing series do not use these things and manage to get pretty good performance nevertheless. Some sports car racing does, but most of the top cars do not, and have sidewall/rim ratios comparable to ordinary road cars. They have much wider tread, but that's not the same thing at all.
The silly standard way the measurements of tires are specified is part of the problem. My Tesla Model S takes 245/45R19 tires. This is 245mm wide, on a 19 inch rim. The sidewalls of the tire are 45% of 245, which is 110 mm, which is 4.33 inches. So the total tire diameter is 19+2*4.33 = 27.66. Aftermarket 21 inch wheels use 245/35R21, which gives a 3.38" sidewall or 27.76 total tire diameter--basically the same. In addition to using two separate measuring systems (mm and inches), emphasizing sidewall/width ratios has confused people so that they think that's important. In addition, you have to do some calculation to figure out whether your wheelwell can accommodate any particular tire (I'm good at math, but I had to use a calculator to figure out what 45% of 245 was and convert it to inches)
I think they look stupid and I know the are almost entirely a negative for ordinary driving.
Way back in the olden days of tires with tubes, they had to be pretty close to 100% aspect ratio to accommodate the round tube. Tubeless tires and radial cords allowed wider tires and significantly better traction, but for a road car, less than about 60% is just silly.
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