Double Blind

Now this article blames women for the lack of widespread adoption of Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL)s.

I am finding this debate on CFLs rather interesting in that I find the analogy between incandescent light/CFLs and compact cars/SUVs to be mightily similar. This time, the government has stepped in and said that you have to use CFLs because they are more efficient. I think in the name of vote-grabbing, other such initiatives are probably not that far behind.

Ultimately it’s about choice – even if CFLs are cheaper, more efficient in every way, what if I want to use an incandescent light because I like the light better? Isn’t it my choice to pay the extra few cents of electricity? I guess not anymore.

Apparently some person dropped a Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) bulb in their house and it broke. Knowing that it contains mercury, she called the proper authorities and they determined that the room in the house was contaminated six times above the state’s (Maine) safe mercury level. The bill for cleaning the house: A minimum of $2,000. Maybe the room was already contaminated by previous occupants, but assuming this wasn’t the case, it pays to be very careful with these things if you’re screwing them into ceiling fixtures.

It’s hidden consequences like this that politicians never consider when they pass “feel-good” legislation. Feel-good legislation always has the drawback of never being functional in the real world. It might be perfect on paper, but when you consider simple failure modes such as dropping CFL lightbulbs and causing mercury contamination, it’s pretty obvious that more thought processes need to go behind getting rid of the ordinary light bulb. So we might save a net of a hundred million in electricity a year, but we might have to pay a billion in environmental cleanup fees and live in a more toxic environment.

It’s ironic that when the radical environmentalists get what they want, they end up with a worse environment. Go figure.

Chad’s picture of a squirrel challenging him to a fight is awesome. There’s no other way you can interpret that picture.

Maybe the squirrel had money on Woosang to win the golf game.

So they won game 2 (which was surprising) and lost game 3 (which wasn’t surprising) although they played better in game 3. However, the lack of scoring ability has been killing the team – they can’t win hockey games by just scoring one or two goals a game. In that respect it’s a miracle they ever got to the second round.

Anyhow, here are the odds:

Canucks to win the series: +545 (15.5%)
Ducks to win the series: -605 (85.8%)

Canucks to win Game 4: +130 (43.5%)
Ducks to win Game 4: -140 (58.3%)

Oh, and for those with a sense of humour…

Odds the Canucks will win the Stanley Cup: +2325 (4.1%)

I have read many articles about actions that people in authority positions in the educational realm have taken. One of my predictions as to the consequences of the Virginia Tech shooting was the following:

An emphasis on educators to “report” people that are “suspicious” or have “disturbing writings” or thoughts. Essentially what this will mean is that anybody that has thoughts remotely relating to violence, these people will likely be apprehended by authority figures and interrogated on their “thoughts”.

What is likely the first, but not the last victim of this new mentality is a fellow called Allen Lee, a straight-A student that was arrested by police after his teacher turned him in for writing a “violently disturbing” essay. Apparently in the Chicago area you can be charged for writing something that “can disturb an individual”.

Let this be a lesson for those students that are experiencing the new era of education. My only advice is to never write what you truly think, unless if such thoughts are “positive”. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by writing anything that can be remotely construed as negative or can indicate that your life isn’t in “balance”. Feel free to write about it after your life doesn’t depend on the decision of a person that has authority over you, such as a teacher or a university administrator.

The second story is a University of Portland student that developed a workaround to a piece of software that forced a windows-based machine to run a virus scanner and a firewall. He was suspended for a whole year by administrators for having the audacity to not toe the line on the computing infrastructure policy.

Another lesson for those that are on the wrong side of the education industry (i.e. students): There are a lot of people that can have undue influence over your life and can make your life very miserable with suspensions and other punitive actions. Learn to not get on the radar screen of these individuals, as there are a lot of people in academia that get pleasure from exerting control onto others since they can’t do it anywhere else.

If you must release software or advice that circumvents processes, do it anonymously and from an address outside your educational institution’s subnet, as administrators will try to trace your IP address to your identity.

The rules that come out of Columbine and Virginia Tech are pretty simple: On the outside, pretend to be a well-adapted happy individual with no problems. On the inside, be yourself and only show it to those that won’t use it against you to fulfil their own power trips.

The Vancouver Canucks got slaughtered in game 1, and the market priced that in already. That said, their odds are looking worse now that they’re down 1-0 in the series against the Anaheim Ducks.

Canucks to win the series: +360 (21.7%)
Ducks to win the series: -400 (80.0%)

Canucks to win game 2: +190 (34.5%)
Ducks to win game 2: -210 (67.7%)

Based from what I saw in game 1, I think the market is right.

The Canadian Federal government has jumped on the bandwagon and mandated that you won’t be able to use incandescent light bulbs. They are trying to get you to use compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). Apparently it knows better than you do with consumer decisions. Such bandwagon-hopping decisions frequently have major hidden consequences that only appear after a few years of enactment. By that time, reality sets in and people have to deal with it while the original bandwagon hoppers are long gone.

Has anybody wondered what you do with these things after they burn out?

It turns out that a single 25 watt bulb contains about 6 milligrams of mercury. What happens when you want to throw them away? I still haven’t been able to find out how, although from what I can tell it isn’t illegal to just trash them and pollute the landfills. When this happens on the scale of hundreds of thousands of light bulbs, it’s going to be a substantial problem.

People that use dimmer switches are in trouble. I suspect they will switch to halogen. I personally love halogen lamps, although they’re probably just as inefficient as incandescent bulbs.

Another irony is that the lights outside the BC Legislature are run with traditional incandescent light and LEDs aren’t all that good for outdoor use (their reliability is significantly less outdoors, including CFLs).

That said, due to the economics (assuming the numbers concerning the reliability is correct) of CFLs, it’s probably a good decision for people to replace their light bulbs… only when the present ones they have burn out.

Here are the odds that a specified outcome will happen:

Canucks to win in 4 games: +3175 (3.1%)
Canucks to win in 5 games: +1595 (5.9%)
Canucks to win in 6 games: +662 (13.1%)
Canucks to win in 7 games: +853 (10.5%)
Ducks to win in 4 games: +642 (13.5%)
Ducks to win in 5 games: +284 (26.0%)
Ducks to win in 6 games: +400 (20.0%)
Ducks to win in 7 games: +459 (17.9%)
Sum of all (Bookmaker’s spread): 110%

So if the Canucks do win the series, the bookmakers are predicting it will be most likely in 6 games. I predicted earlier that the Ducks will likely take it in 5 games, and it appears the bookmakers agreed with that opinion (I wrote my prediction before the odds here were posted).

As usual, I have zero economic stake in this game since I can’t pick sports even if my life depended on it.

Apparently some guy made a 100 pound bet 10 years ago (when he turned the age of 90) that he would live to see the day he celebrated his 100th birthday. The bookmaker, an established British outfit, gave 250 to 1 odds on the event. This translates into a 0.4% probability, and the man collected 25,000 pounds.

The bookmaker actually made a poor bet considering that the actual odds of such an event was probably closer to 4%. When you factor the cost of capital (i.e. interest foregone by the bettor on the initial 100 pound deposit), the fair value of such a bet should be around 2.5% or 40 to 1.

When I saw them down 1-0 against Dallas, I thought “oh my, they’re toast”. But what do you know, they actually scored a couple goals and much to my surprise, deserved the win.

Now they are going to be facing Anaheim, a much more dangerous team. And the market odds suggest this as well:

Vancouver Canucks to win the series: +210 (32.3%)
Anaheim Mighty Ducks to win the series: -230 (69.7%)

Game 1 odds are:
Vancouver Canucks to win: +185 (35.1%)
Anaheim Mighty Ducks to win: -200 (66.7%)

My prediction here is that the Ducks will win the series in 5 games.