Midterm Election

Election is coming up and I am curious about who is running and what are the issues they care about. First I will look up my polling place, which is the Niskayuna Town Hall, and they are open from 6AM to 9PM on Tuesday, November 2. I am in county district 3, assembly district 110, election district 17, senate district 44, and congressional district 21. So many district numbers. What do they mean? I go to http://nymap.elections.state.ny.us/nysboe/ and look up current government officials that represent me:

Governer: David Paterson

Lt. Governer: Richard Ravitch

US Senators: Kirsten Gillibrand & Charles Schumer

US Congressional District 21 representative: Paul Tonko

Population: 654,361

NYS Senate District 44 Senator: Hugh T. Farley

Population: 302,248

NYS Assembly District 110 Assemblymember: James Tedisco

Population: 131,594

And I go to the county web page to look up the current elected officials. In county district 3, we have:

James Buhrmaster, Martin Finn, Robert Farley, Brian Gordon, Susan Savage.

Two of these seats are up for election.

In our town I believe the Town Supervisor and one of the two Town Justice is up for election.

Candidates for NYS governor:

Andrew Cuomo (D/IP) & Bob Duffy

Carl Paladino (R/C/Taxpayers) & Greg Edwards & Tom Ognibene

Kristin Davis (Anti-Prohibition) & Linda Espejo

Charles Barron (Freedom) & Eva Doyle

Howie Hawkins (Green) & Gloria Mattera

Warren Redlich (Libertarian) & Alden Link

Jimmy McMillan (Rent is Too Damn High)

Dan Fein (Socialist Workers)

Kenneth Schaeffer (WF) & Elon Harpaz

Among these candidates, 4 have at least one attorney, and the rest are mostly some kind of activist. The political spectrum is very colorful, with many different groups represented.

For State Comptroller, we currently have Tom DiNapoli (D), and the other candidates:

Harry Wilson (R) Hedge Fund Manager

Julia Willebrand (Green) Educator, Progressive Activist

John Gaetani (Libertarian) Accountant

Rus Thompson (Taxpayers) Tea Party Activist

For Attorney General:

Eric Schneiderman (D) State Sen., Attorney & Ex-Police Officer

Dan Donovan (R/C) Staten Island District Attorney

Ramon Jimenez (Freedom) Attorney

Stephen Lynch (IP)

Carl Person (Libertarian)

Amy Young (WF)

For US Senators, both seats are up for election:

Kirsten Gillibrand (D)

Joe DioGuardi (R/C)

Vivia Morgan (Anti-Prohibition)

Cecile Lawrence (Green)

John Clifton (Libertarian)

Joseph Huff (Rent Is Too Damn High)

Bruce Blakeman (Tax Revolt)

David Malpass (Taxpayers)

Chuck Schumer (D)

Jay Townsend (R/C)

Randy Credico (Anti-Prohibition/Libertarian)

James Germalic (Black/White)

Colia Clark (Green)

Gary Berntsen (Taxpayers)

And for House of Representatives district 21, it's:

Paul Tonko (D)

Ted Danz (R/C)

The list of candidates was found on www.uselections.com

There is also this website called Project Vote Smart: www.votesmart.org that helps you see which candidate agrees with you most on major issues. They have the candidates for the federal government but not the state government.

For local state election, there's

BK Karamati or Jim Tedisco for Assembly

Susan Savage or Hugh Farley for State Senate

I am ready to vote on Nov. 2

Furnace

Recently I went through the process of shopping for a new furnace and A/C because the existing one was more than 35 years old. The old one still works, but the service technician said the heat exchanger is showing signs of cracking and there is danger of the exhaust gas mixing with indoor air. The old furnace is rated to output 100k BTU while using 125k BTU, which gives it a 80% efficiency. Given its age, the efficiency is probably lower than that. The chimney pipe gets very hot when it is running, indicating a lot of heat is wasted through the exhaust. It is loud when it is running the blower fan, which is a belt driven fan. The old electronic air cleaner creates zapping sounds when the air is flowing.

I got estimates from 8 different installers. Each one presents to me a proposal for a particular brand and model of furnace. Some sell Lennox, some sell Carrier, some sell Trane, some sell Rheem, and some sell Bryant. I quickly found out that Carrier and Bryant means the same equipment just with different labels. Trane is the same as American Standard, and Lennox owns Service Experts, which has 2 branches in my area. Interestingly, the 2 companies under Service Experts seem to be competitors of each other and they don't use the same system. Rheem has good reputation and it is physically shorter than other brands.

From reading online, I got the idea that good furnace installers do Manual J load calculations to know the house's heat gain and heat loss for sizing the system's heating and cooling capacities. Of the companies I called, only 3 would do it. Some installers just look at the existing furnace and see what capacity it is rated and go by that. Most of them just decide the furnace size by experience or by square footage.

After I got some initial choices of equipment, I started reading more about them and came to understand that Lennox furnace can modulate its heating output from 60% to 100%, but it does not use a communicating thermostat and so it does not know how far it is from the set point temperature. It decides its heating output based on history data and tries to guess what the appropriate heating output should be. Rheem makes a modulating furnace that uses a communicating thermostat, but the efficiency is 92%, which does not qualify for the federal tax credit. Rheem has 95% efficient models but they are not modulating. Bryant/Carrier has a 3 stage furnace that uses communicating thermostat, which is what I eventually installed. The communicating thermostat talks to the furnace and other connected equipment using a series bus, so it only requires 4 wires: 24V supply, ground, data A and data B. I am not familiar with what data A and data B are, but my guess is that one of them is a clock signal and the other is the actual data line. The thermostat talks to the furnace and automatically discovers what equipment it is connected to and automatically adjust its settings to fit the house. For example, it tests the static pressure of the duct system and finds the appropriate motor RPM to create the appropriate CFM of air flow. The thermostat knows how far the room temperature is from the set point and see if it is moving towards or away from the set point. The furnace would change its heating output accordingly to drive the room temperature towards the set point.

Another thing I liked about Bryant is that their technical literature such as install manual and product information is online and not too difficult to find, whereas the Lennox documents were almost impossible to find.

I also looked into options for filtering. There are media filters, electronic air cleaners, and HEPA systems. The media filters come in different sizes, but the one I am looking for is the 4 7/8" thick kind that comes with MERV rating between 8 and 16. The issue with electronic air cleaners is that they require electricity, create ozone, and need expensive replacement UV light bulbs every year. The HEPA filters are typically by-pass type filters that cleans a portion of the air going through the furnace, and the install cost is high. I think the media filter with a high MERV rating will be sufficient for me.

For humidifier, I gathered that there are 3 types: by-pass, fan powered, and steam. The by-pass one takes air from the return duct, passes through the humidifier, and goes into the supply duct. The fan powered models mount on the supply duct and blows air over the water in the humidifier and into the duct. The steam ones also just mount on the supply duct and it makes steam which goes into the supply duct. I didn't get a humidifier, but I think I will get the steam type if I decide that I need a humidifier.

Computer Games

Recently I bought a new real time strategy game for my computer. It is called the Sins of a Solar Empire. They call this game RT4X, for real time exploration, expansion, exploitation, and extermination. From the name, you can guess that it has to do with spaceships and planets, and that's correct. This is like other real time strategy games like Starcraft that you have to gather resources to build up a fleet of war-fighting machines, and destroy the opposing forces. Unlike Homeworld, this game doesn't have much of a story. It doesn't have a single player campaign, and it doesn't let you control the ships in its z-direction. Everything is still controlled in a plane. I think that's the right thing to do, because it's a game, and being able to go up or down in the space doesn't add too much strategy but complicates controls a lot. In a way the game is less realistic because your planet defense is laid out in a circle rather than a sphere, which should be the case in real life. In terms of artistic values, Homeworld did a better job. The Sins is a true strategy game. It is almost like chess with a spaceship overlay. After playing a few games, I am getting the hang of it, but I also feel it can get boring quickly. I probably won't be able to win against many computer players, but it probably will get boring at some point. I am not sure if I want to go online playing because it will probably take too much time and there's no way to pause.

Upcoming games that I am looking forward to are: Star Wars the Old Republic, Call of Duty 7, and Diablo 3. These 3 games will be out 2010 or later, but they look like they will have high entertainment values. The Old Republic is an online mass multiplayer game similar to World of Warcraft. Personally I like the Sci-Fi genre a bit more than swords and magic. There was a Star Wars MMOG before and I have watched a friend play, and I thought it was not too sucessful. Hopefully this time they will make a great game out of it. Call of Duty 7 is a sequel to Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare, which I played and enjoyed immensely. The Call of Duty series is a first person shooter that is made like a movie, and that's the main reason I like it so much. It really makes you feel involved and actually fighting on the battle field. I played Diablo 2 when I was in high school, and it was a fun game. It is like an RPG with a lot of action, and it also has a very involved story line. The new game looks like it will be as much if not more fun. It look as grotesque as ever though, so it is definitely inappropriate for children to be close by.

Regression Analysis on House Prices

Looking at single family homes in Niskayuna, NY from $200k to $300k, I took 12 samples and ran a quadratic regression fit. The result seems to make sense:

To estimate the listing price, follow these steps:

start with $415,419,
add $12000 X # of bedrooms X # of bathrooms
minus $50,000 X # of bedrooms
minus $27,000 X # of bathrooms
minus $71 X # of days on the market

This means the bathrooms are really valuable. Given a 3 bedroom house, each bathroom you add increases the house value by $12k. Given a 5 bedroom house, each bathroom you add increases the house value by $36k. Conversely, having more bedrooms but fewer bathrooms hurt your house value.

Also notice that the list price goes down with time on the market.

The other model derived from Zillow's estimates give us a separate piece of information:
start with $142,000,
add $4,400 X # of bedrooms X # of bathrooms
add $101 X # of square feet of living space
minus $27,700 X # of bedrooms
minus $5000 X # of bathrooms

Here the trade-off between bathroom and bedroom is similar, bathroom is valuable. But we can see that each square feet of living space is $101. For the same square footage, the highest valued configurations would be bathrooms more than bedrooms, then bathrooms = bedrooms, then bathroom fewer than bedrooms.

Marriage and Sex in the Bible

I want to see what the Bible says about marriage, so I hope to capture most of the message from the Bible here:

In Genesis 1:28, God says to the first man and woman, "Be fruitful and increase in number...".

In Genesis 2:18, God says, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him," referring to Adam, the first man. In Genesis 2: 24, the Bible says, "... a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh."

->God wants us to be married and have children.

In Genesis 24, Abraham's servant went to Abraham's homeland to find a wife for Issac, Abraham's son. Issac was 40 years old at that time. Abraham's servant bump into Abraham's newphew Bethuel's daughter, Rebekah. The family agreed, and the servant gave gold and silver jewlery and clothing to Rebekah, and expensive gifts to her brother and her mother. Then he brought Rebekah back to Issac. Issac brought Rebekah into the tent of his mother and married her.

-> In those days, the groom's family give expensive gifts to the bride's family, but the Bible didn't say what the wedding ceremony was like, or maybe there was none.

In Genesis 29:22, Jacob worked for Laban for 7 years in return for Rachel. When they were married, Laban gathered all the people of the place and gave a feast. In Judges 14:10, Samson's wedding was a feast for 7 days.

-> They celebrated the marriage with a feast.

In Malachi 2:15, the Bible says, "So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth." In Malachi 2:16, God says, "I hate divorce and marital separation and him who covers his garment [his wife] with violence." In those days, sending away one's wife without a divorce is an act of violence and cruelty because the woman would not be able to re-marry and often becomes a slave.

In Matthew 19:3-9, Jesus explains to the crowds, "... So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not searate." He also explained that Moses let men give wives a bill of divorce and send them away because those men had a hard heart, "... But it was not this way from the beginning."

-> Marriage is a covenant for life. Divorce is not God's way.

In Mark 10:11-12, Jesus says, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery." The same is repeated in Luke 16:18.

In Matthew 5:32, Jesus says, "But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery."

In Matthew 19:9, Jesus says, "I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."

In 1 Corinthians 7:10-11, Paul writes, "To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife."

-> In any case, the Bible teaches not to marry someone who has been married once already, and divorce is not allowed. The exception of marital unfaithfulness is a point of debate, and can be explained as editing at the time of writing to fit into the commonly accepted practices of the day.

In 1 Corinthians 7:12-15, Paul writes about his own rule, "If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbeliving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbeliving wife has been sanctified through her beliving husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A beliving man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace."

-> a non-believing spouse is not grounds for divorce. If the spouse says, "choose me or Jesus," choose Jesus, and let him/her leave. In this case it would be a separation and not a divorce.

... and about sex:

In 1 Corinthians 7:1-9, Paul explained that he thinks it is good to be unmarried, but because some people cannot control their sex energies, they should be married and the husband and wife should satisfy each other's sexual needs while not doing too much of it and deprive one another of energy to do other things.

In 1 Corinthians 6:18-20, Paul tells people to flee from sexual immorality.

In 1 Corinthians 5:1, Paul gave an example of sexual immorality: a man is sleeping with his father's wife.

In general, sexual immorality or fornication refers to sexual intercourse between unmarried persons. Adultery refers to sexual intercourse between two married persons who are not each other's spouse.

ATI HD3870 Benchmark

I am thinking about replacing the heatsink on my graphics card with a fanless one. I think that would reduce the noise from my computer somewhat. I then realized that I did not post my 3D Mark score after I bought the new graphics card back in March 2008. The best score I got was 9752 where as other similar systems report between 8287 and 12028. This was a significant improvement over the onboard graphics that got me score of 1227.

Comparing the 3D score, the on-board graphics was 397 where as the HD3870 is 4310. I was able to play Call of Duty 4 and Half Life 2 with good graphics and pretty smooth action.

Magnetic Levitation Trains

The passenger rail services in the US is pretty slow compared to some systems in other countries. This link provides a comparison as well as the potential for maglev trains in the US.

http://www.portfolio.com/interactive-features/2008/09/Magnetic-Train-Plans

The Amtrak line of Acela Express between Boston and Washington DC runs between 75 and 150 mph. These run on existing tracks and uses tilting to allow for higher speeds even at sharp turns.

The Shinkansen in Japan runs upto 188 mph.

The TGV in France runs upto 200 mph.

The Shanghai Transrapid in China cruises at 268 mph.

And under demonstration conditions, 361 mph is the record set in Japan's maglev train.

For comparison, a Boeing 787 would fly at 550 mph.

Maglev trains would be a move in the direction of reducing oil consumption, provided that the electricity be generated with clean, renewable sources. In short inter-city distances, maglev trains could compete well with airplanes and thus reduce the use of jet fuel. Going from LA to Las Vegas in 1 hour and 10 minutes? Wow.

The problem with maglev is that they don't run on existing tracks, so the rail infrastructure needs to be rebuilt. The cost of existing technologies is about $50-60 million per mile, although some companies like AMT claims their system would cost $19 million per mile.

Evidence indicates that we will move to more electrical forms of transportation with electric cars and trains. Generating electrons from renewable sources is the responsible thing to do.