Daily updates – Page 142 – a sibilant intake of breath

Hubble’s new lease on life

Good news for anyone interested in the nature and content of our universe: NASA has reversed course and decided to repair the Hubble Space telescope. For many with an interest in astronomy, the idea that this fine instrument would be allowed to fall out of orbit seemed quite mad.

The refit, which should take place in 2008, should extend the life of the telescope until at least 2013. The primary objective will be to replace failing batteries and gyroscopes, though new instruments will also be installed.

The Hubble instrument has already generated some of the most important data in the history of astronomy and cosmology, including totally new information on very distant objects generated through the use of gravitational lenses: where the light-bending properties of galaxies are used on a massive scale to resolve extremely distant objects. Since the light being observed has been traveling for so long, such views are also a glimpse into a much earlier time in the development of the universe.

In contrast to manned space flight – which is inspirational but not always very scientifically useful – it is this kind of experimentation that we should be focusing our research dollars and efforts upon.

Fish presentation tonight

My fisheries presentation in Wadham is in a few hours. For those who are not going, but who are interested in EU fisheries policy in West Africa, you can have a look at the following:

My PowerPoint slides (1.8mb)
My speaking notes (79kb)
The page on my wiki relating to this (includes PDF versions of the above).

Wish me luck.

[Update: 10:00pm] The talk went well, but was quite poorly attended. The ratio of hours I spent preparing to aggregate hours the audience spent listening (number of listeners * length of talk) was no better than 1:1. Perhaps, if I had called it: “A Second Spanish Armada: Neo-Colonialist Pillage in West Africa,” more people would have attended.

That said, having two people I knew in the audience – my friend Bilyana and my college advisor Robert Shilliam – made it seem more worthwhile. Also, it is always good to have a change to practice public speaking. I am getting better, but I still find that I get entirely lost within the act of speaking and lose a good sense of how I look from the outside.

All academic issues aside, the warden has some nice cheese.

Timeline: the next 250 days

Tomorrow begins another busy week. I need to finish preparing my presentation on West African fisheries for the Wadham Research Forum tomorrow night. While I appreciate the chance to proselytize a bit on this important subject, I am somewhat nervous about being the only grad student presenting to a clutch of dons; hopefully, none will be international lawyers with precise questions about the interpretation of statutes.

The next order of business is reading for this week’s Developing World seminar. Tuesday brings CCW and OUSSG, then I have GEG on Friday (a life dominated by acronyms). Wednesday is the fourth OxBloggers’ gathering.

Next Tuesday – how very close at hand – are the American midterm elections. As with all North American elections experienced in UK time, they promise a night as late as last one was. The next day, I am going to London to see Sarah, attend a private viewing of the William Townsend exhibition, and buy a new iBook battery.

That weekend (Nov. 10-12), Gabe will be in Oxford for a debate tournament, possibly sleeping on my floor along with his debate partner, and certainly in need of getting one of my reasonably comprehensive Oxford tours. That said, there seems little chance of turning up my missing Codrington Library card before then.

Then, it is just three more weeks until the end of Michaelmas, the arrival of my father in the UK, and our December 4th departure for Turkey. We get back on December 16th: leaving me with the rest of the break, one more term, and one more break to finish the thesis (17 more weeks).

After that, there are eight weeks of studying for our final examinations, the completion of the same, and the beginning of my not-so-phased withdrawal from the UK. Beyond that, the future is truly uncertain. There is certainly some temptation to stow my remaining possessions with an accommodating friend and make one more interesting foray to the continent, before my return to North America. I have no reason to think finances will allow the mooted Kilimanjaro climb to go forward. Unless my student loan appeal succeeds, tricky questions will remain about funding the rest of this year.

CAYS Party tonight

A final reminder: the first ever “Come as Your Supervisor” Party in the known history of Oxford will be taking place tonight. Those who present the most accurate and the most amusing portrayals of our common academic superiors will doubtless earn the respect of their peers, as well as the intrepidity required to gain fame and fortune in the world. Those who attend simply for the food, drink, and conversation will not be penalized.

Those with any questions should contact me by the means of their choice. While I have yet to recover fully from various health complaints, I am bound by honour and practicalities to attend this party in more or less its entirety. As such, I need to finish my fish presentation before it begins… To Powerpoint!

Utterly unrelated: there are a depressing number of anti-vegetarian groups on Facebook. Are people just instinctively hostile to those with other views? Seeing so many certainly makes me want to go do something militantly vegetarian.

Lithium-ion battery preservation

After seeing that the capacity of my iBook battery has fallen by 10% over the course of four complete cycles of discharging and charging, I went and read up on lithium-ion batteries. My previous conceptions about them turn out to be almost entirely wrong. Since almost all cellular phones, laptops, and music players with rechargeable batteries run on this sort, it is worth knowing how to keep them going for as long as possible.

1. Discharging completely, then charging completely, is not the ideal approach

Unlike other kinds of batteries, there is no ‘memory effect’ with Li-ion systems. Batteries that suffer from memory effects ‘forget’ how much charge they can hold if they are not completely drained and then completely recharged. As such, the strategy to keep them alive for the longest time is to always follow that pattern.

With Lithium-Ion batteries, full discharging is not only non-ideal, it is actually harmful. This is because it strains the weakest cell. Since a battery is composed of several cells, the failure of any one will mean the failure of the whole system. All lithium-ion rechargeable batteries have systems to prevent cell voltage from dropping too low (a microcontroller cuts it off before it reaches that point), but draining them to the point of cutoff is still harmful.

2. Temperature matters most

The biggest factor in battery life, especially for laptops, is the temperature at which the battery is kept. Judging by the figures from iStat Pro, mine is consistently at more than 40°C when the computer is running. Between reading, writing, listening to music, and just hanging around on Skype, that is probably more than twelve hours a day.

Just keeping the battery at 40°C will result in capacity loss of more than 15% over the course of one year, compared with a 2% temperature based loss if the battery is kept at 0°C and a 4% loss if it is kept at room temperature (about 25°C).

The most practical upshot of this is that it is intelligent to keep your battery outside of your computer when you are using it plugged into the wall. The most important reason for this is that it will thus be living at a much lower temperature, and thus for much longer. Since a laptop with no battery will shutdown instantly (and incorrectly) with any interruption in the external power supply, the best bet is probably to use a battery on its last legs (but still good enough for a few minutes) when plugged in, and a better one when working off battery power.

3. Storage or using at 100% charge is harmful

For reasons too complex for me to understand, a charge of about 40% is best for the long-term storage of Li-ion batteries. A Li-ion battery kept at 100% charge and 40°C will lose about 35% of its capacity in a year.

4. Li-ion batteries fail over time, regardless of anything else

According to Wikipedia: “At a 100% charge level, a typical Li-ion laptop battery that is full most of the time at 25 degrees Celsius or 77 degrees Fahrenheit, will irreversibly lose approximately 20% capacity per year.” This loss is because of oxidation (over and above heat damage, as I understand it), which causes cell resistance to rise to the point where – despite holding a charge – the battery cannot provide power to an external circuit.

For more information see Wikipedia and this page. The especially bold can learn how to rebuild depleted Li-ion batteries. Anyone with background in electrochemistry is strongly encouraged to comment on the accuracy of the above information.

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‘Brains’ -to be said in zombie tone

I am feeling very ill now. Much more than before. I will be back, but not very soon.

[Update: 2:45pm] Despite total lack of appetite, I am dosing myself with cheese and broccoli soup, sent for Thanksgiving by my mother, and chai purchased in London with Sarah. Sleep, soup, and thesis reading are the orders of the day, at least until I feel non-infectious.

[Update: 28 October 2006] Notes from the class I missed have been transcribed and posted to the wiki.

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Generally unwell

Happy Birthday Lana Rupp

Despite making a determined effort to sleep more, keep warm and dry, and consume mass quantities of fruit and vegetables, I have been oscillating sinusoidally between being slightly and fairly ill during the last week or so. It seems like a thing that cannot be isolated from the nasty weather that has been punctuated at times with a few hours of stunning fall crispness (the source of all the recent photos of foliage).

In the interests of getting work done, let us hope that the trend of illness reverses from today’s course. Somehow, Claire’s party on Friday and the one my roommates and I are throwing Saturday seem unlikely to help. By the time my fisheries presentation on Monday rolls around, it will pay to be clearheaded.

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Bloggers’ gathering reminder

The day has been busy and the hour is late, so I will not write much. Indeed, I will just quickly remind members of the Oxford blogging community – new and old – that the fourth Oxford Bloggers’ Gathering will be happening next Wednesday, November 1st, at 8:00pm, at Far From the Madding Crowd, near the small Sainsbury’s at Broad Street and Cornmarket.

In my experience, meeting other Oxford bloggers is good fun, so I hope to see plenty of people there. Established bloggers, please pass along the word.

Midterms and the importance of the Senate

Talking with friends about the upcoming American midterm elections, there seems to be some confusion about the relative impacts of different outcomes. While I am not an expert on American politics, by any means, the following seems to be the gist:

1. Losing the Senate would be a really big deal. The United States Senate is probably the most powerful legislative body in the world. While the power of the President has increased enormously in the 20th century, the Senate still retains critical powers. Article One of the US Constitution requires Senatorial advice and consent before the United States can enter into foreign treaties, and before the President can make important appointments. A President with a hostile Senate has a seriously constrained field of action.

2. As I understand it, the House of Representatives is much less important, when it comes to the overall ability of the executive branch to govern.

3. The Democrats face an uphill battle to gain control of the Senate. Rick Santorum seems likely to lose his seat in Pennsylvania (as Savage Love readers will no doubt cheer). One seat each in Montana and Ohio are leaning towards Democratic challengers. One each in Missouri, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia could possibly change hands. Finally, the Democrats are defending a vulnerable seat in New Jersey. In order to gain a 50% +1 majority, the Democrats need to swing six seats.

4. Basically, whichever party has the majority in the Senate gets to chair all the committees. This lets them pass along legislation they favour, while forever entrapping legislation they oppose. Many argue that the American Congress (both the House and the Senate) is meant to operate on the basis of consensus. If so, that noble ideal is long lost in contemporary American politics. Controlling committee chairmanships is thus really important.

Those who know more than I do are strongly encouraged to comment. I would love to understand it better myself. With the elections just over two weeks away, and with the composition of the American government rather important for the immediate future of the world, it would be good to have increased understanding.

I lost my laundry card, I lost my mind

Does it not seem amazing that an envelope containing my Codrington reader card, my St. Antony’s laundry card, and all my other Oxford-specific cards (except my Bodleian card) could remain unfound, despite four intensive searches of my entire room, since my return from Vancouver? I’ve gone through every drawer and pocket and folder and box. I’ve flipped through binders and looked through stacks of books. I have dug around under and behind furniture. All told, I have spent at least six hours searching.

All this in a room no more than four paces by six paces. The part likely to make me bitter is the reasoning behind putting them in an envelope in the first place: I didn’t want to lose them while I was in Vancouver.

The time has come, I think, to abandon the search, acknowledge that the cards are permanently vanished or destroyed, and replace those that are worth replacing. How much fun it will be to finally locate them, when I am in the process of moving out next June.