My Summer Project

Actually I started in the spring renovating the unused upstairs bedroom.  It had wood paneling and white ceiling tiles.  A heavy oak sliding door which took three men to open reminded me of the saying, "The 80's just called, they want their room back."  I did a full gut job, new insulation, new floor, sheet rock, paint and molding.  Also, the electrical was two wire which I modernized on a new breaker.  No big deal right?  It's done every day.  The sliding door on the other hand I'm very proud that I was able to make it an automated sliding door.

Materials

1. Linear Actuator from OpenBuilds.  I bought the motor from them as well ~$120
2. Linear Motor Driver from Microcenter.  ~$10
3. Arduino board ~$20
4. Case and power supply.  I bought an adjustable voltage transformer that output 1.7Amps, current is VERY important on stepper motors.  ~$25
5. Some rubber gaskets and mild soundproofing.  ~$20.  This step is so critical because this thing can be loud!  It can rattle the structure if it's not insulated.  
6. Led's and arduino light sensors.  This is used to stop the door.  

Design Considerations

In doing research I noticed a lot of people did it with pneumatic actuators.  The problem was I needed a 30" stroke which is impossibly expensive if you can even find it.  $300 just for the actuator, then you need a pump and it has to stay pressurized.  The advantage is it's quicker.  This works better when you have two smaller sliding doors on either side and you can use both.  This door I could get it to open in minimum of 5 seconds.  After that the gears would slip and the door would sometimes get stuck.  I optimized the code to ramp up slow.  I have the stepper motor perform about 120% of what it needs to open or close the door and the sensor will stop it when it reaches the end.  If the door is completely open, meaning it's blocking the closet (pocket) side sensor it will close otherwise it will always open.  If it's half open and you press the button, it will open further.  

The door slides right into the closet space.  The mirror door leads into the closet.

Climate Change vs Environmentalism

                The truth of the matter is the climate on this planet is changing.  It has been changing from the time when it was formed and it will continue to change until the Sun eventually grows into a red giant and swallows the planet. 

                There are generally two schools of thought on the topic.  One says we’re all going to die unless we do something drastic now and the other says it’s all a hoax.  If you are willing to listen to non-technical politicians and lawyers discuss the topic why not a scientifically trained engineer who has studied the topic?

                The earth goes through cycles, macro warming and macro cooling cycles. Every twenty to one hundred thousand years there is an ice age where large portions of the ice caps melt and travel down.  This is obviously catastrophically destructive.  The best evidence we have is that we are going through a macro warming phase after having been through a macro cooling phase or mini ice age in the middle ages. 

What is the data we have?

                For the last sixty years worldwide digital and accurate analog thermometers have been keeping track of land and sea temperatures.  Combined with fifty years of weather and temperature satellites we have an unprecedented amount of accurate data for a miniscule portion of time.  Beyond that we have about two hundred years of less accurate written temperature readings from ship and cities.  We have measurements of tides for the last hundred years.  Finally, we have ice records which show temperature in the arctic regions for up to one hundred thousand years.  This gives an indication of temperature in that time but only for that region. 

How has the climate changed?

                Often times you will see a very dramatic chart starting from the 1880 and continuing on to 2010.  The graph will clearly show a steady and precipitous rise in temperature.  See figure 1.  Sometimes it is overlaid with CO’s levels which rise in a more consistent manner.  There is no explanation for the period from 1940 to 1980 when no rise in temperature is seen.  Sometimes the explanation is the heat is hidden.  If you extend the graph further back to the early 1800’s you will see the temperature has risen even more.  The absolute temperature change is 1 degrees Celsius.  Imagine you were standing outside one day and the temperature was 70 degrees Fahrenheit.  The next day the humidity and sunlight were exactly the same but the temperature was 72 degree f.  Could you tell the difference?  The CO’2 has gone up from 300 ppm to 380 ppm a whopping 26%.  PPM stand for parts per million.  Let’s say I had 10,000 balls which represented the atmosphere.  Approximately 8,000 would be nitrogen, 1900 would be oxygen, 996 would be assorted gases and 4 would be carbon dioxide.  4!  It used to be 3.  Sea levels have risen 4 inches in the last century and currently are experiencing a rise of .13 inches per year.  .13 inches is about what you cut off on your finger nails when they get too long.  I’m just trying to put everything in perspective.  Finally, the size of the arctic ice in the north is shrinking while the ice in Antarctica is growing though by not as much as the north is shrinking.  We are in a macro warming phase. 

              

Are we the cause?

                It is widely publicized that 98% of climate scientists believe in climate change.  98% or maybe 100% of climate journals discuss macro warming in their journal entries because this is the most easily measurable and provable part of climate change.  The cause of global warming has to do with several factors, sun spot activity, volcanic activity, and atmospheric makeup.  When we speak about global temperatures we are specifically discussing surface temperature. The core of the Earth is at a much higher temperature; volcanic activity releases that temperature.  The sun goes through an eleven-year cycle where sun activity increases and decreases.  There might be larger solar cycles and there are also core ejections which can interfere with modern day electronics.  The sun is a factor in global temperatures.  Another factor might be the measurement itself.  If we measure temperatures in cities and cities become denser that might skew the measurement.  Finally, the cause that you all hear about carbon dioxide.  As discussed before carbon dioxide has gone up by a large amount percentage wise but still makes up such a small miniscule part of our atmosphere.  Scientific measurement would show how much carbon dioxide equates to how much heat but that’s now what they do.  Scientists or more likely business analysts show how carbon dioxide levels have risen in much the same way as temperature levels.  In the image below, it looks pretty dramatic.  I would say we are probably a contributing factor. 

Are we in danger?

                Here is where science leaves the road and the politics of fear take over.  We hear from politicians that we are already at 1degrees and if we get to 2 degrees we are all in danger of mass floods, hurricanes and death and disease of all kind.  Armageddon is just around the corner but don’t worry we have a solution, just let us tax you for everything you do and all will be alright.  The catastrophic scenarios are not based out of sci-fi, they are based off of computer programs that have tried to model the climate for the last fifty years.  Computers can process data in the way that you tell them to process data.  Think about hurricanes, when they show a hurricane, they show several possible paths.  When dealing with a specific storm and specific data computes can predict one of four possible scenarios each off by hundreds of miles and usually one of them is correct.  One means, it will hit your city and cause billions of dollars of damage and another means it veers off harmlessly into the ocean.  Now imagine a computer program trying to predicts all the weather, storms, temperatures for the entire world.  Even a super computer cannot accurately predict what will happen, it can only give you possibilities.  Savvy and possibly politically motivated leaders in the scientific community’s cherry pick these scenarios to give us the most devastating possibility. 

                I can’t help but laugh every time there’s a snow storm or hurricane and we are again told of the devastating effects of climate change. Has there never been a storm before?  Are the storms worse now?  I don’t know if anyone can answer that.  I do know that storms cause more monetary damage and less bodily damage then they used to. 

                I think the biggest source of danger is the governments State of Fear. 

What should we do about it?

                The government uses two tracks to get people in a frenzy over this topic.  The first is to discuss the devastating effects such as storms, flooding, draught, famine and pestilence.  The second is then to guilt you into it by saying we need to think about the next generations coming after us.  Here is where I disagree the most with the climate alarmists.  They want to tax your energy and production use.  Either directly by a carbon tax or indirectly via cap and trade.  This is what I call a lose, lose, lose scenario.  Consumers lose right away because they have to pay more for less.  Then businesses, especially those in manufacturing leave the country and the economy loses.  Those businesses set up shop in third world countries who don’t care about the environment and they pollute more than ever.  The environment loses.  The only winners are the politicians who get money and the third world dictators who are paid off.  Can you imagine giving money to small backwards countries to pay them back for the injuries of modernizing the world?  Climate Justice at its finest! 

So we do nothing then?

                Drill baby drill right?  No!  Fossil fuels pollute the atmosphere.  Wait, didn’t I just say CO’2 was no big deal?  Burning fossil fuels produce a lot more than CO’2.  They produce nitrox oxide, sulfur dioxide, lead, and particulate matter.  You can’t breathe that stuff in.  It’s the environment we should be concerned with, not the climate.  Have you seen the smog in many cities around the world?  That’s not carbon dioxide, that’s the other bi products of manufacturing. 

                In America and other modern countries, we are already doing a lot.  We have strict controls on emissions, we have mufflers on cars and we have scrubbers on power plants.  We should be pushing for more alternative energy.  I’ve heard it said that making a solar panel releases more carbon than it ever saves.  You know what?  I don’t care because carbon dioxide is not the main problem we face.  We should be pushing hard to put solar on every roof and have massive wind farms.  This is a win, win, win solution.  More energy at cheaper costs is a win for the consumer.  More local jobs installing, building, repairing and maintaining these installations is a win for the economy.  Less emissions into our atmosphere is a win for the environment, not to mention our health.  Currently, solar and wind account for 1% of our electricity u se.  With a lot of hard work, this might become 10% in ten years.  It’s not going to be quick and it’s not going to be done by the ‘world.’  It has to be done by us and it has to be in our own best interest.

                I have another solution.  Why not force all cars in America to eventually be plug in electric hybrids?  This means, a battery which powers a motor and a small gasoline engine to produce electricity for longer trips.  Put solar panels on top and you have the most efficient transportation machine possible.  I’ve heard the detractions.  You need to generate electricity from fossil fuels and then transmit and store it.  You lose about 50 to 60% of the energy doing that.  In a combustion engine you lose 80%.  A combustion engine needs to be small, light, and in expensive.  Efficiency is not even a tertiary concern. On the other hand, a power plant that uses oil driven generators care about efficiency and cost.  Weight and size are not a concern.  Furthermore, an electric car is a platform that can be fueled any way possible.  Solar on a car doesn’t generate much, possibly 1-2 KWH per day.  This might get you the first five miles home for free after a day at work where your car is sitting in a sunny parking lot for nine hours. 

There are solutions that help the environment, retain our national sovereignty and increase our economy.   

A Connected World

           Take a moment to think of the four most important inventions in human history.  Whatever you may consider, be it gunpowder, the automobile engine or roads, they are all products of one these four inventions. 

            The first invention is a point of contention because it cannot by definition be recorded.  It’s what makes us different than the animals.  Many animals can communicate, mostly danger, food, and dominance.  Higher level animals can communicate and display emotions of sadness, morning, affection and anger.  Only humans have complex speech.  Only we can discuss events that happened in the past, only we have specific names for people and places.  Only we communicate more than thoughts, we communicate ideas.   Some apes have been taught sign language so it’s possible they could harness the power of complex speech but so far a large scale experiment has not been done.  I know many animals can craft housing like beavers but never did two beavers discuss what another beaver who lived fifty years ago came up with and improve upon it.  Complex speech transforms a pack of beings into a tribe, a village, or even a kingdom. 

            Yelü Chucai, a confusion scholar said, “While empires can be conquered by horseback they cannot be ruled by horseback.”  This phrase refers to military rule but I would extend it to ruling an empire by sending and receiving messages via horseback.  Trying to explain to a chieftain why you needed writing might prove difficult.  The written word, which cannot be altered is so powerful.  It makes laws, history, banking and book making available.  Despite all the tangential inventions that predicate or follow from writing it’s the books that are important.  Jesus’s message of peace and a personal relationship with the All Mighty could be spread around the world only through the Bible.  Thoughts and ideas could be spread.  Creating a book was still a costly and arduous task.  However, without it the works of Plato, Aristotle, and Archimedes to name a few would not have survived.  Boiling it down, writing allowed the creation of empires and the persistence of knowledge. 

            There are several world changing inventions that were created in China but didn’t reach their ultimate potential until the Europeans got hold of them.  As an aside gunpowder was created first in China but not until it was combined with metallurgy to form muskets and cannons did it change the political and military landscape.  The same is with the printing press, first invented in China to create either religious or other spiritual teachings.  After some research China actually created a printing press with moveable type, first with wooden blocks and then with ceramic ones.  By the 12^th century some machines were made with metallic movable type parts.  The problem was that it was still a labor intensive process.  It was in Europe that the mechanized printing press was created.  It still had to be driven / cranked but it was semi-automated.  It wasn’t just used for religious, news and government purposes it was used for science, architecture, and math.  At the time of the end of the middle ages some science was in conflict with the Catholic Church which was stifling invention.  Once you could mass produce books, the person could be killed but not the idea.  The European style printing press transformed the middle ages into the renaissance.  Nothing would ever be the same.  It’s all about transmission and persistence of ideas and information.

            Before concluding the fourth major civilization changing invention we need to talk about the disconnected world.  In the ancient world (before 0 BC) the world was isolated to the following regions, South Africa, North Africa & the middle east, Europe, Asia, North America and South America.  There were probably many other smaller regions but the general idea is there was no communication, little or no travel and no information spreading.  In concurrence with the renaissance brought upon by the mechanical printing press the world became connected.   Would Columbus have sailed to America in 1492 if the printing press had not been commissioned by the Catholic Church in 1440?  Perhaps, but the pace of invention would not have continued.  The world slowly and surely became less disconnected as the centuries past.  By the 20^th century, getting anywhere in the world could be achieved within a day or two.  Communication became instantiations.  All of these flow from the ideas found, recorded, and disseminated by books.  Even when I went to college in the late 1990’s (dated) I learned primarily by books. 

            The final life changing invention was the internet.  The internet like all other inventions were precipitated by many other inventions like the computer, monitors, Ethernet, and routers.  The internet reduces the time to communicate and save ideas to zero.  It connects the whole world but in a specific way.  It is the final product of the word (spoken, written, produced, transmitted).  There is no quicker way to send ideas, pictures, and now video.  The internet is still only 20 years old.  It’s just started and it’s already transformed banking, books, news, politics, science, commerce and every other aspect of our life.  Yes, it was aided by smartphones and tablets but it is the all connected interface that will change the world irrevocably.  The internet will create a global social conscious form. 

            There is not much more progress in the physical location of people and goods.  Logistics will continue to optimize the transport of goods and people but until we get the Star Trek Transporter we will not be able to get people or goods around the planet faster.  There is only one track for progress, the dissemination of ideas via the internet.  Or is there?

            Before continuing onto the final connected world I would like to point out another competing track, 3D printing.  It’s still a novelist game but made for the masses what’s the difference between a transported good and a created good?  Unless of course if it takes just as long to print as it does to ship.  The only thing that could progress a connected world which is viable is a connected mind.  I’m not talking about being psychic but let’s explore scientific advancement.  The brain cannot transmit electrical energy over distances but the electrical energy can be transmitted approximately 1cm past the skull.  A passive reader or MRI machine can pick up brain waves.  We have used these noninvasive techniques to control a robotic arm.  This research is still in it’s infancy.  It’s still like the internet in the late 70’s.  Imagine a technology that along with mental training that could transmit ideas and commands.  Psychic like control could be emanated by individuals.  I always thought of sending truly private conversations to people I chose.  This would need an ear piece that could receive directed messages.  So far this would be nothing more than an extension of social like media.  The next leap is only in the imagination.  If you could connect our brains together in maybe a trance like state where the logical side of the brain was still awake it could be combined to form the best super computer ever.  The biggest challenge is how to transmit ideas to a brain?  Aside from the five senses how can we implant ideas?  A scary prospect. 

            This dual track combined with the internet and big data would bring us a truly connected world.