Blessed by the Potato

I just got one of those chain letters about boycotting Petro-Canada* to force gas companies to lower prices.

* – by the way, who gets to pick which station to boycott? When will chain letters start coming with a “this letter was started by [Person X] at [website/email], see [website] for any updates that may be relevant to this chain letter (such as the drug in question being off the market for a whole decade, the basic premise of the boycott being unsound, a change in the company’s policies, an apology was received, or the stupid kid died of cancer anyway, and every card you send drives his mother into hysterical fits of tears) as well as a statement of bias.” Of course, until that time I guess there’s always Snopes.

Unfortunately, these ideas never work. Primarily because:

[…] teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace . . . . . not sellers. […] Since we all rely on our cars, we can’t just stop buying gas.

is a contradiction. Buyers can’t control the marketplace as long as they’re not prepared to stop buying gas (or at least reduce usage enough that gas stations are left with excess product). There’s no leverage in that position.

Beyond that, the idea would require extreme organization by consumers to work at all. If Petro-Canada did start having some drop-off in sales, all they would have to do is lower the price a fraction of a cent to get the customers who aren’t participating in the boycott to switch to them. Because of the boycott, the other stations would still have enough support to keep prices high (that is, not everyone would be buying on price alone), and so the price would stay high. If the boycott was perfectly successful and nobody bought gas at Petro-Canada, then gas prices would likely go _up_ at all the other stations because there would be a run on gas — if Petro-Canada is say 1/5 of all gas stations in Canada, then boycotting them would remove 1/5 of our gas supply. Only a ~6% reduction in supply lead to a ~20% increase in price this winter when a refinery in Sarnia had to temporarily shut down. Ignoring all that, there’s also the part where gas is a very “liquid” commodity: the different companies generally have agreements to sell their gas to each other for logistics reasons. If Petro-Canada isn’t selling gas at Petro-Canada branded stations, they can still unload their product in Shell, Sunoco, Canadian Tire, Esso, and Irving stations, and the only ones really hurting are the franchisees.

Wish I had read Snopes before typing that, it would have saved me some time, since they make many of the same arguments :) Snopes on Gas Out.

Also, the old standby of getting the government to drop taxes on gas might have worked in the not-so-distant past, when gas prices were set based basically on the cost of the gas (affected of course by the perceived future cost), a modest profit margin, and the taxes. Back then, the prices changed daily as stations engaged in price wars, and the cost of a barrel of oil fluctuated. Now, however, prices are driven way up by the high demand and low supply — if taxes were lowered, the pump price would stay the same, because that’s how high it has to be to keep people from exhausting the supply. The only difference would be that the oil companies would get more of our money, instead of the government.

There is still the very real possibility that prices have been driven even higher by nefarious means. Whether stations are colluding (and oddly enough it seems that they are even moreso now when the price doesn’t move at all for a whole week than when they flew up and down several times a day in near-synchrony) or whether refineries are purposefully reducing their output is tough to say. Some commentators have pointed out that in addition to the spate of minor refinery fires we’ve had this year, the other refineries have taken their sweet time doing their spring maintenance and fuel mix changeover. This could be a deliberate tightening of supply, or it could be simple prudence: if two of your buddies had fires at their houses, you’d probably take the time to check the batteries in your smoke detector and the readiness of your fire extinguisher.

So, to reduce the price of gas, there’s really only a few things we can do. The first, and most effective, is to stop using it, or use less. That’s also the hardest for us to do; biking is great, but I only know one guy crazy enough to bike Toronto to London, and he only does it once a year. I’m a fan of walking, but also recognize that it’s really only pleasant for about 4-6 months a year. Public transit isn’t always an option, and is sometimes retarded. The next method involves government intervention, and would only work if gas companies really are driving the price up artificially. In that case, we simply have to buy back Petro-Canada and run it as a Crown corporation. Have it buy oil, refine gas, and sell at a modest profit — controlled by the government, it shouldn’t be engaging in collusion, so they’ll sell gas at about what it costs, and the other brands will have to follow suite (though demand issues could still affect that, unless they were wililng to have shortages). Finally, one idea I have is to only buy regular gas. I have no idea if this would work, but it seems as though the refineries can churn out (nearly) whatever grade of gas they want (and it’s not really due to the content of the crude oil). When we had the recent gas shortage, a lot of stations were selling regular only because they needed to streamline the supply chain to meet demand. Even with the immediate crisis behind us, there’s no real reason we can’t take advantage of that streamlining still. Most cars on the road today run just fine on regular gas (87): even the ones that say they need premium (largely) have the technology to change the valve timing/compression ratio to run on regular (at a slight power loss, but most engines that need premium can afford it anyway; if the engine can’t handle 87 then you’ll find out real quick. I’d recommend trying a few liters after letting the tank go nearly bone dry: if the engine pings, you’ll have a problem, turn around, and fill the rest of the way with premium; if you can drive on those few liters just fine, try a few more until you’re satisfied and then put a whole tank in). Either way, we could still eliminate mid-grade, since AFAIK there aren’t any cars sold today that require 89 — they either go for regular, or all-out to premium (though I may be wrong and there may not be a midgrade refining step, it may simply be a mixture of premium and regular done at the pump).

One of the “low hanging fruit” benefits of hybrid cars that improves their fuel efficiency and emissions is that they turn the engine off when it’s not needed, such as at stop lights. In fact, with a little bit of key-turning, this can be achieved in most other cars, even if not quite as often. Many cities (including London and Toronto) have anti-idling bylaws that hand out tickets for idling more than 3 minutes, though enforcement is weak to say the least and the laws don’t apply when the weather is very cold or very hot — which makes sense from a comfort point of view, but is also unfortunate because it’s on the very hot days that cars need to be shutting down for air quality purposes. The startup period in a car does cause more wear, but there’s obviously a point where it’s more beneficial to turn the car off: I’ve heard many rules of thumb regarding how short a period of idling makes turning the car off worthwhile, from 10 seconds to a minute. Personally, I try to go by about a 30-second period: if I know I’ll be idling for that long, I shut the car off, except at lights (but I do for trains crossing by me). So when I was at the carwash this week, I shut the car off, but felt a little weird doing it (except for train crossings, I don’t usually get into idling situations). I was talking to Wayfare about it at the time, and debated whether we’d be waiting long enough to make it worthwhile — it turns out it really was, as we were waiting at least 4 minutes for the infernal machine to be ready for us. Now thinking about it in hindsight, I feel strange for feeling weird at the time. Turning the car off should have been my natural reaction, I shouldn’t have had to think about it for so long…

The thing that bugs me most about idling is the cabbies. They’ll idle for hours in front of the hospital on some days, if business is slow. There are a few who are pretty good about opening their windows and turning the car off. If the weather’s really hot, there’s at least one that will simply get out of the car and sit on the grass, or lean against the car, or one time, pull out a folding chair.

A CityNews spot recently talked about the short enforcement blitz last week to remind drivers of the bylaw, and mentioned that delivery trucks idle a lot (they do), partly because refrigerated trucks have to keep the engine on to run the compressor. First off, I don’t want my ice cream to come all melty, so they do have something of a point that strikes close to my heart. I have a few problems with that, though. Most of the refrigerated delivery trucks have a coolant pod on the transport trailer — that means that the coolant system for the trailer must be electrically driven (the AC system on most cars is belt-driven directly from the engine, which is why you can run your fan but not your AC in engine-off accessories mode). If it’s electrically driven, then the truck’s battery should be able to keep it going for a while (at least 10 minutes I would estimate, and a battery upgrade to run the cooler for an hour should be extremely easy to install right on the trailer). Also, most refrigeration systems run in cycles (or are capable of doing so, unless they are taxed to their maximum capacity), so the truck drivers should be able to cut the engines for at least as long as the system usually cycles off for (my fridge, for instance, runs for about 5 minutes every half hour — I could have a 25-minute blackout at my house and the food in the fridge would never know anything out of the ordinary was happening).

Also, this tiny news snippet was a little disappointing.

…the premier says Ontario won’t implement regulations as strict as those of California…. Ontario will stop short of California’s tough new tailpipe emission standards because they could hurt the province’s auto sector.

I think it’s pretty backwards to resist emission standards because auto manufacturing takes place in the province — stricter emissions standards don’t, as far as I know, actually hurt the car industry in general. People still buy cars. They just buy cleaner cars. Perhaps that impacts the bottom line of the automakers, or perhaps it’s an indication that the domestic manufacturers (or the particular models manufactured in Ontario) have trouble getting any cleaner and more efficient. If that’s the case, then the province should still go ahead with the tighter emissions standards — after all, there are still plenty of “emissions equipment optional” states to sell Ontario-manufactured cars to, and I’m sure most cars driven in Ontario aren’t made in Ontario, so stricter emissions standards would help our quality of life. And, if say California enforces stricter emissions standards, but cars are built in Michigan and Ontario, then the car companies are pretty much SOL. If Ontario and Michigan implemented stricter standards (even stricter than California, say), then the province (and state) could directly help the auto manufacturers with various tax incentives and research programs, and would have the justification for doing so. If the province helped make sure all the cars built here had superior emissions controls and fuel efficiency, then that would also help the auto sector become more competitive elsewhere (California, Europe, as well as with anyone who valued efficiency and low emissions in the other states and provinces), and in the future as well. After all, California emissions may seem strict and tough to meet now, but they’re not revolutionary, not by a long shot (the revolutionary parts were killed over the years by lawsuits and lobbyists). The other states, provinces, and countries globally are catching up. Do the car companies want to be seen as the ones fumbling to meet minimum requirements at the last minute, or the ones that have been successfully meeting California emissions standards all along? (wouldn’t it be great to say “Ontario efficiency standards” in the same breath? :)

I’ve been screwing around with my stylesheet again — a few people have recently been criticizing the white-on-black. Personally, I like it, I think it’s classy, and find it pretty easy to read (all my presentations are done in white-on-black powerpoint as well). Plus, it’s sort of been the site’s motif for over 5 years now. But, if it’s giving other people eyestrain then I better change it, especially since I can wax loquacious on occasion (and I don’t want people to stop reading the really long ones due to a colour scheme!). It’s not perfect yet, but it’s close to how I think the new look will be.

I’m thinking I’m going to keep the dark-ish post headers with the grey bar as is, but let me know what you think. I’m definitely going to tweak the dark stripes to the sides (that’s actually a background image), but first I’ve got to find a replacement image I’m happy with.

Edit: just to note, you have to hit reload (possibly twice) to download the new stylesheet if the page looks the same. The white bar above the black page header is somewhat unfortunate, I’m not sure how to fix that yet.

Oh, and since I’m on the topic of stylesheets and powerpoint (sort of), I have to mention that I find it strange how the default font packages are so different amongst MS products. News Gothic MT became one of my favourite fonts, and was set as the default on my old computer for all Word documents (and also this site if you have it; otherwise it probably looks like Century Gothic or Schoolbook Gothic, or whatever falls next in line for your web browser, likely Helvetica or Times New Roman). Yet it hasn’t been included in Windows 2000 or XP, or any of the Office versions since 2000. Likewise, there’s a Franklin Gothic font I have on my work system that I use sometimes for presentations and forms/CVs/other miscellaneous Word documents that aren’t left as Times New Roman, but it’s not on any of my home systems (instead, they have a “Franklin Gothic Medium” that looks quite a bit different). I also remember using Arial a fair bit in middle school and high school a bit, and thought that it had spacing that was similar to Times New Roman (though I also had better eyes and used to use 10 or 11 point fonts by default), but now see quite clearly that Arial is a fair bit bigger (and that can make quite a difference when you have limited space for an application). Also, the Mac default font (Helvetica) isn’t even an option under most Windows packages. And while there are a number of plain, boldish, strange, and script fonts to choose from, there aren’t really any good “title” fonts in the MS library to go with. Nobody using Word could print off a small newsletter with a fancy, embellished title (such as that many newspapers have) without going out to download a font.

I saw the latest Pirates movie tonight, and quite liked it. I’ll talk about it in more detail after the spoiler warning. First I’ll talk about the theatre itself: the London Silvercity is the biggest, newest, and most conveniently located theatre around us. The movies themselves are always shown well: they don’t usually have problems with reel changeovers, scratched film, the sound is usually not too loud, yet never too quiet, and the airconditioning is usually comfortable — like many theatres it can be a touch chilly in the summer, but it’s never made me so cold I looked for my jacket before leaving (true story: one time at Empress Walk I was so chilled by the AC that, even though it was spring, I got confused and thought it was winter and spent a few minutes looking for my jacket before coming to my senses; I think this effect was helped by the fact that whatever movie I was watching was set in the wintertime).

However, the service there has always been sub-par. While the staff has never been rude, they’re very slow. The box office line can get fairly long at times, and it’s not usually because there are a ton of people, it just seems to take them a long time to move them through (perhaps this isn’t the staff’s fault though: the credit card machine could be slow, or perhaps customers are chatting them up or taking a long time to make up their minds, because we usually get our tickets in fine time once we finally get to the head of the line). The concession stand is much worse. The staff there are downright lethargic. Today, we lined up with only two people in front of us, and it took about two whole minutes to get to the front of the line. That’s with one person’s order already in before we lined up, and the next person only wanting a drink refill. Two minutes doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but for what got done in that time it was just ludicrously slow. The workers never seem to know their tills or how to count change, and are slow in all their actions to boot, as though everything behind the counter was happening in slow motion.

The staff there also have very strange habits when it comes to getting popcorn. Even if there’s a popper spewing forth fresh, hot, delicious popcorn right behind them (and when the lines are short, we’ll often pick which till to go to based on which one has fresh popcorn bubbling out), they’ll walk away, past the next popper and around out of sight (the concession is set up in the big round dish form) to get it. That, of course, adds significantly to the service time. Also, they’re really bad at popcorn management in general, often letting batches burn for a while before finally dumping them, and being downright neglectful in starting new batches during busy periods. Perhaps its because their concession has something like 6 poppers (at Cineplex we only had 3, and for all but the busiest opening weekends we would only run one or two), but they often let some run completely out before bothering to pop more — we always had to be one the ball, quite often putting in another batch as soon as the current one was dumped. In fact, it seems from casual observation as though they only have a few people “designated” to start batches. The popcorn is never very good there: quite often we get stale bags, batches without the proper amount of salt (generally not enough rather than too much), many batches with small, broken bits (which also comes from packing), batches where the taste is fine, but the texture is just completely wrong… and even when a bag of popcorn is generally good, there are always one or two pieces that are just rotten and make you go “blech!” We should probably complain to a manager at some point, but haven’t yet, although we have taken advantage of the free refills (on larges) and dumped a bad batch before. I find all of this quite bizzare, because the theatre makes most of its money off the popcorn: if it’s not constantly popping, people are less inclined to buy. If it’s not consistenly tasty, people are less inclined to buy. (We buy partly because Wayfare is a popcorn fiend, and partly because we almost always use “Night Out” passes that include a free popcorn). Even when they’re not very busy, they should consider keeping the poppers in use more, even if they have to close down part of their concession ring (we generally only go to “event” movies now, but even on weekdays they’ve got at least 3 poppers open — having just 1 or 2 open but constantly popping might work better for them), or pop half-batches so they don’t end up with too much excess. Finally, the seats there are not fantastic. They’re fairly comfortable for someone my height, but even just a little shorter (like Wayfare), and the shoulder support becomes a neck-wrenching headrest. The floors today were quite slick, and I couldn’t keep my feet in a civilized position, they kept sliding out in front of me, and I accidentally kicked the seat in front of me a few times when my foot lost traction.

Anyhow, on to Pirates:

Spoilers follow.

…

I really didn’t like the second movie — I saw it in the theatres, but even though my family has it on DVD, I’ve never watched it a second time (at least, not all the way through). A lot of the sequences were just way too ridiculous (Jack falling down the cliff while tied to the pole, the whole waterwheel 3-way swordfight), and really the whole thing was just the first act for this movie, right up to the (lack of an) ending. Plus everyone seemed to recognize the East India Trading co guy (Lord Beckette), but even checking IMDB I don’t think he’s in the first one. He has some sort of history with Sparrow, and it’s implied in this one that he betrayed Sparrow at some point (in fact, they may even have been partners in the distant past), but it’s never fully explained in this one.

This one I found a lot better: partly because it has an actual ending, partly because when the sequences get ridiculous, they’re kept shorter, and partly because Geoffrey Rush’s return brings the series up a notch. Not only does it add some more tension aboard the Pearl, he just simply looks like he’s having a blast in the role, which brings back some of the fun from the first one (the second really took itself too seriously for the amount of ridiculousness in it). This one had a few neat twists in it — I’ll give a second spoiler warning first — for instance, I never expected Will to take Davy Jones’ place, even when he was half dead. I thought Bootstrap would, especially in the seconds before it happened when he looked at his knife, or Jack, or even Elizabeth (who would follow him into death rather than waiting for him on shore for decades at a time, unaging).

I didn’t really care for the explicitness of Jack’s delusions (or the strange fascination with the peanut and licking things), especially since it was inconsistent in its lack of delusions right when Jack made his final decision not to captain the Flying Dutchman. I mean, the first one with him trying to captain the copies of himself in the Locker was ok, but I got really annoyed when he started talking to the miniature selves poking around his dreadlocks while everyone else was around.

Finally, one detail confused me at the end: Will proposed to Elizabeth during the battle, but didn’t the second movie open on their wedding being interrupted by East India/British troops?

Yes, I don’t know why I didn’t post on it earlier either… perhaps it was just too good to be true.

I’m really surprised that it’s not an MMO: there were so many good arguments for why it had to be one (all the infrastructure/back end programming is in place from WoW, WoW is getting old enough that there’s enough churn of players looking for a new Blizzard MMO to roll into, and last but certainly not least, the trainloads of money they’re rolling in from the MMO genre — no matter how well StarCraft 2 sells, it’ll never match that because they’ll only get the money once), that I just didn’t believe it at first when it was a return to RTS.

I miss having a Blizzard RTS to play. I’ve been playing C&C3 lately, but like all entries in that franchise, it’s less about strategy and more about “Mammoth tank rush”. True, I haven’t been playing online against real players, where more subtle strategic interactions may lie patiently in wait, but I don’t hold out much hope since the single player campaigns are often designed to help encourage using mixed forces — but after finishing the GDI campaign, I found that once I had the right mix of forces to defend my base, it was just as effective to send a force of Mammoth tanks as it was to coordinate a mixed arms force, and much less demanding of my skills, too. But StarCraft, now that was a game that was exquisitely balanced. Balanced three unique ways, too. While there certainly were plenty of players on Battle.net who were slaves to the zergling rush, or the hydralisk rush, or the all-mutalisk swarm, or of course the processor-lagging all-Carrier fleet, a good mix of forces (particularly Terran, since I tended to pick that when I wasn’t going random) could usually bring those monoculture swarms down.

I’ve actually tried to get my friends into playing StarCraft or WarCraft III again, but it’s been tough — very few of them love the genre as much as I do, and with StarCraft being over 10 years old, it does look a little dated (especially if you now have a widescreen monitor that stretches it). So the previews of the new units and abilities sound neat, and the gameplay trailers look amazing, but the biggest thing I’m looking forward to in StarCraft 2 is simply getting StarCraft back to the forefront of everyone’s minds so I can play with my friends again :) If it takes a new release and a visual makeover to do it, then so be it.