Happy Yuri's Night 2014!

World Space Party - Detroit 2014 and i3 Detroit in Ferndale
I almost forgot tonight was Yuri's Night.  Shame on me if I had forgotten it.  After all, I posted about it last year and the year before.  To celebrate tonight, here's Chris Hadfield and the Canadian Space Agency: 2013 Spirit of Yuri's Night Acceptance Speech.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield and the Canadian Space Agency were named the recipients of the 2013 Spirit of Yuri's Night Award. This video is Chris' acceptance speech for the award!

For more, read Celebrate the Birth of Human Spaceflight, with Yuri's Night!

Driving update for April 2014: Yuki

I ended Driving update for December 2013: My car by postponing making good on a promise.

Also, I made a promise at the end of the last report.

Yes, I bought this car in October 2003.  I have a story about that, but I'll save it for the next report, along with why I named my car Yuki.  Stay tuned.

I'm going to take a rain check on this promise.  These look like the kind of stories I would write to post while I'm traveling, which I might do over the next two weeks.

Instead, I explained the name of my wife's car.

It's late and I'm tired, so I'm not up to it.  Besides, this report is about my wife's car, which I call Ruby (my wife doesn't give her cars names).  I gave her that name because of the car's color and because my wife and I are fans of "Once Upon a Time," which had a character named Ruby, who is really Red Riding Hood, for the first two seasons.

Well, my car will turn over 220,000 miles today, so it's time to tell her story.

My previous car, a Nissan I called Molly, died in October 2003 after she turned over 210,000 miles during a drive back from an anime convention in South Bend, Indiana, although I didn't realize it at the time.  I heard the engine knocking, which it did when the oil was low.  I put in two quarts of oil (!) and continued driving home.  Within a week, I had to put in more oil, and the engine began to sound just horrible.  I took it in for service, and found out that all the seals had blown and the engine was getting ready to throw a rod.  That was the end of my driving Molly.  I had to get a new car.

About this time, one of the local Kia dealerships was advertising its deal.  "Got a job?  Got $100?  Get a new Kia!"  I qualified, so I rented a car and drove over to the nearest Kia dealer and got Yuki.  It wasn't even the right dealership, but that didn't matter.  I picked out a car from the previous model year that had a rebate to entice people to get it off the lot.  I was able to roll that rebate into the down payment and was able to drive Yuki home without paying a cent.  Ah, the long-gone days of easy credit!

As for Molly, the dealership accepted her as a trade-in worth $50 and had her towed away.  At least I was able to get scrap value and free towing.   Best of all, Yuki's interior looked exactly like Molly's.  From the inside, it was as if I had just gotten a newer version of the same car with an automatic transmission.  As I wrote back in 2011 and again in 2012, it was a concession to comfort and age.

When I needed to buy a car, I got a Kia instead. It got 32 miles to the gallon, but it was an automatic. I was willing to sacrifice a few miles to the gallon so that my left foot and right hand could rest. Yeah, I'm a sucker for convenience, too.

At least it wasn't the Aztek my son wanted me to buy.  That would have been an environmental and economic disaster.

As for the name, my younger daughter suggested Yuki after Yuki Saiko, a character in the manga and anime "Silent Mobius."  The character's image is the one I used at the head of this entry.  It's the same one my younger daughter downloaded as a wallpaper on the computer I owned at the time.  Why Yuki?  In addition to "Silent Mobius" being a mutual favorite of ours, my daughter picked her out as the kind of woman she'd want for me; she was sweet, pretty and owned a coffee shop.*  Yes, I love my coffee.  Besides, the artist who drew the manga was named Kia Asamiya.  My daughter wanted to name a creation of one Kia after the creation of another Kia.  It stuck and that's how a Korean car got a Japanese name. 

Follow over the jump for the statistics, footnotes, and a music video.

Corner station retreats as predicted in gas price war

Here's what I predicted Wednesday in The front advances in the gas price war.

Yesterday, the corner station displayed more caution, raising its price to $3.79, while the corner station still held firm at $3.54.  Today, all stations moved.  The corner station dropped its price to $3.69, while the three stations down the block raised theirs to $3.60.  I expect the corner station to continue its swift but orderly retreat over the next two days and join the rest of the neighborhood outlets at $3.60.

The very next day, which is now yesterday, the corner station did exactly as I foretold, matching all the rest of the stations in the neighborhood at $3.60, which is still where it is today.

How confident am I in the next prediction?

While the corner station is likely to lower its price to match its nearest competitors, their price is not likely to go down more than a penny over the next seven to ten days.  $3.59 is no longer a ceiling; it's a floor.  I wouldn't be surprised if prices went up to between $3.64 and $3.69 by the end of next week.

Very.

Gas Buddy shows the national average has continued its rise from  $3.58 Wednesday to between $3.59 and $3.60 today.  Detroit's average, on the other hand, has gone down slightly from $3.73 Tuesday and Wednesday to between $3.72 and $3.71 today.  It's performing just as I thought it would earlier this week, when I wrote "Based on the usual seasonal pattern, which has held very well over the past two months, it should decline slightly before going up again."  I'd say that the past two days price pattern is doing precisely that.  As for the local stations, their price is still more than a dime below the metro area mean, and is therefore underpriced based on historical patterns.  The metro average will have to drop below $3.70 to make them priced correctly.  Until that happens, I expect the price to go up next week.  If it does, then the neighborhood stations will remain where they are, going no lower than $3.59.  The price won't drop below that floor, as Reuters reports U.S. crude nears 6-week high as consumer confidence supports.

U.S. crude oil rose to near a six-week high on Friday, steered by stronger gasoline demand and a positive consumer confidence report, but gains were capped by profit taking and a declining demand outlook.

The International Energy Agency lowered its global demand forecast for 2014 due to expectations that more Libyan crude will reach the market next week, pushing Brent prices lower.

U.S. crude moved in tandem with U.S. gasoline prices, which surged early in the session due to government data released mid-week that showed a substantial draw on stockpiles, signaling robust demand before the start of summer driving season.
...
U.S. oil rose by as much as $1.04 to a session high of $104.44, before giving back much of its gains to settle 34 cents higher at $103.74 a barrel. The May contract rose nearly 2-1/2 percent on average over last week.

U.S. gasoline RBOB rose by as much as 3.35 cents to a session high of $3.0381 per gallon, but gave up most gains to settle 0.65 cents higher at $3.0144 per gallon.

Brent crude settled 14 cents lower at $107.33 a barrel, but still ended the week 0.5 percent higher on average.

Oil and wholesale gasoline may not have kept all their gains, but they still went up.

Holidays from the second year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News

I finished Social media for the second and third year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News with a sigh of relief followed by a look ahead.

That's all for the entries from the the third year of the blog for this year.  Maybe next year I'll describe how one or more broke out of the pack to get into the top ten list, but that's next year's problem.  On to finishing my retrospectives of the popular entries for the second year!

Tonight, I celebrate popular posts about holidays.  This is nothing new among my retrospectives.  After all, the most read entry posted during the first year of this blog ended up being Happy 4th of July from James Howard Kunstler's Tea Party!  That it didn't become that until a year later, as I detailed in Second Year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News: Kunstler's Tea Party, only made it more interesting.  Also, the second year of the blog included On Thanksgiving eve, I present "Food, Inc.", which I included after the jump in Student worksheets for the second and third year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.  Finally, the third year had a post for one of my made-up holidays, Space news for Apophis Day, which headlined Space News for the second and third year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.  Even though those were all holiday-related posts, they all fit better somewhere else.  That left two entries from the second year that just didn't find a with any of the above.

The more read of the two was Food Day News from Overnight News Digest on Daily Kos posted October 25, 2012, with 282 page views, good enough for the ninth most read entry of the second year of the blog.  The entry was one massive linkspam.  Much to my astonishment, it got view after view, most of which came from sources unknown.  I guess people just wanted to read news about food.  It's still popular, as it now has 349 page views.

The other was Happy Bastille Day!  It was posted, of course, on July 14, 2012, and received 204 page views.  It ended up in 19th place among the entries from the second year of the blog.  It was basically one tourist's video of Bastille Day 2011.  This entry gained a lot of views from web search, as I recall "Bastille Day" being one of the top search terms that week.  Unfortunately, it hasn't seen a lot of readers since then, as it currently has only 228 page views.  Too bad, it could use some love this coming Bastille Day.

 I love holidays. Here's to more popular entries about holidays!

I have one more entry left before I wrap up the second year of this blog--depressing political news.  Hey, what do you expect?  This may be a weird, hopeful doomer blog, but it's still a doomer blog.

Social media for the second and third year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News

I concluded Stories I tell my students from the third year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News with an optimistic program note.

I have one more retrospective to write about the third year of this blog and it's about social media.  After that, I have one or two retrospectives remaining to mop up the second year and then I'm done until next March.  I see a light at the end of this tunnel, and it's not an onrushing train!

This year's top entry about social media was We reveal ourselves on Facebook posted on March 22, 2013 with 255 page views, good enough for 20th place among all the entries posted during the third year of this blog.  I didn't bother to promote it at Kunstler's blog when it was new, instead concentrating on all the other entries for the week.  Instead, I waited until I posted in the comments to the first entry using the new format.

“we, in effect, already spy on ourselves and “snitch” on others on Facebook”

Notice that no one, so far, has entered in their Facebook URLs, not even Aimlow Joe, who put in something, but it wasn’t valid. I’m tempted to do so just to be the first here, but I’ll pass. I don’t want to have a first here that badly.

Speaking of which, we reveal more than we know about ourselves based on our Facebook activity.

That effort did get at least 100 page views to the entry.  As for the open commenting system that included Facebook and Twitter, it was replaced by one that required registration within a month.   So much for revealing our social media to each other!

Follow over the jump for the top social media entry of the second year of the blog.

The front advances in the gas price war

It's been twelve days since I posted The corner station retreats again, but only two cents worth.

The corner station stayed in its trench on Tuesday, so there was no charge into No Man's Land this week.  Instead, the three stations down the street dropped their prices slightly to $3.54, where they've remained since.  The corner station dropped a penny Wednesday to $3.55, then matched the rest of the outlets in the neighborhood Thursday at $3.54.  I predicted local prices would end the week between $3.49 and $3.59, and all four of them ended up exactly in the middle of the range.  Perfect.

As for what's next, Gas Buddy shows that metro Detroit prices hit a low for March of $3.59 last Friday, then shot up over the weekend to $3.65 before resuming their steep glide down to Thursday's $3.61.  I wouldn't be surprised if they continued to drop.  I would expect $3.52, but the low end of the range at $3.49 is still possible if Detroit area prices continue to drop.  However, there is upward price pressure from the national average, which ceased its brief decline on the 21st at $3.51 and has resumed its slow and steady rise to $3.52.  If that trend continues, then it will set a floor on local prices and possibly push them up to the top of the range I set last week, which is $3.59.  Unless something drastic happens in the next seven days, I don't expect prices to go any higher.

Note that I used a lot of words to basically say what I said the week before, that prices would stay between $3.49 and $3.59 for the next week.  Other than a charge into No Man's Land by the corner station, that's exactly what happened.  Last week, the corner station jacked its price for regular up to $3.85, which meant that mid-grade was selling for $4.00.  Oh, no, four dollar gasoline!  That only lasted a day, as the three stations down the block held firm at $3.54.  The next day, the corner station rejoined them.  Neighborhood gas prices were still below where they were this week last year, when they fluctuated between $3.59 and $3.69.  Yesterday, the corner station displayed more caution, raising its price to $3.79, while the corner station still held firm at $3.54.  Today, all stations moved.  The corner station dropped its price to $3.69, while the three stations down the block raised theirs to $3.60.  I expect the corner station to continue its swift but orderly retreat over the next two days and join the rest of the neighborhood outlets at $3.60.

As for the larger picture, Gas Buddy shows that the corner station was just reflecting the rise in national and local prices.  The national average jumped from a short-lived plateau of $3.55 a couple of days ago to $3.58 today.  Detroit's average jumped higher, from $3.64 three days ago to $3.73 yesterday.  Today, the metro area's prices held steady.  Based on the usual seasonal pattern, which has held very well over the past two months, it should decline slightly before going up again--and up it will go, as both the overall seasonal increase in gas prices will continue until July and the price of oil is going up, too.  Reuters reported today U.S. crude oil up on spike in gas demand, technical trade.

U.S. crude rose more than $1 on Wednesday, driven by a technical rally and unexpectedly high gasoline demand, while tensions between Russia and the West underpinned Brent crude prices.

U.S. crude oil stocks rose more than expected last week, but the build was overshadowed by a sharp spike in gasoline demand, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data.

The data boosted U.S. gasoline and crude oil prices above key technical levels, and pushed the closely watched and traded price spread with Brent, the European benchmark, to the narrowest point in nearly 7 months.
...
In the U.S. crude market, "gasoline inventories showed a massive drawdown, which drove WTI to rally past technical levels at $102.75," pushing traders to buy back positions they may have sold short, Baruch added.

U.S. RBOB gasoline settled nearly 3 cents higher at $3.0084 per gallon.

U.S. oil rose as much as $1.21 to a session high of $103.77 a barrel. The contract settled $1.04 higher at $103.60 per barrel.

Brent crude settled 31 cents higher at $107.98 a barrel.

While the corner station is likely to lower its price to match its nearest competitors, their price is not likely to go down more than a penny over the next seven to ten days.  $3.59 is no longer a ceiling; it's a floor.  I wouldn't be surprised if prices went up to between $3.64 and $3.69 by the end of next week.

As for where prices stand relative to last year on this date, for the first time all year, if not the first time in at least five months, nominal prices are now higher than last April 9th, when the local stations were all selling regular for $3.55.  Let's see, 0.05/3.55=1.4%.  As the core CPI has gone up 1.6% over the same time, that means that the real price of gasoline hasn't gone up one bit since last year.  That's actually reassuring.

Stories I tell my students from the third year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News

My teaching has informed my blogging throughout the past three years and vice versa, but according to the top twenty entries of the past year compared to the year before, the interaction between the two seems to be having more of an influence.  First, Student worksheets for the second and third year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News listed assignments I have written for films I show my classes.  Now, a series of entries from the past year contain stories I tell to my students as well as items I have later incorporated into my lectures.

First among these is the eleventh most read entry of the third year of the blog, Science confirms my opinion of life in the country posted on August 3, 2013, with 338 page views.  This is another entry that gained its readers through my promoting it at Kunstler's blog.

I have a reply of sorts to last week’s passage about the “the millions of unemployed Ford F-110 owners drinking themselves into an incipient political fury,” who are presumably living in the country. I lived in rural and exurban ares for eleven years and I have more harrowing tales of criminality and depravity from life in the country than all the years I lived in the city (this includes the inner suburbs of Detroit as well as Los Angeles). I had enough of the country and moved back into the city three years ago. I feel much safer.

Last week, science confirmed my impressions by showing that people are less likely to die of violence of all kinds in urban than in rural areas. I have a video summarizing that research as well as my first hand tales of life in the country at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News.

As I wrote in the original entry, which was itself a quote from my LiveJournal:

When I tell my students from Detroit about all that, they're appalled. All of it as as bad as anything that happens there, and some of it is worse.

Four years after first writing that, my students are still amazed, and I still feel safer four miles away from Detroit than I did in rural Lenawee County and exurban Washtenaw County.  As for the point of the story, it's not that the city is better than you think while the country is worse, although that comes across to my students, it's that even the worst neighbors can be useful at times--and I had some terrible neighbors out in the country.

Follow over the jump for more top entries of stories I tell my students.

Ocean on Enceladus, opposition of Mars, and other space and astronomy stories for the week of April Fools

It's time to recycle the space news from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Ocean inside Enceladus) on Daily Kos, beginning with the lead story.

Space.com: Will Ocean Discovery On Enceladus Spur Life-Hunting Missions to Icy Moons of Saturn, Jupiter?
By Mike Wall, Senior Writer
April 04, 2014 07:33am ET

Astronomers are hoping that the existence of a subsurface ocean on Saturn's icy moon Enceladus will build momentum for life-hunting missions to the outer solar system.

Researchers announced their discovery of the deep watery ocean on Enceladus on Thursday (April 3) in the journal Science, confirming suspicions held by many scientists since 2005, when NASA's Cassini spacecraft spied geysers of ice and water vapor erupting from Enceladus' south pole.

The discovery vaults Enceladus into the top tier of life-hosting candidates along with Europa, an ice-sheathed moon of Jupiter that also hosts a subterranean ocean. Both frigid satellites bear much closer investigation, researchers say.

This week in science: that's no moon! by DarkSyde also used the announcement of the discovery of a subsurface ocean in Enceladus as its lead story, as did the NASA video Underground water on Saturn moon on This Week @NASA.

Thanks to NASA's Cassini spacecraft and the Deep Space Network, we have evidence that a large underground ocean of water exists on Saturn's moon Enceladus -- a theory formulated in 2005. Radio frequency and gravity measurements of Cassini flying by the moon indicate a large ocean about 6 miles deep, below an ice shell about 19 to 25 miles thick. This finding validates the inclusion of Enceladus to the list of possible places in our solar system to contain microbial life. Also, LADEE update, Women in Aerospace, Lightfoot visits Langley, Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board meetings, International students observing climate and New partner at Kennedy!

Before I head over the jump to the rest of the past week's space news, Science at NASA presents the other featured story in ScienceCast: The Opposition of Mars

Earth and Mars are converging for a close encounter in April, an event astronomers call "the opposition of Mars."

This happens tonight, which is why I'm posting this today instead of waiting for later in the week.

Follow over the jump for the rest of the week's space and astronomy news.

'Game of Thrones' attack ads from Mother Jones

Almost simultaneously with my posting the link to Game of Thrones D&D character alignment charts, a friend of mine posted the link to "Game of Thrones" Attack Ads from Mother Jones.  I promised her that I'd convert it into my next "Game of Thrones" entry.  I'm keeping that promise.

First, Daenerys Targaryen: Wrong For Dragons, Wrong For The Realm.

This ad paid for by the Committee to Protect Dragons.

Next, Joffrey Baratheon: Where Is The Birth Certificate?

What is King Joffrey hiding?

Finally, Robb Stark: The Biggest Celebrity in The North.

This ad paid for by Crossbows GPS.

With this entry, I've gone full circle back to my first "Game of Thrones" entry, Game of Thrones: 2012 Campaign Edition.  That's OK; I like closing circles.

Chemical and fire hazards in furniture

Original at Mommy Greenest.
One of the topics that I give short shrift to in my Environmental Science class is indoor air pollution.  Pity, since that is a major health hazard.  This past week, I included two press releases on how our furniture poses an indoor air pollution risk in Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Ocean inside Enceladus) on Daily Kos.  First, the bad news from the University of Texas: Crib Mattresses Emit High Rates of Potentially Harmful Chemicals, Cockrell School Engineers Find.

AUSTIN, Texas — In a first-of-its-kind study, a team of environmental engineers from the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin found that infants are exposed to high levels of chemical emissions from crib mattresses while they sleep.

Analyzing the foam padding in crib mattresses, the team found that the mattresses release significant amounts of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), potentially harmful chemicals also found in household items such as cleaners and scented sprays.

The researchers studied samples of polyurethane foam and polyester foam padding from 20 new and old crib mattresses. Graduate student Brandon Boor, in the Cockrell School’s Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, conducted the study under the supervision of assistant professor Ying Xu and associate professor Atila Novoselac. Boor also worked with senior researcher Helena Järnström from the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. They reported their findings in the February issue of Environmental Science & Technology.

Now, the good news from Rebecca Basu of American University: Chemistry Professors Improve Furniture Smoldering Test.

American University chemistry researchers and scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) discovered a way to improve a test that gauges how well upholstered furniture can resist smoldering combustion to delay the possible onset of fire. The research results are available online in the scientific journal, Polymer Degradation and Stability.

In the United States, fires in which upholstered furniture is the first item ignited account for about 6,700 home fires annually and result in 480 deaths, according to the National Fire Protection Association. These fires can be started from an open-flame source, such as a candle, or from a smoldering source, such as a lit cigarette or incense.

In the smoldering test, two foam pieces about two-inches thick are covered with fabric and placed in a wooden frame to replicate a small-scale version of seat and back cushions. It mimics a scenario where furniture foam sits on a non-air-permeable substrate (e.g. the wooden frame). A cigarette (certified to burn consistently) is placed in the frame’s crevice. To pass the test, the lit cigarette should not cause sustained smoldering of the fabric or the underlying foam.

I don't have enough time this semester to include the information in my lectures except in passing because of the snow days, but I'll see what I can do this summer, when I'm not likely to lose four days from the semester because of weather.