In a struggle to be happy and free

Drystone Wall

Month: December 2013 Page 1 of 2

VW diesel report: 2013

I still use Fuelly.com to track my fuel consumption. Here are the results of my driving in 2013:

  • I refueled 10 times.
  • The average distance I drove between fill-ups was 881.3 km (547.6 miles).
  • The average price I paid per litre of diesel was $1.28 ($4.84 per US gallon).
  • The total distance tracked in 2013 was 8,813 km (5476 miles).
  • To drive that distance, I used 521.25 litres of fuel (137.70 US gallons).
  • I spent an average of $66.59 for each refuel.
  • I spent a total of $665.93 on fuel.
  • That works out to 8¢ per kilometre (12¢ per mile).
  • My average fuel economy for the year was 5.9 litres/100 km (39.8 MPG).

Taking it a bit further, 10 fill-ups in 52 weeks averages out to a fill-up every 5 weeks.

Comparing the numbers to last year’s results is nothing but, on the face of it, good news. Fuel efficiency is up 7% and distance driven is down 27%. These positive results can be yours as well. All you need is either a job located within walking distance of your home (which is not what I had), or no job at all (which is what I had). The slight upswing in fuel economy is at least partly because although my daily in-city driving was drastically reduced, my long distance driving was not.

Déjà vu ice

4M6C2402.CR2: 5D Mk.III, EF 85mm 1:1.8 @ 1/80, f/1.8, 400 ISO

Yesterday, the news was awash with warnings about the coming freezing rain. I wasn’t convinced because the forecasts around here are Toronto-centic and if their temperature would fall into that narrow freezing-rain zone, there was a fair chance that ours would not. I was wrong. It’s much worse in Toronto with one CBC-Radio reporter calling in from home stating that the cars on his street are covered with 20 millimetres of ice! There’s perhaps 5 millimetres of ice on flat surfaces here but it’s enough to bring back memories of the week-long eastern-Ontario ice storm from January 1998.

Birds be crazy!

4M6C2286.CR2: 5D Mk.III, EF 70–200mm 1:4L IS @ 165mm, 1/200, f/7.1, 100 ISO

4M6C2286.CR2: 5D Mk.III, EF 70 – 200mm 1:4L IS @ 165mm, 1/200, f/7.1, 100 ISO

It made me cold just looking at them!

The two-part trilogy, with no end.

According to Slashdot,

Charles Stross has announced that there won’t be a third book in the Halting State trilogy because reality (in a manner of speaking) has caught up to him too fast. The last straw was apparently the news that the NSA planted spies in networked games like WoW. Stross comments: ‘At this point, I’m clutching my head. Halting State wasn’t intended to be predictive when I started writing it in 2006. Trouble is, about the only parts that haven’t happened yet are Scottish Independence and the use of actual quantum computers for cracking public key encryption (and there’s a big fat question mark over the latter — what else are the NSA up to?).

When I hear about an interesting trilogy, I do my best to wait until all the books are out before I start reading. There are a number of reasons I do this, but having the last book cancelled wasn’t something I considered!

The more I think about Stross’s reason, the more I think it’s lacking. He states,

the Snowden revelations have systematically trashed all my ideas for the third book.

I can’t help but think, dude, get some new ideas. You’re a fiction writer, right? Ideas are your speciality. Besides, if I read two books of a trilogy and learn that the author has abandoned the story because the real world interfered with his fiction, it would be a long time before I even look at the author’s work, much less buy any. I don’t think it’s terribly outlandish to say that releasing two books and calling them part one and two of a trilogy is an implied obligation to deliver a third book. If I had the first two books, that’s exactly how I’d feel. I wonder how the publisher feels about it.

Business blunders II

Dear businesses, don’t obfuscate.

Frankly, you’re not nearly as good at it as you think you are. If you feel you must say something, say it clearly and simply. If there’s a reason you can’t be clear, say nothing.

I don’t have a particular dislike for Camera Canada. They just have the good fortune of being used as my example because they’re merely the latest company to annoy me. They’ve also given me a great example of how a company can think they’re clever enough with words to distract you from what they don’t want to state clearly.

You’ll recall that my beef with them is their customer unfriendly practice of automatically adding purchasers to their spam list. Companies typically explain why you’re getting their e‑mail ads at the very bottom of the messages. No company wants to be known for sending spam so they usually explain that you’re getting the ad because you signed up to their e‑mail ad mailing list. Camera Canada can’t do this because they add buyers to their mailing list. So do they simply omit any mention of why they sent you the e‑mail ad? Heck no. The latest e‑mail ad they send me includes this mess at the end:

Camera Canada is the place to securely purchase camera equipment online. Thousands of Canadians have reliably purchased from us which is why you are receiving our e‑flyer. We appreciate your business in the past and look forward to serving you again. Have a happy holiday season!

I’m getting an unsolicited commercial e‑mail message (the definition of spam) because thousands of Canadians have purchased from them? No, I’m getting spam from then because I bought something from them. They could say this clearly, but it doesn’t sound very nice. Simply saying nothing about why I found myself on their ad mailing list would give me one less reason to be annoyed with them. Of course there are many others, but it would be a step in the right direction.

If they won’t say it clearly, there’s something they don’t want to tell you.

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