laptop fuel cells

ok, this does sound good at first blush:

LG Chem is on the ball when it comes to fuel cell technology. They have developed a fuel cell unit for user in notebooks that can power a 25W unit for up to 10 hours. The only problem is that it is an external unit so that makes yet another accessory that you would have to lug around with you:

Different from the concept announced by Taiwan-based Antig Technology at the CeBIT trade fair earlier this year and other companies before, this product works as an external power supply connected to a notebook through a DC-in jack, LG Chem explained. The device weighs less than 1kg, and one 200cc methanol cartridge is enough to power a 25W notebook for more than 10 hours, LG Chem said. The company expects that cartridges will be priced under US$1. The base unit price will be around US$500.

but think for a moment. How are you going to get through airport security with multiple 200cc vials of methanol? I wouldn't even try.

home

We're home, highway speed from Katy to League City right through downtown. No flood damage, though there were a few shingles strewn about the yard. I will call a roofer to inspect and make sure that there wasn't anything more serious. The power had clearly been out for some time, given the oozed tubes of toothpaste in the bathroom, but was back on when we got home. I unloaded the car and will tackle the plywood later this afternoon when it isn't as insanely hot. My wife is already on shift at UTMB in Galveston and is on call. Back to normal :)

Other Houston bloggers are returning too - Charles had no trouble getting home from Dallas on I-45. We should throw a post-Rita blogger party :)

Khidmat is not a zero-sum game

I have been involved for nearly a decade in the development of a portal site for my religious community, the Dawoodi Bohras. We recently have upgraded servers again, planning to retire our aging boxes. The new server hardware, donated by EZZI.NET of Long Island, is running 64-bit CentOS Linux and will support SMP. One of our long term goals in this is to cultivate a skill set within our community to help leverage technology in service of our religious observance and preservation of our culture (a modernist streak that runs deep in our community, profiled by Jonah Blank in Mullahs on the Mainframe). To that end, we have launched a blog that details the technical side of maintaining our community infrastructure. I encourage anyone (Bohras or otherwise) interested in building a communications infrastructure for their own community to take a look.

Houston reawakens

The Houston chronicle has been superb - they have two Rita-themed blogs, one called The Road Home, which has latest user-supplied information about road conditions as evacuees return to Houston from Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas, and also the Rita Blog, which has tons of helpful info about gas stations, supermarket re-openings, power restoration, etc. Everything we need to know.

My home in Dickinson looks like it should have power restored by the time we get back. We plan on leaving Tuesday morning; my wife has to be back at UTMB by wednesday morning.

Also via Eric Berger, a good analysis of why the evacuation - though impressive in scope - was so painful:

Hurricane planners have a little ditty that goes, "run from the water, hide from the wind."

It means evacuate if you are in a coastal surge area, but hunker down if you are in an area that will get hurricane-force winds and rain only.

The biggest problem in Houston's painful evacuation last week was that perhaps a million people, almost half of those who left, ran from the wind. To make matters worse, the regional evacuation plan was missing a key element: pre-planned contraflow lanes that are a part of virtually every other hurricane-prone city's evacuation strategy.

This echoes Taha's comments from two days ago, IMHO. Plus, if the wind is hurricane strength and you have children, who is going to fault anyone for running from the wind?

UPDATE: Mayor White also had a similar critique:

Days after the evacuation that saw tortuous delays on Texas highways, Houston's mayor says the handling of gasoline supplies is "totally unacceptable."

Speaking to reporters, Mayor Bill White says that's a part of the state plan that needs improvement.

People trying to flee north from Houston sat in traffic all day or night, and some ran out of gas. Those who could make their way to gas stations often found the pumps empty.

we need to learn from this for next time. It went amazingly well. But it needs to be done better, especially since today's chronicle did have stories of tragedy (including the death of at least one child from heat exposure, and the infamour exploding bus) directly attributable to the titanic traffic snarls. Contraflow would have helped immeasurably, and MUST be part of the plan next time, period.

The Aggie jokes just write themselves

via Eric Berger, check out this picture of Loupot's bookstore at Texas A&M taken by Andrew McNeel.

sitting dry

well, we came back from masjid at around 12:30am, given that the hurricane was diverted so far to the east that it barely even rained here in Katy. Plus the hurricane was degraded down to category 1. Still, we did lose power for about 10 hours, though it just came on again about 20 minutes ago. (attn mumineen: see the Bilad e-Akhbar blog at mumineen.org for details).

So, we are in good shape. About to go back to masjid for afternoon prayer. Looks like the worst is behind us :)

Of corse, I hope our house in Dickinson is ok.. that is something I cant worry about right now though of course. We will cross that bridge when we get to it. Right now, we are all safe at my inlaws' place, and happy, and even comfortable - what more besides water, power, and DSL could we want?

sincere thanks to all bloggers and commenters who linked and sent their support and prayers our way.

Houston Makes It Through

(Guest poster Taha Raja is a businessman in the Sugarland area, a member of our local congregation of Dawoodi Bohras in Houston)

Hello all,

My name is Taha Raja, a close friend of Aziz. Fortunately, Rita barely touched us here in Katy at our masjid! It was a miracle to say the least considering the menace that was in front of us two days ago! I am now back at my house in Katy and this area barely received a couple of inches of rain and sustained winds around 30-40 mph. This was a non event for Katy Residents - Thank God!

I wanted to add that having experienced this from the beginning, I am truly impressed by the outstading leadership provided by Mayor Bill White, Judge Robert Eckels. The Greater Houston Area evacuated around 2.7 million people as per the press conference this morning! WOW! Yes we saw the gridlock, yes we saw gassless cars, and yes there was tremendous frustration. No doubt in hindsight we could have done better. But without any precendent, without knowing all the factors ahead of time, the simple fact that 2.7 million people got out in time was an amazing feat by our city, county and state leadership.

Can we improve on this? Absolutely! What can we do? Well I am sure there will be numerous pundits and experts that will analyze and cross analyse this event to come up with alternatives. In my humble opinion, I would say that if we are to expect everyone to evacuate in their own vehicles (for the most part) then the choices are going to be few and far between. There will be gridlock and there will be these surreal images of hundred mile traffic jam. But the Federal Government can assist. We can have prepositioned gasoline, motorist assistance, and other aid all along the evacuation routes. We can have as many busses as possible to increase density of evacuees - thereby reducing individual cars. We can have the "counterflow" planned and opened up prior to the evacuation orders. Staged zipcode evacuation may be an option as well - not sure exactly if this would work in a panic situation like we had.

So now in retrospect, we thank the Almighty for his grace on Houston. It was truly amazing to see a reporter showing young trees bent as the only damage in downtown this morning. And while she was reporting you could see streetlights all lit up! Power was still on in downtown. Centerpoint reports only 75000 homes without power. These are amazing statistics considering the doom and gloom we faced 2 days ago from Rita!

I do not want to undermine the total effect of this storm. Obviously there are many family, friends and citizens who are effected in the East Texas and Lousiana area. I am sure the damage there is greater and as of 6AM this morning this is still a CAT 2 Hurricane. My thoughts and prayers are still with them and as a concerned citizens, if there is any help we can provide after the fact, we should and we must! God Speed to all! Shukran! (Thank You!).