Can a Website Have Too Much Information?

I frequent an electronics magazine website that currently does not want to load.  I end up receiving a message at the bottom about a "long running script".  This actually happens periodically with this specific website, although I have run into this problem at other sites as well.

So, the question becomes, is my computer too slow?  I am not currently having the issue with the other websites I visited today.  Does the website have too much information and graphics for a laptop to download?  Perhaps it is the server.  Whatever the cause it is frustrating and a good lesson to us that have websites like: http://www.electrotechnik.com.  I just checked and it loaded rather quickly, but maybe I just don't have enough information.

Funny Commercial?

I generally do not like commercials, but Pepsi MAX has a very funny one with Jeff Gordon that was worth viewing.  I thought the advertising agency was brilliant by peeking consumers interest via the TV and then having them go to the Internet to see it in its entirety.  It currently has over 33 million views.  so, saying it went viral, might be an understatement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5mHPo2yDG8

Now, however, the video has been revealed to be a fake and that Jeff Gordon, didn't even drive the car.  http://www.usatoday.com/story/gameon/2013/03/14/jeff-gordon-test-drive-fake/1988255/

So, what does that do to a brand like Pepsi?  Do consumers/customers feel duped or worse, lied to?  Perhaps it all plays into their "in disguise" mantra.  I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Best Mexican Restaurants in Tucson

Our reader has requested that we do another tasting similar to that of last summer with Philly Cheese steaks in Philadelphia.  This time it will be Mexican restaurants in Tucson.  It is difficult to go wrong when looking for a good Mexican restaurant in Tucson, but I will list my 5 favorite below in, no particular order.

1)     Poco and Mom’s - they are known for their New Mexico style Mexican food.  They use green hatch peppers, which gives it a different taste than many of the other Tucson Mexican restaurants.  The venue is small and personal and they have a way of making you feel like family.

2)     El Charro Café -They are the oldest Mexican restaurant in Tucson and would win on ambiance.  The building they are located in is over 100 years old and is in a historic area near downtown where they age there beef on the roof in containers.  Since they have been in business for over 75 years, they must be onto something right.

3)     Rigo’s Mexican Restaurant - I was told about this place by a native of Tucson who worked at the hotel where I was staying.  He told me I would want to go to the one across the street when I saw it, but don’t, do to Rigo’s.  I am so glad I heeded his advice.  It is the one I most often frequent when I am in town visiting Arizona Capacitors, Inc.

4)     El Guero Canelo - This is hands down the best Sonora Hot Dog place in town.  Two of them are a meal.  This place got its start as a road side stand and now has multiple locations.  He has been featured on Man Versus Food.  FYI, I don’t recommend eating there right before boarding your plane……..just saying.

These are my favorites, but I look forward to finding more and updating the blog in the future.  There are no winners or losers here.  They are all great and I have eaten at eat of them many, many times.

Manufacturing Competitiveness

In last Wednesday’s paper was an article about how the White House wanted to focus on the economy at large and more specifically at improving manufacturing.  In this same article the wanted to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.00 per hour, as though this would help.  Here is where are could write something sarcastic, but I won’t.  Instead, I will put down a few bullet points that would help increase manufacturing from the prospective of someone who is actually in that field.

·       Lower the minimum wage – at the very least in underdeveloped areas with higher unemployment

·       Increase the work week from 40 to 44 hours, many countries have a 48 hour work week, making them more productive/competitive the minute they show for work

·       Give manufactures a lower corporate tax rate, say 25% instead of the current 40%

·       Increase oil exploration, even in Alaska – this could not only lower energy costs, but increase manufacturing jobs in its own right

·       Limit access of international students to our engineering and science graduate degrees, where they can take our own research and knowledge home and compete against us

These are just a few ideas; there are many more that could improve our manufacturing competitiveness. They are probably too controversial for politicians, not that these are not.  Below is a Hubpage on Creating Wealth we wrote sometime back that might be apropos.

 

Creating Wealth Instead of Transferring It

 This is a subject that is near and dear to my heart, as I am associated with the electronic component manufacturing and the agriculture industries. These both happen to be industries that create wealth.

How does one create wealth as opposed to merely transferring it? When I explain this to my children, I tell them that in order to create wealth it was come from the ground. It must be grown, mined, or manufactured. This may be an over simplification, but for the most part wealth is extracted from the ground.

This is not to say that the accounting or legal professions are not important, in fact they are imperative. They do not, however, create wealth but transfer it. The act of manufacturing a transformer that is made with steel and copper, both of which come from the ground, is creating wealth. The liability insurance that is sold to that same manufacturing company is transferring it and before that money can be transferred it must first be created.

I contend that the only way to truly bring back our economy, without the use of smoke and mirrors, is to bring back manufacturing. There is a reason that China has been able to finance the United States’ enormous debt. China is where everything is now being manufactured and hence where the wealth is being created. On the agricultural front, Brazil is coming into its own and while agricultural made not be glamorous it will be an industry that we will regret having not defended more vigorously.

The old English Empire once thought that they could “sub out” their manufacturing and agriculture to their colonies while they would be the banking and finance center. In other words, they would hold our money for us. It didn’t take long for the colonies to decide that they could hold their own money. The money will always be located where it’s being created and unfortunately that is less and less in the United States.

Ireland has realized this some time back and for more than twenty years has lured manufacturing companies to locate there by offering attractive packages in order to not only create these type jobs, but create wealth. In the meantime, the U.S. saddles manufacturing companies with higher taxes and more regulations.

Super Bowl Power Outage

Having watched the Super Bowl last weekend and the 3rd quarter power outage, I was wondering if a capacitor had failed like the one in my heating system I mentioned in the last post. So, that got me to thinking, how many capacitors it took to run all those lights.

So, I looked into it, and each light has a ballast in it and each ballast has a capacitor. It depends upon the lighting system, but many of the lighting capacitors are a metalized polypropylene film type capacitor. These have good self-healing properties. If these were the capacitors used in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, I don’t think they were the cause, as these type capacitors are very hardy and often have discharge resistors as well.

Initially, when I began writing this post, the cause of the outage was not known. Now, however, we know it was a relay that was installed to prevent a power outage. The manufacturer has said the problem was not with the device, but rather how it was used. The trip setting was set too low, for the device to handle the amount of power coming into the building.

Catastrophic Capacitor Failure

A couple of months ago I turned on my heat for the first time this winter.  I was downstairs and the rest of my family was asleep upstairs.  Within a half an hour I could smell something, but I dismissed it as having something to do with it being the first time the heater had been run in about 9 months.  Within an hour, however, I was no longer able to overlook it, as the downstairs filled with smoke. 

Next, I turned off the heater (and by now the smoke alarm) and woke up my wife, as I didn't want to be the only one having all the fun.  She searched around the interior of the house while I went outside and looked around the perimeter and underneath the house, there was nothing burning.  We then opened up the house the in order to dissipate all the smoke.  Now it was reading around 55 degrees on the ground floor of my house and my wife was back upstairs in bed and far warmer than me.  I, on the other hand, would stay up for the next 3 hours (until 3:30am) to ensure that all the smoke was out and that there was nothing creating any more of it. 

When the repairman came in the next couple of days, he discovered that it had been a catastrophic capacitor failure with the motor-start capacitor.  That had been the cause of both the smell and the smoke.  The picture you can see if you go to the Hubpage I wrote about "Catastrophic Failure of a Capacitor" is the actual capacitor that "blew apart".  This event was my inspiration to write this Hubpage.  By the way, the kids slept through the whole thing, oh to be young again.

Sixth Grade Science Project

I recently helped my son do his 6th grade science project. The premise of his project was that capacitors could and eventually would be able to replace traditional batteries and that there would be not only an economic, but an environmental benefit as well. OK, I might have influenced him a little bit on his thesis.

We used Arizona Capacitors, of course, as well as Tepro of Florida resistors on our PC board. We ended up with 6 capacitors and 19,000 uf. Two switches were installed so that he could cut off the main power and show that the LED light bulb was running exclusively from the charged capacitors. The experiment was a success and he was able to run the light bulb (visible to the naked eye) for 4 minutes and 59 seconds, in a dark environment.

I just wanted to say thanks to Richard our head of engineering for his generous help with this project. I guess it's just a matter of time before we see more instances of capacitors acting as batteries in everyday applications.