Sep 29, 2009
Sep 23, 2009
Plumbers and Lawyers
I heard an interesting joke the other day in one of my economics classes:
A lawyer one day has a problem with his sink, and has to call in a plumber to fix it. The plumber shows up, fixes it in 20 minutes, and says, "that'll be $200."
"What?", replied the lawyer, "you only worked for 20 minutes! That means it is $600/hour! I'm a lawyer and I only charge $250/hour."
"I understand your pain," said the plumber, "I used to be a lawyer too."
A lawyer one day has a problem with his sink, and has to call in a plumber to fix it. The plumber shows up, fixes it in 20 minutes, and says, "that'll be $200."
"What?", replied the lawyer, "you only worked for 20 minutes! That means it is $600/hour! I'm a lawyer and I only charge $250/hour."
"I understand your pain," said the plumber, "I used to be a lawyer too."
Sep 22, 2009
Compiz Effects Speed
I found this little tutorial here which tells you how to make Compiz's effects look much nicer, just by upping the refresh rate to that of your monitor.
And well, it really really works. Everything runs much more smoothly - of course you'd need a video card that can handle it, but it will probably work on most decent ones these days.
My question is, why does Compiz default to 50Hz when the average monitor runs much higher than that?
And well, it really really works. Everything runs much more smoothly - of course you'd need a video card that can handle it, but it will probably work on most decent ones these days.
My question is, why does Compiz default to 50Hz when the average monitor runs much higher than that?
Sep 20, 2009
Prices of Different Liquids
I stumbled across this post through a friend today, it is very interesting. I decided to actually dig a little deeper and see if these things are as they say they are.
I was unable to find a price on human blood, penicillin, and the 3M PF-5030 (which is a refrigerant), but I got a price on everything else. Note that all of this is done using CAD and prices as of today (Sept. 20, 2009).
Crude Oil:
Using the price from here (Bloomberg, converting USD to CAD using Google) of $76.63 CAD per barrel, and the volume of a barrel (Wikipedia) of 158 987 mL you get $0.00048/mL.
By the time that gets to your car, if we use $1.00/L which is what it seems to be hovering at in Quebec, that's $0.001/mL.
Bottled Water:
This one I guesstimated the price of a bottle of water at around $1.60 for a 500mL bottle, so that makes $0.0032/mL - 6.67 times the price of the crude oil.
Red Bull:
Also guesstimated at $2.99 for a 250mL can, giving $0.012/mL.
Vodka:
Using the price of the most expensive one at the SAQ called Belvedere (SAQ) which gives $42.75 for a 750mL bottle we get $0.057/mL.
Finally (since I skipped a bunch) we have HP #45, which is their normal black ink. The price is $42.77 (NCIX) for a 42mL cartridge, giving $1.02/mL.
So printer ink is 1020 times more expensive than the gas you put in your car. Yikes!
Note: These numbers are not 100% accurate since some of these have taxes factored in and others do not.
I was unable to find a price on human blood, penicillin, and the 3M PF-5030 (which is a refrigerant), but I got a price on everything else. Note that all of this is done using CAD and prices as of today (Sept. 20, 2009).
Crude Oil:
Using the price from here (Bloomberg, converting USD to CAD using Google) of $76.63 CAD per barrel, and the volume of a barrel (Wikipedia) of 158 987 mL you get $0.00048/mL.
By the time that gets to your car, if we use $1.00/L which is what it seems to be hovering at in Quebec, that's $0.001/mL.
Bottled Water:
This one I guesstimated the price of a bottle of water at around $1.60 for a 500mL bottle, so that makes $0.0032/mL - 6.67 times the price of the crude oil.
Red Bull:
Also guesstimated at $2.99 for a 250mL can, giving $0.012/mL.
Vodka:
Using the price of the most expensive one at the SAQ called Belvedere (SAQ) which gives $42.75 for a 750mL bottle we get $0.057/mL.
Finally (since I skipped a bunch) we have HP #45, which is their normal black ink. The price is $42.77 (NCIX) for a 42mL cartridge, giving $1.02/mL.
So printer ink is 1020 times more expensive than the gas you put in your car. Yikes!
Note: These numbers are not 100% accurate since some of these have taxes factored in and others do not.
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