Peak Oil Revisited

I believe in Peak Oil. Currently, the whole theory has taken a bit of a hit lately, and certainly a lot of the doubts have been well deserved, the entire school of thought committed the cardinal sin: letting the hype get ahead of the facts. So let’s get back to the facts.

Peak Oil isn’t so much a theory as much an observation. At first it’s pretty easy to extract oil from a well. You sink more wells, and more oil comes out of the ground. But eventually you hit a point of diminishing returns. The wells stop producing as much oil as before, and over time you get less and less oil, until the cost to extract oil exceeds the profit of selling the oil. This growth, peak, and fall pattern can be seen in fields, reigons, and even national production. The problem arises if global production follows this growth, peak, decline pattern. Hence the name, Peak Oil.

To date, global oil production has been on a fairly steady march upward. But every step of that march has been getting harder and harder, and most of the marching has been done by Saudia Arabia. And unless they’ve been holding out on telling us about a major game changing discovery, Saudia Arabia’s nearly out of steps. Peak Oil proponents argue we are near, at, or just past the Peak.

The detractors argue otherwise. And they have a few good points, the biggest one being that we’ve done this song and dance before during the late 70’s. And then Gulf oil was found, along with Mexican oil, and then the biggie, Saudia Arabia. Oil shortages lead to high prices which lead to exploration which lead to more oil. Recent record oil prices have directly lead to more exploration, culminating in a wave of new finds. And although oil isn’t near the previous lows, it certainly isn’t anywhere near the record highs.

The problem with the Peak Oil critics is that they’re not looking at the future. European demand might cool, but the US isn’t yet prepared for dramatic oil usage reductions, and China and India are desperately trying to hop onto the US standard of living, or something approaching that. And that takes lots of energy and lots of plastic, both of which require oil. Lots of it.

Thankfully, we still have plenty of the stuff, and we’ll have plenty more for some time to come. Peak Oil doesn’t mean the end of the world, it just means the end of cheap oil. What that means for our future selves will probably be impossible to predict. But it will definitely be different then to good old days of 1998 ($1 a gallon for Premium. PREMIUM!!!! Good Times).

Random Economic Analogies 101

The economy is like a giant campfire we’re all huddled around to stay warm. There’s lots of people on the outside edges getting a little bit of heat, there’s people closer in getting some decent warmth, and there’s a few with front row seats having smores.

Times were tough a long time ago, so folks took some of that firewood and made a roof over the fire to keep the rain out. And then they made a giant tent to cover folks on the edges. The edge folks still didn’t get much heat but at least they’d be out of the rain. And life passed by, for the most part.

And then a strange thing happened. People eating smores convinced us that we’d be better off if we removed the tent, and burned it instead. So we did, and it worked! That fire got pretty hot! If you were on the edge you got screwed, but everybody else did OK. And then the smores folks told us that fire do better if we dismanted the roof and burned that too. And oddly enough we did just that. And it worked! Front row folks got a fire big enough to roast a pig, make some toast, get some coffee, and of course more smores then they could eat several lifetimes over. The folks in the middle got a lot of warmth. And those poor saps on the edge got screwed, but they always gets screwed, you can’t save everybody.

And then the wood ran out. And the wind kicked up. And then it began to rain. And that fire nearly went out. Things got so bad the smores folk tolk us we’d need some gasoline. They had front row seats, they knew the fire better then the rest of us, we had to trust them to solve the problem. And we did! We scraped together our precious savings and borrowed some gasoline from the Chinese, and threw it on the fire. And it worked! Of course, we had to give some of it, and some firewood, and some of the last bits of tent to the front row folks. They couldn’t be expected to manage the fire for us if they were cold and wet too.

They built private tents with convenient little stoves and furnaces so they could stay warn and dry and eat baked ham and smores and hot chocolate. And they helpfully threw some of our borrowed gasoline on the fire. But it’s still raining, and it’s still windy, and more of those folks in the middle are getting cold and wet. The Chinese are getting upset that we keep asking for more gasoline, and that fire’s still not all that hot. Some of those warm dry smores folks are warning that if use too much gasoline we’ll get a giant inflationary explosion, and a lot of folks on the edges are complaining that we’re not using nearly enough.

I wish I could tell you how this is going all turn out, and I really wish I was one of those nice warm smores folks, but I’m afraid that I’m not, and the semester is nearly over. We’ll have to wait for Random Economic Analogies 102 to see how the story goes..

Nutcraker Discrepency

The New York lottery has all of these scratch off games you can buy. Frankly, I don’t understand any of them, but they’re populor enough that the lottery commission puts out all these seasonal varieties.

There’s this one ad currently making the rounds featuring an office, a life size nutcracker, and a shy office worker. Short summary is shy office lady gives lifesize nutcracker a gift of three lottery scratch off games. Nutcracker is touched, nobody gives him anything but nuts. They make a vague promise to see each other at the office Christmas party. it’s a silly commercial.

Thanks to the digital tv, all of these spanish language channels are now available in rich crytal clarity. While perusing through them, I catch a spanish language version of the same commercial. Rather then just dub the english language version, they shot an exact duplicate commercial in Spanish. Everything is same between the two, even the clothes the shy office worker is wearing are the same, except for onedetail.

The spanish language office lady is hot. We’re talking telenovella hot, stop traffic I’m a bikini hot, sex with Molly hot (ok, maybe not that hot, and there’s your Scrubs reference for the day, btw). WTF? Does everything that appeals to the hispanic market need to be pitched by chesty brunettes? And if so, why isn’t T-Mobile dominating that market? What is the New York State Lottery trying to tell us here?.

Cactus Wireless Flash Sync

My camera equipment MO has been fairly simple: spend a ridiculous amount of money on a good camera body, and then slap on the cheapest accessories I can find. It’s why the everyday lens was an obscure 28mm sigma f1.8. My primary flash is a 25 year old sb-15. My backup lenses, 85mm f1.8 non-D and 50mm f1.8. My backup flash, $10 sunpack held together with a rubber band.

Sometimes, however, cheaper isn’t better at all, it’s just cheap. My wireless flash syncs, Cactus brand imported from hong kong, are a case in point. At home, they work pretty well. Reliability is still off, around 80%, but it’s workable. Somehow, whenever I actually take it into the field, that reliability takes a dive into the 20% range. That’s right, it only fires successfully around 20% of the time. And that’s with new batteries all around. And this is the AVERAGE of nearly 2 years usage, lately it’s been hitting 0%.

A better solution someone just put me onto is the Alien Bees’ CyberSync line of budget wireless triggers. The maddening part is that they are not that much more expensive then the Cactus triggers, but with one important difference, they actually work. Word on the internet has been 100% reiability, and my own brief experience has been 100% as well.

If you’re looking for a cheap wireless trigger solution, I’d highly recommend you skip the Cactus, no matter how tempting they are on ebay, and go straight for the CyberSync.

Faz Sells Another CPR

The past year I’ve been watching mom watch a 9 inch tv, and it’s been driving me nuts. I’ll visit her and find her sitting on the ottoman, nose 6 inches from the tv, watching her dramas. I’ve wanted to buy her a bigger tv for over a year now, but she never wants it because she doesn’t have a place to put it. Last week, she finally made some space.

PC Richards and Sons had some of the best deals in town, unless you count the Best Buy $300 Dynex, but I’ve never been satisfied with the Dynex picture quality. The key, of course, is that they’re selling downstepped models. Samsung 360 vs Best Buy’s Samsung 530 and 560 models. But mom’s not that into all the bells and whistles, she just needs a big screen to watch her dramas and PBS. And $377 for a 32 inch Samsung sounded pretty good, so I bought her one.

As usual, they made the hard pitch for the protection coverage, and as usual I shot it down. But then I figured it was going to be mom’s TV, so I should see if she wanted it, and of course she did, so now I’m out another $100. $20 a month for 5 year coverage doesn’t sound bad at all, except when you do the math.

32 inchers 2 years back would run you nearly a grand, now you can get a similar model or better for at least half the price. Manufacturer warranty goes 1 year, credit card tags on another. 2 years out it would not be unreasonable to think that prices will fall by at least another 30%. Which means that I’m spending $100 to cover a possible loss (the replacement cost if the TV broke) of $300 . And that’s assuming the TV breaks at all within the next 5 years, which odds are it won’t. To put it in perspective, a whole life policy from the 1980’s would have you spending $100 for every $200 of coverage, and that’s coverage for an event that has a 100% chance of occuring (death). There’s a reason Consumer Reports and all the other cosumer gurus out there recommend you turn down the extended warranty coverage, it’s very very expensive.

But it gives mom peace of mind, and you can’t put a price on that. Oh wait, you can, it’s $100.

The Ice Studio Inc

For a guy that hasn’t been on the ice for 3 or so years, and the 5 years before that, I kinda went crazy go nuts this week, tearing it up at The Pond at Bryant Park Mon, Wed, and then Fri. In the end, I think I pushed it a little too hard, because I was dying on Friday, even though I got my skates sharpened and was finally carving up the ice the way I wanted to.

As I sat and rested up, I thought back to my childhood, and recalled that once, a long time ago, I took actual skating lessons when I was but a wee lad. It was in the most unusual of places, a tiny indoot rink on the second floor of an Upper East Side building. There were full length mirrors, a ballet bar, sharpening shop, and plenty of space and time to practice my figure 8’s. The one thing I was never able to do, and what I’m still trying to learn, is the art of skating backwards. I guess the semester ran out before I could master that.

The internet knows all, and The Ice Studio Inc is no exception. The only thing the internet doesn’t know is when it closed and the space was taken over by a florist. The latest reference it can find is a 2001 article on skating rinks in the city. As it turns out, the internet also sees all, so long as it happened after 2003. Couldn’t find a single picture of The Ice Studio, no blog posts, no tearful goodbye tribute page. Ditto on the orignal Sky Rink, back when the name made some actual sense. I can find out enough to trigger memories, but not much else.

Ultimately it’s a moot point anyway. The Ice Studio, Skyrink, the giant unbroken ice of Lasker Rink, these are all gone. All that’s left are the memories. Goodbye Ice Studio, you’ll be missed. I always thought you’d be one of those upper east side institutions that would stick around forever. I reckon I was wrong.

(ps – speaking of wrong, never skate at bryant park on a friday or saturday night, it’s far too crowded)

Sigma No More

Got a most disturbing phone call today, my Sigma 28mm lens is apparently beyond all hope of repair. Instead they are offering a swap with a new 28mm f1.8 macro for $278. A holiday promotion, I’ve been told, and which seems to be the case as a new lens runs $379 at B&H.

Since I am poor, there are no good options here. I have great sentimental attachment to my lens, it’s been my workhorse lens for the better part of 3 years now. I’m tempted to have it returned as is, and see if Berry Lens Repair can fix it. But the official Sigma repair shop is calling it a total loss, and the price on a new lens has increased ( I could swear I bought mine new for $278). This suggests design change (my lens was also an older film era full frame lens, I think new one might be a DX lens), and Berry Lens Repair might not be able to get the parts to make it work. The pictures I was getting aren’t terrible, but they are unusable for any possible professional work.

Switching to the new Nikon 35mm f1.8 is another option. It’s closer to Normal, and i figure it would make a good wedding lens. It’s also cheap at $200. But I’m used to shooting wide with the 28mm, 35 might be too close for proper indoor shoots. It’s also a DX lens, so incompatible with possible full frame body upgrades.

The last option is to just to pay the money and swap the lenses. Of course, that means I’ll have spent $550+ over 3 years for one pretty crappy lens. Combined with my repair bill for the D70 body, the new equipment budget is now shot to hell. I still have to get a new flash and some reliable wireless triggers, not to mention a planned April body upgrade..

Whatever solution I come to, one this is pretty clear, Sigma’s reputation of building lower quality non-pro grade level equipment is fairly well founded. 2 major repairs over 3 years, replacement every year, inability to repair lenses if service demands it. I should have spent the money to get Nikon and avoid these headaches in the first place. A lesson in expensive frustration I am never going to repeat (except if I do this lens swap.).

Henceforth, I am never buying Sigma ever again. And I recommend you avoid this brand as well, nothing but expensive unreliable trouble.

Parochial

One of the odd paradoxes of New York is that for all of it’s size and all of it’s vaunted mixing of people, it remains a very parochial city. Maybe it’s the natural reaction to living in a city this size, the only way to keep your sanity is to wall off yourself into tiny neighborhoods. The charm of the city is that these neighborhoods are not in fact walled off, you can go outside your comfort zone whenever you want.

That being said, you’re still sometimes hard pressed to find people from different scenes mixing about. Tonight I mixed it up with the West Side Chelsea art photography crowd, and let me tell you, I was one lost puppy. It’s been a while since I really aggressively went to photo social events, but I know a fair number of photogs in the city. I usually run into someone I know, friendly or not, at these things. And considering the crowd count tonight probably numbered in the mid hundreds, I should know someone. Nope, nada.

But then, this does make sense. The Chelsea scene in general runs art school heavy. The guys and gals I met are all pro pro. They work with models, as in real pro tall leggy meatpacking district agency models. They shoot slide film, or medium format digital, or D3x’s. They publish books, have advertising clients, they’re represented by agents in fancy Chelsea art galleries where prints start at $800.

I cut my teeth with photobloggers and photo sharers. I hang with people who self publish via cafepress, who work with aspiring models, and themselves aspire to be represented by Jen Beckman. These people give away their work, never went to art school, and still hold day jobs (or started out with day jobs). They are the kings and queens of the dedicated enthusiast, they’re Internet famous, they’re celebrated by Populor Photography (because that’s who buys all those D90s and 40Ds). They’re also Williamsburg, Lower East Side, and maybe SoHo. Maybe.

It was nice to meet all these nice people, and it even nicer that there was an open bar with perrier and draft beer, as opposed to a cash bar serving pbr and vodka mixed with blue. And it was nice to meet pros, and see some of the setup they tote (it all looked expensive). And some of the photography was nice to see, although some of it I clearly don’t “get”. I’d say it was a great way to spend a Friday night, if nothing else then to see how the other half lives.

Drop Box

One of the big dilemmas I have in posting my photography online is that of quality control vs providing copies. The thing is, I shoot a lot of street events and underground events and parades, things where you don’t necessarily get people’s names. But these people also (in general) like to see their photos online or want copies for their publicity related purposes. Copies I am most happy to provide, which is where the dilemma comes in.

Gene’s preferred method of delivery is providing a cd with all the raw photos and some edited highlights. But since I’m not getting names, and I’m certainly not getting mailing addresses, delivering CDs is problematic. Email is a viable alternate, but only if knock down the picture quality to cellphone cam proportions, and even then it’s not like I can send 150 shots through the mail. Posting online to flickr or facebook is the solution I’ve come up so far, but that means I’m posting up nearly everything into my photostream, which dilutes the quality and removes much of the mystique of Gene as Good Photographer.

What they don’t tell you when you get your first digital camera is that the secret to good photography is brutal disciplined editing. All those other guys I see out there shooting at the same events I got to, they’re great to begin with, but what makes them even better is that they’re throwing up only a handful, sometimes just a pair of shots, max. Me, I’m putting up anywhere from a dozen to 25 at a time. After 5 I think people begin to get burnout, and now if I’m going to use my flickr photostream to push photos out to performers, we’re talking a few hundred photos at a time now.

What I need is a social solution, growing the balls to ask and get mailing addresses from people to send them their CDs, or letting them know that email is for highlights only. Or I need a technical solution, some sort of shared online drive where peopke can hop of and download their batch. I thought about setting up a secret parallel flickr account just for posting raw pics, but I don’t like the idea of splitting my portfolio publicly like that. The goal is to consolidate and strengthen the Gene brand, not dilute it further.

Looking In, Trapped Outside

Since I don’t effectively have internets at home, keeping plugged into the networks is kinda difficult. Like everything else in my life, I’ve manged to kludge together a working solution that both fails to work and works pretty well.

The twin keys to it all are Starbucks and Peek. Starbucks is pretty straightforward. If you register your Starbucks card, link it to the free AT&T wireless, and use the card once every 30 days’ you get 2 free hours of WiFi at Starbucks every day. So whenever I need to, and can’t find a free WiFi connection, I just hop into (or sometimes hust stand next to) a Starbucks and get my internets jonesing on.

But since I can’t and don’t want to be doing that every day, I fill in the gaps with my Peek service. I set everything to update to email, and I use the Peek handheld device to check my email. Flickr emails, facebook messages, twitter feeds, plain vanilla email, all gets fed to my Peek. It’s actually pretty convenient for tracking facebook, because I can actually find facebook updates pretty easily, unlike in facebook itself.

The big problem is that unless I’m at Starbucks, I can see what’s going on but I can’t respond to any of it. Plus, event invites in facebook just has links, not important details like where and when. Meetup is better in that regard, but again, there’s no way to rsvp via email.

Which is a very long way of saying, if you need to communicate with me in any timely fashion, email and phone are still the best options. Anything else will just have take place 2-3 days later.