NYSEG Nonsense

Posted on 5 February 2024 by rgdudley

My Electricity Bill

My electricity bill is very strange. It has several extra charges that I don’t really understand.

Also, because I have two electric cars, I have opted for a system that bills separately for ‘on-peak’ and ‘off-peak’ charges. I need to see if that is worth keeping.

I understand the concept of ‘on-peak’ and ‘off-peak’ charges, but the separation of ‘delivery charges’ and ‘supply charges’ is a bit strange since you can’t have one without the other. It turns out that this billing approach is due to (partial) deregulation of electricity markets (in the USA). Some states have a fully deregulated market. In these states electrical power production and the transmission and delivery of that power are separated. In theory consumers contract with one electricity company as a supplier and with another company to deliver the electricity (the company that owns the power lines etc.). In my case these are both the same company: New York State Gas and Electric, known as NYSEG (pronounced “nice egg”). NYSEG is the delivery company, and in my case is also the supplier. I could choose a different supplier… but I would still be billed via NYSEG. If I used a different supplier would I save money? I have no idea… It’s not that easy to figure out.

In any case my recent electricity bill looks like the one shown here (for December 2023). The second table provides ‘explanations’ regarding the various additional charges that appear on my bill.

Note however, that one extra charge is hidden. The “Make-Whole Charge” is $0.00223/kwh or about $4.50 of my December delivery charges.

Another oddity on this bill is the way in which the sales tax is calculated. One would assume that the 4% sales tax would be calculated on the sum of delivery and supply charges: Four percent of 143.54 + 113.96 = $257.50 or $10.30. But the bill shows $10.42. A twelve cent discrepancy! Hmmm. Worth looking into?

Solution: if I add the $2.93 ‘tax on the delivery charge’ to the total then the new total is 143.54 + 113.96 + 2.93 = 260.43, and the 4% tax on that is about $10.42 (the same as the tax shown on my bill). So apparently, we are paying a sales tax on the delivery charge tax. The tax on the tax is only about 12 cents per month. Nevertheless, NYSEG has about 900,000 electricity customers which at 12 cents each (on average?) totals about $100,000 … per month! (This tax on a tax approach is also applied to charges for natural gas).

What about charging electric cars?

In the following table I have looked into the cost of my electricity per kilowatt-hour (kwh), and then have converted it to equivalent gallons of gasoline (on the right side of the table) based on the EPA conversion of kwh/gallon of gasoline.

In the upper part I combined usage and delivery charges representing what I call basic charges.  In the middle part of the table, I add in “other charges” that are shown as such on my bill.  Toward the bottom of the table I added details about the sales tax.

Also, at the bottom right I used a different method of calculation based on the Tesla Model Y EPA/DOT fuel economy information.

Clearly, we don’t think much about electrical cost per kwh, but seeing this data in terms of gasoline equivalents is an eye opener. If I have done my calculations correctly… over five dollars a gallon on peak.

For comparison, the actual January 2024 price per gallon where I live is $3.20 per gallon. For a car that gets 40 miles/gallon that would be $0.08/mile. For a car that gets 50 miles/gallon that would be $0.064/mile. My calculated on-peak electrical rate for December is just $0.04/mile and off-peak about $0.024/mile. This is cheap because of the efficiency of the Tesla, not because of the cheap electrical rates. It is much more sensible to look at, and compare, these charges on a cost per mile basis.

It would appear that charging my cars at night certainly saves me money. At least I think it does. One problem is that peak and off-peak charges change every month, and it is hard to get that information. This is partly because the rates vary by month but the billing quite often overlaps two months so each bill may have different rates included. Nevertheless, below is a graphic of rates (not including all the extra charges and taxes) extracted from my bills. NYSEG states (somewhere) that at times off peak charges can be HIGHER than on peak charges… not sure that makes sense.

Note that the extra charges and taxes amount to 13.42% of the peak charges and 20.16% of off-peak charges for the months I examined. For this period, off-peak charges were between 42 and 61 percent of on peak charges. So it is important to look at the total charge per kwh rather than the stated “supply charge” and “delivery charge” .

Another complicating factor affecting this analysis is the clever arrangement from NYSEG whereby the on-peak rate is higher than the flat rate you would pay if you don’t opt for on/off peak billing. That is, if you opt for the on/off peak system your daytime (on-peak) charges will be higher than they would be with the flat rate. So the benefit depends on what proportion of your electricity you use at off peak times which, for NYSEG, includes 11:30pm-7am EST; 12:30am-8am EDT. But it is not that easy to figure out. Current (early February 2024) NYSEG information about these rates shows that this the on-peak rate is less than 1% higher than the flat rate.

In our case we don’t do a lot of driving – typically 20 miles per day at most. If I were commuting to and from work for, say, 50 miles per day then the benefit would be clearer. It would be nice to have some longer term information on the total charges for on-peak, off-peak and flat rate charges to do a proper analysis.

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Who Am I…. What? Are You Sure?

Posted on 24 March 2023 by rgdudley

Ancestor Assumptions

Growing up we learned a bit about where our family originated. On my mother’s side, my great grandparents immigrated to the USA around 1880 — one set (Ehrsam & Oswald-Shmidt) from Switzerland, and one set (Willvonseder & Stein) from Austria. On my father’s mother’s side, the family was largely “American” (at least for several generations), while my father’s father’s side were immigrants from what we assumed was England (because of the name Dudley). We also learned that my mother’s maiden name, Ehrsam, was my great, great grandmothers maiden name, because her husband (Giuseppe Di Boselli from Cremona, Italy) died in wars in Italy. So, growing up, we assumed we were Swiss, Austrian, Italian on one side, and mostly “American” and English origin immigrant on the other.

Cousin Bill’s Investigations

My cousin, William F. Dudley (from a long line of William F. Dudleys) researched the Dudley line and created a nice genealogy web site (http://django.casano.com:2317/dudley) a few years ago. He found that our Dudleys came from Ireland, not England, and that much of the family emigrated from Ireland in the 1850s and 60s with some going to New York, some to California, and some to Australia, although some had lived in Staffordshire, England prior to moving overseas. So, the Dudley side had come from Ireland rather than England.

So, at this point my heritage seemed to be Swiss/Austrian/Italian and American/Irish. Growing up I had no idea that I was Irish and the Italian was, by my generation, by our simple math, diluted to 1/16 Italian.

DNA Stuff Confuses Everything

Ancestry.com

Just a few years ago, late 2017, I decided to send my DNA to a genealogy service. I thought it would be fun to see what this revealed about my “ethnicity”. I started with Ancestry.com and sent off my spit in a DNA test kit.

Interestingly, Ancestry.com occasionally updates your DNA results as they gain information from a larger sample of participants. That is, every year or so they revise your ethnicity estimates.

My first (2018) estimate from ancestry.com is shown on the left side of the table below. Although those results seem reasonable compared to what I know about my ancestry, it was disappointingly generic. Overall, 98% European … well I assumed that much. Ireland, Scotland, Wales lumped together, but listed separately from Great Britain… does that make sense? Aren’t Scotland and Wales part of Great Britain? My Italian part was included in southern Europe, I assume. Scandinavia, Iberian Peninsula and Middle East (surprising) were low probability, at this point.

A 2020 DNA analysis update from ancestry.com represented quite a change. Now my ethnicity appeared more like what I would have expected. Western Europe had become more specific, and Germanic Europe became the major component, probably reflecting the connection to my Swiss and Austrian relatives. Ireland, and Scotland, appeared, and Northern Italy also fit in with what I knew. A bit of France also seemed reasonable.

An update in April 2022 erased my Irish connection (maybe they were originally from England after all), added Spain and Sardinia which certainly seem possible. Also, Norway now appeared at 3% of my genetic makeup.

At this point Ancestry.com also started showing an ethnicity breakdown inherited from each parent. This is quite interesting, and it agrees with what I know from other sources.

Another update in September 2022 erased the 3% Norwegian which was on my fathers side but added 2% from Sweden and Denmark on my mothers side! That was the only oddity. I still have the large proportion of Germanic Europe (proportionally more maternal side), the link to England and Scotland (mostly paternal side) with no Irish remaining, and the Italy connection (northern Italy plus Sardinia) remained.

TABLE 1. Ethnicity estimate summaries from: ancestry.com (showing updates), MyHeritage, and 23andMe.

Figure 1. The image above gives the most recent ethnicity breakdown from Ancestry.com which also shows the breakdown by parent.

More Tests: 23andMe and MyHeritage

Most people only use one DNA testing service, but I was curious. In 2020 or so I decided to send a DNA sample to two other DNA services 23andMe and MyHeritage. The results of these tests are shown in the table above (in the middle and on the right).

Both estimates produced surprises for me that were not detected by Ancestry.com. Actually the different results from different companies is not unusual… since different companies use different reference groups.

The MyHeritage estimate indicated that I am 4% North African. Although this is possible, the other tests did not detect this connection at any level.

The 23andMe test detected that I am 0.3% Ashkenazi Jewish, again certainly possible, but also not detected by other tests. 23andMe also reports 1% Eastern Europe, not very surprising since my Austrian great grandmother was born in the eastern part of the Czech Republic. 23andMe also tells me that I am only 1.5% English and Irish… significantly less than the other sites.

Other Ancestry Stuff

I should point out that these ancestry sites all offer other tools to investigate one’s ancestry. Learning about distant, and not so distant, relatives is a primary service of these web sites. They all have tools for building family trees, usually assisted by links to appropriate sources of information (birth records, lists of ship passengers, census data) and also links to other people’s family trees. Some link the DNA matched relatives to information in your family tree to reveal, more specifically, how you are related to these DNA relatives. That is, not just a fourth cousin once removed… but more specifically a fourth cousin once removed descended from your great great great uncle Bob on you father’s mother’s side 😊.

Obviously, there are a lot of distant relatives out there. My own most recent generations are fairly sparse. I had only one uncle, have two children and two grandchildren (plus, of course step children and their children) and only one niece, who has four children. Earlier generations had bigger families, however. Most of my detected DNA relatives are linked back to those earlier generations.

According to ancestry.com I have 15,000 DNA matches (among people who sent samples to them), of which 464 are 4th cousin or closer (but I know only one). Apparently, to date, about 15 million people have sent DNA samples to ancestry.com. So of these 15 million my 15,000 relatives constitute about 0.001 of the total. Since most people do not send in DNA kits we might say that I am really related to 0.001 of the world’s population which would be 0.001 x 9 billion or 9,000,000 DNA matches worldwide! Well, I suppose that is a bit high. More appropriately I might assume my relatives are mostly from the USA, western Europe, and maybe Australia and New Zealand. So roughly “European” people in these areas might be on the order of 700 million. So I might have 0.001 x 700,000,000 or 700,000 DNA relatives worldwide. [By the way, according to her ancestry.com DNA test, my wife has 44,000 DNA matches with 2,000 4th cousin or closer (on their database).]

I don’t even want to think about a family reunion…

From the smaller samples via MyHeritage, I have 6,300 DNA matches, and from 23andMe 1,500 DNA relatives (I actually know one of them).

One problem with these sites is that they are subscription based… you pay every year to keep the connection. I suspect that most people use only one site. Nevertheless, I will probably completely quit this hobby sometime in the near future, but it has been interesting, and time consuming.

For more information see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogical_DNA_test

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-dna-test/

https://www.ancestry.com/

https://www.myheritage.com/

https://you.23andme.com/

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The Zeroth Law

Posted on 9 February 2023 by rgdudley

Introduction

Recently I read an interesting paper in System Dynamics Review (Malczynski and Lane, 2022) regarding an exchange between Isaac Asimov and Jay W. Forrester. Asimov, the well-known scientist and science fiction writer, needs no introduction. Forrester was, among other things, the founder of the field of system dynamics, a computer modeling technique that first became widely-known when it was used in the Limits to Growth Study of the early 1970s. System dynamics or SD, as it is known, is one of many computer modeling techniques that can be used to better understand complex problems facing society, now and in the future, and how those problems might be addressed. Because it can be used to examine future trends and possibilities, SD has been compared to the fictional field of psychohistory which was created by Asimov in his Foundation series of novels. Asimov and Forrester were contemporaries, and both lived and worked in the Boston area. There is some speculation as to their influence on one another… a subject covered in the System Dynamics Review paper. The paper mostly discussed the two men, potential cross influences, and the idea of planning for the future with psychohistory (fiction) or system dynamics (real).

The Three Laws and the Zeroth Law

Asimov’s three laws of robotics are, of course, also mentioned in that System Dynamics Review paper. These laws are a fundament al part of Asimov’s science fiction legacy and have received wide discussion over the years. The three laws were not a part of the original, three volume Foundation* Series, which was written in the early 1950s, even though the three laws were first mentioned by Asimov in 1943 in the short story “Runaround”. The Foundation series, as originally written, has no robots and no laws of robotics. However, Asimov’s subsequent prequels (Prelude to Foundation 1988, Forward the Foundation 1993) and sequels (Foundations Edge 1982, Foundation and Earth 1983) added robots after the fact… and thereby subtly altered the plot of the original Foundation novels. One of the interesting related additions is the concept of the zeroth law of robotics.

The Zeroth Law of Robotics is not as widely known as the Three Laws. It was introduced by Asimov’s robotic characters in Robots and Empire published in 1985. Over the course of decades, it became a more fundamental component of the plots of Asimov’s novels. The Zeroth law: “A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm” is necessary to assist robots who are attempting to guide the course of humanity over millennia. The zeroth law and the field of psychohistory are intimately linked. The character Hari Seldon’s psychohistory was seen, by Asimov’s robotic characters, as a tool that humaniform robots hoped would assist them in applying the zeroth law. Interestingly, the guidance of humanity by humaniform robots required that the robots remain anonymous. This parallels the idea that the tool of psychohistory had to be applied without the knowledge of “humanity”… otherwise humans might be influenced to change their behavior and invalidate the plan’s projections and usefulness.

Foundation and Reality

System dynamics modeling, and similar computer modeling approaches, are used to better understand and manage complex problems/situations. Some models look at long-term problems, such as climate change, and can envision potential solutions. Like the fictitious field of psychohistory, computer modeling can even be thought of as tools for managing the future. However, it is unlikely that a single all-encompassing model would ever be a realistic approach. Also unlikely is the idea that planning of the future will be done, or can be done, by a small group in secret! More likely is a scenario similar to that depicted by Kim Stanley Robinson in his recent book, The Ministry for the Future , where many international agencies attempt to cooperate to find possible paths forward.

*In Asimov’s writing the Foundation is a clandestine organization attempting to adjust humanity’s paths to the future indirectly and unnoticed via the use of a mathematical model that can predict general trends.

Note: My guidelines for reading Asimov’s Foundation and related books can be seen at: https://earth01.net/RGDudley/SF/SFnotes.html

Literature cited

Malczynski, L.A., Lane, D.C., 2022. Sublime reason: When Isaac Asimov met Jay Forrester. System Dynamics Review. 39, 64-79.

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Old Photos, Lightroom, and Photoshop

Posted on 20 April 2022 by rgdudley

In the recent past I spent quite a bit of time scanning old photos, much of them from negatives and slides plus, of course, since about 2004 I have been using digital cameras which vastly increased the number of pictures I was taking. Sadly, a lot of the older images from negatives need a lot of work to clean them up – really sad how bad some of them are, and not all of them can be repaired even with the best efforts.

I started using Adobe Lightroom a few years ago and had played around with Photoshop a bit. Fortunately, when I got started with Lightroom I was using what is now called Lightroom Classic which is somewhat different from Lightroom Creative Cloud. I think Lightroom Classic is a superior product, but it does require you work on a computer rather than on an iPad or iPhone etc.  It is possible to use the two versions compatibly, but it can become confusing!  I think I’ve got it straightened out, but I had to take quite a few notes to keep that all straight!

One of the "problems" with Lightroom is that all edits are stored in a Lightroom ‘catalog’. Multiple versions of a given image can be seen very easily… within light room. Of course, you can export the edited images which is what I normally do as well.  But it is possible to end up being completely dependent on light from to see your edited images if you’re not careful.  So if someday you want to stop using Lightroom, make sure you export your favorite edited images.  On the plus side light room does not create additional files that must accompany the image (as happens with some other editors).  All light room edits are stored in the "light room catalog".

Although Lightroom is now my go to tool for editing photos for 90% of what is needed, I had played around with Photoshop a bit but had always found it VERY difficult to learn, and very hard to remember. Light room is certainly much more intuitive. However Photoshop has some tricks that you can’t do in light room… Especially things related to using masks, merging photos etc. and other more sophisticated editing tools and tricks. Earlier I had used some other editing programs from both from Nikon and Paint Shop Pro that worked quite well (and are cheaper), but Lightroom is my only tool now, except for now relearning (learning) Photoshop.

I was fortunate to find that I have, via my employer, free access to what is now called "LinkedIn learning" which used to be Linda.com.  It has lots of courses that you can take including those related to photography and photo editing. Although I had already been using Lightroom, I took a couple of Lightroom courses there, and now am following some for Photoshop. The ones I am following quite good. My favorites are presented by Julieanne Kost: Photoshop 2022 essential training, Lightroom classic essential training. Those by Theresa Jackson are also good: learning the light room ecosystem, and light room classic essential training are some of hers that I took.

Another set of videos, on YouTube, are those by Anthony Morganti. His are pretty low-key and easy to follow unlike some others that go a bit too fast for me. I followed his light room videos. His Photoshop for photographers series is quite good as well.

Another extremely useful and rather amusing source for all kinds of Photoshop information, pointers, and tips are the videos by Unmesh Dinda on his site called PiXimperfect. He really knows his stuff, and I’ve learned a lot of useful information from him, plus he is very amusing. Mostly less like an organized course and more like "how to do X" with a lot of little extras thrown in. Once I finish my current LinkedIn learning courses I will probably go back to watching some of his lessons – always amusing, hyper enthusiastic and engaging!

On a completely different note, what should one use for organizing photos/images? I was lucky quite a few years back when I started using something called iMatch from photools.com. I think I must’ve started using it shortly after it was created in 1998.

iMatch is extremely useful in organizing photos and it plays well with Lightroom and Photoshop and other editors. It does have a somewhat steep learning curve, but the basics are relatively easy. It’s reasonably priced and is extremely versatile… which makes it a bit geeky if you want to get into all the possibilities, including making modifications appropriate for your own special interests and requirements. I have never gone beyond the basics for the most part, but I can find that that photo of my brother from 1952 in about three seconds! The photools.com website gives a good rundown of the key features.

Anyway I thought I would share this info with you just in case any of it might be useful.

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More About Taking Notes on the iPad

Posted on 16 April 2022 by rgdudley

Some time ago, several years, I wrote a note about taking notes on the iPad which at that time, 2012, was not a very good experience.   I was looking for an app that worked well for handwriting notes with a stylus. Sad smile   Nothing worked well.   And even the smart stylus that I tried were dismal tools for that task.

How things have changed.  Now, 10 years later, I have an iPad Pro 12.9 inch with the M1 chip that can do wonderful things.  At present my note taking tool is pretty darn good. I don’t like to type notes, so I use something that allows me to handwrite notes and doodle too.   I have stuck with Goodnotes for this purpose and have been using it for several years… even before I got the newer iPad.  It works so well that all my notes about using it are written in Goodnotes!  So rather than repeat that here I will attach some images.  Actually is a bit clearer than appears here.

IMG_0516

IMG_0517

IMG_0518IMG_0519

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Do Southerners Really Like Loudmouth New Yorkers?

Posted on 14 September 2016 by rgdudley

Quite a few years ago I was known, I believe, as a loudmouth New Yorker.  True, I had grown up in the suburbs of New York City.   However I had lived for six years in upstate New York followed by three or four years in Idaho and Africa.  One would’ve thought that my loudmouth New Yorkness would have worn off.    But one has to consider where I was living at the time. It was in the state of Georgia.  So by Georgia standards I was loudmouth Yankee of the worst possible sort – a New York Yankee.    A Yankee is always a Yankee I guess.

Now some of that reputation may have been deserved as I was probably somewhat more vocal about my opinions  than quite a few of my colleagues.  Not that they didn’t have opinions.  They just tended to share their opinions a bit less.  But that’s not really my point here, and that was many years ago.  Since then I’ve lived all over the world and, now, more or less retired back in upstate New York, I am probably not even considered a real New Yorker of any sort.

What really puzzles me, is that when I look at the electoral map for the upcoming election in November 2016 I see that the southern states are still rather red , apparently they’re going to vote for Donald Trump, the self-promoting loudmouth New Yorker!   This fact really puzzles me.   These polite, thoughtful, Yankee-allergic Southerners are going to vote for one of the most crass, opinionated, loudmouth, con artists ever to come out of the Rotten Apple.  I just don’t get it.   Has Georgia changed that much?

I know some will just claim that the racist, misogynist, anti-immigrant nonsense coming out of Trump’s mouth appeals to the “southern mentality”.  I just don’t believe that, on a broad scale, people of Georgia, or the other southern states for that matter, believe such things.   At least I hope not.  But even so, when they listen to his vague generalities about how everything is “going to be great” I can’t believe they don’t see the ultimate con man saying,  essentially,  nothing at all.

Now it is true, that Hillary Clinton claims to be a Yankee as well!    It’s a sad day for the South I guess.   But, really, Clinton is no Yankee.  She just pretends to live in New York. In fact in some ways that is an indication that she’s the ideal politician.   Although “ideal politician” sounds pretty bad , it really means someone who knows how to use (manipulate) the system to get things done.  If being a Yankee helps you to move up in the world that’s what you become!    And someone who really knows how to use the system might be just what we need.   That southern president, Lyndon Johnson, was a master at working the system to get things done in Washington, and the quasi-Southerner, William Jefferson Clinton, was pretty good at it as well.    Hillary knows the ropes, and she knows the, rather depressing, international scene as well.    Unlike Trump who pretends to know how to “work the system” and “make deals” Hillary actually does know.

So for Southerners, my former colleagues in Georgia included, it’s a choice between someone who knows the system, how it works, and how to get things done, and a New York Yankee con artist.   The choice seems obvious.

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Best Apps for Taking Notes on the iPad

Posted on 21 January 2012 by rgdudley

I have been reviewing some note taking apps for the iPad. I wanted to be able to use these apps, or at least one of them, to take notes in seminars and meetings without undue messing around. I wasn’t sure that I could find a suitable app because the first few I tried were more like toys than a useful tools.

After some significant searching and testing I have narrowed my list to a few that I think are worthwhile. I am writing this paragraph with one of the better apps: Notify. Notify is one of the few note taking apps that does handwriting recognition. However to do this Notify makes use of software, via an in-app purchase, from another app called: WritePad. WritePad will only do handwriting recognition , but Notify does a lot more . More about the handwriting recognition later. For now I will just say that it is interesting and almost useful. But because of its limitations I will write the rest of this on my computer.

After checking out 10 or so note-taking apps, I zeroed in on the following roughly in order of usefulness (for me): Notify, Note Taker HD, Notability, WritePad, Ghostwriter, and Penultimate. However I would say only the first 4 are apps I will actually use.

Some of my requirements for a note taking app were that I needed to be able to take note by writing – not just by typing, that I need to be able to draw small diagrams (and doodle), and that I would like to also have some extras including typing if I wish, inserting figures, and a reasonable means of emailing and exporting as a long-term, reasonably accessible, document format like a PDF. Some of these apps are free, and some cost a modest fee. They were all obtained in late December 2011.

One of the problems with iPhone apps in general is that there are very few conventions regarding the interfaces used. It is similar to the situation with computer programs back in the early days of personal computing, each app has its own unique look and each had different ways of saving/exporting files or dealing with export to email. For that reason I am still learning these apps, so I may have missed some important things.

In the table below I have summarized my experience with these apps.

Overall Notify and Note Taker HD are my favorites. I have used Note Taker HD more, and actually used it for taking notes during a two day symposium last week… it worked fine. For taking handwritten notes I like it a bit better than Notify because Notify’s “ink” is a bit blurry when zoomed. On the other hand, if you want to try handwriting recognition from time to time then Notify would be the better option, assuming you have made the in-app purchase of the handwriting recognition tool. These two aps have very different interfaces but both are reasonably understandable. Note Take HD is less versatile for exporting, although you can “open-in” another app that allows export and syncing… for example using PDF expert. Notify, on the other hand, has a number of export and syncing options.

At first I was less fond of Notability, but the more I use it the better I like it. It has very clear “ink” when zoomed, and has a very user friendly optional auto advance when hand-writing. However the zoomed writing window can’t be enlarged as in Notify and Note Taker HD. Notability also has a wider range of export and linking possibilities than Note Taker HD. It is especially good at creating and placing text boxes, figures (which are created in a dedicated window), photos, and web clips, (although you must select text mode to resize and reposition such windows).

WritePad is a completely different type of app in that its only use is for handwriting recognition… the creation of text documents from your handwriting as you write. WritePad’s handwriting recognition engine is also used in Notify. Use WritePad if you want a clean interface for handwriting recognition and that’s all. In my opinion, with my handwriting, writing style, and spelling mistakes, WritePad in not something I could use to take notes.   It is actually very impressive, but makes too many “mistakes” to be useful as a note taking tool.   This is because correcting the mistakes slows my note taking. On the other hand, I can write very slowly and carefully… but then that is too slow as well. If you use this app be sure to examine and test the variety of settings that adjust how it works. For example you can tell it the general shape of letters you use, use a spell checker, have it learn your handwriting style, including an option for printed handwriting, among many others. I think that if you have a consistent neat writing style (and don’t do any doodling) this could be a very useful app. Also, notes taken with WritePad, because they are text, are computer searchable, which could be a big advantage.

The other two apps I tried, Ghostwriter and Penultimate, are not among my favorites, but others may like them better. Ghostwriter has no full window zoom, and its “ink” is a bit blurry. It has more limited features, but has an uncluttered and intuitive interface. Penultimate uses a very straightforward shelf/notebook/page paradigm and has a very nice interface. The notebook page is the size of the iPad screen and cannot be zoomed. Basically this is slightly larger than my favorite real notebooks: the 5×8.5 inch (21x13cm) Moleskine brand. Because of this similarity one might think that this would be my favorite app. However, writing on the iPad is a bit different than writing in a small notebook. Although I use a stylus, and I very strongly recommend you do too, a stylus does not have a fine point… even though you can draw a fine line. So placement of small text is a problem unless you use a zoomed window. In fact my handwriting on the iPad is roughly 2 to 3 times as big as my handwriting in a notebook, but writing in a zoomed window means that your writing is normal size in the actual document. Nevertheless, if you are only making brief notes, reminders, and that sort of thing, penultimate is a nice clean and straightforward interface.

Have fun.

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Holy Macro

Posted on 18 June 2011 by rgdudley

This little Syrphid Fly (probably Toxomerus geminatus) on a Black-eyed Susan (Rudbekia) petal is one of my favorite macro photos – so far.

I’m not really sure why I like taking macro pictures so much. But it probably has something to do with the fact that you enter a different world when you use a macro lens. For some reason, most macro pictures tend to be of flowers and insects– mine included. However macro photographs don’t need to be limited to that type of thing. So I should try to convince myself to look at some other things through my macro lens.

I also think macro is interesting because it’s a bit cheaper and easier than telephoto, another option for playing and spending lots of money, and I think macro is actually more interesting as well. Telephoto typically only gives you a closer view of something you would see any way, although relative size of objects in telephoto photos can be very different depending on the lens focal length. But macro can actually opens a new world, one that you haven’t seen before.

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Not Messing with WordPress

Posted on 18 June 2011 by rgdudley

As a follow-up to my previous post… of course if I use LiveWriter (or some such blogging tool) on my computer and then post to the blog I can avoid dealing with the WordPress editors at all!  Or at least I can make a blog post from within LiveWriter and then tweak it if necessary from within the WordPress editor.

Well that seems much too reasonable….   Actually it took me about three days to figure out how to get LiveWriter communicating with WordPress.  So instead of writing blogs about happenings in the real world, I’m writing things about blogging – at least from my perspective.

But hopefully all this stuff will get sorted out and stabilized.  Actually I’ve only mentioned two minor issues – so far!    There were lots of others.

And I should be in my garden!

20110529 15 garden

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Messing with WordPress

Posted on 18 June 2011 by rgdudley

I’m not a geek– really I’m not! And this messing with WordPress to get these blogs up and running is certainly not very straightforward. I had a blog on another site – the Google site: blogger. And that works very well. But I just couldn’t help myself. I wanted to learn about blogging, and how it’s done. So I started thinking about WordPress which is a widely used blogging software.

The problem is, WordPress is an open source software. That’s good, but that also creates some “issues”. In my view open source software tends to be more geeky than other software. When you add the complexities of the blogging world, it’s all on the web, it’s on other people’s servers which have their own peculiarities, there are many people writing extra code in the form of plug-ins or other add-ons, well… things get confusing.

For example nothing is very clear, and if you need help it’s certainly not clear who to ask.  Perhaps if you’re on the WordPress.com site which is a commercial site developed by WordPress creators, you probably have better options for professional assistance, maybe.  But in my case I’m using WordPress.org  form of the software and in this case help is in the form of various forums where very straightforward questions tend to get very cryptic, geeky, answers.  Answers having to do with editing the such and such file.  No big deal – that’s what you’d expect.  But still that makes things more difficult.

Just for example after having this blog up for a few weeks – just testing – I find that the editor built into WordPress stopped working correctly.  Instead of showing black text on a white background it was showing white text on a white background!  So where do I go for help on that?  Nowhere in particular… Based on my past experience getting help from either my Internet host (iPage) or from the WordPress forums I know I’m actually better off doing a search on Google and finding a lot of answers none of which are exactly what I need.  But, at least I learned that other people are having the same problem!   So at least it wasn’t something that made me uniquely foolish.

Obviously something is screwed up. But with the WordPress installation, because it’s open source and open to re-editing by many very creative users, is a collection of files.  So many of the solutions to this problem (of white text on a white background) involve so-called “workarounds” that may solve the problem but don’t tell me why it happened.

Seemingly, this problem occurred because I had added a “plug-in” that change the way the editor worked – making it work more like a word processor – with more options.  But the next day when I went to edit a blog entry I saw only a white screen!

My solution? Also a workaround :-).  I uninstalled the editor plug-in but that alone did not solve the problem – now the “native” editor seemed also to be damaged the problem did not disappear.  So my next “workaround” was to install another plug-in – another editor (interestingly called FCKEditor) which works – and works fairly well.  At least I have black text on a white background.

At least so far.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

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