First the Tea, then the Sugar
The New York waterfront sadly notes the passing of Brooklyn's 148-year-old Domino Sugar refinery, an East River landmark for generations and, until yesterday, employer of more than 200 workers. While about a dozen workers will remain for several months, most are now unemployed.
One reason for the closing was the plant's real estate value: as luxury waterfront housing, it's worth millions, and the sugar can always be cubed elsewhere.
Beverage-related housing does seem quite popular in this area: Hoboken has the (formerly Lipton) Tea Building as well as the former Maxwell House coffee factory, once the world's largest coffee processing facility, and Jersey City also has a Sugar House condo complex.
posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @5:52 PM
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31.1.04  |
Inquiring readers want to know
You ask, we look it up: an astute reader wonders how the Earth Rover expedition compares in cost with the Mars Rover program or the proposed humanned missions to the moon and Mars.
The proposed Moon/Mars expedition may have to be via balloon, as so far it appears to be full of hot air. When the first President Bush proposed going to Mars back in 1989, the cost was estimated at $400 billion. So far the second President Bush is reportedly proposing giving NASA an additional $1 billion over five years, plus $11 billion in "revisions to the space agency's projects," according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. At least one NASA expert is reported to have estimated that a trip to Mars would cost at least $170 billion.
The Mars Rover project, meanwhile, cost a mere $820 million, and that's for two rovers, or $410 million per rover.
Our Earth Rover mission cost even less: The Olympus C-700 camera was the biggest expense at around $500, depending on where you buy one, but that's already been used for hundreds of expeditions and can be reused many, many more times. Same goes for the USB cable to connect the camera to the computer ($8). I don't remember what the computer cost, but you can get a better one much cheaper now. Other gear included rubber snow boots imported from the Czech Republic at a cost of about $10 -- the boots are almost 10 years old, so that's working out to about $1 per year so far, or 50 cents per year per boot. The down jacket was about $80, and the gloves were under $10.
Meanwhile, the U.S. deficit is expected to break all records this year at more than $521 billion.
(Coincidentally, the deficit is the subject of the ad that CBS won't air during the Super Bowl.)
So according to our analysis, we can afford a walk around the neighborhood, and we're lucky to have the Mars Rovers sending snapshots, but it's going to be awhile before we can pay for any more ambitious expeditions.
posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @6:24 PM
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30.1.04 |
Overtime: it's a whole new ball game
Last year's battle to save overtime went into overtime itself, with the final vote earlier this month on the bill to which the overtime-protection amendment had been attached. As readers of The Dagley Dagley Daily will no doubt recall, even though both the House and Senate approved the amendment, it was omitted from the final bill under pressure from the Bush administration.
BUT...a similar amendment could be attached to any bill in the current Congressional session. That means it's deja vu all over(time) again.
The UAW recommends calling your Senators on their toll-free line (1-877-331-2000) to urge them to bring back the amendment and get it passed before the changes go into effect. If you prefer to send them a fax, you can do that right here via the AFL-CIO.
The Bush administration's proposed changes would mean an end to overtime pay for millions of American workers, but not an end to overtime work. Workers would be expected to put in as many hours as expected. As if that weren't bad enough, the changes also include what the AFL-CIO calls "a slap in the face to America's veterans." The "military penalty" would make workers exempt from overtime pay if the training they received in the military could be considered the equivalent of a college degree.
posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @6:01 PM
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29.1.04 |
Earth rover finds signs of ice
As the Rovers continue sending back snapshots from Mars, here in our little corner of Earth, we had a break in the snowfall and a chance to do some roving right here in the neighborhood. About 8 inches fell overnight here, on top of what was left of the previous snowfall(s). Like the Mars Rovers, we found a small crater. Our initial analysis found clear signs of ice on Earth:
Further investigation found signs of life as well, even in this harsh, forbidding frozen landscape. Not only that, but public transit, running relatively close to schedule considering the conditions:
We also found some ice forms. They do seem to thrive in this environment:
posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @5:12 PM
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28.1.04 |
Special Super Bowl Preview
The Super Bowl isn't just a contest between the nation's top two pro football teams: it's also a big contest for advertisers. The game isn't until Sunday, but CBS has already lost, by refusing to air two controversial bought-and-paid-for ads, one a winner in itself. "Child's Pay" was the winner of a competition held by the political activism group Moveon.org. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) also bought Super Bowl ad time, but CBS rejected their ad, too, claiming "we don't accept advocacy ads." Not true, says PETA, pointing out that in recent years, CBS has run anti-smoking and anti-drunk-driving ads during the Super Bowl.
We're happy to make the ads available here; just click on the images to see them. Too bad we can't get Super-Bowl-sized fees for them. But then, to paraphrase another ad shown frequently during pro sporting events:
Hitachi 50-inch plasma TV: $15,995.00
Plastic football full of party mix: $7.95
Vegetable tray: $4.95
Case of Czechvar beer: $23.99
Freedom of speech: Priceless
posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @5:34 PM
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27.1.04 |
Read the feed
It's time once again to call your attention to the left-hand side of your screen, home of a couple of new features.
First, The Dagley Dagley Daily is now syndicated via Atom, a form of syndication so simple that even I can use it, and I never quite got the hang of the better-known form, RSS (Real Simple Syndication). You may need an Atom-enabled reader or aggregator to see it without all the code, but I don't have one and it comes in fine for me. The DDD feed includes all the text, but no links, graphics, or ads. Thanks Blogger, for making it so easy.
And thanks also to Blogger's parent company, Google, for the small text ads, targeted specifically for readers of this blog based on the words Google finds here. That means the ads might be of particular interest to our readers: we hope so, because The Dagley Dagley Daily gets a piece of the action on anything you buy from any of our advertisers. Thanks!
posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @5:43 PM
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26.1.04 |
Spirit, Opportunity double-team Mars
After experiencing some technical difficulties, the Mars Rover Spirit seems to be improving. Meanwhile, its sister Opportunity has landed on the other side of the red planet (not to be confused with red states, blue states, or red nations. Here's my favorite photo so far. Plenty more photos here from Opportunity and Spirit.
posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @5:55 PM
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25.1.04 |
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