IP Mnemonics

Author's Note: This is a really old article that I'm bringing back to life for a different project. If you've read this before, ignore.

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Syndicated 2008-05-21 01:55:03 from Gurno.com - advogato

Scooter numbers - breaking even?

Assumptions are my business and business is good.  So let's get down to something that has been on my mind for a while - when does my purchase of a scooter break even?  There's a number of items to consider here:

1. The initial cost of the scooter
2. The price of gas
3. The difference in gas mileage between my car and the scooter
4. The decreasing value of the scooter as years go by (resale value)

It's not a terribly difficult forumla.  My break even comes when the money saved on gas + the current value of the scooter becomes greater than the initial investment in the scooter.  (This is where the 'assumption' business comes in - scooter devaluation, variable price of gas, inflation, etc., etc.)  Fortunately, we have Google Spreadsheets to the rescue.  Look at the chart above - it's the $3/gallon gas chart and the green line is my 'break even' line.  If a new car (scooter) loses half it's value when you drive it off the lot, then my break even point is out there a ways.  13,000 miles.  Considering that I've been putting 500 miles a year or so on my scooter, that's 26 years.  

...which is a long, long way out there.  But hey, high priced gas to the rescue:

This is UK-style $5/gallon gasoline.  This break even point is just 6000 miles.  If you tend to be gas-pessimistic like I am, then $5+/gal gas is something that's not far around the bend. 

And when gas prices continue to rise, I'd bet that I'd put more than 500 miles per year on my scooter.

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Syndicated 2007-08-22 16:34:24 from Gurno.com - advogato

Dukes Site Relaunches. Also: Timezone Hatred

oops.

This shouldn't have been here.

Syndicated 2007-04-24 22:43:44 from Gurno.com - advogato

I updated the webpages for PyGS, my Gopher server.

Of course, I haven't worked on it in years, but I got a few emails recently from people wanting access to it. The page had disappeared, but links to it still hung around on places like Freshmeat.

So I brought it back up again. I still want to improve it... but I dunno. Maybe it would be a good project to learn Ruby with? That's an idea right there...

Two small things to note:

I wrote an SSH presentation for NORLUG. LaTeX again, just like my old Vi presentation. You can download the SSH presentation here and get the 'source' for the presentation here.

I've been doing some Civicspace hacking, for Northfield.org. We're going to roll out a CS site within about a month or so, and I've been doing some extensive theme modifications. There's only a few changes left and things we be much better for us. :) I also blogged the process that I went through to install the Drupal banner module into Civicspace for various sponsors. The documentation that comes with it is a little behind the times, so this is a nugget out there for the searchers to hit upon.