Another Sage Sighting

Sage played again in San Diego, this time because of a Matt Schaub concussion. Unfortunately for Sage, Houston had already spotted the Chargers 32 points by halfway through the 2nd quarter. He still looked effective passing against a talented Chargers defense, even though the play calling was obviously skewed away from the run. It sounds like Rosenfels will get the start this Sunday vs. the Raiders, a winable game for the Texans. Hopefully they let Sage throw the ball around from the beginning.

The Texans Record-Setting Season
I can't think of anything right now.

Warren Buffet and taxes

I watched NBC Nightly News tonight and they had a story about Warren Buffet's tax beliefs. He feels that he should pay more taxes than he currently does, even though he has no tax shelters and said "I pay exactly what congress tells me too." Anyway, I've always been a fan of Buffet since he's a self made billionaire who has always been considered by most to be an honest investor who never takes advantage of people. Anyway, you should read this article, it's pretty interesting. From the initial thought, I agree that people who make less shouldn't pay a higher percentage than multimillionaires. Oh well, quick, thought. By the way, he offered $1 million dollars to anyone in the top 400 richest in the U.S. who can prove that their secretary pays a smaller percentage in taxes than they do. Gotta like Warren Buffet.

Sage!!!

I'm officially the only Texans fan still excited. There's the tough matchup against the Chargers this weekend, the tough loss to the Titans last weekend and the embarrassment of the Sunday before that. What was once an over .500 season isn't even an even .500 season anymore. The prospects look grim at best. No playoff hopes. Last in the division, behind by 3.5 games. But I see something through the darkness ... behold ...

SAGE!!!

Sage's four fourth quarter TD passes were impressive, as were his 290 yards passing. Between last weeks heroics and the garbage time he played the week before that, Sage has thrown for 372 yards and 5 TDs. Schaub in those two games? 282 yards and 0 TDs. Here are the season lines for both QBs.

Sage has a slightly higher completion percentage, essentially the same yds per attempt, the same number of TDs (with only a quarter of the attempts), a higher rating, and maybe most impressive of all, he hasn't been sacked. Granted, he played garbage time against Jacksonville and the Titans were playing prevent in the fourth, but this was the same line behind which Carr got sacked 41 times last year. He should be getting sacked on accident!

It isn't set in stone that Sage will start. I hope he does, because I'd like to see him play. Unfortunately, Schaub will start the week after that and all through the rest of the season. Rosenfels probably deserves a chance to start at least part of a season, but he won't get that opportunity in Houston.

The Texans Record Setting Season

Even with the two losses, we're still in the midst of what could be the greatest season of Texans football ever. I'll add some new records every week and link to my ever growing list.

Most touchdown passes in a game: 4, Sage Rosenfels 10/21/07

spread offense

This will be a short post about how I think defenses could catch up to the spread offense. First, the defensive line would stay the same, because they still need to be able to stop the run just in case. Next, the linebackers would be smaller and faster. They'd be more like safeties. This allows better pass coverage on the excess amount of people who go out for passes. The safeties and would be more like corners and corners would stay the same. Making the defense smaller and faster would end the spread offense. You could also play the safeties shallower from the start if you knew they were quick enough to not get burned, which would allow them to help out with the run. I kind of like spread offenses, it makes the nfl more exciting, but I can't believe teams can't stop it yet. Also, TMQ made a good point last week about how all of the Patriots passes are down the middle deep. I know other teams have that figured out, but I think Moss is opening up the middle of the field for people like Wes Welker since he's double covered about every play now. I think that shows how good Moss still is. Anyway, thats my brief football column. Let me know your thoughts. I should probably do some real work now.

Wind energy in Texas

As I've said before, the key to making wind energy truly useful will be finding a way to store the energy locally and dispense as a more consistent power source. The link below talks about Texas' increasing use of wind energy and work being done to store it.

http://www.isa.org/Content/ContentGroups/News/20071/October30/Understanding_wind_powers_variability.htm

Texans win! vs. Dolphins 22-19

This is why you visit houstonramblings: hard-hitting Texans insight! Sure, the Texans won, but did they look good? Sortof. They scored 22 points, which isn't shabby, but 15 came from field goals, which isn't good. And three of those field goals were longer than 50 yards, which means they didn't move the ball very far into Dolphins' territory. Once they got the ball on the other side of the 50, it didn't seem that they tried very hard to score touchdowns. But it was an awful lot of trouble for them to get the first one (4 rushes to gain 3 yards). You'd like to see them put more emphasis on the TD because field goals aren't going to beat teams like Indianapolis. That said, I had Kris Brown on one of my fantasy teams (23 points, if you're scoring at home), so I'm not complaining. And neither should Texans fans, a win is a win.

The Texans Record Setting Season
The Texans are 3-2 after beating the winless Dolphins 22-19. This is, apparently, the first time in franchise history they've started 3-2. Not sure if that qualifies for "best start" status. It is, however, better than .500, which is rare for the Texans. In 2004, the Texans got their third win in the sixth game of the season. Every other season, it's taken them many more games to get the third win. The Texans have only been over .500 for 3 weeks before this season (1-0 in the first two seasons and a 4-3 start in 2004). This is already the fourth week they've been over .500 this season. Now you can see why Texans fans are excited!

Africa and solar lighting

Interesting advancements in technology are making electricity more and more feasible each day for people in rural Sub-Sahara Africa and other impoverished areas. So why is nothing happening to reduce the number of people without electricity from 1.6 billion? It is predicted that 1.3 billion will still be without electricity in 2030 (a large percentage reduction, but 1.3 billion is a lot of people). I feel this is unacceptable, considering the massive benefits electricity offers in life quality.

Solar energy is getting more and more affordable, micro-hydroelectric is very feasible (People in Alaska use it). So people can have power without the high cost of extending the already overburdened grid that exists in developing nations. I say overburdened grid because the power cuts in and out constantly in third world countries. At least that's what I experienced and have been told by people who have been in countries in central and south America and other parts of Africa. Back to the question at hand, why isn't this happening? I think there are three major problems. First, people can't afford the initial costs of these systems. Some microfinance organizations are the scum of the Earth, charging up to 50% interest rates. Also, most of these are designed to finance entrepreneurs not people who just want lights, radios, water purification, refrigeration for vaccines and other important factors. One microfinance organization that has good reviews is http://www.kiva.org/. I've heard good things and read a lot of good reviews. It's a really interesting idea at a minimum. You loan people in poor areas money to improve their business at no interest, and then you probably get your money back. They have volunteers on the ground evaluating business plans, and deciding who should get finance. Once someone has income, they can purchase small solar electric systems. One example is the nurse in one of the villages I was in. He has a good income as an educated state employee, and he bought a system that has two fluorescent lights, a radio and a small tv along with a lead acid deep cycle battery. All that for $180.
Which brings me back to the three problems hindering electricity to spread to rural areas. It is damn hard to distribute things to rural areas in Mali, and I'm assuming this is the same case in other rural third world places. It took us about 4 hours to drive 90 km (~55 miles). It would be very tough for trucks to pass certain parts of the roads, however, it is possible. The third is electrical storage devices. Batteries suck in hot environments and everyone knows this is a common problem, yet thats what everyone is using in their solutions (We're guilty too). So you have a solar panel that lasts 20 years and a battery that lasts 3 years, if it's buried in the ground.

I think there is a problem with third world engineering in general also. People go in there thinking they're going to fix everything because they're smart and educated. Clearly, this isn't the case. It takes years to develop a working solution in an unfamiliar culture and climate. Many people who do work in developing nations aren't as smart as they think either. A classic third world example is this stove that a team designed, called a Lorena stove. I'm not going to insult the team that made it, they worked hard and tried to make a difference, but the stove ended up using more wood than a 3 stone fire, due to a misunderstanding of heat transfer. The material ended up absorbing heat, not insulation. That stove is everywhere in the world. It does remove smoke from houses, which is a very good thing, as wood smoke causes TONS of health problems, including blindness and infant deaths. But, people ended up not using them since they had to go and collect more wood than previous stoves. Another stove example is a solar cooker. These are good ideas, but in some places, women called them stick stoves. This is because the women wouldn't have dinner cooked at the right time, then they would get beaten. Women in many third world countries are treated as second class citizens, who aren't allowed education and other things I would consider rights. In Mali, the women don't eat with men, and the men even say it's because they're not equals. Women work ridiculously hard. A feminist in the U.S. would probably go on a killing spree of dudes if one went to a developing nation.

Also, a lot of people just design a product here, then go and drop it off in a poor country and just leave. They never go back and redesign. They just assume it works here, it'll work there. I don't think we have any solutions that really work for any of their problems, but effort is the first step towards some success.

So our plan is currently something that is semi-new but kind of used in Kenya. Kenya sets up battery charging stations where people can pay a buck or two to charge their car battery. The charging stations are located on the electrical grid. They then use this battery to power whatever they want in their village. I'm guessing most people power fluorescent lights, although, there are probably tvs and radios depending on what people can afford. So our idea is to create a charging station off of the excess power created from the solar panels for the water systems that are installed in a few villages in Mali. We'll give the batteries to a person in the village, who will distribute the batteries. He will then charge people for recharging their batteries. He'll save 1/2 of the money he makes to buy new batteries when the old ones crap out, which will probably be 3 years. The pay back period that we estimated is two years, so the person will have a pretty good business. Just let me know what you think.

Alright, I've wasted enough of my time and yours. And I didn't proofread, so ignore the grammar and whatnot.

This post was kind of weird, since i usually try to stick with sports, but I've just been thinking about this quite a bit lately.