Tom Munnecke’s Eclectica

Der Wunderschwimmer by Wilhelm Munnecke

Originally uploaded by munnecket

This is a book written by Wilhelm Munnecke who I think is a distant relative published by Fisher Verlag, Goettingen, Germany, in the early 1950′s. I’d enjoy hearing from anyone who has any information about him or these books. I can be contacted at his last name at gmail.com

Der Tod Swamm Mit, Wunderschwimmer Otto Kemmerichs

Originally uploaded by munnecket

This is a book written by Wilhelm Munnecke who I think is a distant relative, published by Fisher Verlag, Goettingen, Germany, in the early 1950′s. I’d enjoy hearing from anyone who has any information about him or these books. I can be contacted at his last name at gmail.com

Der Hagenbeck im Dschungel by Wilhelm Munnecke

Originally uploaded by munnecket

This is a book written by Wilhelm Munnecke who I think is a distant relative, published by Globus Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg, Germany in 1949. I’d enjoy hearing from anyone who has any information about him or these books. I can be contacted at his last name at gmail.com

I just heard of an iPad customer who asked their Apple tech whether it was safe to charge their iPhone with an iPad charger.  The iPad has a charger with greater capacity than the iPhone.  The tech said no, it might blow up their iPhone.

Maybe this reflects the sad state of science education in this country, but this is bunk.

It’s like plugging a lamp into a 20 amp circuit instead of a 15 amp one.  The lamp isn’t going to blow out because the circuit has greater capacity.  The amperage used is based on the device’s demand, and as long as its less than the capacity of the circuit, its fine. The iPad’s wall charger is 10 watts, the iPhone is 5 watts, and the USB port is 2.5 watts.  The higher the wattage, the faster the charge, presuming the device can use draw what it needs.

What could do damage is if they used a different voltage… but since they all use USB, the voltage is the same.

Here’s how to think about electricity like a water hose:   Voltage is like water pressure on a hose.  It can have a lot of pressure with the valve off, but no flow.  Amperage is like the amount of water flowing.  Attaching a narrow nozzle keeps the pressure up but the amount of water restricted.  A wide open nozzle lowers the pressure but allows more water.  Wattage is a measure of the flow times the pressure.  Watt-hrs is like gallons per minute… the amount of flow over time.

Connecting a iPhone to a 10 watt charger is like connecting a sprinkler to a 2″ pipe instead of a 1/2″ pipe with the same water pressure.  If the sprinkler’s demand can be handled with the 1/2″ pipe, then it doesn’t matter if you connect it to a 2″ pipe.  If the 2″ pipe had more pressure (the equivalent of voltage), then things would change.  (but the iPhone and iPad use the same voltage).

So, its an urban myth…

About 5 years ago, I ran across Gill Hope, an enthusiast supporter of the poor and HIV/AIDS patients in Africa – or so she claimed.  I was going to be in LA, so I suggested we meet for dinner.  She met me with the breathless news – the President of India had just faxed her, saying that he was giving her $15 Billion to fight AIDS around the world.  I asked to see it; she said she left it home.  Then she gave me a book she had written about AIDS in Africa… it had her posed as an angel on the cover (she alternates between being an “angel” and “ambassador”, it seems).  It had a preface by Bill Gates, announcing that he was giving her $5 billion for her efforts.  Surprised that this gift – which would have been one of the largest philanthopic gifts in history – wasn’t publicized elsewhere, she told me “Bill likes to keep his giving private.”

She then told me that she had a total of $55 billion for her antipoverty work around the world.  I asked her how big of an organization she had, and she beamed, “we are a very efficient, lean group.” (Meaning no staff).  After listening to her politely, I told her that I couldn’t believe anything she was saying.  Her partner chimed in, trying to explain why the $55 billion was the result of “innovative” financial thinking.   He tried to explain this innovation by spewing utter gibberish about credits and debits, transactions and journals – totally unrelated to the what they were trying to explain.

Now, things got uncomfortable. They went from engaging to angry:   My skepticism made me “part of the problem” that was causing millions of orphans to die; HIV/AIDS to run rampant, and probably made me a racist.  My skepticism about their accounting and donation numbers showed that “I didn’t know anything about modern finance.”

When they realized I wasn’t buying their story, (dinner hadn’t come yet, so I couldn’t just leave), Gill piped up with another scheme: an HIV/AIDS treatment center with Deepak Chopra right in my own area in San Diego.  When I passed on this opportunity, she immediately popped up with another, a science/expo center in Bakersfield, CA. “designed by the designer of the San Diego Zoo.”  (The zoo was founded in 1916).

Since then, I’ve been getting a stream of email from folks who have been scammed by her.  Generally, they say that they were taken in by her charm and her vision of a better world, and extended some service to her.  When it came time to pay her bills, Gill doesn’t pay, but then launches into the guilt trip, (what about all the starving orphans?).  When that wears off, she gets angry.  But never pays.  They end up Googling her after this all happens, not before.

Here are some web sites detailing her scams:  http://gillhopeexperiences.com/ and here is a story about her return to England: Convicted fraudster Gill Hope She operates a web site http: Prosperity Studios and you can even watch her bogus “interviews” with Larry King.

Perhaps the authorities have caught up with her in England.  But in the meantime, I suggest folks do a little Google searching on her name before dealing with her – don’t email me.

I bought a new Toyota Prius in July, 2009, and while I really like the car, I have also found a number of signficant problems:

I’ll be watching the LCROSS impact on the moon this Friday morning from a 22″ telescope in Anza, California. I thought it would be nice to have some music to listen to while watching it, so I asked my favorite composer Kevin MacLeod if he would be interested in composing something special.

We tossed around some ideas, and he came up with this amazing piece: called Impact. You can download the smaller MP3 version, or the larger WAV version. This is meant to start exactly 11 minutes before impact, and has a voiceover counting down the time to impact. This is royalty-free music, so feel free to pass it freely according to Kevin’s license agreement.

Enjoy!

Maybe I was living in a dream world, but I was thinking that converting to Mac would open the door to consistently high quality software.  In general, this is what I’ve found.

However, two recent upgrades have hit me like a ton of bricks.  I just upgraded my iPhone to OS version 3.1, and found that the battery life is only about a third of what it used to be.  Searching the Apple Forum, I find all kinds of tips on how to extend the battery life.

That’s not the point Apple:  the phone was working fine before I upgraded.  After the upgrade, a battery charge wouldn’t even work for a day.  This is simply unacceptable.

I also installed Snow Leopard as soon as it was released.  Suddenly, Firefox started freezing on me, my scanners didn’t work, and lots of other glitches appeared.

OK, Apple.  Get your act together and produce some quality software…