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We’ve all experienced it - you go to your favorite restaurant, or just the restaurant with the really strong Margaritas, and there’s a wait to get a table. So the hostess puts your name on the list and gives you a little, round hockey-puck device that she says will alert you when your table is ready. Except there are a few issues:

• The pager only works within a very small and completely undefined radius, leaving you paralyzed with fear that you will wander too far away and lose your table
• The pager is unwieldy - it doesn’t fit in your pockets so you must continue to hold it. And don’t even think about putting it down unless you want to lose your table to a hungry pager thief
• You constantly hit the thing just to see if it does anything and are always wondering: have the batteries have gone dead, has its radio died, have the lights broken?

And aside the annoyance to the patrons, the restaurant must maintain these devices, train their employees how to use them, replace them when people walk off with them, etc.

This seems ridiculous nowadays. Here’s why: everyone already carries around a little device capable of emitting sound and light when triggered by a certain radio frequency. They’re called cell phones. Seriously, how hard would it be when you add yourself to the waiting list at a restaurant for them to just put your phone number in the computer, and then the computer could automatically call you (or send text, or page you, whatever) to let you know your table is ready.

Then you’d be free to go for drinks at the bar or a better bar nearby, checkout the bookstore next door, or do whatever you want, knowing full well that you won’t lose your table. And if you are a Luddite and don’t have a cellphone, then maybe the hostess will dust off some old pager to give to you. But I’m guessing someone in your group has a cell phone.

I think the only reason people don’t complain more about pagers is because, and I’ll gladly admit this, they are an improvement over the old system where the hostess just yelled out your name when your table was ready. But just because pagers are an improvement doesn’t mean there isn’t a better system. I realize the restaurant-pager lobby is a powerful one, but I think we can fight them.

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Does anyone else want to go to this year’s Sun Tech Days at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center on June 6-7? For anyone who programs Java, or even remembers Java from back in college, this could be really interesting.

June 7 - Advance your development ability and shape your future with cutting-edge technical education; Sun Tech Days are loaded with practical information, examples of real-world solutions, and hands-on training. Whatever your focus, you’ll find sessions to take your skills to the next level and advance your career in a Web 2.0 world.

Attend expert-led technical sessions on: Java SE and Java EE

• Solaris OS
• Tools
• Web 2.0

June 6 - Attend a bonus developer day and participate in open source communities that are driving innovation.

• NetBeans Day
• OpenSolaris Day

(I’ll probably try and check out the NetBeans Day.)

You have to sign up (it’s free, but space isn’t infinite), so if you are interested or think you might be (it’s free after all), let me know and also register today (I just went and registered for both days).

As most of my friends know, I’m fairly liberal, so it should come to no surprise to anyone that I tend to believe the science instead of the hype regarding Global Warming. And the science is in pretty good agreement that it’s real.

So I’ve decided to try and reduce my carbon footprint. My first step is to switch my energy supplier from the default provider in D.C., Pepco, to another company that will provide me with 100% Wind generated power. Strangely enough, that company is called Pepco Energy Services, but they’re not connected to Pepco except that both Pepco and Pepco Energy Services are owned by the same parent company.

As most of my friends also know, I’m kind of a nerd. So I wanted metrics on how much of an effect this change would really have. Luckily, the EPA and U.S.-Climate Technology Cooperation (U.S.-CTC) provide a handy web calculator. The only thing I had to do was add up my annual usage of kilowatt-hours (kWh), which came out to be 10,502 kWh per year (yikes!).

Based on the US-CTC calculator and these numbers, I was able to determine that my switch to green energy reduces my annual pollution by the following:

• 28 fewer pounds of nitrogen oxides
• 87 fewer pounds of sulfar dioxide
• 12,540 fewer pounds (5.7 fewer metric TONS) of carbon dioxide

Here’s some more information on what that means and some stats about my area. Click the graphic to get stats and run the Power Profiler for your area.

Run the Power Profiler to see how much you are polluting each year

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Here are the actual calculations

Let’s see how much CO2 is produced for each megawatt-hour (MWh) delivered to my house:

• According to the CTC, Pepco emits 1098 lbs of CO2 per generated
• The industry standard assumes 1.09 MWh generated for each MWh delivered due to transmission inefficiency
• 1098 * 1.09 = 1194.48 lbs of CO2 per MWh delivered

Let’s see how many tons of CO2 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) that is:

• 1000 kWh per MWh
• 2203 lbs per metric ton
• 1193.48 / 1000 / 2203 = 0.000542 metric tons of CO2 per kWh

Now we calculate how many metric tons of CO2 are produced to generate the 10,520 kWh needed to power my home:

• 0.000542 * 10,520 = 5.7 metric tons of CO2 per year

Last night, right outside my house, Nicole and I heard the awful sound of crunching metal. We ran outside to see that there had been a 5 car crash. Luckily, no one was hurt. Nicole called 911 right away and she was told that the police and ambulance were already on her way. That was at 11:03pm.

We talked with the victims and our neighbors and were happy to see that the ambulance showed up within 5 minutes of our call to 911. They spoke with the victims, but since no one was hurt, they pretty much just milled around writing down various things in various notebooks. After about 10 minutes, they literally had nothing left to do, but since the cops hadn’t showed up yet, they were forced to remain and baby-sit the accident scene.

Luckily it was late and there weren’t many cars on the road, but keep in mind that the entire street was blocked, in both directions. After about 20 minutes, we were really starting to wonder where the cops were. No one could leave and the cars couldn’t be moved until the cops got there, surveyed the scene and took statements.

At 11:29, a full twenty-six minutes after our 911 call, the cops finally showed up. And, like typical “I’m above the law” cops, they proceeded to park their car in the middle of the cross-street, thus blocking even more traffic. I was shocked. I could have walked to the police station, about 8 blocks away, gotten a cop, and walked back faster than the time it took for the police to show up at the scene. No wonder accidents have such a devastating effect on the region’s traffic. I can only imagine how many hours of productivity are lost to the police departments’ lackadaisical approach to clearing an accident scenes.

So a plea to the Metropolitan police departments: get accidents out of the way as fast as possible. The more time people are blocked by cars or just by the desire to rubberneck, the more time the rest of us have to sit in traffic, and possibly get in more accidents.

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On a slightly unrelated note, here’s a list of all the stupid stuff we saw people do while sitting on our stoop waiting for the cops to show up:

• 5 cars attempted to turn the wrong way onto R street, which is a one way street.
• 1 van tried to drive through the accident scene, got 2/3 of the way through before realizing he was being a dick
• Dozen or so people driving past the scene with their car going one direction and their whole body turned the opposite direction to gawk at the scene
• 2 paramedics playing kick-the-can with pieces of bumper, lights, etc from the smashed cars as they wait for the cops to arrive

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On a related but less amusing note, here’s what happened and how all 5 cars got involved:

• A cab was driving south on 13th Street
• A grey Civic ran the red light traveling west on R Street and slammed into the side of the cab
• The force from the collision pushed the cab diagonally towards a car parked on the west side of 13th Street
• The momentum the cab applied a torque on the Civic, causing it to spin around 180 degrees
• The cab smashed into the parked car and bounced off to end up in the middle of 13th Street, perpendicular to the direction of traffic
• The force of the cab hitting the parked car propelled the parked car into the car parked in front of it
• The civic, as it spun around, hit a red Scion that was unlucky enough to be traveling north on 13th Street at the time

Yesterday I had to drive from Philly to DC along wonderful I-95 during a nasty rainstorm. It was really pouring, to the point where you could only barely make out the lights of cars 20-30 feet ahead of you. Of course, I say “lights of cars”. I was amazed how many cars were driving on a major highway in a heavy rainstorm without their lights on. These cars were practically invisible until they were right next to me. I counted about 1 out of every 15 to 20 cars didn’t have its lights on. It didn’t help that many of the sans-lights cars were the same cars zooming and weaving in and out of traffic. The combination of their high speed (relative to the rest of traffic) and lack of lights struck me as being incredibly dangerous.

That got me thinking…

Why aren’t car headlights automatically connected to the windshield wipers? It seems to me that if the wipers are turned on, the lights should be turned on automatically. Would anyone be upset by this? Cars nowadays have lights that turn on automatically when it gets dark. Cars have lights that automatically turn themselves off after the car has been turned off for a few minutes. Some cars even have daytime running lights that are always on. So how hard would it be to have lights that come on automatically when the windshield wipers are turned on?

Is there any reason I’m missing for not already having this feature? I guess gang-bangers like to do drive-bys without their lights on, but how many drive-bys really happen in the rain? So aside from that niche market (which I’m sure the auto makers really worry about), who wouldn’t want lights that turn on automatically in the rain?