Max Dunn's Web Site

Book: Nurture Shock

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:38:06 Z

NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children
by Po Bronson, Ashley Merryman

We all intuitively know the best way to raise our kids, right? Well, many of the things we think we know are completely wrong.

Take for instance praise. We all know that it is good to praise our kids, telling them how smart they are, right? Not always! Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman and done extensive research looking at many studies around this issue and discovered that praise is only a positive, motivating force when done correctly. When we praise our children for their intelligence, it actually causes them to underperform because they learn that it is important to look smart and avoid taking any risks that might damage this image. However, if we praise our children for their effort, they are more likely to attempt new and difficult things, put in more effort and perform better.

NurtureShock contains other parenting nuggets like:

Getting enough sleep is vitally important to all aspects of our kids development and health
Teenagers that argue are actually showing respect since the ones that don't argue are just probably just lying and doing whatever they want anyways
Parents arguing in front of their kids is actually good for their social development, as long as it doesn't get out of hand and as long as our kids see them resolve the argument

There is lots of other good stuff in this book and I would highly recommend it to anyone with kids.

Book: In Defense of Food

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:33:50 Z

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
by Michael Pollan

The message is simple: Eat food. Not to much. Mostly plants.

"In Defense of Food" elaborates a bit on this starting off with some background on why the amount of saturated fat may have little if any bearing on the risk of heart disease and that 30 years of nutritional advice from our government has left us fatter, sicker and more poorly nourished.

The information about health and eating was also insightful:

80 percent of cases of type 2 diabetes could be prevented by a change of diet
Diabetes subtracts roughly 12 years from one's life and incurs medical costs of $13,000 per year compared to $2,500 per year for someone without diabetes
Health care costs related to diet is estimated to be $250 billion per year

So what can we do? First, don't concentrate on nutrients and vitamins but instead look at eating a healthy, whole diet. And a healthy diet is generally any but a Western diet! Here are some other good rules Pollan encourages us to adopt:

Avoid food products that contain ingredients that are:
- Hard to pronounce
- Unfamiliar
- More than five in number
- Include high-fructose corn syrup
Avoid food products that make health claims: Apples don't have health claims, sugary cereal does
Get out of the supermarket where possible: farmer's markets almost guarantee healthy food
Eat mostly plants, especially leaves
Eat well grown foods from healthy soils: it doesn't have to be organic to be healthy
Eat more like the French, or the Italians, or the Japanese, or the Indians, or the Greeks
Have a glass of wine with dinner (This is the one that I like!)
Pay more, eat less
Eat meals: sitting down with others, taking our time (This is the one I will have the hardest time with)
Eat slowly

Book: The Powers to Lead

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:33:23 Z

The Powers to Lead
by Joseph S. Nye

Interesting book. Talks about how effective leaders use both soft and hard power, and Nye terms this "smart power". This is a research book with lots of references, not a rah-rah-go-go book, which makes it more reliable but a little less interesting to ready. Some quotes:

I define a leader as someone who helps a group create and achieve shared goals.
We can think of leadership as a process with three key components: leaders, followers, and contexts.
Police power, financial power, and the ability to hire and fire are examples of tangible hard power.
This is soft power: getting the outcomes one wants by attracting others rather than manipulating their material incentives.
(Quoting GE CEO Jeff Immelt) When you run General Electric, there are 7 to 12 times a year when you have to say, 'you're doing it my way.' If you do it 18 times, the good people will leave. If you do it 3 times, the company falls apart.
The ability to combine hard and soft power into an effective strategy is smart power.
Transformational leaders empower and elevate their followers.
Three skils are particulary important for soft power: emotional intelligence, communication and vision. The two key hard power skills are organizational and political.

Quotes

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:00:15 Z

Quotes

Peter Drucker

Every single pressing social and global issue of our time is a business opportunity.
Build on people’s strengths so that you make their weaknesses irrelevant.
The purpose of an organization is to enable ordinary people to do extraordinary things.
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
The purpose of a business is to create a customer.
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
The first rule of decision-making is that one does not make a decision unless there is disagreement.

Hunter Lovins

Hypocrisy is the first step towards real change.
Government is best when it steers, not rows.
It's not who you know and it's not what you know, instead, it's who knows what you know.
If you want advice, ask for money. If you want money, ask for advice.

Duke Stump

Marketing is dead. Focus instead on maximizing resonance and relevance.
The world doesn't need managers, the world needs gardeners that nurture people.
What would a business be like if profit were optimized rather than maximized?
Businesses should ask: "What does the world need most that we are the most qualified to deliver?"

Max Dunn

Cockiness can take us far. But humility can take us further.
The question should not be: "Can a profitable business incorporate sustainability?" Instead the question should be: "Can a sustainable business incorporate profitability?"
A major milestone of maturity is accepting that reasonable people can have opinions different from our own.
Sometimes the hardest, bravest, and smartest thing to do is to give in.
All of our interactions with others should consist of equal parts talking and listening.

Unknown

Leadership is helping others achieve great things.

Margaret Hartwell

You need a therapist for yesterday, a Zen master for today and a coach for tomorrow.

Randy Hayes

It's not enough to be right - you have to be effective.
Sustainability is having a lifestyle that is so attractive that everyone wants it, and when they have it, the earth's systems increasingly flourish with each generation.

Mark Twain

I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.

Jeremy Irons

Why is it that the jobs that are the most fun are the ones for which you get the rewards?

Rosabeth Moss Kanter

The most important quality of a leader is not self-confidence, but having confidence in others.

Katherine Graham

To love what you do and feel that it matters—how could anything be more fun?

Theodore Roosevelt

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

John Maxwell

A good leader asks: How can I make those around me more successful?
Discipline is the choice of achieving the things you really want by doing the things you don’t really want to do.

Kevin Wiggen, Co-Founder Xythos

Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you give up your monopoly on fish.

Mario Andretti

If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.

Henry David Thoreau

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it

Jimi Hendrix

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.

Henry Ford

Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right.
Failure is simply the option to begin again, this time more intelligently.
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.

Yoda (‘The Empire Strikes Back’)

Do, or do not. There is no ‘try’.

Colin Powell

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

Thomas A. Edison

As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey.
There is no substitute for hard work
Genius is on per cent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration

Ed Miller

Don’t let our successes prevent us from learning from our failures.

Sherlock Holmes (by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

Vince Lombardi

God chooses what we go through, we choose how we go through it. Danish proverb
Life is not holding a good hand; Life is playing a poor hand well.

Claire Dunn

Your brain has a mind of its own.

Peter Coughlin IDEO

Fail early to succeed sooner.

Ken Blanchard

The problem with the rat race is that when you finish the race you are still a rat.
No-one on their death bed has said I wish I had gone to the office more.
The most important thing in life is to decide what is most important.

Calvin Coolidge

Press on. Nothing can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; the world is full of unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Blog: Maddingly Perfect Wife

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:26:19 Z

I choose to believe that my wife and I were brought together by a supreme intelligence and even for all our fights, frustrations and disagreements, together our union is maddingly perfect.

Upload

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:53:56 Z

Upload Page

This is a special page to use just for uploading files.

Blog: SmartMeter

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:30:55 Z

Yesterday, we got our PG&E SmartMeters! The web interface isn't turned on yet and the Zigbee home network will likely take a year or more before it is enabled, but I am excited nonetheless. Here are pictures of our electric and gas SmartMeters:

ED: Grid ComForum

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 02:11:58 Z

Grid ComForum

February 2-3, 2010, Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, California

Grid ComForum targets the needs of electric power industry managers and executives responsible for the deployment of smart grid technology, with a particular focus on the communications layer. Grid ComForum provides a unique focus on technology selection and management as well as addresses business case development, market drivers and marketing, operations, and policy concerns.

Lunch Keynote: Smart Grid: Evolving the Energy Industry

Marie Hattar, VP Smart Grid Marketing, Cisco

Smart Grid investments $200 billion worldwide by 2015 (Pike Research, Dec 28, 2009)
EVs great way to store energy and absorb renewable electricity

Plug-in Electric Vehicles and the Dynamic Smart Grid

Chairperson

Robert Swiatkowski, Regional Vice President of Smart Grid Solutions, Elster Solutions

Speakers

Erfan Ibrahim, Technical Executive in the Intelligrid program area of the Power Delivery & Utilization Sector
Electic Power Research Institute (EPRI)

Alex Fedosseev, SVP Product Management, 4Home

Saul Zambrano, Director, Clean Air Transportation, Pacific Gas and Electric Company

The advent of the Plug-in Electric Vehicles will introduce uncharted loads and shift fueling demands from the gasoline fueling to the grid. A small Plug-in Electric Vehicle will demand on average 7 kWh to recharge a car for 22 – 45 km. If each of one million household eventually has two PEV, charging PEVs will require 14,000 mWh. The PEV is a large mobile electric load and presents an unpredictable demand on the grid. While transmission engineers can deliver energy to PEV charging stations for in the home and at commercial sites, they cannot know the patterns of usage at charging stations leading to blackouts and/or damaged equipment.

Obviously, an intelligent approach and application of new technology will be required to allow utilities to change their static grid to a dynamic grid by controlling PEV charging stations and capacitor banks as well as communicating dynamic rates and non-charge times. Utilities will also be required to add sensing devices to understand and balance the grid real time as well as technology to communicate to the end consumer on rate and non charging times. All of this will need to be interlaced with Smart Grid and Smart Metering technology tying residential and commercial & industrial demands in with PEV.

Robert Swiatkowski, Elster

Grid today
- Static
- Load limited
- Out of date and infrastructure is aging
- Generation is centrally located
- Blind: Utilities cannot see from substations into home or commercial or industrial sites
- Information is not real-time
- No communication into end-point
- Haven’t implement time-of-use (TOU) in home
Future Grid must
- Process in real time the demand througout the service territory (temperature, clouds, wind)
- Anticipate the demand throughout the territory
- Communicate usage, pricing and control demand to end users
- Authenticate foreign users (EVs that plug-in elsewhere)
- Process in real time distributed generation through the service territory
- Anticipate distributed generation
- Anticipate generation based on demand to distributed generation
- Prioritize distribution for emergencies

Erfan Ibrahim, EPRI

Jury still out on the IQ of the smart grid
Challenge is that there will be a huge paradigm shift to move to smart grid and we need to be ready for shift
For 100 years, electric distribution followed ohms and kirchoffs laws and flowed down from high potential to lower potential – downhill from generator to user
CO2 produced mainly by transportation and electricity generation
All renewable energy we have today is in single digit percent wise
Renewable percentage is low enough that variability can be handled by current grid
Control and information is good to and from substations (DNB3 with EMS)
Outside of that communication is not good (cell phone coverage is bad). Companies like Elster developing mesh to overcome that
We have a lot of high-tech people trying to go into this market that don’t understand the mindset of utility people that are facing these problems everyday
Opportunity is amazing. If we work this out and have true two-way electric and communication flow and manage it in a scalable way
Get involved with UCA Users Group that deals with real-time utility communication standards
NIST interoperability roadmap project, Smart Grid panel
Must attend events: Distributek, Connectivity Week, Grid Week,?

Saul Zambrano, PG&E

Looks at products that they can bring to their customers to handle demand utilitization
Doesn’t work fast: quantitatively focused, do their research, look at business case, bring their case to regulators
Other progressive utilities: Boston, San Diego
Core utility principles: keep the lights on and do it safely
PEV charging a large load – 240v at 30a comparable to average peak summer load of a single home
Utility prefers 4 hour fast charge in order to manage the load
If they know demand is coming, they can manage it (What about Peak Oil spike for EVs?)
Distribution load management is critical
The have peakers that operate only 10 hours per year
Issues
- Peak vs off-peak is incredibly important
- Types of transformers at DPA (underground, overhead & size)
- HVAC vs. Non HVAC DPA
Smart charger with an integrative veiw of transformer performance is critical
PG&E smart meter communication is mesh – cheaper than cellular and better coverage
Cars will be ready Q4 2010 and PG&E is getting ready
J1772 plug is now standard
PG&E is driving standards based solutions
Other standards: 2847 car to grid, HAN smart energy 2.0
Done deploying smart meters by 2011.
For EV deployment, they care about
- Real time load mgmt software
- AMI SmartGrid Architecture
- Smart (Com) EVSE (EV charging station)
- On board PEV telematics (finding charging stations)
Load Mgmt SW post launch
- Transformer monitoring
- NOC visualization
- TRP/DR signaling
- Scalable/secure architecture
EVSE
- Pre launch: Low volume, non networked, pre standards
- Post launch: Volume economics, networked, SAE/ISO/SG standards
Can’t support any vendors that don’t have scalable and secure solution

Alex Fedosseev, 4Home

4Home four years old company in Sunnyvale doing software platform for the connected home
NYISO estimate: 1.5 million PHEVs by 2016, 50 million by 2030
Demand response possibilities in a home: EVs, HVAC, Water heaters, Pool pumps

Questions

Can PG&E handle EVs that are coming? Saul. Yes. EVs will be available in certain, engaged areas. Gas prices will make a big difference in EV adoption rates. Erfan. Dichotomy: young people are eco-friendly but don’t have money to pay for EVs, kids of wealthy people are not as eco-friendly although they could afford EVs.
How will utils make sure EVs are charged between 1am and 4am?: Saul. Utilities never takes control of customers electricity consumption (except in emergency). PG&E will give consumer a choice, provide information on decisions they make, and give them financial incentives to charge off-peak.

Integrating Energy Efficiency and Demand Response

Chairperson

Rick Counihan, Vice President, Regulatory Affairs, EnerNOC, 415-343-9504, rcounihan@enernoc.com

Speakers

Aloke Gupta, Senior Energy Analyst, California Public Utilities Commission, 415-703-5239, ag2@cpuc.ca.gov
Len Pettis, Chief of Plant, Energy and Utilities, California State University (Not Present)
Ken Abreu, Principal Regulatory Analyst, Pacific Gas and Electric Company

DR = Demand Response, temporary peak reduction EE = Energy Efficiency

Aloke Gupta, CPUC

CPUC sets price of electricity, how much utilities can make and how much they can spend
Budgets
- Energy Efficiency $3.1 billion (2010 to 2012)
- Demand Response $0.36B (2009 to 2011)
- Distributed generation (Solar rooftops) $2.0B (over 10 years to 2017)
- Low income program $0.87B
Demand response goal: 5% of system peak load (2.5 GW)
2GW of solar rooftop by 2017 (CSI program)
They define “demand response” as shifting the demand in time
Last year CPUC ordered utilities to work on permanent load shifting proposal
2010 IOUs required to provide data to 3rd party at customer request (Google PowerMeter)
2010 IOS requited to transmit electricity prices
2011 IOUs required to access usage data in real-time

Ken Abreu, PG&E Regulatory Analyst

No DR dept at PG&E: it is now integrated with EE and other energy programs

Rick Counihan, EnerNOC

Started as demand response firm in 2001
Has over 3,000 MW of load to drop over US and Canada over 5,600 commercial/industrial sites (as of 9/30/09)
Close to 415 employees
Branched out to energy efficiency services to commercial and industrial customers
Top 10% of peak demand occurs less than 1% of the time. 10% of electric infrastructure built to satisfy this 1%
Demand response required real-time metering and this led to moving into energy efficiency
BMCx = Monitoring based commission (continuous commission)

Continuing Education

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:11:26 Z

Continuing Education

Here are some classes, seminars, conferences and workshops I have recently attended:

Spring 2009 - Fall 2010
Presidio Sustainable MBA
February 2nd, 3rd, 2010
Grid ComForum
December 2, 2009
Nissan Leaf Electric Car
November 13, 2009
CleanTech Conference: SmartGrid
September 30-October 2, 2009
GCEP Symposium 2009
June 25, 2009
PlugandPlayTechCenter: CleanPlay Conference
April 9, 2009
PARC: Google Clean Energy
March 19, 2009
PARC: ElectraDrive - The Case For Electric Traction
February 26, 2009
PARC: Distributed Solar Generation
February 13, 2009
Long Now Foundation: Social Collapse Best Practices
January 20, 2009
VLAB: Upside of the Downturn
January 16, 2009
Long Now Foundation: Climate Change Recalculated - Saul Griffith
Fall 2008
Sustainable Design
Fall 2008
Woods Institute - Energy Seminars
November 18, 2008
VLAB: Electric Vehicle Infrastructure
October 20, 2008
Sustainable Stanford and tour of Y2E2
October 1-3, 2008
GCEP Research Symposium 2008
Summer 2008
Sustainable Energy
July 21-25, 2008
Plug-in 2008 Conference
July 16, 2008
Social Entrepreneur Workshop
Spring 2008
Resource Wars
Spring 2008
Woods Institute - Energy Seminars
May 1, 2008: All day
Stanford Energy Crossroads Conference: From Vision to Action: Sparking Global Change
May 7, 2008: 1 - 7pm
Berkeley-Stanford Clean Tech Conference: Big Solar - Utility Scale Solar Power Generation
Winter 2008
Compass Journey
May 2007
Ruby on Rails Conference

Business

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:28:09 Z

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Business

Max Dunn studied Engineering Physics at UCB before completing his undergrad degree in Computer Science degree from UCSC. He then founded, ran and sold four high-tech companies ranging from floppy disk duplication to internet document management. Afterwards, he took some time off to be with his kids, surf, learn Ruby on Rails, take classes, read books and study clean tech. He is now halfway through a Sustainable MBA degree at Presidio Graduate School.

Bios

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:18:16 Z

Bios

Here are a few different bios of varying lengths.

Bio 1

I studied Engineering Physics at UCB before getting my Computer Science degree from UCSC. I then founded, ran and sold four high-tech businesses. Afterwards, I took some time off to be with my kids, surf, learn Ruby on Rails, take classes and study clean tech. I am now halfway through my Sustainable MBA at Presdio Graduate School.

Bio 2

Max Dunn studied Engineering Physics at UCB before completing his undergrad degree in Computer Science degree from UCSC. He then founded, ran and sold four high-tech businesses ranging from floppy disk duplication to internet document management. Afterwards, he took some time off to be with his kids, surf, learn Ruby on Rails and study clean tech. He is now am halfway through Sustainable MBA degree at Presdio Graduate School.

Bio 5

I guess you could call me a serial entrepreneur since I started, ran and sold 4 high-tech companies. I sold my last company and worked as an employee for 3 years before retiring in April 2005. Now I discovered Ruby on Rails so I am returning to my first love programming.

I like RoR so much I am organizing an RoR Camp on November 9th in San Jose, California. http://www.rubyonrailscamp.com

Oh, and I like to surf, mountain bike, and just hang out with my family. http://www.maxdunn.com

PMBA: 835 Market 6th Floor Plan

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:51:53 Z

Blog: Linus Pauling Letter

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:45:09 Z

Today I stumbled across this letter that the famous scientist, Linus Pauling, wrote to my granddad back in 1949 asking for some chemicals. Pretty cool!

PMBA: Presidio MBA Home

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 05:56:50 Z

Presidio MBA Program in Sustainable Management

It has been a lifelong goal of mine to get an MBA. However, for years I was busy starting and running four businesses so when I finally retired in 2005 and looked at the traditional MBA curriculum, there was not much there that I didn't already know. But then became intrigued by the idea of a green MBA and found the Presidio School of Management in San Francisco.

The Presidio program is a "startup" and had its first class in 2003. Another aspect that attracted me is that sustainable issues are woven throughout all curricula, rather than being confined to a few extra classes. So for instance in economics, they teach standard economic theory, like how GDP counts a heart attack the same as installing solar panels, but then continue talking about ways of evaluating the benefits of these money flows differently. Also they cover the basic accounting principles, but then go on to teach how to account for the "three P's": profit, people and planet. Now this is something that sounds interesting!

I applied and was accepted to the Presidio MBA program in Sustainable Management and started in January 2009. The main benefit I thought I would get from the Presidio program was to be around people passionate about sustainability and find a team and idea to start a sustainable business. I didn't expect to learn much in class because I thought I knew everything about running a business. Boy was I wrong! I learned a ton in my classes and really enjoyed Micro Economics, Accounting, Communication and Sustainability. I am now starting my second semester and am even more excited about the program than when I started!

Admissions Essay
Quantitative Assessment
References:
Reading List
My Definition of Sustainability
My Profile - Awakened Entrepreneur
My Book Blog
My Sustainability Blog
Papers:
- VoltWagon - Electric Bike Pusher Trailer

Ed: Nissan Leaf

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:02:34 Z

Nissan Leaf Electric Car

The Nissan Leaf electric car is making a 22 city tour and stopped at Stanford yesterday for a lecture and viewing of the car (although we didn't get to drive it). The car looked - well, like a car - and the most of the information was standard electric car stuff. For instance, a 24kWh Li-ion battery pack with a 80 kW (106 HP) motor will propel it up to 100 miles with a top speed of about 90 MPH. They covered the usual stuff about 95% of all trips in the US being less than 100 miles and 80% of the charging will be at work and home. The also estimated that it will save about $1,400 a year in gas costs, which just about covers the cost of the battery over the 10-year life.

They are working hard to be the first affordable EV. They expect to start taking orders in Spring of 2010 and start delivering cars later that year.

For me, the most valuable information from this lecture is that they are collecting zip codes of people interested in the Leaf on the web site and sharing these statistics with the electric utilities and some utilities are starting to upgrade the transformers in the areas that will likely have a lot of EVs. They also mentioned that some places can be very difficult to get permits to install the charging stations in personal garages. They said that the Mini-EV program gave up trying to setup the electric car program in New Jersey because of these problems. The reason this was interesting to me is that it points to a possible business opportunity!

Here are my notes:

Mark Perry, Director of Product Planning, Nissan

Site: www.nisanusa.com/leaf-electric-car

Late CY2010 launch
Taking orders Spring 2010
99% recyclable, even battery (although it costs more than is recovered)
Like Versa, seats 5
100 mile range (US LA4), 90MPH top speed
24kWh provides over 90 kW power, Laminated Li-ion Manganese, by AESC
AC motor 80kw/280Nm
Weighs 3000 lb, batteries 450 lbs
100 miles covers 95% of US driving patterns
Battery degrades 5 years to 80% and then about 72% in 10 years (assuming 12,500 miles per years)
Regen can put 30% back in the battery
Charging timer, heating cooler through cell phone
Charging time: Level 1: 16+ hours, Level 2: 8 hours at first, 4 hours later, Level 3: 25 mins to 80%
Expect 80% of charging will be at home and work
Gas at 25 MPG $3/gal, $1,800
EV at 11c kWh is $396
Fleet/commercial 2010, public 2012
Need to do work to get markets ready
Maintenance will be about 1/3 of gas car
No V2G, but looking at SmartGrid and charging based on price
Leaf price will be $30k to $35k. At this price, it is profitable to Nissan.
Cost to consumer could be $26k with incentives