Football Epilogue

I woke up this morning to a temperature of -12° F (-24° C). It is a good day to stay indoors and sip a warm beverage. This day is following the winter weather pattern here in Minnesota: first it snows and then it gets cold. The saving grace with such cold weather is that it occurs to a crystal clear sky and bright sunshine reflecting off of the new snow. A newcomer might be caught off guard from the false visualization of outdoor warmth and may even try to take a deep breath; abruptly choking on the arctic flash freezing of the windpipe. Scarves and shallow, deliberate breaths to acclimation are thus quickly learned. If the wind isn't blowing, one can be quite comfortable in a normal winter attire where body heat and insulation make for a fine cushion. A little labor can even result in the dropping of a layer. However, the slightest breeze will steal that cushion with the comedic sensibility of a practical joke; leaving you to shiver and hasten your pace to get back indoors....

I'm working on a talk for a symposium in April. The topic is "Sensors for Transportation". Along the way I visited the Department of  Energy " Alternative Fuels Data Center " website. They have a host of accessible data showing everything from types of electric vehicles to average consumption prices of various fuels. Being that I'm a data enthusiast I thought I'd generate a silly plot of hybrid electric vehicle sales versus average US fuel prices.  (left axis) U.S. Hybrid Electric Vehicle Sales compared to (right axis) Average U.S. Fuel (gasoline) cost per gallon. Data is from http://www.afdc.energy.gov/ The overlay suggests, as is probably obvious to many, that increased fuel costs result in more people buying fuel efficient vehicles. One might also make some other hypotheses from this plot: Fuel prices play a majority incentive in the masses buying more efficient vehicles. Thus, policy makers should maybe look to steeply increase gasoline ta...