DISQUS

Greater Boston (WGBH) is talking about the weather now. Had the Pyroheliometer on the show showing Sun burned holes in the recording paper.

What a clever device. Reading solar activity must be somewhat subjective.

Video clip was a surprise. Had no idea data logging is a manual process. Would have though readings get dumped into computer automatically.

Agree - they seem to be showing up everywhere in respectable publications.

I was especially outraged at the Amish electric heater ads that ran in the Telegraph and lots of other publications this winter. Sent the Ombudsman an email but never received a reply.

I realize publications have a firewall between ads and editorial policy but they discredit their credibility by running scam ads.

Nice picture.

I wonder if wind farms will become tourist destinations.

BTW link doesn't work: "Error: servlet56a: Your search session has expired."

David have you hooked up converter box yet?

Here in Milford we get digital: 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 21, 25, 56, 60 (Spanish), 62, and 68.

On occasion even get 8 out of Maine.

Have not ever been able to receive channel 50 DTV. Currently not able to receive either 38 or 44. I emailed WGBH/WGBX asking if 44 was using full authorized power. Not being able to get 44 has been a disappointment. WGBH is one of the Boston stations doing analog "nightlight" broadcast. Hopefully once that is shut down in 30 days WGBX reception will improve but I’m not holding my breath.

That is good news. It's consistent with what I experienced helping out at WENH. During the readiness test we were swamped with calls. On Feb 17 when they transitioned had hardly any.

Thanks for the link, I would have though this would be on the front page of the web site but the only way I found it was with your link.

I assume moving the birdhouse is out of the question?

We have a few in the trees around our house but so far they have not been a problem.

Interesting, at first I wondered how they knew there were no backups. Actually read the article. Pretty clever encrypting backup files. Wonder how hard it will be for forensics experts to recover encryption key from corrupted system.

Security is extremely difficult. One should assume any electronic data will eventually leak.

It is too bad Federal Government has been unable to solve nuclear waste problem. I assume new technology and standardized reactor design will make new nukes safer. Nukes ought to be on the table as part of migration strategy to sustainable energy policy. I’m a big fan of renewables but it is going to take a long time before they contribute a substantial fraction of energy.

I read about proposal to build floating Russian reactors to assist in oil drilling. I assume design is based on Submarine reactors. I have no idea what sort of energy requirement off shore drilling rig have and whether or not once well is productive is it possible to use raw gas/oil to power platform. The idea of floating nukes is scary.

Isn't Germany doing something similar? I seem to remember NOVA show about roadways in Germany lined with photovoltaic cells.

I like the idea of distributed generation. It is more reliable then large central plants, reduces stress on power grid (but does have unique problems) and hopefully makes people more aware of relationship between energy generation and consumption.

Hopefully once “2009 Climate Change Bill” passes Congress there will be tax benefits and more investment activity in Green energy.

Solar electric arrays in space have been talked about for years.

Array can be smaller then ground based because solar flux is greater. Still at thousands of dollars per pound getting all that stuff to orbit is pretty expensive.

Then there is the huge problem if power beam is even a little misaligned not to say what happens if an attacker ever gets control of the Sat.

Don't think this will ever see the light of day.

It's always sad to see a newspaper fold. Globe has not been important to our family for years since they cut back on NH coverage.

We get local news from Milford Observer (Peter Bradgon's free paper) and Nashua Telegraph. National and international news comes from PBS/NPR, news magazines (Newsweek and Time) and the Internet.

Thanks for the update - don't know how I missed it?

Where is it at? Is it possible to get tickets to attend?

I'm a big fan of stressed skin panels for new construction. We built a timber frame Cape in 1982. it is about 1800 sq ft with finished basement. Heat it with 2.5 Cords of mixed hardwood per year. Wood stove also supplies about half our hot water during the winter.

http://www.winterpanel.com/panels.html

Nice thing about energy efficiency is once capital costs are amortized it continues to save money.

Now if we could just reduce our electric bill, but Fish and computers really suck the juice.

/tom

I live in Milford, experienced the same thing. Modem was unable to maintain PPPoE session beginning Tuesday afternoon. Over a 24-hour period modem reconnected a couple of hundred times. DSL has been pretty stable since Noon Wednesday.

Given expected long call hold times did not even bother calling FairPoint to report problem. It’s very frustrating because each call is treated as a one off - so even if they are experiencing system wide network problems phone reps are not aware of the problem and walk customer through brain dead troubleshooting steps.

In fairness to FairPoint same thing would occasionally happen with Verizon.

My mistake - crossout only shows up when you expand the post.

Don't know what a blog reader is. Does not show as crossed out in either FireFox 3 or IE 6.0. Looks like neither knows how to interpret tag.

Here is the source:

PSNH has pointed out that the $450 <span style="text-decoration: line-through">billion</span> million scrubber,

"$450 billion million"

So now it is up to 10e15 dollars? :)

$450 Billion? Sure you are not off by three decimal places?

Interesting factoid about wood's impact on emission. I assume that is because wood has smaller trace amounts of Sulfur and Fluorine.

For those without good good binoculars here is an interesting animation showing ISS construction.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/...

I read the article Sunday. I don't get it. Patent seems to be a collection of well know security mechanisms.

WPA2 adoption has dramatically improved Wireless security. IPsec VPNs have been around for years.

Solar water heater either panels with storage tank or batch ought to be cost effective in a warm climate like FL, much cheaper then turning sunlight into electricity.

Are they using resistive heating in winter? What about using a heat pump?

How well is the place insulated?

Does it really cost $9 a kWhr when they go over peak, or have you slipped a decimal place or two?

Hate to see any newspaper struggle but we have not subscribed to the Globe in years since they cut back on local news. Figured if they were not going to cover local news needed to find a different paper.

That said, like Mr. Wolfe, get most of my science news elsewhere. Not to suck up to David too much but he has managed to uncover a few gems I've been interested in and I like the interactive nature of this blog but I wish there were more active posters.

Have lots of Oaks - make great firewood and easy to split. Feel kind of bad burning some if them and not turning trees into lumber.

They self propagate but at this stage will be for our kids - I'll be long gone by the time they are ready to harvest.