DISQUS

Even serious do-it-yourself energy geeks like this magazine know how to proceed - this is from their "Basics" section:
Energy efficiency is always the most affordable and environmentally sound place to start when approaching renewable energy. By doing something as simple as swapping out incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents, you can decrease the number of PV modules needed to power your lighting by up to 75 percent. This principle applies to all choices you make as you use energy. Focusing on the demand side first will always be your best bet.

... embarrassing typo fixed!

Beer must have more thermal inertia than water, right? I mean, it's got all those extra ingredients. So we can fill the fridge with extra six-packs and Help Save The Earth!

Even better than that, however, would be the Patriots finding a way to reduce their power consumption at Gillette. The idea that we can fix global warming by spending/producing/doing more, but in a different way, is (IMHO) foolhardy. If they'd announced a plan to replace those moster lights with more expensive monster lights that had, say, half the power drain then I would have been impressed.

The crackpot index only gives 40 points for "comparing yourself to Galileo"? That's an underplay, I think - to me, the argument "they thought Galileo was wrong and they think I'm wrong, so I'm Galileo's equal" is the ne-plus-ultra warning light of crackpottery. (A similar argument is "they laughed at so-and-so - and *he* was right!" to which the proper response is "yeah, but they laugh at The Three Stooges, too")

Any blog post that has a Sawzall in it is a good blog post.

One of the pleasures of living in New Hampshire is that there are no poisonous snakes here - with the exception of the timber rattler, which is so rare that you can assume any snake you see if safe to handle. The same with spiders.

Here, here - Pratchett's work is satire at its very best, truly insightful while remaining very funny. How he generates so much consistently fine quality is beyond me.

Somebody must have fried up a manatee steak or two after an autopsy. Earl, we're your friends and you can tell us: What does manatee taste like?

There were 12 shillings in a pound, and the pound was worth $5 then, so in raw money three shillings was worth $1.25. The value of that amount a century later, I think, more an exercise in value choices than economics.

As an addendum, in
my Aug. 15 Telegraph column (URL below), a UNH professor showed by back-of-the-envelope calculations (e.g., educated guesses) that tree power alone can't come close to providing all the state's energy needs.
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar...

Thank you, dear brother.

1954 is correct: Older than me! And of course I meant "vacuum" when I wrote "hyraulic". I knew it was something to do with fluids, or lack thereof (air being a fluid).

Ah, shouldn't have gotten out of bed this morning.

You are correct and I am in error. (I've changed the item to avoid infecting anybody with my confusion.) Slap me upside the head with a burnt filament!

I'm surprised there aren't many proposed bills for statewide franchising in Concord this year; when Verizon pulled out last year, there were representatives saying they'd push for that. Maybe "local control" is too big an obstacle to oppose in this case. Or maybe I've just overlooked them!