queen west

Went to Canzine today after meeting. Can you belive it, an almost full house and it was a silent meeting?

Anyway, Canzine was full. Bought a couple of Spacing TTC buttons to show my commuter tribe affiliation (Kennedy — Union), and also a m@b book. Eveyone’s favourite Bramptonian Friendly Rich was there, being friendly and well-dressed. Jim Munroe looked in his element in his No Media Kings room.

After that, I walked down to the turbine. The warm weather had brought the ladybirds out. They were all over the deck.

IEEE Toronto Talk

Looks like I’m waving my hands in the air and talking to the IEEE Toronto Section on Thursday October 27, 2005, 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. It’s in the Business Building, Room BUS 108 at Ryerson University.

They fed me an exceptionally keen meal on Saturday night in advance thanks, so it’d better be a good talk from me.

Update, October 27: the slides are here — scruss.com/talks/02005/ieee_toronto — still in a kind of draft state. I used Eric Meyer’s fabulous S5 again.

best e-mail disclaimer ever

You’ve seen those page-long legal disclaimers that legal counsels require on outgoing e-mails? Well, I’ve been dealing with an Irish company that has the best one ever:

If this e-mail does not relate to Company‘s business then it is neither from nor authorised by Company

Short, to-the-point, and all you need.

canwea over

Well, that’s CanWEA 2005 fully over. Yes, I’m still sifting through the contacts, brochures and swag I picked up, but it’s back to work for me.

I met a lot of people (including, quite unexpectedly, Stuart Hall of Natural Power in Scotland, whom I hadn’t seen in about 8 years), and the show seemed to be absolutely jumping. Could 2005/2006 be the year that Canada gets wind energy?

review of CanWEA 2005 swag bag

So I’m at the 2005 CanWEA conference for the next few days. The swag bag is a standard nondescript nylon thing, thankfully big enough to take my iBook and a few other bits and pieces. The contents are a bit disappointing, though:

  • a very plasticky flashlight that I may discard after harvesting its batteries.
  • a small bag of jujubes.
  • a copy of North American Windpower magazine (which in itself is quite a decent magazine, so is actually one of the highlights).
  • a trade show guide, but no conference program (they were held up in customs; can’t we print ’em here?)
  • various company brochures, zzzz.

You’ll note an absence of useful pens, pads, USB keys, model turbines, or other special swag. I was hoping for more …

decemberists

The Decemberists were as great as ever last night. We snagged comfy sofas up on the balcony at The Phoenix, so it made up for the usually dire venue.

I’m definitely showing my age, though. When they played a demento-rock version of ELO’s Mr Blue Sky, I was about the only person who could sing along.

Hope that Derek got his laguiole back; it was confiscated at the door …

hitting the 400k-clicks

paul\'s subaru hits 400000 km
Paul’s Subaru hit 400,000km today. This, according to Nick — who is also a car mechanic — is quite something considering it’s on its original engine and transmission, and hasn’t had significant engine work done to it.

Debunking the 25% Myth

My dad called yesterday, asking, “Wind turbines do run for more than 25% of the time, don’t they?”. Seems he read an opinion piece in his favourite fair ‘n’ balanced rag (The Telegraph) that said that wind turbines only run 25% of the time.

I see this factoid popping up more and more from the anti-wind crowd. It’s a particularly difficult one to refute in the press, as by the time you’ve tried to explain the difference between capacity factor and operation time, you’ve lost them. Or gone over your allotted time/word count, at least.

I’ve got a year’s production data from WindShare/Toronto Hydro‘s turbine in front of me. It’s on a marginal site, one that probably wouldn’t be developed by a commercial entity. So, does it run for more than 25% of the time?

Yes; the turbine is generating 63% of the time. I’ve defined generating as providing a net export of power to the grid. Our turbine’s a bit more cranky than most, and I have a suspicion that our metering system is dropping some production, but even so, 63% is way more than the claimed 25%. So it gives me great pleasure to say:

MYTH: Wind turbines only run for 25% of the time.
BUSTED! Wind turbines run at the very least 60% of the time, usually more.

(I can’t guarantee that Country Guardian won’t quote me out of context. I could make a cheap shot about not blaming them for their paymasters in the nuclear industry requiring value for money, but I won’t …)

timely quotation

Anent George W. Bush’s “God Told Me To Do It …” revelation, was it purely coincidence that the week’s quotation in Catherine‘s Women Artists Datebook is:

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.

 — Susan B. Anthony
?