goatee-stroking musing, or something – Page 15

Hester the Moonlight Deer

Catherine and I made a shadowbox using my Springfield deer photo: Hester the Moonlight Deer.

02010-10-13

I’ve had the PowerCost Monitorâ„¢ up and running for over a week now. It was pretty easy to fit. The fiddliest bit was working out and entering the time-of-use rates – which I’ll have to change again in November.

Over the last six days that I’ve been logging it, it exactly matches our meter. That’s one of the reasons I bought it; I didn’t want to be fiddling with CT clamps which introduce their own inaccuracies. Now for the small matter of decoding its transmissions …

02010-10-02

How Ink Is Made

How Ink Is Made, from The Printing Ink Company, Rycoline Inc.

(via)

02010-09-30

OED in the house

Neato: TPL has the OED.

02010-09-24

HE’S GOT MY VOTE

02010-09-23

Actually, I don’t think that the Notional Past was being ironic

It’s hard to call anything “breakaway” when the combined current ages of the proponents would put them born in the same week as LordÂ Rayleigh. The major schism would be over who had the more outlandish hat: radar station vs lampshade.

02010-09-17

The Sharpie Liquid Pencil – massive letdown

In Primary Six to about First Year [so about 1979 to 1981], the thing to have was a Papermate Replay, the first real* erasable ballpoint. Despite their waxy purplish-blue ink (which had a strong piney aroma) it was the one thing all the cool kids had. The Replay erasers were gritty and smudgy, and left black crumbs on the page. I remember the gummy click of the ball on the paper, and the rising fug of Replay ink from thirty desks. When it eventually dried, Replay ink could stick pages lightly together, a bit like paste-up wax.

With the Liquid Pencil, Sharpie probably hopes to repeat the (at least initial) success of the Replay. The technology feels similar â€” slightly less sticky, and the smell of the ink is different, but there’s still an unusual high note to it. The ink looks curiously as if it’s been photocopied and is of an uneven weight, just like the Replay used to be. Leaning on a freshly-written page from the Liquid Pencil smudges the ink on your hand and partially erases the text â€” just like the old Papermate Replay.

While the Replay really didn’t like regular erasers, the Liquid Pencil is better with them. If the LP were a real pencil, a heavy trace would conduct:

â–ˆâ–ˆâ–ˆ Liquid Pencil: âˆžâ„¦Â â–ˆâ–ˆâ–ˆ Faber-Castell 9000 HB: 400kâ„¦

It doesn’t, so it’s no pencil.

I’m pretty sure the Sharpie Liquid Pencil is just the naff old Replay, repackaged for a new generation. After all, Newell Rubbermaid owns both the Sharpie and Papermate brands. I bet the old news stories about Replays being used for cheque-fraud will resurface. Even writing this has given me the old Replay ink smell headache â€” dÃ©jÃ pew!
â€”â€”â€”
* there were the chemically erasable kind available before, which had a yellowish felt tip on one end that bleached the ink and prevented you writing over it.

Unscrewing the barrel revealed the familiar old Papermate Replay refill. I think we’ve been had.

Update: a bunch of reviews. The ones that actually tried it came to pretty much the same conclusion:

02010-09-11

OooOooh!

Toronto Hydro’s PowerLens for BlackBerry is quite neat:

That’s real data from my home meter, folks.

02010-09-10

Thumbs up for Offshore Wind!

If you want to work out how tall a wind turbine is at a distance, you can use simple proportion:

If I hold my thumb at arm’s length, it’s about a metre from my eye. The tallest a turbine would appear from shore would be equivalent to the height of the top joint of my thumb. That’s pretty small.

02010-08-21

My comments on the “Renewable Energy Approval Requirements for Off-shore Wind Facilities”

Dear Mr Duffey

EBR Registry Number: 011-0089
Renewable Energy Approval Requirements for Off-shore Wind Facilities – An Overview of the Proposed Approach

I would like to propose that the mandatory 5km shoreline exclusion be removed entirely, for the following reasons:

1 Drinking Water Source Setbacks
While the â€œTechnical Rules: Assessment Reportâ€¹ of the Clean Water Act 2006 is cited as a major reason for the 5km shoreline setback, the assessment report itself provides for no greater setback than 1000m from a water intake in a Great Lake. It is suggested that this one kilometre setback be maintained for existing and planned intakes, but should not be applied as a blanket distance for all development. To force a larger setback than the Act allows is to discriminate against wind energy and the industry.

2 Lake Bathymetry

Taking the particular case of Lake Ontario near Toronto, the water depth at 5km from shore is typically² 40-70m. This is far greater than is practical, and would require massive and costly foundations.

3 Noise
The proposed shoreline exclusion unscientifically precludes any project coming closer to shore. As your document states that noise guidelines for offshore projects are in development, setbacks derived from these guidelines should be allowed. The document should also clarify that the 5km shoreline exclusion is typically larger than the setback required by the Noise Guidelines for Wind Farms³, as at a recent MOE session on Low Frequency Noise Measurement⁴, representatives of â€œThe Society for Wind Vigilanceâ€ stated that 5km was now the setback recommended by the MOE for all wind projects.

4 Positive Visual Enhancement
Wind energy is the most visual form of electrical generation, and it is a subjective matter as to whether the turbines are ugly or beautiful. The major shoreline constraint cited by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources is due to â€œaesthetic hindranceâ€⁵, yet the Great Lakes Wind Energy Center’s Final Feasibility Report⁶ wishes to site their pilot turbine as close to shore for â€œthe highest iconic valueâ€. Copenhagen, the capital city of Denmark, has an arc of wind turbines in the bay approximately 3km from the shore, and less than 5km from the Amalienborg Palace. By placing these turbines close to the city, they have made a statement of their commitment to sustainability, and avoided rows of pylons, which few (if any) could call anything but ugly.

I would hope that you would take my comments into account.

Yours sincerely,

Stewart C. Russell, P.Eng.

References:

1 http://www.ene.gov.on.ca/en/water/cleanwater/cwadocs/Tech_Rules_For_Assessment_Report_16Nov09.pdf

2 http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/greatlakes/greatlakes.html

3 http://www.ene.gov.on.ca/publications/4709e.pdf

4 12th August â€“ 2300 Yonge St â€“ 9:30-11:30am.

5 http://www.ohiodnr.com/LakeErie/WindEnergyRules/tabid/21234/Default.aspx

6 http://development.cuyahogacounty.us/en-US/GLWECF-Study.aspx

(more…)

02010-08-16

tall flower

I think I may have inadvertently grown a triffid.

02010-08-04

trams of old kansas city

Spotted this tiny section of disused tracks at Wornall & Mill streets

Kansas City used to have a huge streetcar system – you could ride out to Independence and Lee’s Summit.Â There’s a great map of the 1920s system here: David Rumsey Historical Map Collection: Gallup’s map of greater Kansas City and suburbs. Now, there’s nothing.

02010-08-01

YouTube – ME Pearl Presents PROPER OPOSSUM MASSAGE

YouTube – ME Pearl Presents PROPER OPOSSUM MASSAGE.

02010-07-29

FREE ART

Mark Dougherty says:

Cal Schenkel, who did so many great Zappa/Mothers album 
covers, and some Beefheart as well, is giving away lots of 
his artwork.  Just send him a dollar to cover the shipping 
and he'll send you...who knows what?  Here is his link:

http://ralf.com/

02010-07-28

Harvey, Arnie and me

I have little in common with Messrs. Keitel and Schwarzenegger â€” except that we’re all an exact number of thousands of days old today.Â So that means I’m still messing around with the 1000 Day Birthday Calculator concept. I scraped Wikipedia’s dates entries, did some classy modulo arithmetic, and (give or take some Julian/Gregorian calendar changes, which I didn’t) it’s also the following folks’ birthdays: Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg (1599), Ottavio Piccolomini (1599), Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608), Christian Goldbach (1690), Theophilus Cibber (1703), Franz Moritz Graf von Lacy (1725), Gilbert Stuart (1755), Mirza Ghalib (1796), Peter Ernst von Lasaulx (1805), AlbÃ©ric Magnard (1865), Carl Nielsen (1865), Princess Henriette, Duchess of VendÃ´me and AlenÃ§on (1870), Lee DeForest (1873), Maximilian von Weichs (1881), Olev Siinmaa (1881), Sara Teasdale (1884), Geoffrey Fisher (1887), LeÃ³n de Greiff (1895), Walter O’Malley (1903), Arsenio Lacson (1911), Jean Ritchie (1922), Lucian Freud (1922), Bengt LindstrÃ¶m (1925), Hank Thompson (music) (1925), Shoista Mullodzhanova (1925), AgnÃ¨s Varda (1928), Pro Hart (1928), Dominic Chianese (1931), Harvey Keitel (1939), Hildrun Claus (1939), James Loewen (1942), Sarah Brady (1942), Keith Emerson (1944), Patrice ChÃ©reau (1944), Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947), Jonathan Mann (1947), William Atherton (1947), Peter Jurasik (1950), Steve Ferrone (1950), Desi Arnaz, Jr. (1953), Linda Hayden (1953), Richard Legendre (1953), Tonya Lee Williams (1958), Pascal Olmeta (1961), Thurl Bailey (1961), Pernell Whitaker (1964), Ginger Fish (1966), Maria Canals Barrera (1966), Puri Jagannadh (1966), Sissel KyrkjebÃ¸ (1969), Alexander Kapranos (1972), Matt Belisle (1980), Ashley Hansen (1983), Chris Roberson (American football) (1983), Sarah Poewe (1983), Alison Pill (1985), Klara Ã“sk ElÃasdÃ³ttir (1985) and Mara Lopez (1991).

If I’d had any free time, I would’ve had a web app for you to work out who shares a 1000 day birthday with you. But if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a whole day to be 15000 …

02010-07-19