madape » idleness

Yes, plants do move.

dan — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 21:43:23 +0000

Fun new words: nastic, nutation, thigmonasty

Something useful

peter — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:33:57 +0000

Okay, maybe the blimp was a poor choice (though excellent to curb your roomate’s excessive chatting, provided you live in a mansion or treehouse. A much better example of what’s available on makezine is this DIY household flood alarm, which texts or emails you when water levels reach too high. Cool, eh?

one semester – almost done

matt — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 02:30:54 +0000

Today marks the official end of classes for my first semester. This was one of those blink-and-its over periods for me. Classes wrapping up in the next week: statistics, economic analysis, policy analysis, conceptual foundations of international relations, and land use controls. Yech.

To celebrate this momentous almost holiday, I am procrastinating. I ordered some Chinese food and am now listening to educational raps while trying to read Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s personal blog. Really.
The “Declaration of Independence” rap is a pleasing counterpoint to the rather wide range of viewpoints on Mssr. Ahmadinejad’s site. Good production values on these raps! I wonder how they are going to sell this stuff.

But this eggroll is terrible, sorry Wai Li Restaurant on Amsterdam.

TED Talks

peter — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 22:50:35 +0000

The Technology, Environment and Design talks (google sponsored) were recently pointed out to me. The talks range from the African AIDs crisis to the present and future direction of space travel. There are webcast videos of all the talks up, and new ones every week or so.

Among my favorite talks thus far are Emily Oster’s challenge to the statistical portrayal the AIDs epidemic in Africa , Carolyn Porco’s description of NASA’s Cassini mission major findings, Bill Stone’s rally for space exploration, and Hans Rosling’s great ‘07 lecture on geopolitical trends in health and statistics.

ps, along the lines of generosity: mexican food style, and certainly worth checking out is FreeRice, which quizzes you on your vocab as you donate rice through the UN’s World Food Program; aggrandize argotistically!

Playing Dress-up

peter — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:43:11 +0000

October Critical Mass:

Soggy Days Ahead

peter — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:41:22 +0000

… and so Fall has officially begun in Juneau:

Fog, mist, rain: a little taste of what the Wx holds for all us Panhandlers around this time of year. It doesn’t get much better than that!

-P

This shit is also totally copyright

peter — Fri, 25 May 2007 22:10:05 +0000

Here’s a little ditty I through together the other day, as inspired by the phat grass. Understand that there are no lawns where I live, so being VT bound for a bit, full use is being made of the luxury:

Green Grass

Soft blades fit perfect between the spaces of my toes, tickling the nether regions of bare feet,

while their neighbors generate unparallelled aromatic pleas of mercy before being briefly beheaded by a noisy, red, sit-on-top mower.

Laying lazily under a tree made just perfect for climbing, letting cleaish air cycle through open lungs (my lifelong partners in crime).

Book: rising, falling dynamically; sychronized to an aveolic clock of lethargic character.

The sun shines: this shit is unreal

In other words, la vie est bonne

A Sequential Travel Daze (in phone-cam form)

peter — Mon, 14 May 2007 03:39:18 +0000

I have been attempting to make greater use of the interesting tools around me, which has led to an interest in taking at least one single cameraphone picture each day. Here is an except mainly from the last 24h (though these stretch back almost two weeks total). I just arrived earlier today from 24h of travelling between juneau and boston, a trip that seems to be getting shorter with each repetition, yet grates more and more on my patience due to the incrediably awkward scheduling. Exhaustion is inevitabely the end result, as with all lengthy travel. Anyways, enough: enjoy!

superbear confusion: the true origin of tic tac toe!!!

auke lake dock & orginizational attempts

yukon aftermath (you should see the inside: 7 people camping, cooking & climbing out the back)

seatac airport viewed through very tired eyes

winglets & dawn enroute to boston

fresh produce!!!

back to the land of milk & honey (& boats)

shelburne beach, a beer, and a book all serving together as fine inspiration to solidify my speech next week as the best man in danny’s wedding.

home (one of them).

An interesting format, but definately a difficult way to communicate any details, theres a lot to share in between the lines, but this old man is turning in. Cheers,

-Peter

Run for shelter!

dan — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 20:20:07 +0000

Fierce Storm Drenches East Coast! Storm Watch: 300 Flights Cancelled! Storm Shelters Open!

Etc. While this storm apparently was legitimately powerful and dangerous when it was west of us a few hundred miles, now that the rain is here in NYC, basically… well, it’s just raining. That’s all. And since I brought my umbrella (and don’t have a car, thank you MTA), it’s really no big deal. A cormorant just flew by my office window, also not too concerned by it.

Leftist interpretation: a vast media conspiracy to keep us in a state of fear! And incidentally keep us tuned in to their channels, to the benefit of their advertising revenues!

Sensible interpretation: it’s a slow news day.

Bring on the Juice

peter — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 18:21:15 +0000

So, that was a bit of a downer. I suppose I should be the one to get the ball rolling again then, as well.

Electricity, a luxury most folks take for granted on a daily basis with perhaps the exception of a few, boldly paranoid souls. As a general concept, it’s pretty cool. When electricity is generated, all sorts of nutty things happen to wires, conductors, magnets, and so on.

In the Juneau area, electric generation is tucked away in all sorts of little hidey-holes. Some folks are under the impression that there are no power stations in Juneau, period. This is not too far from the truth. Primarily, current is generated at the Snettisham hydro project, which is located on the lowest elevation of the outflow for Long Lake, just south of Juneau. This station generates 47.2MW. This sounds like more than enough to satisfy the local cravings for heat, lights, and a certain amount of clacking away at a certain keyboard. However, this covers only about ~80% of local demand. Where does the other 20% come from?

Always sympathetic to the localist diatribe, a little poking around in the available literature (read: internet) came up with some interesting and easily digestible factoids one wouldn’t be too mistaken to think that I was working for the benefit of the ‘tourons’. Juneau actually has several generator sites. It is true, most were semi-retired once Snettisham went online, but are still utilized as emergency backups in case of an outage (only the Auke Bay fossil site).

Salmon Creek Reservoir generates 1/3 of the power to satisfy the remaining demand. Additionally, the Annex Ck hydro project covers a 10% of the total demand. Power is currently generated seasonally at the Gold Ck hydro project. Former sites include Sheep and Nugget Creeks, as well as the Treadwell Ditch. Offline fossil plants include Auke Bay, Lemon Ck, and Gold Creek. The Alaska-Juneau mine used to have a steam plant that shut down in the early 70s. Most of these were associated with the mining boom in the early 20th century, but weren’t shut down until Snettisham came online in 1973.

A power outage at Snettisham is not entirely unreasonable scenario. The 44-mile line running between the dam & Juneau crosses several avalanche paths, runs for over two miles under Taku Inlet, and through some extremely dense forest. However, construction was designed to give the plant a 100-year working life with an expandable capacity. Expansion has already been undertaken once in the early 90’s, tapping water from nearby Crater Lake through a tunnel to a new set of generators constructed adjacent to Snettisham. The dam was constructed in a watershed without a salmon run, but water from the dam supports a fish hatchery located at the same site.

It seems like our electric needs locally are well covered, and done in a fairly sustainable manner. Keep in mind that we have tons of highly productive salmon streams, and more water than you can shake a nalgene at. There is even talk (mostly heresay) of farming out electricity to y’all down south from us here on the panhandle (this is likely to be cost prohibative, so don’t get too riled up).

Gimme the juice, baby!

-P

ps, if you are interested in reading about the economics of power in AK, here is a fairly biased, but interesting article on the privatization of electric utility, as well as the reasoning behind federal support of that action.

pps, another interesting local tidbit: helicopters, having weight limits, are forced to charge for an extra seat much like the airlines when people of a larger girth go out of a tour. Many folks attempt to lie about their weight, a rather critical factor in how a heli is loaded, which has a significant impact on how a bird will fly. Thus, many lying, overweight tourists are forced to chose between stepping on a scale, or forfeiting their ride & $$$ all together. Harsh, huh?