Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Concord (finally) has a makerspace
When I came to the Concord Monitor almost five years ago I was surprised that the city didn't have a makerspace. I'd gotten spoiled in Nashua, home of the state's first and biggest space, MakeIt Labs. Well, now Concord has one - more oriented to artsy folks but...
Manufactured-timber building coming to Boston sounds almost too good to be true
Check this out, a description of a new apartment building coming to Roxbury in south Boston: Named Model-C, the 5-story, 19,000-square-foot building will contain 14 residential units above an affordable co-working space on its ground floor.Model-C will be assembled...
Why do some deciduous trees hold onto their leaves all winter?
The warm winter (ugh) means some trees are getting ready to start budding, at least a month early. Sugar shacks are definitely worried, since when maple trees start budding the chemistry of the sap changes and you can't make good syrup. Anyway, I thought I'd use this...
Shrews (yes, shrews) help each other so why shouldn’t lunar robots do the same
From Dartmouth news service: For the second consecutive year, a team of Dartmouth engineering students has been named a finalist in NASA's Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge. For this year's competition, NASA sought innovative ideas...
Spielberg TV show is helping N.H. science-fiction magazine
The publisher of a New Hampshire science-fiction magazine is rooting for the success of a show on Apple’s new streaming-video service, and for admittedly selfish reasons. “We’re primarily hoping for a renewal so we can continue to collect fees and support the...
What solar is doing to the New England grid, in two charts
Most solar power in New England is, like the PV panels on my roof, "behind the meter". That means the production is not visible to ISO-NE, the folks who run our six-state power grid, unlike every-five-minute electricity production from Seabrook Station or gas-fired...
The most amazing cloud I’ve ever seen
The non-profit Mount Washington Observatory posted this photo online today, and meteorologists are freaking out. Look at that cloud - just LOOK at it! Their explanation: " A KH-lenticular, or Kelvin-Helmholtz wave cloud was spotted around 7 AM. These form when a large...
Can there be a mathematics of altruism?
Dartmouth news has an interesting piece about a mathematics professor, Feng Fu, who is trying to develop a mathematics of altruism: "how to promote cooperation in the most general sense, using very theoretical mathematical models to look at how to prompt people to be...
Telecom firms sue Maine, say they have a right to sell our data
In a follow-up to my post yesterday about proposed laws in New Hampshire keeping firms from selling our cell-phone location data without our permission, comes news from Maine that they don't think that's a good idea. From the Portland Press-Herald story: Four national...
Cell phone, smart speaker, networked doorbell — Soviet spies must be so jealous
One of the painful ironies of today’s world – which seems to stab us with a new painful irony every week or two – is the way we have flipped George Orwell’s Big Brother on its head. The problem isn’t Them secretly watching Us, as “1984” predicted. The problem is Us...
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