Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
That cool gasholder building in Concord is in big trouble
In 2016 I got to tour inside the iconic gasholder building in Concord, a handsome circular brick structure that once held gas made from coal that was used for lighting and heat in the city, in the days before natural gas pipelines showed up here. (Here's that story,...
If you’re savvy about teletypes (yes, teletypes) the Aviation Museum of N.H. wants you
ne of the mysteries of life for those of us who have achieved a certain age is why airplanes aren’t exciting any more. “This was like Silicon Valley, it was the hot technology,” is how Jeff Rapsis, the new executive director of the Aviation Museum of New Hampshire,...
Global hackathon for games coming to Concord again
From NHTI, the community college in Concord: The weekend of January 25-27, 2019, teams of programmers, artists and musicians will gather at NHTI to take part in Global Game Jam (GGJ), a worldwide game development event. Held simultaneously at over 800 hundred sites...
Composting at scale is hard
Everybody agrees that composting food waste is a no-brainer - it creates useful soil-enhancing product and doesn't take up landfill space. But actually collecting all the little bits of food that are discarded from kitchens and cafeterias all over the place, not to...
Renewables boom hurts Vt. utility that bet big on renewables
Vermont Public Radio reported on a counter-intuitive situation in that state which reflects how complicated energy markets are: (The whole story is here) Washington Electric Co-op, a small member-owned utility based in East Montpelier, Vermont, sells energy credits...
Remembering a Nashua computer show from 3 years before DOS 1.0
I received a few geek-nostalgia comments in response to the news about the historical marker for the invention of BASIC. Here's a good one, from David Stamps: Your article on the signpost commemorating the history of BASIC reminding me of another probably unsung story...
If families are getting smaller, why aren’t sibling births declining?
While those of us who still use checkbooks get used to writing “2019,” here are some insights regarding births in New Hampshire, and Concord, in recent years. Sibling births are not declining Large families have largely disappeared from the landscape and the...
New Hampshire wants us to play spot the turkey online
The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department is asking the public to report sightings of wild turkeys online at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/winter_flock_2019 starting January 1 and running through March 31. (Please do not report multiple sightings of the same flock!)...
What’s the next geeky historical marker we should aim for?
The upcoming year may or may not turn out to be a good one but one thing is certain: It will see an uptick in New Hampshire’s geek status. How do I know? Because my quest to publicly acknowledge the Granite State as the birthplace of the BASIC computer language has...
New Hampshire towns might start making their own broadband
In geekdom there are certain phrases which carry a magical aura. “Municipal broadband” is one of them. The idea of a community banding together to spread high-speed internet brings warm and fuzzy feelings to many a techie, especially those with gray hair and fading...
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