Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
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...
Stirling engines to geographic terminology, it’s the GraniteGeek year in review!
I'm off for most of the next week. To celebrate the arbitrary measurement point for the planet's trip about the sun, and generate some easy content, let's remind ourselves of some of the wonderful things we've learned about via GraniteGeek this year. In no particular...
Latest sunrise, solstice, earliest sunset – it’s complicated
Several times in my career I have attempted to explain why the shortest day of the year (the winter solstice, which is tomorrow) has neither the latest sunrise nor the earliest sunset of the year. Judging from subsequent reader questions, I haven't had a ton of...
There are 652 solar installations in New Hampshire (claims software)
One of the issues with distributed energy, like solar panels, is that it's hard to count because it's - well, distributed. Even ISO-New England, the folks who run the six-state power grid and who have a great interest in knowing how many of these systems are affecting...
Desire for privacy removes urinals and shared showers from a new high school
Foster's Daily Democrat, the daily newspaper in Dover, has an interesting story (read it here) about something interesting in the brand-new Dover High School: It has no urinals in the boys' restrooms, and no shared showers - they're all individual, separated by...
Salmon may not be coming back, but herring sure are
Let’s face it: Salmon are never coming back to the Merrimack River. But don’t despair, you fans of fish with weird life cycles: Herring are doing so well that we might be seeing them in Concord again. Plus, shad aren’t doing too badly, either. And American eels, which...
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