Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Ballot selfies are legal but their low-tech equivalent is still forbidden
New Hampshire election officials' opposition to people being allowed to make "ballot selfies" - taking photos of their completed ballot and posting them online - is rooted in a long-standing desire to keep our voting habits secret. Here's how I described it in 2016:...
Local colleges adding e-sports
The newest high-profile hire at New England College is carefully polite when asked whether his expertise, online gaming, faces any kind of generational divide. “There are always going to be critics – ‘Is this beneficial?’ ” asked Tyrelle Appleton, the 25-year-old MBA...
How dry I was, how wet I am – my 2018 ‘water year’
As I have mentioned several times in this blog, I take daily measurements of precipitation at my house as part of the citizen-science group CoCoRaHS (Community Collaborative Rain Hail Snow network). Every October it gathers yearly data for all the observers (more than...
There’s celebration of the state tree at our airport, but (oops), wrong tree
I’ll admit: They look like white birch trees to me, too.
Ranked-choice voting may decide Congressional seat in Maine
Tuesday's election in Maine was the first time that ranked-choice voting has ever been used in a statewide election in the U.S., and right now it looks like it will be needed: As of Thursday morning (Nov. 8) the race in the 2nd Congressional District is too close to...
UNH study looks at turning self-driving cars into mobile offices
From UNH News Service: As cars become more automated, could commutes become productive office hours? That’s the question University of New Hampshire researcher Andrew Kun and colleagues from four other institutions will explore with a $2 million grant from the...
Just what New Hampshire needs: A new species of tick
From N.H. Dept. of Agriculture: A particularly observant New Hampshire resident recently noticed a tick on a dog visiting New Hampshire from an area in New York where the Asian longhorned tick has been found in the environment. That tick and others were submitted for...
Saving a butterfly or two amid the military aircraft
What do frosted elfin butterflies have in common with Blackhawk helicopters? Both can hover in place, maneuver erratically in flight, and are secured behind locked doors by the New Hampshire Army National Guard. That's the lead of a story about the ongoing efforts on...
The ‘baby bust’ is a disaster. It’s also our only hope.
New Hampshire Employment Security release a report recently highlighting the state's slow rate of population growth and how this is flummoxing economic systems that were created around the assumption that the number of customers and prospective employees will always...
California voters reject the tyranny of daylight saving clock changes
I stole that headline from this story on Vox, which notes that the referendum vote isn't all that significant: "The proposal simply grants the California State Legislature the power to vote to change the clocks permanently. Any changes would need to start with a...
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