Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Big banks trade credit swaps via blockchain. Be scared, human traders.
Quartz reports: Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan, and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) successfully traded credit default swaps on the blockchain, according to an announcement today. The blockchain swap demonstrates...
Boston-based bitcoin startup gets financial license in London
The New York Times reports (story is here) that Circle, a Boston-based startup, has gotten a big breakthrough in Britain: Financial Conduct Authority, Britain’s top financial regulator, has granted an electronic money license to Circle, a company based in Boston that...
Solar power perpetual motion
Concord is doing work on Main Street, so they've set up detours, which include freestanding lights like the one shown above, powered in part by solar panels. This made me wonder: Do panels generate electricity from this artificial light, or are they tuned only for...
Cougars in Nova Scotia? After 10 years of hunting, scientists say no
There are no wild mountain lions living in New Hampshire. Yes, you're heard that they're lurking in our woods, and maybe you've got a hunter friend who has a hunter friend who swears he's seen one. But we've been looking for years, and the lack of footprints/scat/hair...
A question to ponder from Science Cafe: Do self-driving cars run over squirrels?
Another full house at last night's Science Cafe Concord, with at least 60 people crowding in The Draft Sports Bar to discuss self-driving cars. As moderator, walking around handing a microphone to people in the audience asking questions, I can't take notes, but here...
Tonight at Science Cafe Concord: Self-driving cars
The world may not have the flying cars people expected when The Jetsons was our vision of the future, but we’re awfully close to a technology that in many ways seems more difficult to achieve: the self-driving car. If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area, in fact,...
The three-intertwined-gears graphics error strikes again!
Three interconnected gears can't move, but three interconnected gears look cool, which is why graphics designers love to use them as a symbol for engineering - much to the frustration of engineers. I see it all the time - most recently in the above graphic, Tweeted...
How about a summer camp that goes back a couple millennia
If you could go back in time, would you go back 2,000 years or 200? That’s a trick question: you can’t go back in time. Alas! But you can come close by participating in the state’s annual archaeological field schools, helping excavations at a Native American site in...
Living off the grid gets tougher when you get old
Really interesting story in the Portland Press-Herald about some hippy types who went off the grid decades ago, and are finding the lifestyle harder to maintain as they hit their 70s. (The whole piece is here) Forget harvesting wood, even loading the wood stove...
Recent patents in New Hampshire
By Targeted News Service Recent patents issued to people or companies in New Hampshire include: Allegro Microsystems, Worcester, Massachusetts, has been assigned a patent (9,291,876) developed by two co-inventors for a "system and method for controlling a motor." The...
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