Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
B is for Bruins! Or is it bitcoin?
The Facebook group Free State Bitcoin Consortium has a post today from somebody named Bill McGonigle that shows the Bruins logo accompanied by the comment "anybody else have a wrong first guess? (seen on a t-shirt yesterday)". It took me a minute to figure out what he...
N.E. cottontail rabbit won’t be on endangered list, thanks to restoration efforts
The Secretary of the Interior is in New Hampshire today, partly to announce that the New England cottontail won't be put on the endangered-species list because restoration efforts here and in other parts of New England have stemmed its population decline. The Globe...
NH library joins Tor, the anonymity network, and law enforcement isn’t happy
UPDATE: I have more details in today's story. In July the Kilton Library in West Lebanon, NH, became part of Tor, the anonymous network - indicative of how librarians have long been advocates for personal privacy. It was the first public library in the country to join...
Solar power, electric cars and grid-modernization to come
For no particular reason, my first few weeks at the Monitor have been dripping with electricity-related stories by various reporters. Today is no exception: You've got the opening of SolarCity's first office in the state as leases and PPAs get added to the residential...
I have the power to make it rain – bwa-ha-ha-ha!
There was a joke at The Telegraph that I could make it rain just by writing a story about how it is really dry. Today I have a story in the Concord Monitor about how it's been wicked dry, the first time I've written this journalistic trope for my new employer - and as...
Granitegeek On The Air: Blockchain
NH Public Radio has decided that "blockchain" is two words, judging from the transcript of my short talk today with ATC evening host Peter Biello - which you can see here. Unless you want to listen to our dulcet tones, which you can also do there. Peter edited out my...
“HVDC light” – doesn’t taste great, but maybe less filling
I was writing about DC vs. AC power this weekend, getting myself into a bit of a kerfuffle (see self-flagellation in previous post), as part of an examination of the technology that has led more of the proposed Northern Pass project to be buried. The high-voltage DC...
Tesla vs. Edison … vs. me (guess who loses?)
Several readers politely pointed out that I was an idiot in an article about the high-voltage DC power lines proposed for Northern Pass, switching the positions of Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison in the AC-DC wars when the electricity industry was first getting...
Electric cars shipped to Iceland via Maine (?!?)
An Associated Press story about the status of New England's ports (summary: Not so hot, but working hard to be an effective minor league for the big ports) ended with this intriguing success story: "From Portland (Maine), electric cars are shipped to Iceland, where...
Mechanized pickers replace migrants in Maine’s blueberry harvest
Maine's blueberry harvest attracted more than 5,000 migrant farmers 10 years ago and it's down to about 1,500 today, said David Yarborough, a University of Maine professor of horticulture. That quote comes from this AP story about increasing mechanization of blueberry...
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