Andrew Potter

my take on high energy costs

2008-07-02T23:53:33Z

I wish Americans would stop thinking one magic solution will solve everything.

today we import 65 percent of our oil. And while we are mostly self sufficient for power (electricity) producing fuel, that is at risk as we continue to import greater amounts of liquid natural gas because virtually all new power plants built in the last 10 years are natural gas.

so. what solution do we do?

Answer: all of them...now.. in a big way.

1) develop more oil... shale oil, bio oil from saltwater algae, smart ethanol coal oil (fischer tropsch) , arctic, offshore, tar sand, and old well re-openings . .
2) develop power production of all types. nukes, clean coal, solar, wind, geothermal, tidal... Along with this develop efficient large scale energy storage systems.
3) demand destruction through enforced efficiency across the board.

each of these options *might* offset 20 to 30 percent of our energy import needs over in 15 to 20 years. even then, as populations climb, we are likely to remain shorthanded.

Until then, our dollar is becoming worthless as we flood the world (and a lot of the world who hate us) with trillions upon trillions of our hard earned cash.

Brrrrrr

2008-06-18T13:30:37Z

http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KNYHONEO1&month=6&day=18&year=2008

I'm sure everyone has seen this.

2008-04-29T14:40:20Z

but it is so awesome, I have to post it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM

Another sighting of my late father found on the web.

2008-02-19T13:39:27Z

http://www2.aya.yale.edu/classes/yc1952/whiffs(cc).html

In addition to being a terrific artist and beloved high school art teacher at Taft, he was an accomplished singer and member of the Yale Wiffenpoofs.

semi work related quiz

2008-02-18T13:27:09Z

Since I now work for them, I feel the need to offer this irrelevant quiz.

If AT&T were a directive, what would it do? Where?

One way to end your career

2008-01-30T20:09:10Z

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=511220&in_page_id=1770&ct=5

phone number creep

2008-01-28T15:48:16Z

As of today I think I have 9 phone numbers and counting.

-

Home (Frontier)

Brandreth (Frontier)

Cell (Verizon - currently forwarding to new work loaner blackberry cell phone)

new work blackberry (ATT/Cingular)

Home office forwarder (goes to my real home office and then on no answer to corporate voicemail - IBM accessline)

real home office (Time warner digital phone w/unlimited US calling)

Mobility office line when I go into the IBM site. (corporate PBX)

GM Onstar phone in my new truck (Verizon)

Skype (Used for personal overseas long distance)

It's getting out of control.

If you live in the Northwest , here is a cool space event at 5:40 to 6 pm on Dec 23rd

2007-12-21T14:30:14Z

Go out and look to the eastern sky right after sunset and watch Mars get occulted by the full moon. You will need Binoculars to see the actual transition in the glare of the bright moon.

From Space.com:

"In the occultation zone

"If you live anywhere north of a line that will run southwest to northeast from near Newport, Oregon to Eastport, Idaho, and continuing on up toward western Hudson Bay, you will see the moon cross in front of Mars and temporarily eclipse it.

"This includes the northwestern part of Oregon, much of Washington state (except the southeast) and a small sliver of northernmost Idaho. Also within the viewing zone is a large part of western Canada, as well as the entire state of Alaska. Some notable cities are within the zone, including Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, Edmonton and Anchorage. From Portland, for instance, Mars will be hidden from 5:46 to 5:50 p.m. PST.

"The glare from the brilliant moon will make the disappearance and reappearance all but impossible to see with the naked-eye alone; binoculars or better yet, a telescope should be used as Mars gradually closes in on the moon and later moves away from it.

"A map of the visibility zone along with a schedule for dozens of cities in North America, as well as Europe and Asia (where Mars will be occulted during the predawn hours of Dec. 24) can be accessed at: http://www.lunar-occultations.com/iota/planets/1224mars.htm

Great. Now my car is spaming me.

2007-09-21T16:10:10Z

http://www.onstar.com/us_english/jsp/services/video.jsp?videoVar=ovd

Brandreth trip analysis

2007-08-26T23:37:06Z

I'm back after another quick weekend at in the Adirondacks. For 4 weekends in a row (every one in august), I've been going to Brandreth and have decided to analyze my route. At issue is the traditional rt 12 to 28 through Forrestport, Old Forge, Inlet, Raquette lake village and Blue Mtn Lake. That leg from the rt 12/rt365 intersection in Barnveld to the 28/30/28n intersection in Blue Blue Mountain Lake is exactly 70.4 miles

Alternatively, one can take 365 past rt 12, past Hinkley Reservoir to rt 8, cross the wild and remote West Canada wilderness past Piseco Lake (convenient airstrip here when I convince my brother to pick me up....make the trip 3.5 hours), past Lake Pleasent, to rt 30 Speculator, then one takes rt 30 north to Indian Lake and to the above mentioned 28/30/28n intersection in Blue Mtn Lake. That distance is 80.2 miles. 9.8 miles longer

Timewise, on busy summer weekends the Indian Lake route wins by about 15 to 20 minutes because there is FAR less traffic and the road has many more Winnebago blasting passing zones. There are far less cops working that remote highway as well. Also Old Forge can be a walking pace disaster when Enchanted Forrest is closing on a hot day.

Next week I'm up for a glorious week of vacation in New Hampshire and Brandreth. Tom F is coming with a bunch of Aussie friends of his to relax and chill in early autumn wonderfulness.

Can't wait.

A new word

2007-07-25T14:37:21Z

Celeblatrash

Pulitzer winning NY Times reporter spied on by CIA by the direct orders of US President!!!

2007-07-02T13:17:52Z

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/weekinreview/01word.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

When: 1962
NYT Reporter: Hanson W Baldwin (My maternal grandfather) - "Balda" to me.
President: John F Kennedy
Spy Agency: CIA

Spooky recording. JFK's inner circle talking about the CIA spying on Balda.

recently released CIA transcripts and recording:

http://tapes.millercenter.virginia.edu/clips/jfk_1_3/sample02.swf

One of the scariest players in these transcripts is Clark Clifford who can be best described as JFK's version of Carl Rove.

2 minute hot ham & cheese

2007-06-25T16:05:59Z

'Bout to run to the airport.

Take some thin sliced deli ham. Spread it out on a plate slightly crumpled. Cover it wiith a slice of your favorite cheese. Nuke in a microwave until nice melted and hot. Concurrently toast a sandwich roll.

Assemble with lettuce, tomato, condiments. salt, pepper.

2 minutes. Yum.

Cya

Interesting observation

2007-06-25T14:21:36Z

http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp?wp_ml=0

I still think we need a change bigtime. Draft Bloomberg anyone?

My scorecard so far:

2007-06-25T03:34:56Z

Been here:

create your own visited countries map

and in the US:

create your own personalized map of the USA

Its official.

2007-06-22T16:04:28Z

Study says I'm dumb!

school systems in america.

2007-06-11T15:25:58Z

I'm thinking we are loosing.

The other day prior to my CSH stargazing bbq at my house, I went by Tops to pick up some food. At the deli, I got some cheese and Mac salad.

Mac Salid was priced per pound. However I asked for a quart container.

This totally flustered the clean cut high school kid working the deli. First he gets a pint container and starts filling it. I stop the process and say no. I want a quart. He then fills a tiny 4 oz container. At that point, I ask him to show me all the containers he has. He pulls out a 4 oz lunch size, a 8 oz cup size, a 16 oz pint size and a 32 oz quart. I point to the quart and say "fill that one".

The kid did not seem "special", however it was clear he had no concept of simple measures. God forbid if I had asked for for a a kilogram of Mac Salad.

At this rate, the Chinese and Indians are going to crush us.

PS. Stargazing was awesome. good times were had by all.

facebook readers note.

2007-05-31T19:24:45Z

My blog is RSS imported from my LJ. Only public postings get imported - so if you want to see my friends only postings, log in to LJ and look at it there. If you don't have an livejournal account, ping me and I can have the system send you an invite where you can then add me as a friend.

yesterday

2007-05-14T19:05:54Z

A long day where a bunch of CSHers:

1) Ate lots of food.
2) Built a dunking contraption for a CSH Freshman who's birthday it was. A bunch of us enjoyed and went for the ride
3) Witnessed engineering trials of new home made model rocket motors - 2nd one was as attached bottle rocket style to one of my reflector stakes and launched a country mile landing in my pond.
4) Figured out new ways to contain Liguid Nitrogen. (Bury it in my garden under dirt and park my lawn roller over it
5) Eat 2.5 Gallons of Liquid Nitrogen Icecream on top of home made brownies
6) Watch Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Mans Chest while waiting for the sun to set for scoping
7) enjoyed some awesome scoping (although bummer - my new eyepieces have not arrived yet)

Cisco wireless controllers

2007-05-08T17:31:00Z

The bootloaders on these things have been weak links for some time. It looks like version 4.1.171.0 of the code still has issues:

CSCsd52483— When you make changes in the bootloader of a 2006 controller or a Controller Network Module, the bootup process may halt, and the controller may stop responding. The controller also displays the “grub>” prompt on the console port.

Workaround: Replace the controller.

Hmmm. looks like we are seeing a little bit of what is under the hood in these things :)

Why the French work model is doomed to die

2007-05-07T22:33:45Z

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Can_Sarko_bring_in_French_revolution/articleshow/2014795.cms

I just bought

2007-05-07T20:29:38Z

This and This

This should significantly improve my high magnification viewing with my big telescope.

Fun math puzzles -

2007-05-03T20:22:39Z

http://www.research.ibm.com/ponder/

Well. for me maybe not so fun although the May puzzle is easily solvable via google (Agreed.. cheating)

Sony Vs Nitendo

2007-04-27T16:50:35Z

Intereresting article on the PS3 vs WII

An older article here.

Lession that Nintendo got right: Stop thinking like the customer you have and start thinking like the customer you don't have.

Basement aftermath

2007-04-27T15:17:57Z

My basement sump pump failure is now behind me. Fortunately the deeper flooding in the basement only drenched some card board boxes containing old clothing that I had in storage. The decision I have been wavering over to keep or toss has now been made; Definitely toss.

Used a cleanup pump to drain the sump down to a working level. (took 5 hours - a lot of water), then I replaced the sump pump with a 200 dollar new one. bummer - even bigger pain was the need to re-seal my Radon gas shield system arround the sump well - It's sort of sealed - need some silicon sealer to finish the job.

After drying out the extension cord that shorted out my satellite switch and getting the plug off the floor, my sat tv service was back in order. Fortunately the switch (and my network location) are all mounted on wall shelves 4 feet off the floor.

So right now I've got the dehumidifer going full blast down there with fans running to dry things out.