Daffodil Lane: May 2007 Archives

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May 31, 2007

Zoo: Rare rhino death leaves only 13 worldwide

SAN DIEGO, California (AP) -- A rare northern white rhinoceros died Wednesday at the San Diego Zoo, dwindling the critically endangered species' population to as few as 13 worldwide, zoo officials said.

Nadi was one of three northern white rhinos at the zoo's Wild Animal Park. No cause of death was given, but the female rhino had shown signs of old age, the zoo said in a statement.

Nadi, believed to be more than 40 years old, was brought from Africa in 1972 and was part of a group maintained at the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic.

She and another female rhino named Nola came to the Wild Animal Park in San Diego in 1989 as part of an effort to breed the species.

How sad. 13 left world wide. It appears we will have another complete extinction soon. For all intensive purposes it's funtionally extinct now. Very sad indeed.

Via CNN.

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Everyday Beauty

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New Loch Ness Monster video

EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP) -- Like tartan, bagpipes, and shortbread Scotland's Loch Ness Monster is as much an emblem as a tourist draw.
And now Nessie's back.

An amateur scientist has captured what Loch Ness Monster watchers say is among the finest footage ever taken of the elusive mythical creature reputed to swim beneath the waters of Scotland's most mysterious lake.

"I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this jet black thing, about 45-feet (15 meters) long, moving fairly fast in the water," said Gordon Holmes, the 55-year-old a lab technician from Shipley, Yorkshire, who took the video this past Saturday.

He said it moved at about 6 mph (10 kph) and kept a fairly straight course.

"My initial thought is it could be a very big eel, they have serpent-like features and they may explain all the sightings in Loch Ness over the years."

Loch Ness is surrounded by myth and mystery, as it is the largest and deepest inland expanse of water in Britain. About 750 feet (230 meters) to the bottom, it's even deeper than the North Sea.

Nessie watcher and marine biologist Adrian Shine of the Loch Ness 2000 center in Drumnadrochit, on the shores of the lake, viewed the video and hopes to properly analyze it in the coming months.

"I see myself as a skeptical interpreter of what happens in the loch, but I do keep an open mind about these things and there is no doubt this is some of the best footage I have seen," Shine said.

He said the video is particularly useful because Holmes panned back to get the background shore into the shot. That means it was less likely to be a fake and provided geographical bearings allowing one to calculate how big the creature was and how fast it was traveling.

While many sightings can be attributed to a drop of the local whisky, legends of Scottish monsters date back to one of the founders of the Christian church in Scotland, St. Columba, who wrote of them in about 565 A.D.

More recently, there have been more than 4,000 purported Nessie sightings since she was first caught on camera by a surgeon on vacation in the 1930s.

Since then, the faithful have speculated whether it is a completely unknown species, a sturgeon -- even though they have not been native to Scotland's waters for many years -- or even a last surviving dinosaur.

Shine doubts that last explanation.

"There are a number of possible explanations to the sightings in the loch. It could be some biological creature, it could just be the waves of the loch or it could be some psychological phenomenon in as much as we see what we want to see," he said.

Unfortunately they don't have the actual video itself, but perhaps it will surface in the next few days/weeks. The whole Loch Ness aura is intriguing. No, I don't think it's a dinosaur, but it is possible that there may be some unknown and/or undocumented species lying in the depths. New species are found often.

Via CNN.

Update 6:02 PM: Now they have video!

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Which Wife of Henry VIIII Are You?

Which of Henry VIII's wives are you?
this quiz was made by Lori Fury

Via Count It All Joy.

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Lilly

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May 30, 2007

Tropical Tropical Storm Barbara Forms In The Pacific

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (Reuters) -- Tropical Storm Barbara formed Wednesday off Mexico and was expected to head toward the resort of Acapulco in the coming days.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida, said Barbara was stationary about 125 miles (200 kilometers) south of the port of Puerto Angel in the state of Oaxaca.

"Interests along the Pacific coast of southeastern Mexico and Guatemala should closely monitor the progress of Barbara," the center said.

Barbara is packing sustained winds of near 40 mph (65 kph) and should gain strength over the next four days, the hurricane center said.

Forecasters said the storm would move slightly farther away from the Mexican coast over the next two days and then turn 180 degrees and head for land.

By Monday, it was expected to be close to Acapulco, a popular vacation resort.

This season is getting off to an early start this year! This is the second tropical system to form in the Pacific and we've already had one in the Atlantic as well. Definitely something to keep an eye out for.

Find out more at the National Hurricane Center and over at CNN.

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Blue Moon over North America

May 30, 2007: At 9:04 pm Eastern Daylight Time on May 31st, the full moon over North America will turn blue.

Not really. But it will be the second full moon of May and, according to folklore, that makes it a Blue Moon.

A Blue Moon usually has nothing to do with the color of the moon itself, but generally refers to the fact that two full moons have fallen within the same calendar month. On rare occasions however the moon may appear blue from earth and that is also know as a Blue Moon. Confused yet? You've gotta love astronomy! ;o) So as you gaze up into the sky tomorrow night remember it's a blue moon!

Via NASA and hat tip to my dad for sending me the email. :o)

You can also read more about Blue Moons over at Wikipedia.

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Whales may have slipped into ocean before dawn

BERKELEY, California (AP) -- Two lost whales seen just before sunset nearing the ocean after a two-week sojourn through inland California waterways may have slipped back into the Pacific overnight.

Rescuers launched several boats in an effort to find the mother humpback and her calf Wednesday morning but have not spotted the whales, said Bernadette Fees, deputy director of the California Department of Fish and Game.

The pair were last seen Tuesday less than 10 miles from the Golden Gate bridge after they passed under another busy bridge and entered San Francisco Bay.

The whales passed under the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge on Tuesday afternoon, the last bridge along the pair's route before reaching the Golden Gate.

If the humpbacks were able navigate south around a Marin County peninsula and a nearby island, few obstacles were left on their route past Alcatraz to the Pacific Ocean.

Still, officials feared that the whales might continue south instead of west, passing under the Bay Bridge into the long southern half of the bay.

"There are lots of places they could get themselves into trouble before they go out of the Golden Gate," McInnis said.

Hopefully they slipped out into the Pacifc, instead of heading further south in the Bay. At some point they were also given doses of antibiotics, which should help with the infections they are dealing with. Time will tell whether they're in the ocean of further down the Bay.

Found via CNN.

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May 29, 2007

Finally Blooming

The orchid that bloomed ending up being the purple/yellow variety. It appears she will have four blooms. The blooms usually last for months at a time. I just love orchids!

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May 27, 2007

My First Crop Of Strawberries This Year

This is my first crop of strawberries this year! There are plenty more white or pink berries growing away too. I should have enough to make some jam, freeze some and enjoy them fresh as well!

Last years crop wasn't that good, but it was only their second year. Sometimes it takes a few years to get them going, but when they do strawberries galore! Yum! I feel some strawberry shortcake coming on! ;o)

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May 26, 2007

Goodnight Roses

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May 23, 2007

Crews bang pipes hoping to steer whales to sea

RIO VISTA, California (AP) -- Two wounded, lost whales circled near a Sacramento River bridge as boat crews banged metal pipes to try to herd them toward the open waters of the Pacific Ocean.

The whales, lost since more than a week ago, spent a second day Tuesday circling near the bridge about 70 miles from the Pacific. Both whales were apparently wounded during a run-in with a boat's propeller.

"The wounds appear to have worsened over time and their skin has changed from smooth and shiny to irregular and pitted," said Frances Guiland of the Marine Mammal Center.

Fresh water from the Sacramento River could hamper the whales' recovery, biologists said. Skin samples taken from the mother whale on Monday were sent to out-of-state labs to assess her general health and help identify her population stock.

Some crews in the more than two dozen boats blocking the humpbacks' path up the river tried herding the mother and her calf downstream by banging metal pipes beneath the water.

They hope to encourage the pair to return to salt water quickly, without upsetting the whales.

"Stressing even a healthy whale is not good. Stressing an injured whale is worse," said Brian Gorman, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Normally when marine animals exhibit this type of behavior it's because something is wrong, in this case they are wounded. The fresh water inhibits their natural healing process, while the salt water helps aide the process. Hopefully they'll move back out to sea soon.

Found via CNN.

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Yellow

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It's Almost Summer

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May 19, 2007

Small Parks Could Cool Big Cities

A little bit of greenery in urban areas can cool off the hotter and stickier summers that city residents face as a result of global warming, new research show.
An additional 10 percent more green space could reduce surface temperatures by 7 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a team of British scientists. Extra parks and green roofs could counteract the predicted rise in temperature until 2080 when summers are expected to be hotter and drier and winters wetter.

The notion of planting trees in England is a good idea to offset the heat bubble that forms around major metropolitan areas. But I found their concerns about their inability to deal with the larger amounts of water in the winters a bit, I don't know, overblown.

Although Ennos' models suggest green space will decrease temperatures, it will not be able to absorb the rainfall from the more frequent and 50 percent larger winter storms predicted to hit Manchester by 2080, he said. Left unabsorbed, the rainwater is expected to flow to city drains and travel to streams and rivers, ending up in the ocean.
"Unfortunately, increasing the amount of green space only has a limited effect in reducing run-off, and so flash flooding will become an increasing problem in our cities," Ennos said.

Floods could be prevented with more rainwater storage, he said, which might keep the city's green space irrigated during the droughts expected in summer months.

It seems like the logical solution is to start using permeable paving techniques in their cities to help with the absorption of water. I swear I've talked about this before, but I can find no record of it on the blog, I must have used another title or I wrote it up and never published it. Anyway, basically using this technique your able to create city surfaces that allow water to pass through them into the ground like they normally would on a natural surface. Then the cities could absorb massively increased amounts of water that they would get. Not only that, it would allow that water to make it's way into the ground water per the normal natural cycle. Anyway, you can make all sorts of different version of this, even make large parking lots with it. Most versions don't hold up to massive weights of semi's for example, but it works fine for regular cars and foot traffic. This also allows you to save money on construction because the water run off is a lot easier to manage because it's mostly being absorbed. By combining these two technology, I think they can mitigate all their problems at once. It's definitely the future.

May 18, 2007

Power Nap Device In Development

Do you have trouble getting a good night's sleep? University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are working on a gadget that can help you.
Dr. Giulio Tononi, professor of psychiatry at the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health is working on a device that uses transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to stimulate the slow brain waves characteristic of deep sleep.

TMS sends a harmless magnetic pulse through your skull to alter brain activity. In experiments, sleeping volunteers immediately began reproducing the slow, deep waves seen in Stage Three and Stage Four sleep.

I can't decide if this is just the coolest thing I've seen in a while, or if it's the scariest thing on Earth! There are few more sensitive areas of the human body than the brain, so randomly sending a magnetic pulse into it is sort of unnerving, but the effects are extremely impressive. I personally have spent weeks never getting past stage two sleep especially when I'm under a lot of stress. So the idea that I could force my brain into deeper more restful sleep is extremely interesting and with research showing that memory is dramatically effected by sleep it definitely would be something worth looking into.

Of course my first thought on reading is if you can switch the brain into different brain wave states with this technology, what's to keep you from setting up an Alpha wave state? I know people like me find it next to impossible to meditate, but if you could shock our brains into the right state, maybe we would be able to get back there at some future date. And don't say try Tai Chi, I still have post traumatic stress from trying to learn Tai Chi. My poor teachers were stunned, they'd never seen anyone made worse off by taking Tai Chi before. Unfortunately it appeared that it caused some sort of stress feedback loop for me. Amusingly the positions have never left my brain for some reason, I've shown them to Alexis and she seems to have a much greater grasp of the notion than I do, go figure, but she has the advantage of not yet being aware of the entire world.

Anyway, I think this technology could be really cool, it would be nice to push the mind into the proper state for whatever situation you needed it to be in.

Biomimicry designed windmill blades

A seemingly simple alteration a wind turbine blade's traditional shape could result in huge improvements in efficiency.
WhalePower Corporation out of Toronto, Canada has designed a turbine blade with rounded, teeth-like bumps along the leading edge. The company's name is a nod to the humpback whale, whose flipper was the inspiration for the design.

The agility of the humpback whale is astonishing, given that they can be over 50 feet long, weigh nearly 80,000 pounds, yet move quickly and tightly in the water. One of the animal's advantages, according to scientists, is the unique row of bumps or "tubercles" along the leading edge of their flippers that dramatically increase the whale's aerodynamic efficiency. Specifically, researchers found a 32 percent lower drag and 8 percent improvement in lift from a flipper with a serrated edge compared to a smooth one.

I'm baffled time and again by the power that exists in nature to solve so many of our issues that our technology seems to saddle us with. For all of our years of wind tunnel testing and computer aided design, the solution to our problems are sitting out in the ocean on the flipper of a humpback whale. Really makes you stop and think...What if we'd let them be hunted to extinction? Where would we be with this technology then? This technology works on any fin like structure, so it improves our hydro-electric dams, prop driven air planes, the freaking ceiling fans in your living room, the list goes on and on. Biomimicry gives us a starting point for our engineering that will allow us to revolutionize the way we build things. Nature has provided us a road map for how we should build things and if we have the good sense to follow it we all stand to benefit massively from the very biodiversity that we are destroying.

May 17, 2007

Gas prices shoot past Katrina-level records to new high

Not but two weeks ago, national gas price averages got to the $3 a gallon level, and the question was whether the summer gas peak had happened early or if we were looking at a record-high season for gas prices. Guess which one we can now confirm? If we take a look at the Energy Information Administration's gas price averages going back to 1983, it's clear that this week we're seeing the highest prices on record. Ever. Their average is $3.143 a gallon. The last time prices were close to that level was $3.117 back in September 2005 (right after Hurricane Katrina). The EIA creates their average using all grades of fuel. AAA's current average for regular-grade fuel is $3.103. So, how are we driving smarter now?

Ouch!!! We've definitely got to start taking some serious steps toward energy independence in this country. This is beyond ridiculous! Even if you don't believe in peak oil or anything like that, you have to admit paying $3.14 a gallon is killing the American economy. Every dollar spent on gas is not being spent on other things that Americans usually buy with their free cash. It's just going to have a draining effect on the economy. It definitely could lead to a long summer. If you haven't looked into buying a Hybrid folks, you should start looking now.

May 16, 2007

More Bee news because I'm in the mood

The honeybee's alarm signal may not only bring help, but also attract the small hive beetle. Now, an international team of researchers has found that small hive beetles can detect some alarm pheromones at levels below that detected by honeybees.
The beetles associate the alarm chemicals with a good food source and head for the hive. In Africa, where the small hive beetle is a minor honeybee pest, bees quickly isolate an invading beetle, but domesticated European honeybees are not as diligent in cleaning their hives. The beetles are also aided in their invasion by a yeast that naturally occurs on pollen and produces, as a fermentation product, the alarm chemical that draws the beetles.

"It is possible that bees are being habituated to a low level of alarm hormone," says James H. Tumlinson, the Ralph O. Mumma Professor of Entomology and director of the Penn State Center for Chemical Ecology.

While small hive beetles are common in Africa and pose little threat to African honeybee hives, it appears that domesticated European honeybees have a much harder time containing the beetles in their hives. European honeybees were bred to be docile and easy to work with, while African honeybees are noted for aggression and a propensity to sting. The beetles were first seen infesting U.S. beehives in Florida in the late 1990s.

The researchers don't think this is related to the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), but it's an interesting view into how changes we made in the industrialization of the bee process is negatively effecting their ability to defend themselves.

It's a pretty crazy idea, a yeast that actually triggers an alarm reaction in the bees continuously. It would make your hives very aggressive and that would make them very unproductive. If you didn't know what you were doing you might think your hive had fallen to killer bees, when the reality is that they are under attack by beetles. There are always dangers when you make something too docile, that it won't be able to defend itself on it's own. Sometimes you need to have a little mean in your life, just in case you need it some time down the road. Hopefully we have enough biodiversity left that we can breed back in the parts that we need and get around this problem as well as the CCD problem. A lot of food for thought.

Researchers to compile Earth's 'book of life'

It will be called the "Encyclopedia of Life." And it is, as they say in Boston, wicked cool.
Imagine a website where you can research, or just read about, every living thing on earth, from a microbe that lives next to an underwater volcano to a California redwood tree. A website where you can even add your knowledge of some life form or species.

Over the next 10 years, researchers vow to gather every scrap of information available about the planet's 1.8 million known species of animals, plants, and other organisms. And once the information is gathered, it will be available on the Internet entirely for free.

This project has been initiated by five top US universities and institutions of higher learning: Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.; The Field Museum in Chicago; the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.; the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.; and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Other scientific institutes, like The Natural History Museum and Royal Botanic Garden in England, will make their vast collections of historic records available through the encyclopedia.

Wicked cool is how I would phrase it! Access to this kind of information in one place in a well organized fashion is definitely a world changing affair. I went through some of the entries on the website, it's definitely going to extremely useful for students and unfortunately for people like me a never ending rabbit hole of following relationships between species and their environments.

Of course, the cynic in me is always snarky when someone says they are going to include "every" organism on the planet, because what just a bit ago, they discovered hundreds of new sea creatures in the Antarctic Sea. I'd like to see a wee bit more scientific restrain in the public statements, because by the time reporters get a hold of something like this it's going to be blow completely out of proportion in their rabid attempts to sensationalize it to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Actually it's probably best never to put out anything other than prepared statements and give no interviews at all.

Read more over at Christian Science Monitor and the Encyclopedia of Life.

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Trading on the mind market – buying and selling innovation

May 16, 2007 In many ways it's a dream come true – IdeaConnection is quite seriously offering a penny for your thoughts. The newly launched website is marketing itself as a trading ground for ideas; allowing users to post problems and handpick a team of thinkers varied in age, experience, location and field of expertise to work on the solution. Whether you're an armchair expert or battle hardened industry veteran, you can register to post a problem, propose your ideas, or place yourself in the site's directory, allowing future posters to call on you for assistance. With a price tag of at least US$1000 per problem, the service does not come cheaply – however, by concentrating such a large amount of intelligence and experience into a collaborative community, it is likely the benefits that emerge from the site will far outweigh the costs.

This is really a great idea and it honestly what has been missing from the Internet for quite a while. The free flow of ideas that the Internet allows is basically not being exploited to the level that it should be. It's brilliant to get people together and see what can occur.

Now the problem with it, IP. IP is intellectual property. It's the bane of my own personal existence. Basically companies apply ruthless IP agreements on their employees, which would kill this kind of process. My area of specialization is in computers, but anything I do with computers is technically subject to review and possible control of the company I work for (which is why I don't do any sort of thinking out of the box on that subject). What I'm afraid is going to happen to them is that they are going to have people violating those IP agreements working on projects on the side, trying to exploit some perceived gray area in their agreements and end up causing a catastrophe for the buyer of said ideas. If they do set it up properly to protect the buyer from the IP problem, then it's likely that they won't be able to put the industry experts on it. I don't know it just seems like a troubling issue that they don't exactly address up front. Otherwise, it's a great idea, I can't wait to see if it will work.

Read more over at Gizmag and IdeaConnection.

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Purdue professor on the "aluminum enabling hydrogen economy"

About a month ago, the Purdue Energy Center held a symposium on the challenges and technologies of the hydrogen economy. One of the presenters was Jerry Woodall, and his research continues to be mentioned this month because of the process he has developed that makes hydrogen "by adding water to an alloy of the metals aluminum and gallium," Purdue says. There is already a startup company (with the monstrosity of a name AlGalCo Inc.) operating at the Purdue Research Park to make generators that use Woodall's technology and it's possible that this technology could one day replace gasoline in vehicles.
There is a 26-minute online presentation of the gallium-aluminum technology available here.
Woodall says that the reaction of aluminum with water has the same energy content per unit weight of oil, about 20,000 BTUs or about 6 kWh per pound. And, since aluminum is safe and plentiful, it has high potential to create "aluminum enabling hydrogen economy".

All I can say is wow! The implications of this are quiet staggering. Two very abundant elements on the Earth and we can mix them together and get energy out equal to oil. I expect to read this kind of stuff on a conspiracy site, not from a major university. I've gone over the math, it's so simple that I can't see how it wouldn't work. The demonstration is particularly interesting. The time frames seemed a bit long, but it's pure science not an attempt at practical application. But the most amazing part of all, is that you can reverse the process and use the aluminum again. I've got to kick it around for a little bit to see if I can find some problem with it, that didn't come up in my first review of the technology. I'm not sure if it's the way to go with cars per say, but for generating electricity for your home it's definitely an interesting option. You could definitely get better energy storage with this method than we would normally have with a battery for example. Watch the presentation, it's extremely interesting, I hope the work continues to provide such exciting results.

Organic Bees Surviving Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)

I was actually surprised to read this headline. First because I assumed there was an organic movement in Bees since there is an organic movement for everything these days, I'd just never really come across it in any shape, form or fashion.

I guess I should back up with a bit of explanation, I got spoiled on desert honey as a child when I lived in Arizona, it's probably some the best honey on Earth. So when I moved back to the east coast, I haven't eaten much honey at all because, well no polite way to say it, it tastes funny. I don't the reasons why, I just know it's not as good as I remember from my childhood. Anyway, Dianne uses honey in a lot of her recipes, but her father is a bee keeper, so we get a pretty much unlimited supply of honey, so I don't have to buy it, so the details of it never cross my mind. There was a lot of information that you probably weren't interested in, that was required to support a single comment that is irrelevant to the topic at hand.

So the story at hand, for those of you that haven't been keeping up with bees over the last decade or so, there has been two major problems facing bee keepers. First being the killer bees taking over hives and turning them into dangerous tools. That problem was solved by closer monitoring of the hives and the placement of queen guards to keep the killer bees from being able to actually get into take over the hive. The second major problem has been the Varroa mites. Nasty little bugs that basically eat bees from the inside out. They infect the cells that the bee eggs are placed in and then swell up the bee's throat as they grow. A terrible way to die really.

Now if the organic bee keepers are saying they haven't been devastated by the CCD, which brings us to two different approaches to the previous problem. The Organic bee keepers evidently instead of depending on chemicals to bring the Varroa mites under control approached the problem by shrinking the size of the cells that hold the bee eggs. Now I know what you're thinking...How does that solve the problem? Well it appears that the size of bee is a function of the size of the cell that it's egg is placed in. So when you have a smaller bee, and therefore a smaller throat making the environment for them, Varroa mites are smaller making them less successful, and basically the problem disappears over time and attrition. Which is how bees have beat most of their competitors for years. It's an absolutely fascinating solution to the problem, if you want to read more about it I definitely recommend dropping by Bush Bees.

So it would appear that this deviation points to an interesting possibility that the commercial bee farmers may have taken a wrong turn with their chemical treatments for the bees and accidentally done serious damage to their bee population. I expect that the counter argument they will make is that there isn't a large enough cross section of organic bee farmers to get a comparable cross section of hive types, but that seems a bit suspect to me. This is definitely an avenue that needs to be explored. It may be that the commercial bee folks are going to have to stop some of their industrial bee keeping practices to help secure of food supply going forward. It appears that this is just another place where the quest for profits have gotten ahead of best practices for the nation as a whole.

5 Places To Eat in Maryland

I've been tagged by Alice for a food meme!

The rules:

1. Add a direct link to your post below the name of the person who tagged you. Include the city/state and country you’re in.

Nicole (Sydney, Australia)
velverse (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
LB (San Giovanni in Marignano, Italy)
Selba (Jakarta, Indonesia)
Olivia (London, England)
ML (Utah, USA)
Lotus (Toronto, Canada)
tanabata (Saitama, Japan)
Andi (Dallas [ish], Texas, United States)
Todd (Louisville, Kentucky, United States)
miss kendra (los angeles, california, u.s.a)
Jiggs Casey (Berkeley, CA, USA! USA! USA!)
Tits McGee (New England, USA)
Joe (NE Tennessee, USA)
10K Monkeys (Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA)

Daffodil Lane (Maryland, USA)

2. List out your top 5 favorite places to eat at your location.

1. Phillip's Seafood - With several locations throughout Maryland you can't go wrong with Phillips! They also have locations in Atlantic City, Philadelphia, DC and Myrtle Beach, SC, as well as several airport locations. I've been to the one in Annapolis and the buffet in the Inner Harbor of Baltimore. Both are delicious! If you live in Maryland (or the other places too!) or are visiting and have never tried them I HIGHLY recommend them!

2. Sarah & Desmond's Vegetarian Cafe - This place is located on Main Street in historic Ellicott City and is extremely charming (all of Main Street is actually!) and they have wonderful vegetarian sandwiches and such that are extremely scrumptious! A must stop if you're strolling the quaint shops of Main Street!

3. Bill Bateman's Bistro - The food at Bill's is wonderful! I've eaten in the Severna Park location and the one in Glen Burnie. Go early if you want to go to the one in Severna Park, especially if cigarette smoke bothers you (I'm allergic and am getting more so as I get older) because it has an open floor plan (both of the ones I have been to actually have that open feel, though the one in Glen Burnie seems to filter the issue better) and though smoking is only allowed in the bar it tends to drift. This doesn't seem to be as much of an issue at lunch time as it does at dinner. But regardless the food is great! Try their spinach artichoke dip and/or their shrimp wraps!

4. Sushi King of Columbia Maryland - If you like sushi then Sushi King is a good place to get your fix! They have a full service sushi menu that is delicious and always tastes crisp and fresh! Check them out!

5. Solana Pizza & Subs - When we used to live in Ellicott City we ordered from this place several time a month! The pizza is truly delicious, their salads are great and everything else is exceptional as well. Give them a try...They even deliver!

I'm not sure who to tag....Monica or Cheri maybe? Sonya are you up for telling us about some Nashville food joints or Darlene want to give it a spin for Athens on LTW? If you feel like jumping in, then please do! :o)

Thanks Alice...That was fun! :O)

Posted by Dianne at 8:54 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

May 15, 2007

Sake to Power Japanese Cars in the Future

Japanese motorists may one day pump their cars full of sake, if a pilot project to create sake fuel is a hit with locals in this mountain resort.
The government-funded project at Shinanomachi, 200 kilometres (124 miles) northwest of Tokyo, will produce cheap rice-origin ethanol brew with the help of local farmers who will donate farm waste such as rice hulls to be turned into ethanol.

"We want to present the next generation a preferable blue print -- a self-sustainable use of local fuels," said Yasuo Igarashi, a professor of applied microbiology at the University of Tokyo who heads the three year project.

If the project catches on with locals then it could pave the way for similar endeavours across Japan that will see Japanese cars running on Japanese-made biofuels in the future, he added.

On the surface nothing that is really news here. Using agricultural waste to make bio-fuels is a great idea. It gives framers a new use for their crops, while giving the rest of the country a chance to lower the production of green house gases. Your standard win-win scenario, so why am I talking about it? Well there is a comment lower down in the basics of the article.

But Japan has no flex-fuel vehicles even though Japanese car companies Honda Motor Co. Ltd. and Toyota Motor Corp. produce them for the market in Brazil. So the team imported a red Ford Focus from Britain for the project.

Bitter irony there isn't it? Some of the largest automotive producers on the planet and the Japanese don't even have the vehicles they need at home to test out the bio-fuel technologies that will help them advance. Which brings me to my point...One of the quickest ways to move the bio-fuels technology forward in America is to get the Japanese to test them in their markets, which are infinitely more advanced and diverse than our own. We've all been waiting for our flex-fuel hybrids and this is the quickest way to get it work. So we definitely need to help them get into the bio-fuels mindset, so that way they can help us out as we move to bio-fuels ourselves.

Of course it would be nice if they adopted algae as their bio-fuel choice, but this kind of stuff is a natural out growth as they turn their attention towards bio-fuels going forward. It's exciting to see them putting the first foot forward. In a handful of years I expect they will be surpassing US automakers in this category as well and where the Japanese automakers go, the rest of the world follows. So they may get the chance to save us once again.

Read more over at Treehugger and Pure Green Cars.

Posted by Jamison at 7:24 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

May 14, 2007

Rapid Prototyping moving more mainstream

The Desktop Factory 3D printer builds durable, functional models from the bottom up, one layer at a time. The Desktop Factory 3D printer has a build speed comparable to existing 3D printing technologies, and produces robust parts that are strong enough to be thrown across a conference room table!
Desktop Factory proprietary software imports STL files and other industry standard 3D printer formats, automatically slices and orients the part for optimal build performance and creates any required support structures.

The Desktop Factory 3D printer measures about 25 x 20 x 20 inches and weighs less than 90 lbs. The maximum build volume of the initial product will be 5 x 5 x 5 inches. The thickness of each layer is 0.010 inch.

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you are probably are already cringing as I jump on one of my most favorite hobby horses. There are few things on the planet that will bring out the engineer in me faster than advancements in rapid prototyping.

The 101 description for completeness sake, rapid prototyping allows you to build any part you need on-site rather than waiting for it to come from a factory. This is critical technology for space travel (another one of my favorite hobby horses) and it promises a new industrial revolution as the production of goods moves away from mass production to local production cutting down transportation costs, all while maintaining the quality standards that comes from mass production. And most importantly it allows mad scientists like myself to build out ideas on the spot, without having to spend a lot of time on the idea to prototype phase of a project.

This unit amusingly referred to as the "Desktop Factory" allows you to create small 5x5x5 inch models of anything you want. Now some people are immediately dismissive of such small pieces, but the reality is that a majority of the things you need fit into those dimensions. The flag on my mailbox needs some tweaking, no problem, I just build another one. This also allows you to get around the problem of a newer version coming out and you're unable to get the older models for your replacement. In this future you can just keep rebuilding the parts you want for the rest of time.

This particular version of the technology works only in plastic, but if you have a kid you know what that could be used for? Building toys. Want a new Barbie or GI Joe? Push the build button and wait. I was thinking about the miniature store in the mall, no more excess inventory waiting to be sold. Nope, just pictures on the wall and when you ask for it, they push the build button and you get your figurine built for you. Want some toy rings? Gag ear rings for an outfit? Novelty glasses for show? All these things are possible with the technology that they are offering in the next few months.

The price tag is a bit steep from my perspective $7000 is a bit hefty, no matter how cool the technology is. The folks at FAB@Home offer a unit for $3000, which is really steep as well, but the critical piece for me is that they are using an open source model, which definitely peeks my interest! Competition will likely drive down prices quickly and allow these kinds of innovations to move quicker into the public sphere, then this technology can move back into the places it originally came from and actually move those areas forward at an even greater pace.

Of course the most interesting applications come from the use of the metals instead of plastics to make the prototypes, because the metal parts have the strength that we use in manufacturing most of our day to day items. With this technology you could build screws and nails on site. Metal replacement parts could be build as needed. Need a copy of the key to your front door? Rapid prototype it. Need a new hinge? Rapid prototype that too. Need a washer for a thirty year old plumbing fixture? Rapid prototype it. The notion of inventory completely disappears from the home improvement field.

I know what you're thinking, Jamison that's just crazy talk...There is no way that's going to work. Just the other day there was the introduction of micro metal powder injection molding (micro-MIM), which uses this exact same technique that allows you to create extremely small metal structures out of metals that are human body safe. Translation: With this technology a doctor could build the metal replacement parts for your body instead of forcing the one size fits all tools that they use today. The applications are dramatic and profound. Mind you it would require the use of lasers instead of the standard heat lamp that's being used in the "Desktop Factory", but the point is that it's a different way of looking at the world. And at some point it will migrate into the "Desktop Factory" and we'll all have one in our house to build the parts we need, when we need them. It will lead to very exciting times and when inventors can build whatever they want to the specifications they need, you will see an entirely new era of innovation, the likes of which can't even be imagined today. It's a great time to be alive folks, let's roll it all out.

[via Treehugger]

Capturing methane from dams for energy production

Scientists in Brazil have claimed that a major source of greenhouse gas emissions could be curbed by capturing and burning methane given off by large hydro-electric dams.
The team at the country's National Space Research Institute (INPE) is developing prototype equipment designed to stop the greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere.

The technology will extract the methane from the water to supplement the energy produced by the dam turbines.

The scientists estimate that worldwide the technique could prevent emissions equivalent to more than the total annual burning of fossil fuels in the UK - and reduce the pressure to build new dams in sensitive areas such as the Amazon.

When people tell you they can remove an entire country's worth of CO2 emissions, you have to take notice. When they tell you that they can do it and increase the amount of green power you generate at the same time, it's just down right exciting!

For those of you that don't know, organic matter is swept down rivers as a natural course of things. When a dam is put up, that organic matter tends to settle in the water storage basin of the dam. The problem comes from the fact that organic matter decaying on the floor of a basin like that in the absence of oxygen forms methane, which gets released when the water rich with the methane is sent through the dam.

As we all recall Methane is an extremely bad green house gas, 23 times worse than CO2. So every methane source we kill is exponentially better for the environment, besides methane is usable as a fuel for power generation, so we really shouldn't be wasting it anyway, which is what this Brazilian project sets out to do. They want to take the methane off the floor of their riverbeds leading up to their dams and use it to generate extra electricity while decreasing green house gases.

I know what you're thinking...burning methane is going to make CO2, but it's CO2 that came from plants that breathed it in, so it closes the carbon loop. And actually the amount of time it takes for it to generate methane, it's probably CO2 from years ago, so it's even better. And when it offsets non-renewable energy as well, we all end up being winners.

It's a great innovation. It appears we will find ourselves once again looking overseas for technology to help us with our own green house gas problems in a few years. Too bad we couldn't be leading this kind of research.

[via Autobloggreen]

May 13, 2007

The Lake House

Excellent movie! If you haven't seen it, watch it! :O)

Posted by Dianne at 3:46 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Happy Mother's Day!

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Lithium batteries ready for the 3rd Gen. Prius

Are you waiting for the third generation Toyota Prius? Well, the biggest issue regarding the third iteration of Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive has been the lithium-ion batteries, and how soon those batteries could be available - not just for the third gen Prius, but for all of Toyota's hybrids.
Well, stop waiting.

Masatami Takimoto, executive vice president in charge of powertrain development, announced today that Toyota's lithium-ion battery, under development with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., was technically ready to be mounted on hybrid cars "any time".

This is some awesome news! For those of you that haven't been following along, Toyota has been dropping hints about what the 3rd Generation Prius is going to look for years now and one of the critical elements of it was the Lithium Ion batteries. These batteries have energy densities many times greater than the batteries in the current generation of Prius vehicles. This will allow them to boost the mileage possible from the mid 50's all the way up into the triple digits per gallon. The Lithium Ion batteries will make the Plug-in Hybrids a reality and basically allow Toyota to dominate the car market going forward.

I know what you're thinking...No way Jamison. Well taking into account the fact that Toyota's next generation Hybrid synergy drive has had its costs cut by more than half and now Toyota will be able to make them as profitably as they make their regular gasoline cars. Add in the recent discovery that Manganese nanocrystals could double capacity of LiIon batteries, you can start making projection out if Lithium Ion batteries almost triples the gas mileage of a hybrid, then doubling its capacity means six times the gas mileage? I'd be happy just get it up to 200 miles per gallon. Then of course you add in the new models of Hybrids that Toyota is planning to roll out over the next 3 years.

The Prius A will be Yaris-sized, the Prius B will be slightly larger than the current Prius, and the Prius C—said to be similar, yet roomier and taller than Toyota’s recent Hybrid X concept car (earlier post)—would be slightly smaller than the current Camry.
At the end of April, Toyota’s worldwide cumulative hybrid sales stood at 998,900. The company has set a sales goal of one million hybrids per year by 2010.

So we three varieties of unique hybrid cars on the market, all using the Lithium Ion batteries and cheap Hybrid Synergy Drives. Toyota decides that they are ready to move the mark again to a million Hybrids a year sold. I'm sure Detroit will be laying around talking about that they are going to be getting serious any day now about American energy independence. It's utterly disgraceful and what's worse is that Congress is passing legislation that encourages that kind of behavior as the rest of the world progresses quickly towards the energy independence goal without delay.

Read more over at Hybrid Car Blog and Green Car Congress.

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May 11, 2007

Greener Spaceflight?

When you see a title like this and you have to scratch your head. The space program has never been known for their eye toward green living. Then I read that it's about replacing Hydrogen with Methane. For those of you that don't know, Methane is a green house gas that's 23 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. So needless to say I was having trouble buying this argument on the surface. Then I looked at the critical thing you look at when dealing with rocket fuel, energy density. At 286 kJ/mol versus 802 kJ/mol, suddenly you have my attention. Add in the fact that methane is easier to store because it's boiling point is so much higher than hydrogen and this idea doesn't seem so crazy at all. 70.8 kg/m³ versus 464.54 kg/m³ tells you the storage story as well, liquid hydrogen just isn't good about being stored compactly. Then you look at -164 degrees Celsius versus -259 degrees Celsius and it really put it over the top. So let's compare, almost a hundred degrees warmer storage, 2.8 times the energy per mole of fuel, and nearly 6.6 times fuel storage per cubic meter. So why weren't we doing this from the beginning?

And that's where we get into a totally different set of discussions. Rocketry is about running a controlled explosion. It's actually a lot harder than it looks believe it or not. Hydrogen, for all it's issues, gives us quite a few advantages. First of all, we pump it through the nozzle of our rockets to keep them from melting down. Since it's so much colder, it can do stuff like that with few problems. The other big problem is the fact that isn't an auto igniting fuel, which is NASA's excuse, but the reality is that that only becomes an issue in space when you shut the engine off and try to turn it back on. It's good to think that way, because a standardized fuel would be great.

[via EcoGeek]

Read more over at NASA, Discovery, and XCOR.

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May 9, 2007

Finally done!

I finished my last paper yesterday evening. Now I just have to finish my last survey (Which is broken. I told them how to fix the code, but they haven't done it yet) and I can completely close the book on my first semester back at school. The next semester starts in a few weeks. I have to say, I was surprised at how quickly I adapted to the new school environment and at the same time, how quickly it annoyed me just like the old school environment.

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And She Has A Name: Subtropical Storm ANDREA!

000
WTNT31 KNHC 091443
TCPAT1
BULLETIN
SUBTROPICAL STORM ANDREA ADVISORY NUMBER 1
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL012007
1100 AM EDT WED MAY 09 2007

...EARLY-SEASON SUBTROPICAL STORM FORMS OFF THE SOUTHEAST U.S.
COAST...

SATELLITE IMAGERY AND AIRCRAFT DATA INDICATE THAT THE LOW PRESSURE
SYSTEM OFF THE SOUTHEAST U.S. COAST HAS ACQUIRED SUBTROPICAL
CHARACTERISTICS.

AT 11 AM EDT...1500 UTC...A TROPICAL STORM WATCH HAS BEEN ISSUED
ALONG THE SOUTHEAST COAST OF THE UNITED STATES FROM ALTAMAHA SOUND
GEORGIA SOUTHWARD TO FLAGLER BEACH FLORIDA. A TROPICAL STORM WATCH
MEANS THAT TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS ARE POSSIBLE WITHIN THE WATCH
AREA...GENERALLY WITHIN THE NEXT 36 HOURS.

FOR STORM INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOUR AREA...INCLUDING POSSIBLE
INLAND WATCHES AND WARNINGS...PLEASE MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED
BY YOUR LOCAL WEATHER OFFICE.

AT 1100 AM EDT...1500Z...THE CENTER OF SUBTROPICAL STORM ANDREA WAS
LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 30.8 NORTH...LONGITUDE 79.3 WEST OR ABOUT 140
MILES...225 KM...SOUTHEAST OF SAVANNAH GEORGIA AND ABOUT 150 MILES
...240 KM...NORTHEAST OF DAYTONA BEACH FLORIDA.

ANDREA IS MOVING GENERALLY TOWARD THE WEST NEAR 3 MPH. A CONTINUED
SLOW MOTION AND A GRADUAL TURN TOWARD THE SOUTHWEST ARE EXPECTED
DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS. ALONG THIS TRACK...THE CENTER OF ANDREA
IS EXPECTED TO REMAIN OFFSHORE OF THE U.S. COAST THROUGH AT LEAST
THURSDAY MORNING.

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 45 MPH...75 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER
GUSTS. LITTLE CHANGE IN STRENGTH IS FORECAST DURING THE NEXT 24
HOURS.

WINDS OF 40 MPH EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 115 MILES...185 KM...MAINLY TO
THE EAST OF THE CENTER.

THE LATEST MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE REPORTED BY AN AIR FORCE RESERVE
RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT WAS 1003 MB...29.62 INCHES.

SINCE THE HEAVIEST RAINS ASSOCIATED WITH ANDREA ARE EXPECTED TO
REMAIN OFFSHORE DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS... ANDREA IS NOT EXPECTED
TO PRODUCE SIGNIFICANT RAINFALL OVER ANY LAND AREAS THROUGH AT
LEAST THURSDAY MORNING.

REPEATING THE 1100 AM EDT POSITION...30.8 N...79.3 W. MOVEMENT
TOWARD...WEST NEAR 3 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...45 MPH.
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...1003 MB.

AN INTERMEDIATE ADVISORY WILL BE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL HURRICANE
CENTER AT 200 PM EDT FOLLOWED BY THE NEXT COMPLETE ADVISORY AT 500
PM EDT.

$$
FORECASTER KNABB

Get more info at the National Hurricane Center.

Posted by Dianne at 11:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 8, 2007

Atlantic SPECIAL TROPICAL DISTURBANCE STATEMENT

Well it's official now. The NHC has acknowledged what we are all seeing off the coast.

000 WONT41 KNHC 081346 DSAAT SPECIAL TROPICAL DISTURBANCE STATEMENT NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL 950 AM EDT TUE MAY 8 2007
A NON-TROPICAL LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM...CENTERED ABOUT 230 MILES EAST-SOUTHEAST OF THE GEORGIA AND SOUTH CAROLINA COASTS...HAS BEEN MOVING SLOWLY WESTWARD AT 5 TO 10 MPH. THIS SYSTEM IS PRODUCING GALE-FORCE WINDS AND HEAVY SURF ALONG THE COASTS OF NORTH CAROLINA...SOUTH CAROLINA...AND GEORGIA...WITH STRONGER WINDS OFFSHORE. ASSOCIATED SHOWER ACTIVITY HAS INCREASED SINCE YESTERDAY...BUT NO SIGNIFICANT STRENGTHENING OF THIS SYSTEM IS EXPECTED. THE LOW IS BEING MONITORED FOR SIGNS OF TROPICAL OR SUBTROPICAL CYCLONE DEVELOPMENT...AND AN AIR FORCE RESERVE RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT WILL BE AVAILABLE TO INVESTIGATE THE SYSTEM TOMORROW MORNING...IF NECESSARY.

INTERESTS ALONG THE COAST OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES SHOULD MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED BY LOCAL NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FORECAST OFFICES. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS SYSTEM CAN ALSO BE FOUND IN HIGH SEAS FORECASTS ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE...UNDER AWIPS HEADER NFDHSFAT1 AND WMO HEADER FZNT01 KWBC.

$$
FORECASTER KNABB

It's a good time I guess to start checking your hurricane response kits folks. Brian Woods over at The
Storm Track has some interesting historical pictures of other hurricanes such as Florence in 2000 that started in the same region of the Atlantic. I have a feeling that I'm going to get to spend a lot of time over at The Storm Track website this year unfortunately. I think the actual surface winds imagine is quite interesting, I don't know if this will actually become a tropical storm, but it sure is acting like one.

Read more over at NHC Hurricane Awareness week and NHC Advisory.

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May 7, 2007

Am I imagining this?

Is that really spiral storm system in the Atlantic in May? Can someone please explain to me how this is happening? Did I mention it was May?

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May 6, 2007

Survivors Recall Hindenburg 70 Years On

The German dirigible Hindenburg crashes to the ground, tail first, in flaming ruins after exploding on May 6, 1937, at the U.S. Naval Station in Lakehurst, N.J. Seventy years ago Sunday, May 6, 2007, the hydrogen-filled Hindenburg ignited while easing toward its mooring mast at the U.S. Navy base in Lakehurst. The blaze killed 35 people on board and one person in the ground crew; 62 passengers and crew members survived. (AP Photo/Murray Becker, file)

For most people this is their only impression of blimps or lighter than air ships. There are entire lists of reasons why the Hindenburg was doomed even before it started. Hydrogen had better lifting properties than the gas helium, add in an American restrictions on the sale of Helium to the Nazi's and you have recipe for disaster. There are many arguments over the source of the fire that consumed the Hindenburg, but the reality is that it really doesn't matter, this disaster was on film and shown around the world.

Posted by Jamison at 8:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 5, 2007

Twister kills 9, wipes out Kansas town

(CNN) -- A massive tornado killed at least nine people in southwestern Kansas on Friday night and destroyed nearly everything in its path.
"My town is gone," Greensburg, Kansas, City Administrator Steve Hewitt said after surveying the wreckage.

"I believe 95 percent of the homes are gone," Hewitt said. "Downtown buildings are gone, my home is gone, and we've got to find a way to make this work and get this town back on its feet."

By Saturday morning, the town was empty and structural engineers and the National Weather Service were assessing damage. Hundreds of residents were taken to shelters in schools and other facilities in nearby towns, the Red Cross said.

A town, completely gone! How utterly heartbreaking! If you've ever been through a tornado, it's something you'll never want to do again. Our hearts, thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Greensburg, Kansas.

Now would be a good time to donate a little money to the Red Cross if you can.

Found via CNN.

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May 4, 2007

2 KW Beer Battery Developed by Foster's

A couple of the breweries in my town do their best to use their waste. Beer brewing waste can make good compost, and I've been happy to see that going on right here in Missoula. But Australia's taking their commitment to green beer waste a bit more seriously. Foster's has teamed up with some scientists at the University of Queensland to convert it's brewery waste into electricity and clean water.
The beer battery works by feeding the waste sugar, starch and alcohol to microbes which, in turn, get excited and produce electricity. Are we getting the little guys drunk? Well, not exactly, but close enough. While the hundred thousand dollar, 2 kilowatt project isn't the most economically viable method of creating renewable energy. But project planners are quick to note that it's "primarily a waste water treatment that has the added benefit of creating electricity."

I've probably ranted about this a hundred times in other places, but this is a critical new way of thinking we need to start developing here in the US. We spend billions of dollars disposing of things that we could be using to generate some amount of electricity and yield us less negative by-products.The days of the energy monoculture of pretty much over. Everyone has to start doing their little part and start moving America toward energy independence.

Lunar Resonant Streetlamp

The fourth annual Next Generation® event, sponsored by Herman Miller, Maharam, The Mohawk Group, and Sherwin Williams occurred last night at the San Francisco Herman Miller Showroom. Partygoers celebrated the winner of the 2007 Next Generation® Prize—design group Civil Twilight.
Responding to the competition’s theme of “energy”, the San Francisco-based firm Civil Twilight — Anton Willis, Kate Lydon, and Christina Seely—were awarded $10,000 for their project, Lunar Resonant Street Lamps. This re-engineered light has an ultra sensitive photo-cell that responds to the brightness of the night sky, turning on and dimming as needed, cutting down both on unnecessary light pollution and energy consumption. The trio installed a prototype in the Herman Miller showroom and people at last night’s event could dim and brighten the lamp by waving their hands over the sensor. Learn more about the winning team and their project in the May issue of Metropolis.

If there is one waste of electricity that annoys me more than most it's street lamps. Mostly because there is one across the street from me and we had to get light blocking shades and curtains so I could get some sleep. I'm baffled why people feel the urge to light up the countryside when for all practical purposes the vast majority of the population is asleep in their beds. It's like some sort of primordial fear of the dark thing, just because you've got a giant night light every two feet, the monsters that don't exist aren't being warded away. I've heard the "public safety" argument and it doesn't make sense. Cars have lights so they don't need street lights to see. As for people, we need light to see, but if you know you're going out in the dark grab a flashlight! You don't need to be wasting my tax dollars lighting the world up, because you might be curious about what's going on outside. Besides if you can see something with that night light, it can see you. So the reality is that it cuts both ways on that front. If criminals can see as clear as day, it makes it easier for them to steal from you. If they have to bungle along with a light source, well then you can see them and they can't see you. So the reality is that there really isn't any need for them. But given that we evidently are a nation full of babies that need our night lights, saving 95% on the electric bill for them seems like the best choice to me.

[via EcoGeek]

May 3, 2007

Astronaut Wally Schirra dies at 84

(CNN) -- Wally Schirra, one of the original astronauts in the Mercury 7 project, died Thursday at age 84, NASA officials said.
Schirra died in California, the officials said. He was the fifth American in space and the third to orbit Earth.

He was the only astronaut who flew in three of the nation's pioneering space programs: Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.

NASA selected Schirra as one of the first group of astronauts, along with Gordon Cooper, Scott Carpenter, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom and Deke Slayton.

He flew on the fifth Project Mercury flight, orbiting the Earth six times on October 3, 1962, and was commander of the Gemini 6 flight, which launched December 15, 1965.

Schirra was commander of Apollo 7, the first manned flight of the Apollo spacecraft and the Saturn 1B rocket. He and crew mates Walter Cunningham and Donn Eisele successfully checked all the Apollo systems during the 11-day mission that launched October 11, 1968.

The Apollo 7 mission qualified the spacecraft for later moon missions. Schirra retired from the Navy and NASA in 1969.

Our thoughts go out to his family.

Found via CNN.

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May 2, 2007

Anne Arundel County Fails In Air Quality Report

Ozone Grade: F

Particle Pollution 24 Hour Grade: F

Particle Pollution Annual: F

Ah...Makes you just want to run out and breathe the "fresh" air doesn't it?!!?!?!

Found via Blog Arundel.

For more information visit the American Lung Association.

Posted by Dianne at 10:41 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

May 1, 2007

Tom Poston Dead at 85

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Tom Poston, the tall, pasty-faced comic who found fame and fortune playing a clueless everyman on such hit television shows as "Newhart" and "Mork and Mindy," has died. He was 85.
Poston, who was married to Suzanne Pleshette of "The Bob Newhart Show," died Monday night at home after a brief illness, a family representative, Tanner Gibson, said Tuesday. The nature of his illness was not disclosed.

I always liked Mr. Poston! Our thoughts go out to his family.

Found via CNN.

Posted by Dianne at 9:10 PM

Blue Sparks Launches as Discontent with Sessions Grows

An interesting website to say the least. The Alabama Senate race for 2008 has started to gain a lot of blogger attention over the last month or so. The rise of Ron Sparks as the logical successor to the failed tenure of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, III has started circulating around the country and in Alabama itself. It was only a matter of time before an unofficial blog popped up.

For those of you who don't know Ron Sparks is the Agriculture Commissioner of Alabama. He's term limited, but extremely popular for a Democrat in a blood red state like Alabama. (In the last election he won 59-41). He has the one skill that seems beyond the realm for your average Republican candidate for office, competence.

What's been amazing is that Commissioner Sparks has seen the potential of giving Alabamians real representation in Congress and being the dedicated public servant that he is, he sees the damage being done by Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, III. Despite the commonly held belief by Republicans that they own the Red States, the reality is that if they want real representation of their interests they are going to have to send Democrats to represent them.

[via Sack Sessions]