Our Energy Consumption Trends

Dear Housemates ***,

I finally put together a few charts showing how our energy consumption has changed over the past couple of years. I hope you find it instructive.

Electric


So first note that the left side of the chart is present, and the right side of the chart is 2006, so time is moving backwards, which is kinda mind blowing. The blue line represents the daily mean energy consumption (KWh/day) and the pink line represents our monthly electric bill. The black trendline is on our daily energy consumption. There are a couple of key findings:

1. Our energy consumption is highest in summer and winter, and low in the spring and lowest in fall.


2. We have been using less and less electricity over time, to the tune of -0.1 KWh/day, which is great. Let's keep it up.


3. Our summer energy consumption this year, compared to previous years was similar. This suggests that the impact of replacing the dehumidifier with an air conditioner was minimal.

Natural Gas


Here the blue is our energy consumption by month (not adjusted per days in the month) and the pink is our monthly bill. There is no trendline, but you can see a few clear things.

1. There is a really clear annual signal, with use maximizing in the winter and minimizing in the summer


2. We used less gas in 2007 than in 2006


3. We used a lot more gas in spring and summer 2008, than in spring summer 2007. This was not reflected in the energy bills because the cost per unit gas went down. Are we using more hot water?


4. So far, we are down this winter from last winter!

Anyway that's my analysis. All our energy conservation is paying off, even if the bills aren't coming down as fast...

Waging a War on Christmas

A video even Sheyl would enjoy!

http://www.wagewaronchristmas.com/

The Periodic Table of Awesoments

Check out the rest of the Periodic Table of Awesoments at dapperstache.com

Cutest Dinosaur Ever

From the movie Meet the Robinsons, which I will now have to find and watch.

Eye of Sauron?

Nah, it's just the Retina Nebula as seen by the Hubble telescope.

Check out more spectacular Hubble Telescope images in the Hubble Advent Calendar, a new image is posted every day leading up to Xmas.

not that we have this problem...

i like to think that we just start throwing things at each other instead - just erase the "passive-" part of the "aggression" and add "snide comments and fist fights" :)

Is there a word like Engrish that means bad Chinese used by English speakers?

The Max Planck Institute's journal certainly learned the hard way that you have to be careful when using your non-native language. They'll certainly think twice about using Chinese "classical poetry" on the cover of their journal any time in the near future.

Check out this article on how the Max Planck Institute accidentally put a brothel ad on the cover of the latest journal issue.

Water Conservation

Discover Magazine has an interesting article entitled "Everything You Know About Water Conservation is Wrong"

Party Like It's 1933

Happy 75th anniversary of the end of Prohibition!



"The great beneficiary of the age was gin and, by extension,
the cocktail. Neutral grain spirit needs no ageing, and is thus easier to produce. But, with water and dosed with juniper flavouring, it provided a tolerable substitute for real gin. Gin also mixes well. Thus an explosion of cocktails, of exotic colours and ingredients to mask the fiery raw taste of the illegally produced spirit. Never has necessity been a more prolific mother of invention."

what's that i smell, a birthday girl?

well, i don't smell it either (neither Ruth nor the cake!), but perhaps if Ruth were here, we all would. happy birthday in Guam!!

Hafa adai from Guam!

Well, I survived the long trip here, and have done a little bit of exploring. It's quite beautiful! So far, no sign of my equipment, but hopefully Matt, the WHOI researcher I'm collaborating with, will find it when he arrives tomorrow.

I'm in Guam, woohoo!

First Puppy

In some light news...

"US President-elect Barack Obama is still working on the make-up of his cabinet. A far more important decision - for his daughters at least - will be choosing the puppy that accompanies the new First Family to the White House."

I'm very pleased by the the idea of them getting a rescue dog.

"Michelle Obama has been quoted as saying she would like a rescue dog - which would certainly be a story of canine rags to riches."

Slightly less enthused about it being a designer goldendoodle. But at least it's for allergy reasons.



and they are pretty cute

Before she falls off the face of the Earth

Enjoy listening to evil Palin get pranked by a radio station in Montreal pretending to be Nicholas Sarkozy HERE.

Wait, you mean there are more elections going on than just the Presidential one!? (bumped)

That's right, folks. There is more to this election season than just the race to be the Commander in Chief. For us here on Beacon Hill, here are the main local races:

**US House of Representatives: 1st district
Tim Bishop (D- incumbent)
vs.
Lee Zeldin (R)
(newsday article)
(votesmart.org)

**State Senate: 2nd district
John Flanagan (R- incumbent) (website)
vs.
Michael DePaoli (D)
(newsday article)
(votesmart.org)

**State Assembly: 4th district
Steven Englebright (D- incumbent) (website)
vs.
Bruce Bennett (R)
(newsday article)
(votesmart.org)

**NY Supreme Court Justice: 10th district - vote for 4 candidates
Jerry Garguilo (D)
Robert A. Lifson (R)
Kenneth A. Davis (R)
Edward A. Maron (D)
William J. Condon (D)
Hector D. LaSalle (D)
Patricia Filiberto (R)
(League of Women Voters page)
(more details needed)

**State Amendment - proposal 1
Proposal to eliminate requirement of receiving disability pay in order for Veterans to qualify for extra credits on civil service examinations.
(League of Women voters page)

Note: this article is a stub, please feel free to edit and add new links

Bumped post. Originally posted on 10/20/08.

Free coffee

Starbucks is offering a free tall-size brewed coffee Tuesday to voters. Sounds like a good deal.

Beautiful Vowels

Although I'm not a big fan of poetry, I thought this was an interesting idea



"Eunoia is the shortest word in English containing all five vowels - and it means 'beautiful thinking'"

BBC featured the book by Canadian poet Christian Bok, which has 5 chapters: each using exclusively one vowel. "Mr Bok believes his book proves that each vowel has its own personality, and demonstrates the flexibility of the English language."

The link has excepts from each chapter, I think e is my favorite.

Freeze possible on Thursday Night

All critical plants should be protected or brought inside on Thursday night, as a freeze is possible.

We should probably also, close up the windows nice and tight.

Need more voting fun? Try a cartoonoff

Check out these two cartoonists facing off:
New Yorker vs XKCD

Candy corn poll

I feel personally affronted by the candy corn poll. I'm not sure who added "regular candy corn" to our white board survey, but the option is ridiculous. No one in their right mind would chose any of the alternatives over the original. The poll was to decide, which of the crappy replacements was worse/better. I am personally disappointed about the new poll and subsequent ballot stuffing.

food fight?

oh, who knew the troubles caused by hummus?!

Pot Oranges - using PCR to stick it to the man

Forget pot brownies, keep your eyes out for "special" oranges. Biochemist Hugo Nanofsky, after having been burned by current drug laws in Florida when his son was arrested and charged for possession of drug paraphernalia decided to pit his skills against the ineffective system. He succeeded in genetically engineering THC-producing oranges, and then proceeded to offer the seeds for free to the general public.

Geography according to the Republicans

According to Sarah Palin we're neighbors with Afghanistan.

News to me, though I suppose my geography skills have always been a little off. I mean, when I first heard that Sarah Palin was citing Alaska's shared border with Russia for her foreign policy experience, I thought "hey, we don't share a border with Russia. Canada, yes, Mexico, yes. Russia? Really?" And then I got out a map in which I discovered - hey, look at that, Russia is kinda next to Alaska. I mean, there's water in between the two, but they are really close. Most of the time maps will show the Atlantic Ocean as center, so North America and the Asian continent are on opposite sides of the map, but really, they aren't that far.

But I was pretty sure that Afghanistan wasn't anywhere close to sharing even a maritime border with us. But hey, what do I know.

HERE is an awesome map trying to help narrow down what Palin may have meant. Now, normally I avoid comments on blogs and articles like the plague, but some of the comments to that blog entry are pretty funny. I particularly like #3.

Also by the same blogger, HERE is another map trying to help decode the Republican version of geography.

Seriously, sometimes it seems like the Republicans live in an entirely different world, if not universe, from the rest of us.

My kind of science

HERE are some interesting grant proposals for new scientific research. I bet we could come up with our own list of interesting problems to study.

The REAL story behind the changing leaves.

Please someone blindfold me for the next month...

I made the mistake of reading political news today.

"Palin makes Obama terrorist claim"

The gist being that Obamo served on a charity group board that also contained Bill Ayers as memeber who during the 60's founded a violent anti-Vietnam group called Weather Underground.

Let's ignore the fact that Obama was 8 when that group was active why don't we.

This woman makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out, as do some of the comments after the second article...

name change? and pumpkins.

since owen never contributes or probably even reads our house blog anymore, i am tempted to rename it, "the lovely ladies of beacon hill." any other suggestions?

in the meantime, you crafty young whippersnapper girls can take a stab (no pun intended) at some of these. i am still the old fart of the house, so i might have to get my eyes checked to make sure i don't need bifocals before i start poking pumpkins with knives and such... xo.

Slime Molds

An interesting short article on slime molds with some beautiful photography (including the one above).

Warning: this post may contain politics

Stop reading now if you are trying to avoid thoughts of the craziness that politics have become (Sheyl, this means you).

Ever since the McCain camp chose Sarah Palin to be the VP running-mate, I've been fundamentally disturbed, and yet, I haven't quite managed to find the words to describe why she disturbs me. The best I was able to put it was that I didn't understand half of the country's mindset, that I didn't understand why the American people weren't more outraged at the republican party that they chose this sham of a national-level political leader.

In THIS article, though, Sam Harris articulates my feelings about Sarah Palin precisely. So I thought I'd pass it along to you guys (those of you that didn't stop at the politics warning, that is).

Song about MySpace

World's common birds declining

One-in-eight of the world's birds - 1,226 species - was listed as being Threatened. Of these, 190 faced an imminent risk of extinction.

Autumnal Equinox!

Happy First Day of Fall everyone!

Word

Yaaaarrrr!

In honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day, reinvent yourself with a pirate name HERE.

And while you're at it, you can now view the web translated into pirate speak - check it out HERE.

And if that wasn't enough translation fun, you can translate any web page into pirate speak HERE too.

This is what yesterday's post by Sheyl turned into:


Posted by Cap'n Wilma Pegleg.

For once a politician (and a republican at that) saying something sensible!!

Top Republican says Palin unready

'And he was dismissive of the fact that Mrs Palin, the governor of Alaska, has made few trips abroad.

"You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don't know what you can say. You can't say anything."

Mr Hagel also criticised the McCain campaign for its suggestion that the proximity of Alaska to Russia gave Mrs Palin foreign policy experience.

"That kind of thing is insulting to the American people."'

Yes, yes it is.

Plants and CO2

Another nail in the global coffin No plant CO2 relief in warm world.

Plants take up less CO2 under warmer/drier conditions (like what is expected to happen over large swathes of the worlds grasslands.

"So in the warm year, the temperature goes up and causes more evapotranspiration from the plants," he (Jay Arnone, who led the study) told BBC News.

"But plants have evolved to 'know' that when it gets dry they should curb their water loss, so they reduce the apertures of their stomata (pores) to conserve water, and that constrains the amount of CO2 they can take up (by photosynthesis)."

In addition warmer temperatures meant that bacteria degraded extra carbon resulting in a net release of carbon to the atmosphere.

The world without humans?

Well, okay, maybe not the world, but how about the art?

See some examples of an art exhibit HERE done by Spanish artist José Manuel Ballester in which he removed all humans, animals and motion from some famous paintings with some interesting, if perhaps slightly disturbing results.

Offshore Drilling

Add one more reason that I fall into the 80% of Americans who think this country is on the wrong track.

The House approve a bill opening waters 50 miles (80 kilometers) off the Pacific and Atlantic coasts to oil and natural gas development.

It still has to be approved by the senate (which it probably will since the Democrats have become weaklings pandering to the desire by the public for lower gas prices in an election year).

Despite as the article points out: "But expanded offshore drilling has become a mantra of Republican energy policy that has been felt in both presidential and congressional campaigns, even though lifting the drilling ban would have little if any impact on gasoline prices or produce any more oil for years."

Hello people!!! It is not going to help gas prices!!!! All it will do is feed the profits of giant oil companies and feed our dependence on oil for even longer.

GAH!

Apocalypse Watch

The Large Hadron Collider has officially set in motion the test that will recreate the conditions that existed just a few moments after the Big Bang.

Either that, or the folks at CERN have just set the planet in motion on a path towards total annihilation.

Either way, we'll learn more about our universe. Either it's birth, or what it's like to be sucked into a black hole. It's a win-win for science.

Read a BBC article about the LHC HERE.

Why not in America?

A lack of infrastructure — not sprawl — hinders the adoption of bicycles.


There is also a video of a really cool bike storage system at Japanese subway stations.


Warning: it's in Japanese with no subtitles.

Free the Goats!

"A minister in DR Congo has ordered a Kinshasa jail to release a dozen goats...

The beasts were due to appear in court, charged with being sold illegally by the roadside...

There was no word on what their punishment would have been, had they been found guilty."

Nature Podcast

Also just to let people know: Nature is running a series of podcasts on the election and the economic and science implications of the their proposed policies. The first one was last week on energy and climate.

Alcohol can be a gas!

Another book added to my to read list. The author, David Blume, was interviewed on npr and had some interesting thoughts on how to make ethanol actually carbon and environmentally friendly, such as the fact that ethanol competes with food for corn.

From his website:
"But 87% of the U.S. corn crop is fed to animals. In most years, the U.S. sends close to 20% of its corn to other countries. While it is assumed that these exports could feed most of the hungry in the world, the corn is actually sold to wealthy nations to fatten their livestock. Plus, virtually no impoverished nation will accept our corn, even when it is offered as charity, due to its being genetically modified and therefore unfit for human consumption."

Also, fermenting the corn to alcohol results in more meat than if you fed the corn directly to the cattle. We can actually increase the meat supply by first processing corn into alcohol, which only takes 28% of the starch, leaving all the protein and fat, creating a higher-quality animal feed than the original corn."

In theory it could even reduce the "methane emissions" i.e. farts and belches of the cattle by feeding them something that more closely resembles what they are adapted to eat..

Also, cattails are apparently a plant that would be very efficient for making ethanol, so he's proposing using cattail marshes to treat sewage waste and then harvesting them for ethanol, plus they reseed themselves so practically no maintenance, and helping solve coastal eutrophication problems at the same time.

It sounds pretty fantastic, though I'd need to read it to see how convincing it really is.

For Wacked:

Behold... Tardinauts

"Tradigrades become the first animals to survive vacuum of space"



Also I may have to start following the blog I just linked to, because it's fascinating and I find his profile description quite amusing :)

Scary Scary stuff

"Last June Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told ministry students at her former church that the United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq war on a 'task that is from God.' "

I have to strongly agree with the statement by Rob Boston (spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State):

"I miss the days when pastors delivered sermons and politicians delivered political speeches," he said. "The United States is increasingly diverse religiously. The job of a president is to unify all those different people and bring them together around policy goals, not to act as a kind of national pastor and bring people to God."

Science Debate 2008

Not sure if you guys have heard about this, they tried to get a live debate, unsuccessfully, but at least the candidates agreed to give written responses.

Obama's responses are up, McCain's are still to come.

9 Modern-day Independence Movements

Read the article HERE.

Depending on how things turn out, we may come to regret that #2's independence never came about.

20 Weirdest Endangered Animals

Forget the cute and cuddly endangered animal conspiracy, HERE is the low down on 20 of the weirdest endangered animals, including the Aye Aye above.

Cool time lapse video of molds and mushrooms

It's the end of the world as we know it

cue the 80's flashbacks



Want to know what's going to happen when the Large Hadron Collider at CERN brings about the apocalypse when it starts up next month?
Just watch this informational video and find out!

Note: Successful trials already under way on the LHC have yet to cause the world to end. Lesser folks than myself may be tempted to doubt the coming armageddon, but I am mentally staying the course, and holding firm in my beliefs despite alleged evidence to the contrary.

Bicycling to Freedom

A fascinating article on the effect of bicycling on womens emancipation. Check it out HERE.

Eco-friendly driving

Hummer comes out with new more eco-friendly version that gets to the root of the problem. Listen to audio HERE.

Sheyl, I promise this won't give you an aneurysm.

Fun Commercial

Definitely worthwhile to check out the higher def video HERE

Happy Birthday, Owen!!

Friday afternoon levity

For your amusement: an excellent existential comic, it shows what not to wish for on the off chance you ever come across a genie in a bottle.

Wash Away Your Sin Soap

These may not be such a joke item after all. At least not according to THIS Science article that talks about a study into the intrinsic connection between cleanliness and morality. It's got an interesting concept and really interesting results. Apparently, after telling a story about an unethical act they committed, half of the subjects were allowed to wipe their hands with an antiseptic wipe, the other half didn't. They were then asked to volunteer to help out a desperate grad student (aren't we all desperate, though?). 74% of those who didn't get to wipe their hands volunteered, but only 41% of those who did wipe their hands volunteered.

So I guess the moral of this story for us desperate grad students is to hope that the funding agencies hire people with less than desirable hygiene skills.

Thanks to the blog Not Exactly Rocket Science.

New profession

I've decided to give up school and go apprentice with a tyromancer. I would imagine there should be plenty of them out in the midwest. Its either that or perhayps gyromancy, I could be good at that.

For other interesting careers in the future (hahaha) check THIS page out.

Apologies for the bad pun. I wonder if there's some form of divination using puns, maybe I should try that instead of tyromancy. Punnymancy?

Renewable Petroleum?

More microbes to save the world?

Animated film about movie genres

Watch it HERE.

Our Wonderful Nature

I found a delightful nature documentary video about water shrews that I want to share - please view THIS video.

Happy Birthday, Wacked!

Source

It's FAF time!

FAF (friday afternoon fun). Enjoy this office battle!

A little silliness for your afternoon.

You can't help but smile and laugh watching this. My favorite segment is the one in India.

E. Coli, Evolution, and Eeee-diots

(sorry for the forced alliteration)


photo source

THIS article has an exchange between a microbiologist (whose findings indicate long term evolution of an E. Coli colony to grow on a citrate substrate)and the creationist yahoo who runs Conservapedia. An interesting read (dialogue should not be read if you are having blood pressure issues, have a heart condition, or are experiencing high levels of stress). I found the microbiologist's responses to this cretin to be intelligently composed and an excellent smack down, though I have my doubts about whether the creationist has any idea that he got thoroughly smack-downed. I'm particularly amazed at how restrained the microbiologist managed to stay despite the rudeness and outright slander being spouted off about him by the creationist.

mmmmm Cofffeeeeeeee

I knew I was doing something good for me...

Colorful Coffee Composition Photo by 'Once and Future' / Flickr

"Sure, the commercials love to (show?) people energized by the mere whiff of a steaming pot of coffee -- but new research shows that those commercials may not be far off the mark. Just smelling the aroma of coffee is enough to change the activity of several genes in rats, researchers report this week in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. The affected genes appear to help the animals deal with resistance to the stresses caused by sleep deprivation."

Birding my Bedroom (at 5:30am)

I hate them!

The most annoying, obnoxious bird, oh how I hate your screeching!!! Apparently Henry David Thoreau agreed calling it an "unrelenting steel-cold scream,”



Am I the only one waking up at 5:30 due to the Blue Jays in the backyard?

Chants and Cheese

+ =


Who would have figured Gregorian chants would help make spectacular cheese? Apparently these guys discovered it!

Happy Birthday, Sheyl!!!

Today's Lunchtime Birding

Today Ruth and I spotted a beautiful Scarlet Tanager , as identified for us by someone else.

Ruth has suggested the name Roy, but for some reason it just doesn't work for me.

this is funny.

Treadmill Kittens

Solstice Moon

(source)
Tomorrow evening is the solstice moon - one where the moon appears to be gigantic on the horizon. Check out this NASA page that explains some possible theories for this moon illusion.

i posted these...

...on facebook, but i will attempt to stay loyal to the blog and post them here as well.

stories such as this are amazing, but they also break my heart:
http://blog.ted.com/2008/05/unbelievable_ph.php

and, the story she tells in the first two minutes here is amazing, crazy:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/91

Doomsday Watch - stay tuned!

Well, today is supposed to be doomsday, according to the one "expert" I posted about yesterday. I thought perhaps it would be a brilliant idea to keep a blog record of doomsday, at least as long as I have fingers to type and a head on my shoulders to keep observing with (who knows what will be the effects of the horror that will be doomsday).

Some day, some future mutant generation of intelligent cockroaches (the only things likely to survive a doomsday holocaust) may look back at this blog record and say "wow, that is some powerful record keeping of the last day of the world as that strange human population knew it, we should make this blogger famous, posthumously, and perhaps name a national holiday after her."

So here goes.

June 12

10:46 am: world still here, seems to be functioning normally (or as normal as is possible for this wacky wacky world). Note to self: I wonder why he picked this day, it would seem more fitting for it to be tomorrow, Friday the 13th. Oh well, not my place to back-seat organize a doomsday.

11:01 am: Possible portent of the end or is it what will be left of us after the end?



HERE is a depiction of some of our most powerful images in a unique medium.

11:13 am: stumbled across yet another portent of the end:
(source)
A pig that doesn't like to get dirty and will only go in mud with booties on, definitely a sign that the end is near (see video here). Next sign is expected to be snowman found not melting on Caribbean beach.

11:24 pm: still here, no sign of the apocalypse

June 13

10:16 am: well, we have all narrowly escaped yet another doomsday. This day should be a day of rejoicing - I declare today to be known forever more as The Day After The Day We Didn't Die in an Apocalyptic Sized Nuclear Meltdown.

Feel free to abbreviate (TDATDWDDASNM) in your calendars.

Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die... at least according to this wingnut

Pencil it in your calendars, folks, the doomsday cometh tomorrow, June 12th.

On a totally different note, happy 98th birthday to Jacques Cousteau!

Gotta love newspapers

THIS website has a great collection of odd items from newspapers - from strange police dispatch reports, like the one above, to amusing misprints like the one below of a portable dehumanizer.

are you f%&@ing kidding me!!

Dunkin Donuts is pulling one of its ads featuring Rachael Ray because
"She was wearing a black-and-white checked scarf around her neck that resembled a traditional Arab keffiyeh." and according to a conservative idoit blogger it "evoked extremist videos"

Of course! the second I saw the scarf I thought she was about to run around taking hostages and beheading people. And of course all Arabs are terrorists.

On Failing Successfully

A surprisingly uplifting program on the need to accept failure in order to succeed and innovate Link to transcript/ download audio. A little long to read but quite interesting, did you know that the name WD40 stands for 'water displacement' and the 40 for the fact that it was the 40th formulation that finally worked. I'm a big fan of this podcast Ockham's Razor, though it can be a little off the wall sometimes.

There's a paragraph in this one on the increasing fear and intolerance of failure in scientific institutions due to the competition for funding.

And a couple of quotes that may become a new signature for me...

"Henry Ford put it, 'Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently'."

and "Edison who said, 'I have never failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.'"

Now I just have to keep this in mind when everything goes horribly wrong during my experiment tomorrow.

Life imitates Art: X-men edition

A group of African frogs have picked up a trick or two from reading x-men comics - these Wolverine-like frogs have claws that must pierce through the skin on their toes in order to be deployed when threatened. Makes you wonder what other kinds of mutant powers frogs have picked up from comic books - perhaps a frog that can stop a speeding locomotive? Or maybe a mind-reading frog that shoots lasers from its eyes and can call upon weather phenomena to defeat its predators.

Fortune Cookies

XKCD

Music 'can enhance wine taste'

Interesting article on the influence of different music styles on how the tastes of various wines were described. Their music recommendations are 'interesting', I don't think I would choose to play Blondie while drinking Chardonnay.

"Previously, Professor North conducted supermarket research which suggested people were five times more likely to buy French wine than German wine if accordion music was played in the background.

If an oompah band was played, the German product outsold the French by two to one."

Is this why I always end up with Reislings from the wine store? They must play a lot of oompah.

Birding from my office

This lovely fellow (or several like him) has been visiting me for the last week or so. He was nice enough to sit right on the window ledge about 2 feet away while I tried to figure out what he was today. At first I thought goldfinch, but then I found this picture. He seemed quite interested when I was playing the sounds off the All About Birds: Baltimore Oriole" website