There are 396 posts filed in Futurist (this is page 36 of 40).
I was not happy Thursday when I learned another CFL bulb in our home had met an untimely demise. We’ve gone through a spate of them dying far too early. It had gotten to the point where I began to write the date of purchase on each bulb so that I could track how long they were lasting.
The one that died Thursday made it 12 months. Pathetic! That’s the worst-performing bulb in the house. It would be a short life for even an incandescent bulb!
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This year I will once again celebrate my blog highlights, but also will give a nod to the other social media sites.
On the blog front, MT.Net collected 1.73 million hits over this year, translating to 260,000 unique visits. That’s an average of 711 visits per day and about 30% traffic growth from the year before. It’s been a good year, traffic-wise. On the posting side, I estimate I’ve written about 450 new posts this year.
I’m always amused at what brings people to my site, too. I’m still one of the top search results for the Sugarhill Gang’s epic rap song, Rapper’s Delight. I’m also still collecting plenty of web hits for Jefferson’s Bank Quote. I also draw web searchers looking for Bradley Manning, 1Gb Internet, 99% of people can’t watch this video more than 25 seconds, free iPad scam, and TSA cavity search.
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Truly fascinating.
A finger bone from Siberia now reveals that a previously unknown group of ancient humans once existed there, one neither like us nor Neanderthals.
Bizarrely, the DNA from these extinct Siberians seems unusually similar to that of Pacific Islanders from tropical Melanesia.
The 30,000-year-old fossil was found in Denisova Cave in southern Siberia in 2008, a bone fragment that likely came from a fingertip of a young girl. It was discovered along with microblades (small stone blades used as tools), body ornaments of polished stone, and a molar shaped very differently from those of Neanderthals and modern humans, resembling that of much older human species, such as Homo habilis and Homo erectus. (The tooth and the finger bone apparently came from different members of the same population.)
via Fossil DNA points to new branch of humanity – Technology & science – Science – msnbc.com.
Martian sunset
It’s not exactly a Christmas song but you can take a peek at what a Martian sunset looks like this time of year, courtesy of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Opportunity rover, still humming along on the surface of Mars.
There’s something comforting to me about seeing our sun set from the vantage point of a different planet.
Sahara desert
My cousin Art forwarded me this page of breathtaking photos taken from space by ISS astronaut Col. Douglas Wheelock.
It’s a wonderful reminder that we all share a spectacularly beautiful planet.
I am in geek heaven with our new Roku box. This book-sized media player is simple to use and its simple to write applications for it. I signed up for the Roku SDK a few days ago and this evening I began working on a way to get my saved media to play on it. I’m happy to say I succeeded!
I used the homevideo apps by Brian Lane to create the appropriate XML files on my Apache server. It was simply a matter of adjusting the pathnames and everything worked.
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It turns out that Santa’s backhoe won’t be making the rounds this year, after all. Google announced today that they are delaying their site selections for Google Fiber until next year. According to Milo Medin, Google’s new Vice President of Access Services, the overwhelming response received from communities has added to the time needed to evaluate all proposals.
Hey, Google, I hear Google Fiber makes a great birthday present (hint, hint).
Photo by Gray Watson
There is good news today for homeowners who’ve been considering adding solar panels to their homes. Progress Energy received approval today [PDF] from the N.C. Utilities Commission to provide up to $10,000 in rebates for residential solar power installations. The program would begin January 1st and provide a $1,000 rebate per kW of solar capacity, up to a $10,000 maximum. According to the N&O’s John Murawski, a 10 kW solar installation that would normally cost $75,000 could be bought for $35,000 after the rebate and state and federal incentives are included.
I’ve been waiting for this program to materialize since fall of last year, so I’m finally glad it’s been approved. As for our home, I’ve been thinking a 6 kW system would be about right for our needs, though our large, southern-facing rooftop could host quite a bit more. I think 2011 will be the year to finally go solar!
Tonight’s power failure reminded me of a scheme I thought of this afternoon. Having been recently reminded that nighttime power rates are dirt cheap, I have been considering building out a battery bank in the house that can power the home during the day (peak hours) and be recharged during the night. This might seem like a lot of effort to save a few bucks but it would have another role: the equipment would be used if and when we ever get solar panels put on the house. The battery bank could be used if we chose to go completely off-grid.
Near the end of our power outage I remembered the deep-cycle boat battery I’ve kept trickle-charging in the garage. Just to see what would happen, I plugged in my 300-watt square-wave inverter and then plugged in a lamp into that. The CFL bulb in the lamp flickered a few times at first but soon it was shining brightly. Moments later our power returned, but it was a good demonstration of powering the home on batteries.
Sun from near space
Team TechShop RDU (or NC Nearspace, as they are now calling themselves) had the balloon they thought was lost located yesterday. It turned up in the field of a soybean farmer in Wendell. Like the second balloon they launched, this one took some amazing photographs of near space.
You can see the collection of photos at Adrian Likins’s Flickr page.
