Quoth The Maven

Quoth The Maven

About Quoth The Maven, Yet another Blosxom blog. Subscribe Subscribe to a syndicated feed of my weblog, brought to you by the wonders of RSS. Flavours There's more than one way to view this weblog; try these flavours on for size. html index circa 1993 RSS Links These are a few of my favourite links. www.Doty.org all Doty blogs here	Sat, 22 Mar 2008 Lumens/Watt Luxim has a tiny new lightbulb the size of a tic-tac that turns argon gas into a 6000 Kelvin plasma. (Same temperature as the surface of the Sun.) It outputs 140 lumens of light for every 1 Watt of power input. According to Wilipedia, a electric arc lamp of xenon gas can only spit out 30-50 lm/W. And daylight itself is only 93 lm/W. [/curtis/global] permanent link Thu, 12 Apr 2007 Playing God with Devils There seems to be no way of stopping the disease spreading. Because at the moment, the front for the disease extends from the Northwest down to the Southwest of the state; which is some of the most rugged parts of Tasmania with large rivers and deep gorges. There's no way of stopping Devils moving; and also finding each other and biting each other. So, what were looking to do--faced with the prospect that the Devils might actually become extinct in the wild and Tasmania--is to establish insurance populations. One way is to move healthy Devils to zoos on the mainland of Australia. The second option that's being looked at, is the possibility of putting healthy Devils on one or more Tasmanian islands. Dr. Steven Smith Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumor Disease Program Hobart, Tasmania Listen to full interview with Melissa Block on NPR. [/curtis/global] permanent link Mon, 12 Mar 2007 Daylight Spending Time Does Extending Daylight Saving Time Save Energy? Evidence From an Australian Experiment Ryan Kellogg and Hendrik Wolff (January 2007) University of California Energy Institute And on the topic of hidden change-management costs: PG&E Says Patching Meters For An Early Daylight-Saving Time Will Cost $38 Million So they got permission from the California PUC to change the rules rather than comply with the law. [/curtis/global] permanent link Wed, 23 Nov 2005 Our Vanishing Wild Life by William T. Hornaday, 1913. The preservation of animal and plant life, and of the general beauty of Nature, is one of the foremost duties of the men and women of to-day. It is an imperative duty, because it must be performed at once, for otherwise it will be too late. Every possible means of preservation, sentimental, educational and legislative, must be employed. 10 December 1912 [/curtis/global] permanent link Mon, 26 Sep 2005 Animal Aid SAS - Decoding Shelter Alphabet Soup Humane Society Asks for Katrina Aid Google: aspca hsus aha katrina Advertizing on Google under above search ASPCA AHA HSUS UAN AVMF WSPA SPCA of Central Florida [/curtis/global] permanent link Sat, 17 Sep 2005 Katrina Response www.nifc.gov/nicc/logistics/katrina/index.htm edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/IG/IG09900.pdf www.bt.cdc.gov/disasters/hurricanes/katrina/leptofaqs.asp www.nifc.gov/nicc/logistics/katrina/Katrina_Support_Guidance.pdf [/curtis/global] permanent link Sat, 14 May 2005 Swiss Cirrus Clouds I performed my "meteorological observations" whilst relaxing after a hard morning's skiing and eating a "coupe" of hot berries and ice cream - by far the best way to study clouds. Peter Sheil conducts high altitude weather studies with style. [/curtis/global] permanent link Sat, 09 Apr 2005 From the kitchen... My former boss was Dr. Schroeder of UCSB and we would spend many hours a day underwater counting rockfish and relevant species. We used to stay underwater on SCUBA all day (at minimal depth), marking counts and obersvations on tablets and special waterproof paper. Only to rise to the surface shivering and pitching until we found the warm solace of the 65 degree outflow of Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant popluated with local sharks and yellowtail. Ah... the good 'ol days.... Here are some videos of her recent surveys of oil platforms. [/curtis/global] permanent link Mon, 17 Jan 2005 Galileo 10 February 1999 - Galileo Project 15 October 2002 - Progress Report 19 March 2003 - Integration with EGNOS 23 April 2003 - Transportation Uses 31 July 2003 - Organizational Structure 18 Februrary 2004 - Progress Report 14 July 2004 - Implementation Plan 6 October 2004 - Deployment and Operations Plan Precursor Differential Overlays WAAS for GPS in the US MSAS for GPS in Japan EGNOS for GPS/GLONASS in the EU Galileo Services OS SoL CS PRS SAR US GPS Satellites: Block I - initial prototypes began launching in 1978 Block II - the 24 satellite constellation declared in 1995 Block IIR - replenishment satellites Block IIF - follow-on generation Block III - GPS III? [/curtis/global] permanent link Sat, 15 Jan 2005 Earth Space These days, just about everyone knows about GPS technology; the constellation of U.S. military satellites used for a wide range of navigational purposes. But, like all technology, it is aging and has it's limits. In 1999, the Euorpean Union started a project called Galileo that will introduce an additional constellation of 30 satellites that will compliment the existing 30 GPS satellites. However, Gallileo will be fundamentally different from GPS, in three important areas: more accurate (up to 1m) civillian controlled (not U.S. military) complimentary with GPS (both can be used simultaneously) Additionally, it is designed to provide better coverage in cities or buildings where the current GPS service fails. After much negotiation, the EU and the US have finally come to an agreement. I think the sticking point was Article 11 - National Security Compatiblity and Spectrum Use. The US is planning to deploy a new signal, known as M-code, in 2012. It would allow the US military to jam just civilian use of their GPS satellites. Thus preventing any bad guys (and any civilian good guys, for that matter) from using them while the US military still can. A few Galileo test satellites will begin launching in late 2005. And the full constellation is scheduled to be deployed in 2007 and ready for commercial exploitation in 2008. [/curtis/global] permanent link Earth Time Also known as TAI (International Atomic Time [in French]), is occasionally adjusted by a leap second in order to compensate for wobbles in the rotation of our planet. The International Earth Rotation Service is responsible for deciding how much adjustment is necessary every six months. The announcement is called Bulletin C and was just released for the upcoming Summer (Northern Hemisphere) 2005 window. No adjustment necessary. This particular Bulletin C #29 is interesting because of the 26 December 2004 earthquake/tsunami that caused Earth to wobble about an inch off its axis. However, no compensation is needed because regular tidal effects of the moon still cause far greater fluctuations. We have had no leap seconds introduced since January 1999. This adjusted TAI time totals 32 leap seconds since the inception of the IERS. But more importantly 22 leap seconds since the begining of the Unix time epoch. If you look at this chart, you can predict that if the astronomical time (UT1/UTC/GMT) trend continues, we will bee needing another leap second very soon now. [/curtis/global] permanent link Tue, 23 Nov 2004 Canoe Surprise Last year, my brother worked the great Yellowstone fire. His personal photo collection tells an interesting story. [/curtis/global] permanent link Wed, 13 Oct 2004 Mount St. Helens The Forest Service has a webcam taking five minute snapshots. So I wrote a little script to turn the last 45 minutes into an animation. [/curtis/global] permanent link Sat, 04 Sep 2004 Frances Here is my own attempt at a composite pseudo-animation of recent MODIS satellite imagery calibrated from two birds, Terra and Aqua. And here are some higher resolution static images from the folks at Goddard. [/curtis/global] permanent link Thu, 10 Jun 2004 Suction Sampler If I had a multi-million dollar ROV and the ship/crew to go along with it, this is what I would do with them. Here is the Submarine Ring of Fire 2004 home page. If you have good bandwidth, take a peek at these movies. My favorites are the view of how these mussels can survive at 1600 meters (over 5000 feet) deep. And this eruption of an undersea volcano. And don't forget the suction sampler. [/curtis/global] permanent link