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Blogs & The Internet
Crime doesn't pay, but now and again it is funny
So glad to see TAB reporter Steve Bagley showing proper use of the police blotter -- humor: <a href ="http://blogs.townonline.com/watertown/?p=13022">How Much Underwear is that, Exactly</a>? If you haven't read the police log published by the Arcata Eye, of Arcata, CA, ya haven't lived. <a href ="http://www.arcataeye.com/index.php?module=pagesetter&tid=2&topic=7">Here, work is overrated, anyway</A>.
What H2otown Did With Her Summer Vacation
I spent the summer in Boulder, CO working on a new startup, People's Software Company, with my friend and fellow blogger Susan Mernit. Why Boulder? Boulder is the location for TechStars, a seed funding and incubation program for tech startups. Each year, TechStars chooses ten teams out of over 400 to participate and gives them funding and mentoring.
We sublet a house from a CU/Boulder architecture professor and spent our days in The Bunker, which is what everybody really calls the workspace at TechStars.
We're about to release our first product, WhozAround for Facebook. Here's a sneak peek.
Coming back from Boulder! What happened while I was away?
Hi, everybody!
Good news! I have the final date of my summer program, and that means that I know when I'll be able to get in my car and drive back to Boston from Boulder, Colorado, where I spent the summer. I'm out here with my good friend and fellow blogger Susan Mernit at TechStars, where we are doing a new startup called People's Software Company. TechStars selects 10 teams out of 400 to fund and mentor. Our new toy is called WhozAround -- basically, we're adding"local" to Facebook, your phone, your inbox, LinkedIn. If any of you are FB users or iPhone junkies and you want to play, let me know. We've got cool schwag, too.
I miss Watertown. I miss, miss, miss Mr. H2otown, MiniH2otown, MicroH2otown and H2oDog. I miss my own bed and Andrea's House of Pizza and the #72 bus. I'm homesick. (There's MicroH2otown standing in front of Mt. Audubon, when they came out here for a brief visit. Not so micro anymore, no?)
Oh, my god, I miss TOWN COUNCIL MEETINGS!!!!!
Now, over the three years I've been doing H2otown, summers have been the slowest months (which is as it should be and a charming feature of our fair city). Town Council doesn't meet, school is out, people take vacations.
But I have the feeling that lots happened over the summer. What?! Rachel Kaprielian is the head of the DMV?
Assume I've been locked in a room for the past 90 days (you'd mostly be right). What happened?
A Town Council Person Pointed Me To WCAC Re Verizon FiOS
So I asked on of our town council members why we don't have FiOS in Watertown. This person said:
"This is way outside of my area of knowledge. Suggest you contact Watertown Cable Access and then let me know if there is some legislative remedy you would propose." and then provided a link to WCAC.
http://www.wcatv.org/contact.html
Questions:
What's WCAC got to do with it?
Who negotiates cable franchise agreements on behalf of the town?
Verizon FiOS - Not In 2008
Verizon announced the cities in which it will continue it's buildout of fiber-based service FiOS in this press release: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080228/nyth105.html?.v=101 I don't particularly like Verizon, but detest Comcast. We need to organize to get more competition here, including FiOS, and to get multiple vendor solutions for condos and apartment buildings (I live in one). What are the politics in the town council like around FiOS,if any?
What's it like, Lisa?
A month without computers...without the internet? What was that like? Was there withdrawal? What did you miss? Was there something you made sure NOT to miss?
I have not gone that long in 17 years or so...gee. How did you do it?
Peg
Tumbleweeds
For years, the U.S. military and its allies have relied on depleted uranium (DU) for their anti-tank rounds. Twice as dense as lead, the stuff does a mean job piercing armor. But it comes with a price. Tons of DU litter battlefields around the world; the British fired almost 2 tons of DU around Bara during the Iraq invasion, for example. And unexplained illnesses always seem to follow in the rounds' wake. Nothing's been categorically proven. But a variety of ailments -- from "Gulf War Syndrome" to lung cancer -- have all been linked to the material. Cleaning it up has been an almost impossibly messy task.
But now, a New Mexico researcher may have found an answer to the problem in, of all things, the tumbleweed. A preliminary study shows that the plant, and some other flora common to dry, Western lands, "have a knack for soaking up depleted uranium from contaminated soils at weapons testing grounds and battlefields," according to a statement from the Geological Society of America.
The fact that plants absorb uranium is not news, since old uranium prospectors used to use Geiger counters on junipers to find buried uranium lodes. But finding a plant that grows fast on little water and can be easily harvested to carry away the depleted uranium – that's another story...
In her study, [New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology geologist] Dana Ulmer-Scholle and her colleagues... sought out DU contaminated soils at an inactive munitions testing ground in New Mexico. Then they planted selected native and non-native plants in a test garden and in pots to see how much DU the plants absorbed from the soil.
The tumbleweed, or Russian thistle did particularly well. So did the grain crop quinoa and the purple amaranth. None of the plants need much water or care. But "sprinkling the ground with citric acid" did seem to bolster the plants' ability to suck up DU.
As for why some plants absorb uranium, that's still a mystery, says Ulmer-Scholle. It could be that the plants use the metal to create pigments. One way she hopes to test that possibility is to grow native plants used for dyes.
Either way, Ulmer-Scholle cautions, plants will only work as a slow-burn solution to DU. For immediate clean-ups, "no plant species appears to offer a short-term alternative to traditional remediation." Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!!!
Green Space = Parking Space
WOW! looks like the powers that be may have censored me earlier today. License plates are in the public domain and thereby legal to post...especially scofflaws! This is how my neighbor on Bromfield Street, lets their guests park during the overnight parking ban. I wonder how long they plan on staying in Watertown? I hope less than 30 days, unless of course they register their car in Massachusetts to comply with our excise tax laws.
