Visigraf.com We see what you mean.

Looking at the smallest system that would make an economic difference here at home.

My electric service is priced on tiers, with the baseline allocation at $ 0.12 /kwh. However, it turns out that I used 280 KwH that was priced at $ 0.29 or higher, some at $0.40/Kwh. When you see that this little peak was driving a big increase in the bill, it seemed logical to explore the smallest system that could make a difference. It turns out that a system that saves only 40% of the peak energy use would save %60 of the bill each month. Even more significant in winter.

This paper in PRL suggests that a compact accelerator can generate electrons with enough energy to produce muons. While the device described below wasn't configured to produce secondary particles in a controlled manner, this paper shows that the energy regime needed to generate muons is accessible with currently available technology.

Here are some links to photos from my time in Abu Dhabi, Summer 2010:

http://picasaweb.google.com/brucebagnoli

While I spent most of the time (30 days) in Abu Dhabi on work assignment, we did go to Dubai for a day, Frankfurt DE for another day. Spent most of the time on North Island, close to Hamden Street, in a fairly small area. We intensively explored this area, with a few trips afield. Took a Kayak trip through the mangroves, took taxis, nbut walked just about everywhere. Mostly this trip was about looking at buildings and the people who live in them.

The recent trend in politics to "take the hard line" and to demonize social programs as evil is both heartless and stupid, as it weakens our society just when we want to rebuild our way out of this depression. Meg Whitman bases her gubernatorial campaign in California on tearing down the few social programs left, further destroying educational funding, cutting foster care, and slashing the state budget.

www.bbamboo3.net/images/MtTam_BrB2010a_1499.jpg
www.bbamboo3.net/images/MtTam_BrB2010a_1602.jpg

Just back from the brink of extinction, a pair of Peregrine Falcons raised 4 eyases (baby falcons) on a ledge high above Mission Street downtown in San Francisco this spring. The first flight for a baby falcon, the first fledge, is fraught with danger, particularly in an urban environment.

Sunday, May 23, 2010
Tragedy of the Commons and the British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon disaster

by Bruce Bagnoli

The surviving crew member's account May 16,2010 on CBS 60 minutes of the pre-accident problems with the blowout preventer that failed when the Deepwater Horizon sank had chilling familiarity. [ see the report here: Michael Williams tells his story of survival to Scott Pelley. ]

Here is a link to my images from the 2009 Planetary Dance, Marin, California:

http://brucebagnoli.home.comcast.net/~brucebagnoli/Events/PlanetaryDance...

A gathering with music, food,dance, spoken word, and more. A healing tree, a meadow and drums, sunlight and brown grass, blue sky, children and folks of 89 and 93, 4 generations. Repeated in many locations, a community moving together.

http://blogs.parc.com/blog/2009/07/augmented-reality-increasing-collecti...

Augmented Reality: Increasing collective intelligence
Posted 23 July 2009 | Lawrence Lee

In my recent blog post