Archive for January, 2008
The great blow of Friday, 4 January 2008
Wow yesterday was a fun weather day! Suffice it to say that I (and many of my neighbors) will be digging out and replacing fence posts for weeks to come. It looks like someone just drove around in a big truck smashing through fences.
The wind speed numbers for the Sacramento/Elk Grove Area via the National Weather Service state that our highest sustained wind speed was 36 MPH (gusting up to 48 MPH) and our highest gusts were 52 MPH (when the wind was sustaining at 33 MPH.) It seems like the evening news said something about 60+ MPH winds or gusts but to me that’s purely rumor. The winds here exceeded 20 MPH for twelve hours straight.
105 Year Anniversary of the Execution of Topsy the Elephant
Some background:
Thomas Edison was a little insane about the Dangers of Alternating Current (the kind of electricity we get out of the wall) and thought everyone should use Direct Current (the kind of electricity we get out of a battery.) It should also be noted that Edison had a vested business interest in it’s adoption and widespread use. One other fun fact is that the last building in NYC (power there is supplied by Con-Edison btw) was converted from DC to AC just this last year.
www.boingboing.net/2008
Nikola Tesla invented Alternating Current and this car company is named after him:
So to recap, Edison loved DC, hated AC, and the power company he founded only uses AC now. Tesla invented AC and the car company named after him sells battery (DC) powered electric sports cars. The elephant died for no reason at all.
I laugh, except, because of the elephant, I cries.