Community: May 2006 Archives
With the week thats in it munsterrugby.ie have a podcast that features interviews with past and present players. Paul Collins is the MC for what is a good build up to the game on Saturday
I am surprised by the lack of discussion/venting of anger with regards to the unofficial rail strike amongst the irish blogging community. May be the majority of them reside in the city/town where they work or they don't have to use this service. Well here in Thurles about 145 people every morning are having to figure out how on earth they are going to get to work on time. Thurles has been marketed as a town that on an express run is only 80 mins from Heuston by rail, the alternative is 150 - 200 mins if the roads are not congested. Meanwhile our minister for Transport Martin Cullen is sitting quietly in his office saying nothing (possibly waiting for a committee or a consultants report to tell him what he should say)
Are we supposed to let 2 drivers in Cork make life a misery for people who rely on this service to get to work? People are trying to enjoy a better of quality of life by choosing to live outside major cities. Some people who commute to Dublin are having to make accommodation arrangements to stay in Dublin instead of travelling home to be with their family.
So where's the outrage ?
Have we just become complacent?
TIPPINST - We are giving some thought towards using wind energy to offset our electricity bill. My renewable energy colleagues recommend that you measure your wind speed for at least one year so as to figure out the best wind turbine option. APRS offer a reasonable wind data logger package for measuring wind speed.
It records wind speed, wind gust, wind direction, time and date, temperature, battery voltage, and other important wind parameters. The Wind Data logger easily supports both simple and complex monitoring applications. The data logger can be used to record wind speed from a single anemometer, or it can be used for complex studies involving multiple wind instruments and other sensors.
The Wind Data Logger records directly to a Secure Digital card to provide nearly limitless logging periods. An inexpensive 128 megabyte card will store over a year worth of data at 30 second intervals. This means fewer trips to retrieve data from the wind data logger.
The kit costs 350 US dollars plus 50 dollars for shipping, import duties etc may apply
Companies such as proven energy's 2.5 KW solution and the wind save WS 1000 (which has been tweaked to produce 1.36 kw) provide solutions that plug into your mains so as to offset your ESB bill.
The Irish Govt has been publicising new initiatives to encourage commercial wind energy but yet domestic wind energy is not covered by grants. Also its not possible to sell any excess energy back to the Grid. If the Govt are serious about renewables, these issues need to be addressed.
