27 November 2009
While America shopped, I spent the day reading the last part of a PhD dissertation. In a typical year, I'll review two dissertations. But the stars lined up just right (or wrong) so that this semester alone I'm reviewing three. Each review takes about 4-5 days to complete and leads to a 10-page critique with about 100 comments for the student to address.
This particular dissertation is about saving energy in data centers, the buildings that house the computer servers that make up the hardware of the internet. The student estimates that in the US alone, data centers annually consume 70 billion kWh of electricity (retail price is about $7 billion per year). With proper attention to energy efficiency, the same services could be provided using only 20 billion kWh of electricity per year.
In the middle of the afternoon, Ingrid and I got out for a walk. We headed straight uphill from our house, following Broadway Terrace until we reached the nearest crest, at Pinehaven. We've had a surprisingly wet autumn, and -- I think as a result -- the fall color on the neighborhood street trees is remarkably nice this year. In a normal year, the dry summer causes the trees to lose their leaves before it gets cold enough to set up nice colors.
Today, the weather forecast called for showers and sure enough we had a good couple of cloudbursts in the morning. By the time of our walk, the clouds had mostly cleared and the late afternoon sun created nice light for the clean skies. But, we were fooled! We went out without rain gear and by the time we reached the midpoint of the walk, 2.5 miles in and at the top of the ridge, a downpour started! We took shelter under the narrow eave of someone's garage for the heaviest 15 minutes of the rain. But we got soaked anyway.
The rain let up eventually and we completed the walk with skies as clear as when we started.
3 comments:
These look like northeast colors. I hadn't appreciated that, with the right conditions, you could get such spectacular foliage in Oakland.
Charlie
Awesome Bill. I'm in heaven lately as I ride my bike around soaking in the colors - and you captured it all beautifully, as you always do. Wow, wasn't that rain just amazing? Like a monsoon downpour. Thanks for coming last night!! It was so much fun.
Fabulous. The crimson tree is a Japanese Maple. In NJ, they'll be wine-colored until late in the fall, and turn crimson following a hard frost. Two more days, and they come down in a blizzard. This year in NJ, lacking the hard frost, they never gave us the crimson. First time in memory we've been gypped of the spectacular swan-song. --Lulu
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