Packers Decide to Develop Wetland; Bass Pro Shops says No; Cabela's Says Drain that Stinking Wetland

I took a moment to thank Bass Pro Shops through a form at their web site, and will make a point of not visiting Cabela's the next time I'm in the Wheeling, WV or Green Bay areas. Furthermore, I will be doing my Father's Day shopping at Bass Pro Shops.

So now we know Cabela's is an outdoor store hostile to the outdoors.

Bass Pro Shops says no: "...talks with an initial candidate for the development - Bass Pro Shops - collapsed after the retailer said it wouldn't be involved in a project that resulted in the destruction of a wetland."

Cabela's says drain, drain, drain.

BOINC, Social Good, and Energy Consumption

Apropos of nothing, do you have BOINC running on any of your machines? I installed it a day or two ago on my HP and on my work laptop. Already I've made a material contribution to some important projects that can't afford supercomputer time; something to do with a disease I think. Anyway, I'm a member of the World Community Grid and Einstein@Home, but I'm thinking about dropping the space stuff in favor of the terrestrial problems [ ... ].

The real question is, what's your take on this stuff. Am I contributing more to the energy companies than to the advancement of human knowledge?

I used to run SETI@Home on a few systems. I noticed that my laptop was always hot when I ran it, so I stopped using it there and then gradually stopped using it altogether. That may be BOINC-based now. I also tried to donate cycles to some Brit climate project a while back, but they didn't have Linux support.

Even on a non-laptop it does cost you power. Most current CPUs have frequency scaling, and use much less power when running at lower frequencies. Gnome has applets that let you monitor CPU frequency and temperature if your hardware supports it.

I don't know how to weigh energy use vs. benefit to mankind. It will cost more when run in an air-conditioned room since you pay the electric company to heat the machine and then pay the electric company to cool the room containing the machine. OTOH it could save you a tad on heating in the winter (at OSU we had an Intel hypercube that could easily heat a couple rooms). If your machines suspend after a couple hours of no keyboard or mouse activity, then the impact may not be very large. I'd be leery of running it on a laptop, especially if it keeps the machine from suspending (as SETI@Home did a decade ago).

Soundtrack: "Danger" by the Motels

Endocrine Disruptors in the Gulf

The oil will obviously be a huge blow to the fishing industry in the gulf states. A more long-lasting blow may be the use of dispersants containing endocrine disruptors. What will this do to the fish? How long will it be before people feel safe eating fish from an area in which endocrine disruptors have been so heavily used? I know nothing about the dangers or persistence of these chemicals, but as little trust as many of us feel we've been able to place in the FDA and EPA since, say, 2001, it may be a long time after the government says it's safe before people believe it's safe.