Science & Technology: IndyBlog, Colorado Springs Independent

Drake Task Force makes its pick for decommissioning study

Kirk Woundy — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 16:53:37 -0600

Attention, Colorado Springs Utilities fans (and foes): If you had HDR Engineering Inc. in your Drake Task Force bracket, congrats.

Drake Task Force to Recommend Firm to Board
In today’s meeting, the Drake Task Force chose to recommend HDR Engineering Inc., to the Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU) Board as the firm to conduct a Study of Alternatives Related to the Potential Decommissioning of the Martin Drake Power Plant.
The Task Force received six proposals and created a short list of three firms to give oral presentations at today’s meeting.
HDR Engineering Inc. was selected based on the following criteria:
· Most Relevant Expertise
· Depth of Knowledge of Martin Drake Power Plant
· Understanding of Effort and Implementation
· Superior Risk Analysis
· Management and Staffing
Task Force co-leads, Brandy Williams and Val Snider, will present the recommendation to the CSU Board during the April 9 City Council meeting.
HDR Engineering Inc. is headquarters in Ann Arbor, Mich., with five offices in Colorado, including Colorado Springs.

The Colorado Springs office is on Briargate Parkway.…

Ivy League education in a box!

Bill Forman — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 13:19:20 -0700

Ever felt like taking courses at Princeton, University of London or Berklee College of Music — for free?

In the eight months since online education site Coursera started up, some 2.5 million people have used it to take university-level classes in everything from computer science to Aboriginal culture.

Courses generally range from six to 10 weeks, and there are hundreds to sign up for.…

Synthesizing Kurzweil

Bill Forman — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 07:11:13 -0700

Ray Kurzweil’s stock has been on the rise of late.

The futurist inventor — who’ll be speaking this evening at CSU-Pueblo as part of its free Distinguished Speakers Series — made headlines last month when he was hired by Google to a high-level position where he’ll essentially be teaching its machines how to think.…

Space museum: To infinity and beyond

Pam Zubeck — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 14:42:34 -0600

Gee, I might have decided to be a scientist if there were cool things around when I was kid to motivate me like the Science On a Sphere I saw today at the Space Foundation. Although it's hard to do it justice with my little camera, here's a shot of it.…

Neumann Systems — and its jobs — may be leaving Colorado Springs

Pam Zubeck — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 13:38:41 -0600

Dave Neumann, owner of Neumann Systems Group, which developed the NeuStream emissions control technology being installed on coal-fired Martin Drake Power Plant, is exploring moving his business elsewhere.

In an exclusive interview with the Indy, Neumann says Councilman Tim Leigh's crusade against his company and his efforts to kill Colorado Springs Utilities' contract with Neumann Systems could lead to the loss of 60 jobs and a multimillion-dollar benefit of the city receiving a cut from the firm's gross sales.…

Jack Hanna, Ray Kurzweil, Temple Grandin coming to CSU-P

Edie Adelstein — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:10:07 -0600

From the listings desk: Colorado State University-Pueblo just unveiled this year's Distinguished Speaker Series lineup, and as usual, it's quite impressive. Past years brought the likes of Nontombi Naomi Tutu, Sherman Alexie, Meghan McCain, Ray Nagin (and, puzzlingly, Bruce Jenner), and this year continues the trend.…

Artfinder, your art map

Edie Adelstein — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 12:31:26 -0600

I don't have an iPhone, but the fact that I don't carry around a clamshell anymore means I'm definitely improving on the technology front. (Never mind that the clamshell broke.)

Anyway, I'll be looking forward to this app, or some derivative of it, making its way to Android.…

Celebrate Moog's birthday with Google's ingenious little synthesizer

Bill Forman — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:48:05 -0600

By now, you may have noticed that today's Google "doodle" is a bite-sized synthesizer honoring electronic instrument pioneer Robert Moog's 78th birthday.

But what you might have overlooked is the degree of functionality it has.…

Crumb's Facebook prediction hits Facebook

Bill Forman — Wed, 02 May 2012 13:14:42 -0600

As an IndyBlog reader, chances are good that you're also on Facebook.

Chances are also good that you'll experience the same shudder of recognition I got this morning when Dangerous Minds posted this four-decade-old panel by underground cartoonist Robert Crumb.…

Space group lands Russian exhibit, teaching lab

Pam Zubeck — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 17:17:07 -0600

From the land of wheat and the Wizard of Oz comes help from the Kansas Cosmosphere & Space Center in Hutchinson, Kan., in helping the Springs-based Space Foundation get its visitors center project off to a good start.

The Cosmosphere is loaning a collection of 1970s-era Soviet space artifacts, which will be displayed at its headquarters at 4425 Arrowswest Drive.…

Further advice for data hogs

Bill Forman — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 12:06:17 -0700

In yesterday's heartbreaking Confessions of a Data Hog post, I wrote about exceeding the newly instituted limits on AT&T's "unlimited data" iPhone plan.

Since then, I've heard from a number of others who are, for the same reason, facing reduced data speeds.…

Confessions of a data hog

Bill Forman — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 16:41:37 -0700

I've always wanted to be in the top 5 percent of something, and now I am.

A text from AT&T this morning delivered the good news: "Your data use this month places you in the top 5% of users."

Unfortunately, the rest of the message appeared less promising.…

QR-coded condoms? Yes, folks, they're here

Kirsten Akens — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 12:41:17 -0700

It's like Foursquare for sex. Sort of.…

Ross Technology sees your 'waterproof' and raises you 'superhydrophobic'

Bryce Crawford — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 08:33:11 -0700

Call this the coolest thing I've seen in a long time. Geek.com reports that Ross Technology Corp. has developed a liquid spray that repels water like nothing you've ever seen (probably).…

Chemistry Tuesday (time to dork out)

Edie Adelstein — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 08:55:02 -0600

My days of chemistry are long behind me, but after a reading about atoms in Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything last night, it's fondly coming back to me (sans flunked tests).

We're talking about the interface of chemistry and physics here, the strange structures of atoms and their behaviors, things like clouds of probability, the Schrödinger Wave Equation and math so complex as to prove fundamentals like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.…

Indy Minute

Jack Ward — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 12:47:33 -0600

The WHAT IF?! Festival sparks imagination this weekend, Cuban culture pays a visit to Pueblo, and local music takes center stage with the first-ever Indy Music Awards Festival, all in this week's Indy Minute.…

Prediction: World Wide Web fad may become bigger than CB radio craze

Bill Forman — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 12:21:46 -0600

Now that you know about the return of MTV's 120 Minutes, it's time to further stoke the flames of MTV nostalgia with this clip of the network's 1995 report on the futuristic phenomenon known as the "World Wide Web."

Bolstered by interviews with such web-savvy visionaries as Sandra Bullock, Newt Gingrich, Perry Farrell and "cyber-journalist" David Bennahum, the report includes '90s rapper Coolio extolling the virtues of the "information superhighway" and a narrator who declares it the highest-profile "big-deal technological fad" since "the CB radio boom of the 1970s" — which is, of course, followed by footage of a semi driver blurting "All right, that's a big 10-4" into his citizens' band radio.…

Spotify stung for spying

Bill Forman — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 17:26:33 -0600

In an Indy article last week, we talked to musicians and industry folks about the pros and cons of Spotify, the new digital music service that launched in America on July 14. On the plus side, the company lets you stream more than 15 million tracks for free.…

Joyce's Ulysses: There's a tweet for that

Bill Forman — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 17:02:21 -0600

As fans of James Joyce are well aware, Thursday, June 16, is Bloomsday, the anniversary of the events that take place in the author's epic novel, Ulysses — which was once described (incorrectly) as "the foulest book that ever found its way into print.”

But what Ulysses devotees may not realize is that this landmark work, which some of us have spent years trying to get through, will appear in a variety of forms on Twitter tomorrow.

As far as I can tell, no one out there has announced plans to celebrate Bloomsday by tweeting the entire 265,000-word novel in sequential 140-character installments, which I'm guessing would do for Twitter's servers what Lady Gaga recently did for Amazon's.…

Indy Minute

Jack Ward — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:40:03 -0600

Legendary musician Tim Reynolds brings his electric power trio TR3 to Colorado Springs, the Humane Society brings a "Pit Boss" to town, and the Steampunk Ball arrives from an alternate future. Check them all out in this week's Indy Minute.…

PPLD hAPPiness

Kirsten Akens — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 07:22:09 -0600

If you, like me, are addicted to checking out books, DVDs and such from the Pikes Peak Library District, and if you, like me, are attached at the palm to an iPhone, you're going to love this news.

Though it actually released March 16, I just this week saw an ad on PPLD's homepage for its new, free iPhone app.…

Church makes kids fat

J. Adrian Stanley — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 17:39:55 -0600

In the old days, before science provided increasingly bizarre study results, children had to rely on their own imaginations to get out of going to church.

There was playing sick or pointing to a supposed mountain of homework that needed to be completed.…

See it tomorrow: Supermoon

Edie Adelstein — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 14:01:06 -0600

According to NASA, the full moon tomorrow night will be special, because it's going to be 31,000 miles closer to Earth than usual.

So be prepared to see one big-ass wheel of cheese in the sky.…

Can I go to the metaverse now, please?

Chet Hardin — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 15:08:42 -0700

The cynics say that technology is addictive, and that our obsession with it, fueled by the ever-more portable gateways to it, is breaking down our ability to deal with the real world.

To this I say: eh.…

Fossil beds' parking lot is snowier than last time

Bryce Crawford — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 11:21:38 -0700

Periodically, we like to drop in on the Florissant Fossil Beds' webcam, and just verify how things are going in their neck of the woods.

Since last checking this compelling specimen of web-based observation, it seems there's more snow in the parking lot, while the flag is hanging down this time, as opposed to billowing in an outwards manner.…