I first tried tae rebuild th’ PC aroond mah existin’ AGP8x card (an ATI Radeon 9700 pro, which still hud some life left in it), nae a simple feat considerin’ ‘at AGP is quickly bein’ replaced by PCI express (16). Th’ ASUS MB Ah wanted tae use can nae longer be foond fur loove ur bunsens, sae Ah tried a PC Chips P23G (big mistake). Th’ first problem Ah noted was ‘at efter loadin’ aw th’ XP pro setup files frae CD tae HD, th’ system woods nae recognize th’ HD oan rebit. Thaur waur reports ‘at a bios fix woods solve thes, but sadly, Ah was unable tae update th’ bios (thaur waur also reports ay thes as well). Buck! Sae, Ah send back th’ MB an’ CPU, hopin’ a replacement woods wark. Naturally, by thes time, th’ P23G was nae longer in stock – in fact, aw MBs supportin’ AGP ur quickly dwindlin’.

So, time tae bite th’ bullit. Ah foond a brain new Asus M2N MB, AMB dual cair processor, 2 GB corsair memory an’ an ATI PCI Express x16 Video Card. Naturally, wi’ th’ mair powerful MB, Ah needed a mair powerful PSU – Thermaltake seemed loch a braw solution as I’ve used their PSUs an’ cases (the noo discontinued Xaser III) afair.

Sadly, mah luck wisnae in th’ wey o change fur th’ better.

This time Ah maunt tae instaa XP pro sucessfully, followed by aw updates an’ service packs. Office went in wi’ nae difficulty. Ah hae a subscription tae Norton Anti Virus, which installed jist braw. But, durin’ installation ay NAV updates, th’ entire system powered doon raither abrubtly. Thes wisnae a crash, it was jist as if someain pulled th’ plug. Subsequent attempts tae bit th’ system resulted in loss ay power within seconds. Sae, efter lettin’ th’ system sit fur puckle minutes Ah tried again. Things seemed awe rite. The followin’ morn Ah maunt tae configure th’ network printer an’ puckle other minur tidbits. Next mistake: Ah become overconfident.

That nicht Ah tried tae power th’ system an’ naethin’ happened. Weel, nae exactly naethin’. Ah got an instant ay power, then naethin’. Pressin’ th’ power button efter thes hud nae effect, an’ only by flippin’ th’ main shuttoff oan th’ back ay th’ PSU coods Ah gie onie reaction frae th’ system, but only an instant ay power.

What tae dae?

When in trooble, when in doobt, rin in circles, scream an’ shit.

…quickly followed by a sit ay phain calls tae some former co-wokers (IT). Aam canty tae say ‘at aw waur helpful, but Carl provided some ay th’ best input (seein’ ‘at he has encoontered similar problems). Sae, back th’ psu goes tae NewEgg (with th’ understandin’ ‘at if th’ replacement, tae be shipped as suin as UPS recei’es th’ faulty unit, fails, ‘en all th’ hardwaur will be returned.

So whit hae we learned haur the-day?

1) Reid th’ reviews. Seems ‘at a number ay fowk hae seen aw (if nae more) ay th’ problems oan aw th’ hardwaur I’ve jist discussed. If ye hae a problem – likely someain else has seen it tay, sae yoo’re nae a bampot.
2) Swatch at th’ overaa ratin’. If it’s tay law, fin’ anither make and/ur model.
3) Dornt panic (ain aye hae a towel).
4) Dornt be overconfident ‘at th’ problems others hae seen willnae happen tae ye – min’, a body day, yer number will come up. an’ in mah case, mair than ance in a raw.

I ken whit puckle ay ye hae bin thinking: “why th’ heel ur ye still usin’ a PC? …with Windows?” weel, th’ answer’s simple. Ah develop in c++/c#/com/vbt fur systems runnin’ Windows, an’ ance in a while Ah loch tae wark frae haem. Noo, aam nae haur tae flin’ Apple under th’ bus. In fact, Ah fin’ Ah hae mair an’ mair respect fur Apple systems. but, th’ warld still runs largely oan Microsoft, an’ that’s nae gonnae change. Truth is, aam a product ay mah environment an’ Bill Gates is dictatin’ mah environment at th’ moment.

So, what’s the problem? I mean, if it’s green, it must be good, right? Sadly, not always. One of the big hurdles we need to clear is not only making a solution that is attractive to our conscience, but we must also make the solution attractive financially, aesthetically, it must be convenient, reliable…and so on. However, since wind power is not really my forte, let’s look at a slightly different example: tidal power. Some countries are currently harnessing the oceans tidal energies successfully. Take La Rance, France, for example.

“Neat,” you say, “–yawn– so build one in Boston and call me when the Red Sox make it to the playoffs.”

Not quite. What we really need for this to work is an estuary with a ‘nominal’ shape (an estuary is defined as: “a semi-enclosed body of water with a free and open connection to the ocean in which salt water is measurable diluted with fresh water” – and yes, that’s from memory, so no reference). The estuary would, ideally, have a narrow opening to the sea and should have a fair tidal range of at lease a couple of meters. We need a narrow opening because we’re going to have to dam it and we need a tidal range because that’s where we get the power (the greater the head, the more power we get). I think it’s fair to say that we’re not going to be damming up Boston Harbor anytime soon. But, there is a nice little estuary a bit further north in the Bay of Fundy, and it has a really cool tidal range of up to 17 meters. This has been studied in the past and again more recently.

“Great,” you say, “so when do you get started?”

Just cool your jets, Bunky, how do you feel about an increased tidal range, potentially enough to submerge some of the lower lying parts of Boston?

Got your attention now?

OK, here comes the science:

Perhaps you remember taking a bath as a child and sliding yourself back and forth in the tub until you got a nice little wave going – or perhaps a large wave, resulting much of the water ending up on the floor and pissing the hell out of your mother. Well, if you did, congratulations, you created something called a seiche, or in English, a standing wave (your mother probably used somewhat different language to describe what you did). This happens because the tub has natural ‘frequency’ (a function of its size and shape), and the frequency matches (or nearly matches) the driving mechanism of the wave, in this case: you. Or, more accurately, you found the natural frequency of the basin and matched it, creating a standing wave. A standing wave differs from waves we’re used to seeing at the beach in that they oscillate from one side of a basin to the other and back again; waves we’re used to seeing at a beach can be described as progressive waves (e.g., they travel in a direction, get refracted, reflected, and so on…).

“Well, gee, that was just my tub, not a full-blown harbor,” you say.

Correct, Bunky, but the Gulf of Maine actually has an existing seiche, minus the giant toddler, which is driven by the semi-diurnal tide (the moon and sun). In this case, the natural frequency of the Gulf of Maine nearly matches the lunar/solar driving mechanism. Oh, did I mention that tides and waves are really the same thing (not to be confused with tidal waves, also known as tsunamis, which is a misnomer and really have nothing to do with tides, …but that’s another story). Tides are really just long-period waves. Also, from a mathematical point of view, tides are treated as shallow water waves (they encounter resistance from the seabed). If you really want to torture yourself, I’ll let you look up the mathematical relations for shallow water waves, but remember, I warned you. The fact that the tidal frequency and the basin frequency are nearly the same allows for a little bit of positive feedback and that (if I’m remembering my Physical Oceanography correctly) helps increase the tidal range.

(By the way, people spend their entire lives and sometimes several degrees (BS, MS, PhD…) studying tides and waves, so you should realize that I’m 1) not even scratching the surface here and 2) may not be quite right from a scientific point of view. There, that’s my disclaimer.)

So, how could we make the basin and semi-diurnal tidal frequencies match more closely, and why would we want to? Well, we probably wouldn’t want to, but what would happen if we began fooling around with the size and shape of the Gulf of Maine? A number of years ago (and I do not have a reference, but it was presented in a Physical Oceanography class I took at the University of New Hampshire from Wendell Brown, PhD, around 1987 as part of my undergraduate coursework) a bunch of hardcore geeks crunched some data and numbers to try and answer this question. They concluded that such a tidal dam in the Bay of Fundy would change the size and shape of the Gulf of Maine and its subsequent ‘frequency’ just enough to increase the tidal range in Boston by several feet, thereby submerging a good chunk of Boston at high tide.

Thus, installing a tidal generating plant, complete with a dam, in the Bay of Fundy would adversely affect Boston. So unless there’s a bunch of Nova Scotians out there who want to pick a fight with Boston, I think it unlikely we’re going to see this happen anytime soon.

“All is lost!” you cry, as you glance out your window at one of Con-Ed’s power plants belching smoke.

No, but you’re going to have to be a bit more creative before dropping that wind turbine just anywhere.

So, I hope you have a better understanding now that green solutions, while admirable, are not always the best solutions. True, they limit greenhouse emissions, generally don’t cause cancer or black lung disease, don’t poison the water supply and do annoy the hell out of Dick Cheney and his cronies, but you would end up condemning the executives at the Federal Reserve in Boston to soggy Italian designer shoes.