Smartphone App: MTB project

Posted on by mrsoltys
[caption id="attachment_1413" align="alignleft" width="300"] This is an awesome woman. I'm very very blessed.[/caption] Courtney and I recently took a trip for our 1-yr anniversary out to summit county.  If you didn't know: Summit county is awesome in late september because the aspens are amazing: Also, everything's cheap because it's the off season: from being able to get a condo for...Read More

Whats going on with the Government shutdown

Posted on by mrsoltys
After reading a lot of ignorance in the media and on Facebook, I wanted to clearly try to sum up what's going on with the government shutdown.  If I'm mistaken on any of this, please let me know (with a reference) in the comments section and I'll edit this post. The Affordable Care Act was made law in 2012.  It...Read More

28 Best apps for Mac

Posted on by mrsoltys
I recently did a reset on my Mac, and had to re-download all of my favorite Apps.  This was actually a pretty painless process, but I thought a useful post might be all the top apps for Mac I think are worth having on my machine. These arn't really in a particular order: Dropbox Google Chrome MATLAB MacTeX Latexian Mendeley...Read More

How to calculate the 100-year flood

Posted on by mrsoltys
There are a number of ways to calculate the 1 in 100 flood, some more complicated than others. This simple way does a great job of explaining the basics (and the shortcomings behind the metric).  First we start with historical data, and we need a good chunk of it. Since we're in Boulder I'm going to use the Boulder Creek @...Read More

About 100 year floods (and probabilities, and risk analysis)

Posted on by mrsoltys
I'm based in Boulder, and it's flooding.  Luckily, we're all fine here. Flooding is kind of a weird natural disaster.  First: It doesn't feel very threatening: It's just raining outside... a lot. But it does post some serious risks and deserves to be taken seriously. 100 year floods (Should be called: the 1% flood) [caption id="attachment_1348" align="alignright" width="300"] Near Boulder Creek...Read More

Power strip energy usage

Posted on by mrsoltys
10% of household energy usage is consumed by consumer electronics on standby.  Given that the average energy usage for an american household is about 30 kwh every day (940 kwh per month), this means that 3 kwh/day ($7.25/month @ $0.08098/kwh) is wasted energy. You can look up just how much various devices use on standby: obviously it's going to be a...Read More

Tool of the Week: Resetting PRAM and SMC on mac

Posted on by mrsoltys
[caption id="attachment_1317" align="alignright" width="300"] I realize my battery probably is getting old...[/caption] A few weeks ago my mac started showing a "service battery warning." The charger would behave erratically, sometimes charging, sometimes not, and sometimes only showing a dim green light.  In addition, when charging sometimes my computer would seem a bit hotter than I remember it. So, before heading...Read More

Tool of the Week: Put Portable Apps on a Flash Drive

Posted on by mrsoltys
[caption id="attachment_1313" align="alignright" width="300"] A small sampling of the free flash-drives we have at our house. Any other good uses for flash-drives?[/caption] I like it when i don't have to bring my laptop to campus: it results in a nice and light backpack.  But the campus computers don't have my browser of choice (Google Chrome). Turns out you can install...Read More

Tool of the Week: Google Cloud Print

Posted on by mrsoltys
Google cloud print is a cool tool that lets you print from any of your mobile devices, tablets, or computers to any of your printers, anywhere! It's awesome for me because if I get emailed a PDF I need to print, i can send it to my printer at the office with just one click. To set-up google cloud print,...Read More

Trip Report: Bowen Lake

Posted on by mrsoltys
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="953"] The view of Lake Bowen from above[/caption] Our Orginal plan was to hike to Parika Lake in the Never Summer Wilderness, however we didn't plan on their being rangers at the trailhead next to the "No Dogs" sign, and so we had to reroute. After studying a map, we decided to try to hike around the...Read More