robwebb2k » Boston sports

Green tech in the White Mountains

Rob Webb — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 16:30:49 +0000

We spent some time earlier this week hiking up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and took advantage of the very cool Appalachian Mountain Club hut system, which gives hikers the option to reserve/pay for beds and meals. We started out from Pinkham Notch and scaled up the Madison Gulf Trail to the Madison Hut where we spent our first night. On Day 2 we did the whole Presidential Traverse and stayed at the Mizpah Hut our second night, waking up early enough the next day to get out of the woods and back down to Boston to catch an afternoon Red Sox game at Fenway.

The weather started foggy, cold, and windy (it was 36 degrees w/+50 mph winds on the top of Washington when we left the Madison Hut) but we were later rewarded with great views of the endless green mountains of New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. In the few minutes I spent at the huts not eating or sleeping, it was really cool to check out the green tech that powers their systems and reduces the huts’ impact on the land that surrounds them. The huts are extremely isolated – generally several miles from any roads. All of the food and related guest amenities are packed in by the hut staff and all related waste is packed out by them as well. Guests are expected to pack out what they pack in. The huts all have electric lighting and full kitchens. Stoves are powered by propane and electricity is generated through a combination of mini-windmills, solar panels, and hydroelectric pumps. The pictures here are of the Madison Hut, which has solar panels that produce 1.8 megawatts and a windmill that produces .9 megawatts, the majority of which is used for powering the pumps which fuel the hut’s flush toilets. Most of the huts have composting toilets, which smell worse but consume far less energy and push out far less water into the septic field.

The huts are completely off the grid and can support +50 people night after night. Pretty cool stuff.

My picks: The best content on the web

Rob Webb — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:24:00 +0000

My buddy Will recently asked me what feeds I subscribe too, so I thought I would post what I pulled together for him here in case anyone else is looking for the good stuff. I subscribe to tons more feeds, but these are the ones I find myself consistently reading. I’ve found myself helping people set up NetVibes accounts recently, and this is generally what I put together, with each header being a separate tab within the same account. I’ve linked to the sites when possible and included the feed addresses below them. If you want to subscribe to one, copy the feed address and paste it into your aggregator (“Add content” >> “Add feed” in NetVibes). I’ve included feeds from my sites because I read that stuff too.

Tech/VC News
Venture Beat

http://venturebeat.com/?feed=rss2

Barron’s Tech Trader Daily
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/feed/
TechCrunch

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Techcrunch

ValleyWag

http://www.valleywag.com/index.xml

The Alarm Clock

http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/atom.xml

Digg.com: Technology

http://www.digg.com/rss/containertechnology.xml

Analyst’s Edge: Venture Capital News

http://feeds.feedburner.com/AnalystsEdge-VentureCapitalFirmNews

Entrepreneurs
Marc Andressen: Ning

http://blog.pmarca.com/atom.xml

Roger Ehrenberg: Monitor110

http://www.informationarbitrage.com/atom.xml

Keith Schacht: JobCoin/Freshwaterventure

http://www.chicagobeta.com/feed/

Noah Kagan: Mint.com

http://feeds.feedburner.com/okdork/tZRC

Steve Newcomb: Powerset

http://feeds.feedburner.com/SteveNewcombBlog

VC Blogs
Jeremy Liew: Lightspeed Venture Partners

http://feeds.feedburner.com/lightspeedblog

Ask the VC (Brad Feld & Jason Mendelson: Mobius Venture Capital/Foundry Group)

http://feeds.feedburner.com/askthevc

Venture Hacks

http://feeds.venturehacks.com/venturehacks

Econ
The Big Picture: Barry Rithholtz

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/index.rdf

Freakonomics Blog: Levitt & Dubner

http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/feed/

Private Equity/M&A
NYTimes: Dealbook

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/?feed=rss2

Seeking Alpha: M&A

http://usmarket.seekingalpha.com/by/type/mergers-acquisitions/feed

Analyst’s Edge: Private Equity News

http://feeds.feedburner.com/AnalystsEdge-PrivateEquityFirmNews

Hedge Funds/Public Equities
Infectious Greed: Paul Kedrosky

http://paul.kedrosky.com/index.rdf

Wall Street Folly

http://wallstfolly.typepad.com/wallstfolly/atom.xml

Controlled Greed: John Bethel

http://www.controlledgreed.com/atom.xml

Analyst’s Edge: Hedge Fund News

http://feeds.feedburner.com/AnalystsEdge-HedgeFundNews

Traditional News
WSJ

http://feeds.wsjonline.com/wsj/xml/rss/3_7011.xml

Economist
http://www.economist.com/rss/printedition/economist_printedition.xml
NYTimes
http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/HomePage.xml

Legal
WSJ: Law Blog

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/feed/

Above The Law

http://www.abovethelaw.com/index.xml

Sports
Townie News

http://feeds.feedburner.com/fitzy

Boston.com Red Sox (no direct link because of their stupid registration crap)

http://syndication.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/red_sox_rss/?mode=rss_10

Boston.com Patriots (no direct link because of their stupid registration crap)

http://syndication.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/patriots_rss?mode=rss_10

ESPN

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/rss/news

Enjoy! Also, let me know if you think I missed anything…

38 Pitches…noticeably silent

Rob Webb — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 03:27:00 +0000

38 Pitches, Curt Schilling‘s blog, has been silent since June 13th. Schilling, a $13m starter for the Boston Red Sox, posted on his loss to Colorado on the 13th, but hasn’t written about his blowout loss to Atlanta on June 18th (after which he was placed on the DL) or his subsequent MRI and additional testing.

I love Curt as much as the next Red Sox fan, and have ever since the bloody sock of ’04. I’m also a fan of blogging. However, I can’t say that right now I’m a fan of Curt Schilling blogging. I don’t think I’m alone in that when I hear about Schilling’s 40 year old fatigued shoulder, the first thing that comes to mind is that maybe he shouldn’t be blogging so much, shouldn’t be starting a nebulous gaming company, and shouldn’t be signing up for speaking engagements alongside Walt Mossberg. He should be doing what he’s getting paid $13m a year to do and save the other stuff for retirement.

The next Sports Guy: Fitzy

Rob Webb — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:56:00 +0000

All of you true Boston sports fans out there have fond memories of Bill Simmons’ (aka “The Sports Guy”) rise to prominence in tandem with Tom Brady during the Patriot’s miracle season of 2001/02…and you’ve probably all grown tired of his really, really long articles, now featured not only on the front page of ESPN.com, but also the first article in every ESPN magazine. Well, there is a new Masshole on the block. Fitzy at Townie News delivers profanity laden Boston sports weekly recap videos every Friday, and his new partner in crime Slade is producing Monday blog posts that are very reminiscent of The Sports Guy in his glory days. I’m sure that is exactly what they’re going for, but whatever. It works for me.