Open Serendipity

Today it is hot hot hot, 97 ° before 11am this morning!  But look at the picture I took of this tiny spider spinning its web in the relative cool at 7am.  Scale is difficult to judge — the spider is less than a square centimeter even counting its legs extended.

Last Thursday evening I went to a Women Energy Associates presentation on the Smart Grid.  A friend invited me, and although it was from 6-9pm in San Francisco, about 50 miles from my house, I’m very glad I attended, and I learned quite a bit!  In my search for open source or at least open standards communities working in the energy management arena, I had found a few: The OpenAMR Project, open-ZB.net, OpenCarbonWorld.  After Thursday evening’s presentations, I have to study these as well: Grid Net, Open Smart Grid, UCA International Users Group (UCA is Utility Communications Architecture, and the focus of that group is IEC standards), OpenADR,  Open Architecture Network (ok that one is slightly afield).

The presenters were from PG&E, EPRI, and LBNL.  If I can find their presentations online, I will add a link.  The slides would make enough sense standalone I think.

I did not drive to SF.  I took the train.  I even did a side trip to 826 Valencia, via BART, because I’d never been there before and it is one of my inspirations for my club idea.  I had planned to leave the WEA meeting early to catch the 8:30ish train instead of the 9:40 one, but the Q&A was just too interesting for me to walk out.  That late train was an anti-express train that stopped at every single tiny station all the way down the peninsula, and I did fall asleep! but I did not miss my station when we got there, close to 11pm.

I generally prefer to take the train to SF and avoid driving and parking, but fearing such a late return (I’m a morning person), I might have driven except for one thing.  A friend working on a new venture, the OpenKilowatt Power and Storage Institute, had given me some information about his project which included the suggestion to read Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Thomas Friedman.  I  just started reading it.

So – drive (miata or suburban?) and park in SF to visit one tutoring center and then attend a presentation about the Smart Grid, or take the train and read Mr. Friedman?  I took the train!

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Tech by marla