Linear Park at the Riverside Site

Site plan courtesy and by permission of Darmody Architecture.

Work is progressing on the "riparian" linear park, which is a component of Phase 3 of the Riverside development. I had to Google riparian, and it's apparently a term for the transition zone between land and river, often wetland. Not a good place to fit in more houses I guess at this location without a lot of expense, because of the danger of landslides. A new path is being laid at the moment. It appears to be a decent width too, not like the one on the south of the town to the motorway bridge. Possibly it has to meet newer standards and allow the passage of a certain number of pedestrians without traffic congestion. Or perhaps it's a dual-purpose pavement/cycle path.

Drawings are available here:

https://idocsweb.kildarecoco.ie/iDocsWe.../listFiles.aspx...

 

Construction works on the riverside park, Kilcullen. © Eugene Brennan

© Eugene Brennan

© Eugene Brennan

© Eugene Brennan

Dunlavin Water Supply Rationalisation Project

If you're wondering why the R412 between Brannockstown and Dunlavin has been closed since 24th March, it's to install a new water mains to supply Dunlavin. A new booster pumping station will also be installed at the existing Brannockstown Pumping Station site. The contract for the upgrade was awarded to David Walshe Civil Engineering Ltd.

"....The new pipeline represents a €9 million investment in improving water supply security and resilience for homes and businesses in Dunlavin"

Big Picture Science Podcast — Your Mind on Movies

Image generated by Bing Image Creator.

Apparently your blood coagulates when you watch a horror movie, preparing you for bleeding. In this podcast episode, we hear why.

Broadband Charges

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Not sure what everyone pays for broadband? I pay €40 per month at the moment with a loyalty discount to Vodafone (increasing to €45 after 6 months), which gives me unlimited national calls and 100 Mb/s broadband (I ring them every year and negotiate a discount for a year's contract). Free TV channels come from a satellite dish (All the British terrestrial channels are on satellite and some others, worth watching). Vodafone keep trying to sell me 1 Gb/s fibre broadband, but that's actually about €10 dearer per month than copper (which is perfectly adequate). Copper lines that we've had since the nineteenth century for telegraphy and telephony will eventually be phased out, although it may be a while as older legacy systems like alarms may still need that infrastructure.

Horizontal Line Illusion

Image courtesy illusionist Victoria Skye.

More proof that things aren't always as they seem. Use a ruler to measure and confirm they are straight and horizontal.

Squint and almost close your eyes and they become straight. Or look from a distance and tilt your head sideways. Once the visual cues can't be clearly seen, your brain doesn't make false assumptions.

Science Friday Podcast — Latest Episode

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The latest episode features stories about high energy neutrinos from distant supernovae, the FDA approving a new, non-opioid painkiller, what happens to your body when you're grieving and deep oceans on Uranus.

Real-Time Information From EirGrid

Screenshot from the EirGrid website.

Eirgrid's function is to match supply and demand from their control centre in Dublin. As load i.e. demand increases, generating facilities have to be switched onto the grid or increase their output to compensate, and vice versa. They also have to be synced so their voltages match and AC waveforms all start at the same point. One of the results of increasing demand is that generators slow down, and frequency drops. The opposite happens when load reduces. A change in frequency from 50 hertz can affect clocks and timing, motors and other connected equipment, so frequency is usually regulated to within fractions of a hertz (typically 0.03 hz). Anyone who has ever had an electric clock driven off the mains, will know they keep relatively good time, in comparison to a clockwork clock. That's because the speed of the shielded-pole motor used in the mechanism to turn the hands depends on frequency, not voltage.

Eirgrid's Smart Grid Dashboard shows various parameters of Ireland's electricity system, including frequency, daily supply and demand in GW, fuel mix, interconnection imports, and CO₂ emissions. Historical stats and real-time graphs of system parameters are also available on the EirGrid website. At 3 pm today, demand is 5.485 gigawatt (GW) and wind generation provides 21.8% of that. Peak demand is forecast to occur at 6.30 pm today and is expected to be 6.34 GW.

1 GW = 1000 MW (megawatt) or 1,000,000 kW. Think of 1 GW as the power used by one million, one bar electric fires.

Golden Falls Releases Through the Spillways

Golden Falls dam. © Eugene Brennan

High flows at Golden Falls today, which were forecast to be 10 m³/s all day. The releases are due to recent heavy rainfall. I always end up here late in the afternoon on dull days, so the high contrast in the scene means photos aren't the best. So the sky gets washed out if I increase the exposure.

© Eugene Brennan

 

© Eugene Brennan

Five Reasons Why I Hate Grass Verges

Seduisant, CC BY 3.0  via Wikimedia Commons

I'm not sure when or where the design idea originated or what their function is. Maybe a trendy landscaping idea imported from the US where concrete jungles needed some greening up along the roadside to break the monotony. We've enough green already in Ireland and an abundance of hedgerows. Maybe reserve them for places more "concretey"?

They waste "real estate" that be could be used for creating adequately wide foothpaths. Sometimes they're as wide as the lane of the adjoining road and often wider than the foothpath.
They're usually full of dog shit and other nasty stuff.
They're an unpleasant obstacle when crossing a road, especially when grass is allowed to grow long for biodiversity reasons and then ends up soaking wet. Usually there are an inadequate number, if any, crossing points in the verges.
They often end up with huge, unsightly ruts in them when trucks decide to pull in and park on them.
If there's any broken glass from smashed bottles in them, it can't be seen when the grass is allowed to grow long, potentially leading to foot injuries.

Any more reasons why they're impractical?

Odlums Mill Demise

© Eugene Brennan

Reading about the demise of Odlums Mill in Sallins and commencement of demolition work last month led me down a rabbit hole to this 2019 article from The Irish Times. Apparently, according to the article, there were 900 mills still in operation in Ireland in the 1940s. In the Kilcullen region alone, there were around seven mills operating at various periods over the centuries: a corn mill just north of the bridge in the town itself, which was demolished in the 80s, two more at Carnalway/Harristown, one on the Mill Stream at New Abbey and another in Mile Mill in the field behind The Mill pub. At Ardenode between Kilcullen and Ballymore, there was a mill on the Toor Brook, a tributary of the Liffey. There was also of course the large woollen mill in Ballymore Eustace and water powered cotton factory at Inchaquire (located on the left side of the road, between the two turns for Colbinstown), both of which employed hundreds of people.

Mower Troubleshooting

Public domain image by Skitterphoto on Pixabay

I've written this guide and added bits to it over the years. Basically it's knowledge I gained over 43 years, looking after the maintenance on my mower. There's also a basic guide, linked to in this one. Might help before you resort to sending your mower off to get fixed.

Hear Today, Gone Tomorrow

Public domain image courtesy Pexels.

Remember when you were young and could hear the high pitched whine of the horizontal line scan transformer in a TV that was using the 625 line system? The line output or LOPT transformer operated at 15,625 Hz, and you could tell that the TV was turned on, even with the sound turned down. Before that in the early 70s, vertical resolution was 405 lines. Young children can hear up to a frequency of 20 kHz. Most of us over 50 can only hear to 10 kHz.

Skerries Rocks

Rock showing the influence of volcanic activity, on the coastline at Skerries. © Eugene Brennan

Some interesting rocks from the Loughshinny, Skerries, Balbriggan area I came across on a walk along the coastline. Also a smuggler's cave I want to explore the next time I'm up there. I presume the holes in the rock are from volcanic gases that made the rock froth when it was molten. The white vein is a sedimentary layer that ended up on its side when the strata became folded over horizontally (I think that's what the GSI said when I asked them). Skerries is an area of interest geologically because of the complex number of geological formations from different periods. Further north at Clogherhead is one end of the boundary between the northern and southern landmasses that came together 470 million years ago to "make" the island of Ireland. That boundary line between the two sections extends south westwards towards the Dingle Peninsula.

Vein in rock strata. © Eugene brennan

Smuggler's cave near Loughshinny. © Eugene Brennan

Mobile Phone Transmission Mast Map

Image courtesy ComReg SiteViewer.

For those who like maps and nerdy stuff, this is ComReg's interactive map, showing the locations of mobile phone masts/antennae and details about the services provided from them by various SPs. In Kilcullen, the main sites are at Old Kilcullen, Leinster Marts, Kilcullen 38 kV substation and one at Logstown for which a non-ionising electromagnetic radiation compliance report was produced in 2011 (not sure where the microwave antennae are placed, maybe on the sides of the exchange building. There isn't a lattice mast at the site, although I seem to remember something about planning permission being requested for one?).

Edit: Here's the details on the Kilcullen Diary of the planning application request in 2021. Also three microwave antennae are mounted on a timber pole beside the telephone exchange at Logstown, obscured by trees. This provides GSM (the standard for 2G), 3G and 4G services for Vodafone, although 3G has now been phased out.

Tree Cutting Assessment

If you see trees getting close to lines, you can report them to ESB Networks so that they can be cut before lots of customers may be affected by a limb strike and loss of power. This page gives information about cutting trees and trimming hedges on your property, applying for a free tree cutting assessment, safety guidelines for cutting trees, who's responsible, is there a charge? etc.

More information on the ESB Networks website here.

Fungi Using Gamma Radiation in Chernobyl

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Plants perform photosynthesis, using their leaves to convert light energy from the Sun, water and CO2 into stored chemical energy in the form of starch and sugars (which we can eat, e.g. potatoes, corn etc). O2 is produced as a waste product. The captured carbon is also used for growth and all the structure of a tree comes from CO2 in the air, not from the ground. This article from the Royal Society of Biology explores the radiotrophic fungi from Chernobyl, discovered in the late 1980s, that appeared to have been using gamma radiation for growth. Gamma radiation is a type of electromagnetic radiation, produced during atomic decay. It's on the same EM spectrum as light, UV, infrared, radio waves and X-rays, but has a much higher frequency and shorter wavelength.
This article in The Biologist, the  journal of the Royal Society of Biology has more information.

Water Works

Inside a pumped shower casing. © Eugene Brennan

More home maintenance, it never stops. This time cleaning the screen filter in the shower because pressure had dropped. I wrote a comprehensive article about this a few years ago, but withdrew it because of liability worries. It's not the sort of thing that should be done unless you are experienced and know the potential hazards and understand the safety precautions which must be taken. This filter could easily be broken too I guess if it's pulled out unevenly or with excess force. And it needs to be seated properly too when it goes back in so that the O-rings fit tightly, so observing such details and how things were before they were disassembled is important. Water spraying inside a compartment onto live parts wouldn't exactly be safe, especially if an RCD isn't fitted at the consumer panel to shut off power in this scenario. Not sure why they put the filter inside. Some manufacturers have made them accessible from outside the enclosure.

Filter housing. © Eugene Brennan

Shower unit filter. © Eugene Brennan

Keyhole Plumbing

© Eugene Brennan

The amount of tools required to try and work a miracle and do keyhole plumbing to get the top off a leaking stopcock underground. The alternative is to dig up the concrete. It's just for the workshop luckily.

Edit. Managed to get the rusted red handwheel off the valve, wringing the retaining nut, just as expected (WD40 sprayed on the night before didn't work). I used scrap valves when doing the original plumbing, rather than a proper stopcock that takes a key. I couldn't get the whole spindle out of the valve, I think these are bonded, but got the packing nut off and packed around the stem with PTFE tape, which took forever because the tape had to be rolled on with one hand. (It was a foot down under the ground below one of those horseshoe-shaped covers, so could only get one hand into the chamber). Seems to be no leaks now. I'll keep the new handwheel indoors and just put it on if the water needs to be turned off. The second photo is what the inside of a gate valve looks like (the ones with red handles that you might have in your hot press). The gate is the cylindrical brass disc.

 

Dismantled gate valve for water. © Eugene Brennan

Trivia Alert! — "AAAA" Size Battery

AA batteries. © Eugene Brennan

Ray Darcy was going on about random stuff as usual today and we heard some trivia about quadruple-A or "AAAA" batteries. These are a bit shorter and narrower than an "AAA" cell, and used for slim devices like styluses, laser pointers, penlights and glucose meters. There was also a single-A cell that is now obsolete and also a newer "A" cell and fractional "AA" cells.

This comprehensive Wikipedia article lists all the various battery sizes, both still used and obsolete.

Good News for Fundamental Research

Editorial image courtesy and by permission of Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers

L'Organisation Européenne Pour la Recherche Nucléaire (The European Organisation for Nuclear Research) or CERN is an intergovernmental research organisation that operates a particle accelerator in Geneva. This is the Large Hadron Collider or LHC, an underground, 27km diameter, circular ring in which protons are accelerated and collided into one another at almost the speed of light. This initial step of Ireland being accepted to become an associate member of CERN will give Irish scientists the opportunity to become eligible for staff positions at the organisation.

What's a Particle Accelerator? 

If you've ever seen the inside of an old CRT TV or computer monitor, you would have noticed the long glass tube attached to the back of the screen. That was the electron gun that shot beams of electrons, known as cathode rays, at the back of the phosphor coated screen. The collision of the cathode rays caused the phosphor coating to emit light and by scanning the beam, a composite image could be formed. (Although only a single dot was visible at any one time, persistence of vision making it seem like the full screen was illuminated). An X-Ray tube operates on a similar principle, except the beam of electrons strikes a metal target, causing the emission of X-rays. A particle accelerator is a device, just like an X-ray tube or CRT, that uses electromagnetic fields to accelerate electrons and protons so they collide with each other or a target, and this liberates other particles which can then be detected. By observing and analysing the behaviour of the emitted particles, fundamental knowledge can be gained about the nature of matter. Our only Nobel laureate for physics, Ernest Walton and his colleague John Cockcroft were involved in this type of research in the 1930s, described at the time by the media as "splitting the atom". A synchrotron like the LHC is a type of particle accelerator that uses massive electromagnets to accelerate protons to close to the speed of light. The advantage of the accelerator being circular, unlike linear accelerators, is that particles can be given a boost in speed as they repeatedly circulate in the tube. Eventually when a certain velocity is reached, two beams travelling in opposite directions are collided and the dynamics of the "fragments" of the collision are studied.

More information in this RTÉ news report:

 

Also this, "Remembering Ernest Walton: Splitting the Atom".