First, before we start the rather macabre discussion of burial, I want to wish you all a happy new year. Also, my blog this year will alternate between Thursdays and Fridays. Thursdays will remain the traditional Thermo Thursday and Fridays will be Finance Fridays in which I will dissect energy or thermo related stocks to help you discern if their business is based on hope or ... Read this and 1 comment.

We are not talking about the Rio Grande, but the mid-size coffee serving at Starbucks. Yes, Starbucks has short, tall, grande and venti sizes for their coffee and lattes. The grande is 16 oz. (More on Starbucks lingo is available at ... Read this and 4 comments.

Today with tongue in cheek we thank our Government for their new found interest in thermo. Today the Senate will not take up a vote on the energy bill as it stands with added taxes on oil companies. The end to the filibuster was one vote ... Read more.

This is not about Billy the Billionaire but about gates that allow electrons to flow. It is the sixtieth anniversary of the invention of the first transistor. A transistor is a gate that allows electrons to flow or can stop electrons from flowing depending whether the gate is open or ... Read this and 12 comments.

There is much debate regarding the need for energy self sufficiency in the US. The discussions are also shaded by opinion on the possible problems of global warming. All this public debate is for good reason even if the debate is not always well reasoned. Of course the US should wean itself from imported oil if we want to improve the environment and reduce our balance of payments deficit. The problem is difficult to solve not because of lack of discussion but rather because of fundamental ... Read this and 1 comment.

Today is the first anniversary of Genentech's gRide program where employees are rewarded for not bringing a car to the campus. I have opined on the brilliance of this program and Andrew Tobias a TT subscriber as well as a very well known finance and political person carried the Carpooligan’s blog that I wrote a few months ... Read more.

I had promised an analysis of the Toyota Prius versus a Corolla but an Omninerd beat me to the punch with a very good analysis of the Prius. I was going to blog about a person who carpools and whether a Corolla is then better than a Prius. My belief is that it is obviously better to own a Corolla and carpool than own a Prius and not carpool. The effective fuel economy on a Corolla with two people alternating their driving is higher than the one person in a Prius. The cost of ownership of a ... Read more.

Today we will discuss mass and grams are a unit of measure of mass. First a thank you to Ajay for his blog on how Brother Gibb had an oldie disco hit song titled "How deep is your love of thermo." ... Read this and 2 comments.

Yes we have to thank the Reds (not Cincinnati) for today’s episode of TT. It is exactly 50 years ago today that space exploration began. The USSR launched Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957. This 180 pound payload sat atop a R7 Rocket. Sputnik did nothing except send some radio noise back to earth. ... Read more.