Daily Archives: March 14, 2012

Three towns you can buy right now

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Three towns you can buy right now – The Style Blog – The Washington Post.

IMHO, myself and all my readers should go in on the town in France! 19, count ‘em, 19 homes.  Spruce ‘em up, and we got vacation time shares on the Continent!  Sounds good to me, you?  :)

If you’ve ever wanted a little more space than your apartment or house provides, now is your time: Three towns — in Montana, Wyoming and France — are for sale. And they’re relatively affordable!


Buford resident Don Sammons stands in front of the population sign in a Jan. 1, 2011 photo. Sammons is the town’s sole resident and will sell the town by auction. (AP Photo/Wyoming Tribune Eagle, Michael Smith) (Michael Smith – AP)

Buford, Wyo.

Size: 10 acres

Price: An auction on April 5 will begin at $100,000.

Amenities: a three-bedroom home, a gas station, the Buford Trading Post, a 1900s cabin, a garage, and a schoolhouse built in 1905

History: Buford is for sale by its owner and lone resident, Don Sammons. According to Time, Buford is the second-oldest town in Wyoming, once bustling with 2,000 residents. It declined when a railroad re-routed, and though Sammons once lived there with his family, they’ve all since moved away and left him as the town’s sole resident. He’s selling the town because he’s ready to move on, he says.


Cars drive on Interstate 80 near Buford, Wy. in a Jan. 11, 2011 file photo. Buford resident Don Sammons is the town’s sole resident and will sell the town by auction. (Michael Smith – AP/Wyoming Tribune Eagle)

Pray, Montana

Size: Five acres of commercial property

Price: $1,400,000

Amenities: One new commercial building with a rental storefront and deluxe apartment, a post office and an old store that comes complete with “enough historical artifacts to create a small museum,” according to the listing. Yellowstone National Park and Chico Hot Springs Resort are nearby.

History: Pray is for sale by Barbara Walker, whose family has owned the town for 59 years, according to the Associated Press. The town was founded in 1907 by a man named Valentine Eggar, who wanted to name the town after himself. His name choice was not approved by the Postal Service because it was too similar to another town’s name, so he named it after Rep. Charles N. Pray, who was in charge of approving new post offices.

“It’s kind of a unique property,” Bart Miller, the realtor for Mason & Morse Ranch Co. in Colorado, which has listed the property, told the AP.

“It’s really meant for someone to come in with a vision and make a bed and breakfast or coffee shop or general store,” he said.


In this photo taken Feb. 28, the French village of Saint Nicolas Courbefy, in Limousin, a region in central France, is seen for sale. The entire hamlet carried an asking price of just 300,000 euro ($440,000), the cost of a studio apartment in Paris. (Sarah DiLorenzo – AP) Courbefy, France

Size: Stories about the town don’t specify, but it’s big enough to accommodate the 19 homes that are part of the deal.

Price: A deposit of 330,000 euro ($440,000) is required from interested buyers before a May 21 auction.

Amenities: Aside from those 19 homes, there’s a swimming pool and tennis courts. Everything is pretty run down, though, because the previous owners deserted the property years ago. A 12th century chapel is excluded from the sale.

History: Courbefy goes back to Gallo-Roman times, according to the AP — a road connecting nearby Limoges and Bordeaux passed through the town. No one has lived there since the 70s, after which the town passed through a series of hands, each intending to fix it up into a luxury resort or children’s camp or vacation property. Credit Agricole, which holds the mortgage, is selling the town.


In this photo taken Feb. 28, the swimming pool in the French village of Saint Nicolas Courbefy, in Limousin, a region in central France is seen. (Sarah DiLorenzo – AP)

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New super-cheap, ultra-thin solar cells could threaten fossil fuel dominance – Yahoo! News

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New super-cheap, ultra-thin solar cells could threaten fossil fuel dominance – Yahoo! News.

The march toward viable alternative energies may have just taken a crucial step forward. Twin Creeks Technologies, a US-based solar energy startup, unveiled this week a new type of ultra-thin solar cell that cost half as much to produce as comparable cells. The drop in price could allow solar to serve as a practical alternative to fossil fuels.

The secret to Twin Creeks’ new solar cells is thinness. Most crystalline solar panels use sheets of silicon that are around 200 mircons thick, and are cut from blocks of silicon that measure about 600 microns thick. The process of cutting the silicon down to 200 microns results in massive waste. But Twin Creeks uses a hydrogen ion particle accelerator to create silicon solar wafers that measure a mere 20 microns thick, and are at least as efficient at turning sun rays into electricity as their 200-micron counterparts. The innovative production process creates almost no waste, and cuts the cost of solar cell production from about 80 cents per watt down to 40 cents per watt.

Here’s how Twin Creeks’ silicon wafer production works: Instead of using saws to cut solar wafers, Twin Creeks’ Hyperion manufacturing system uses high-energy beams of hydrogen ions, which are blasted at the thick plates of silicon. The hydrogen beam penetrates the silicon plate to between 10 and 20 microns, forming a layer of hydrogen gas at that specific depth. This gas then “exfoliates” a super-thin sheet of silicon, which is then peeled from the remaining silicon plate to create the silicon layer, called a “lamina,” that collect solar energy to be converted into electricity.

Based in Senatobia, Mississippi, Twin Creeks does not plan to make its own solar panels, reports Technology Review. Instead, the company hopes to sell its Hyperion manufacturing system to solar panel makers. Twin Creeks says its Hyperion technology is 90 percent more efficient than other wafer manufacturing techniques, and can be easily incorporated into already-existing solar factories.

So far, Twin Creeks has raised $93 million in venture capital, and has also received a loan from the state of Mississippi to build its factory. While the complete package needed to make solar a truly accessible alternative energy remains unfinished, it’s clear that Twin Creeks’ innovative manufacturing technology is a leap in the right direction.

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

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Encyclopedia Britannica to stop printing books – Mar. 13, 2012

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Encyclopedia Britannica to stop printing books – Mar. 13, 2012.

Click link above to watch video.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — After 244 years, Encyclopedia Britannica will cease production of its iconic multi-volume book sets.

Britannica usually prints a new set of the tomes every two years, but 2010′s 32-volume set will be its last. Instead, the company will focus solely on its digital encyclopedia and education tools.

The news is sure to sadden champions of the printed word, but Britannica president Jorge Cauz said the move is a natural part of his company’s evolution.

“Everyone will want to call this the end of an era, and I understand that,” Cauz says. “But there’s no sad moment for us. I think outsiders are more nostalgic about the books than I am.”

In truth, Cauz says, the death knell sounded long ago. Though the name “Britannica” calls the print sets to mind, Cauz says they represent less than 1% of the company’s total sales.

“The print set is an icon. But it’s an icon that doesn’t do justice to how much we’ve changed over the years,” Cauz says.

The online version of the encyclopedia, which was first published in 1994, represents only 15% of Britannica’s revenue. The other 85% is sales of education products: online learning tools, curriculum products and more.

That’s not surprising to Michael Norris, a senior trade books analyst at Simba Information, who says reference books have taken the worst hit with the rise of digital.

“People still buy, read and love print books. But the relationship they have with a novel is very different than what they have with a piece of information they need,” Norris says.

“This has been the reality of reference texts for years now,” Cauz says. “Updating dozens of books every two years now seems so pedestrian. The younger generation consumes data differently now, and we want to be there.”

Will people pay for Britannica? That younger generation is accustomed to finding content for free via Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) or that other online encyclopedia: Wikipedia. It’s unclear whether people will be willing to pay for a household subscription, which costs $70 per year, or an app version for $1.99 per month.

“Google’s algorithm doesn’t know what’s fact or what’s fiction,” Cauz concedes. “So Wikipedia is often the No. 1 or No. 2 result on search. But I’d bet a lot of money that most people would rather use Britannica than Wikipedia.”

Britannica will start offering more free content to entice potential subscribers. But Cauz doesn’t expect Britannica to replace or even overtake Wikipedia. He sees the situation as “different senses of responsibility.”

He adds: “Wikipedia is a wonderful technology for collecting everything from great insights to lies and innuendos. It’s not all bad or all good, just uneven. It’s the murmur of society, a million voices rather than a single informed one.”

As a result, Cauz says, consumers are craving accuracy and are willing to pay for it.

“We have an important role to play,” Cauz says. “I think Wikipedia sees us as a relic of an old era. But facts always matter, no matter what form they take. Our mission hasn’t changed, just the method.”

In a nod to those changes, Britannica is relaunching its site in three weeks to add more social connections and interactivity.

Cauz says he celebrates those changes, as well as the end of the print set — which was first published in Scotland in 1768. In fact, Britannica is throwing itself a party on Wednesday.

“We’re going to have a cake in the shape of a print set to celebrate,” Cauz says, laughing. “Is that morbid?” To top of page

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