Absolutely Nothing To Do With the Bakken: Solar-Powered iPad Keyboard -- Fully Charged -- Will "Last" Two Full Years

Link here.

Maybe I'm missing something, but this is incredible if it lives up to expectations:

Similar to Logitech’s solar keyboards for Mac and PC, the Logitech Solar Keyboard Folio includes onboard solar cells that charge the built-in Bluetooth keyboard in any light, whether indoors or outdoors. When fully charged, the battery lasts for up to two years, even in complete darkness (based on a average use of two hours per day).

Note: this is just the keyboard that will "last" two full years on a single full charge.

Two comments:

1) for me, this is a huge breakthrough: I hate replacing batteries -- seems like such a waste, especially for my desktop Blue Tooth keyboard
2) this demonstrates how little energy a keyboard actually uses -- a full charge will last two full years based on average use of two hours per day

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A Note To My Granddaughters

I don't know how well solar-powered gizmos will work today in Boston/Cambridge: it's very overcast; earlier, rain, which has pretty much dissipated, but it still has the look of Yorkshire, England.

I've completed Arrian's history of Alexander's campaigns and am now reading the various appendices.

This is an example of just good this book is, a bit from the appendix on Alexander's army and his military leadership:

Perhaps the only thing all scholars of Alexander are agreed on is the brilliance of his generalship and the devastating effectiveness of his army. In his thirteen years as king and commander, he led this army to victories over forces many times its size, overcame a huge range of strategic challenges and perils, marched at astounding rates through rough or unfamiliar terrain, and almost never ran short of supplies (until he met with a set of logistical failures on his last great march). These phenomenal achievements were only in part the result of Alexander's own prodigious talents, however. The groundwork for them was laid by his father and predecessor, Philip, who, with a series of profound innovations in the 350s BCE, changed the face of organized land warfare forever. Alexander's brilliance is beyond dispute, but his success was in large part determined by the remarkable inheritance he received from Philip.

Before Philip's time the Macedonians had always been strong in cavalry, the corps dominated by the horse-owning nobility, but had lacked an effective infantry. On coming to power in 360, Philip quickly built up his infantry by recruiting strong, vigorous youths from the lower classes and equipping them with a new kind of spear, the sarisa, sixteen or more feet in length. 

And it continues for several pages.