Letters to the editor on courtroom computers and thermal batteries

A trip down memory laneAs a 62-year member of the American Chemical Society, the recent article by Elsa Reichmanis, “Memory Lane: Pencil, Paper, Punch Cards, and Collaboration,” reminded me of a similar experience from the 1970s, the period of her historical look back. As far as I know, I was the first person to take a computer into the courtroom. This occurred during the US Environmental Protection Agency hearings on the limits of uses for heptachlor and chlordane pesticides. After 3 days of motions and arguments, the judge allowed me to use the original Texas Instruments Silent Series 700 model 725, which was the first computer terminal system to use thermal paper, at counsel’s table whenever court proceedings were off the record. Although Texas Instruments advertised this as the first portable teletype, at 23 kg, it was more of a “luggable” that was really a challenge to carry on a plane or to court. However, it was worth all the difficulty just to see how the demur of expert witnesses changed when they realized that with just a CAS number for the molecule under discussion, I could retrieve all the relevant information in just minutes.Douglas B. SebaKey West, Florida Work vs. Heat In “Decarbonizing with a Box of Hot Bricks,” you make it sound paradoxical that “even as solar and wind become, on average, the cheapest electrons on the grid,” “natural gas is still cheaper than electricity as a way to generate heat,” and later state that “thermal batteries have