Word: ballards
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...even more advanced technology, the fuel cell, is being pioneered by a small Canadian company called Ballard Power Systems. The fuel cell combines hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity cleanly and quietly; the only waste it produces is water. Small, mass-produced and without moving parts, the devices are a spin-off of the U.S. space program, which uses them to meet the electricity needs of the shuttle fleet. Fuel cells could one day sit in millions of basements producing power and hot water without fossil fuels...
...there is room for optimism and profit, as Daimler's $350 million investment in Ballard Power Systems, a Canadian manufacturer of high-tech fuel cell, would suggest...
Sometimes Delbanco seems almost to have written drama or stand-up comedy--many of his phrases would sound droll if read aloud in a performance. Delbanco, a colleague of Ballard's, writes, had had a marriage that "had gone on the rocks because of the rocks in his glass. The ones that he covered with Scotch...
Certainly Delbanco is conscious of the mechanics of his prose--quite literally, in fact. Ballard twice upbraids other characters for improper use of gerunds. Like Ballard, Delbanco has an ear for "pretty mots all in a row," and obviously takes care to produce affecting sentences. Unfortunately, his sometimes clever phrases usually detract from the overall quality of the work. Entire paragraphs are sometimes included just for the sake of one pun. Some sentences read like Delbanco took a thesaurus and looked up a longer synonym for any word under six letters...
...Heloise. The parallel between the two stories is obvious--both are tales of ill-fated love affairs between teacher and student--but the comparison is specious. The passion between Abelard and Heloise has inspired great literature and art for eight centuries, but the passion between Beth Sieverdsen and Paul Ballard is just a rip-off of their love; it has produced only the disappointing Old Scores...