Hamster in a wheel

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We have a cable set-top box used to receive digital TV.

When it’s “off” it consumes 17 Watts.  We waited for hours to see if the wattage would eventually come down, but it did not.

I’m curious to find out if newer models are better.  Ours is a first generation box: no HDTV, no hard-drive.

When it’s on, it consumes 18 Watts.

I bought a Kill-a-Watt power monitor and measured the energy consumption of a few of our electronic devices.

Computers logged-in, but not running any application:

• laptop: 23 Watts
• Quad-core CPU, dual hard-drive desktop: 109 Watts (73 for the computer itself, 36 for the LCD monitor)

I’m disappointed that a complete desktop computer system consumes more than 4 times as much as a laptop.  It’s especially disappointing that my 22-inch monitor consumes more that the laptop (which has an LCD monitor)

Plasma TV:

• 0 Watts when off (Yay!)
• 310-355 Watts when ON (Yikes!)

Lessons:

1. Unless you truly need an extremely powerful computer, buy a laptop
2. Plasma TVs need electricity, lots and lots of it

Men too, but not as much…

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn15104-the-feminine-touch-carries-more-germs.html

They didn’t explain why men’s hands have less bacteria?  Does burping, farting and picking one’s nose kill bacteria?  Are things like hand lotions used more by women make hands more conducive to bacterial growth?

I’ve just upgraded my hosting account to unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth.  Dreamhost is now offering unlimited hosting, and they’re not the only ones to offer such a service.

Of course it comes with conditions (no reselling, can’t use it for file sharing site, etc.)  The biggest restriction is always CPU usage.  If you use too much CPU you’re out, although they offer virtual private servers for that sort of usage.  I don’t quite understand how they can offer unlimited disk space, I think the theory is that as long as you follow the terms of service you will not exceed their storage capacity.

This blog will be migrated to another server, which means there will be a expected outage.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/us_world/Zoo_Babies.html

This was at Edwards Gardens in Toronto.

I found this worm indoors. It was hard to bring it outside because it would always start writhing in fake agony at the slightest touch. So I made a movie of all the melodrama before bringing my new friend outside.