Electricity leech: cable set-top box
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:
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:
Lessons:
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.
My First Public Web Application
I wrote an application called List Keeper yesterday. It is used to maintain lists such as grocery lists, to-do lists, etc.
The interface is very simple, and I hope it will work well on web-enabled cell phones. I intend to use it for my grocery list (I remove items from the list as I pick them up from the grocery shelves.) Hopefully other people will find it useful too.
It’s available here: http://list-keeper.appspot.com
It is deployed on the Google App Engine. You can log in using your Google account. This means you don’t need to create yet another account on yet another website. Moreover, it is secure since your password is not sent to me, it is only sent to Google.
Future plans for this application:
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.
Cost of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan: up to $1500 per household