etbe

18 Apr

Solar Powered PC

I’ve just read an interesting post on TomsHardware.com about a solar powered PC [1]. It describes all the steps involved in creating a modern high-performance low-power computer.
They have a lot of interesting information. One surprising fact (from page 3) is that the PSUs tested (both for AC and DC input) were more efficient [...]

15 Apr

Fried Food

I’ve just been reading about oil deterioration when deep frying [1]. Apparently frying food can cause the production of Acrylamide [2] which causes cancer, is a neurotoxin, and does other bad things to your body. Deep frying in a vacuum [3] is a solution to this problem as the lower temperatures reduce the [...]

13 Apr

Car Sharing in Melbourne

Recently I noticed that some parking spots in the city area are reserved for car sharing. There seems to be two car sharing companies operating.
Flexicar [1] costs $50 to join, has a $10 per month membership fee (which includes one hour of driving at a value of $12), and costs $12 per hour or [...]

12 Apr

A Bio-fuel Petrol Station

Today I happened to see a bio-fuel petrol station! I decided to check it out (even though I was traveling by tram in a part of town that I don’t normally visit so there was no possibility of any real purchase).
The station is Conservo [1]. Their main products are E10 petrol (10% Ethanol [...]

11 Apr

Vegie Cars

I’ve read a lot about running Diesel vehicles on plant oil, but one thing that was never clear was why some people claim that you need special chemical additives.

Their site is very interesting and has some good technical information, even if you never plan to drive a Diesel vehicle it’s worth reading if you are interested in cars.

17 Mar

Unusual Ways of Helping the Environment

Unusual Things to Help the Environment
Have a party! Keeping a house at a comfortable temperature on days of extreme temperature takes a moderate amount of energy. If instead of having three houses that each contained two people you had one house with six people and two houses with the heater or air-conditioner turned [...]

23 Feb

Giving Away Hardware

For the last few years I have been actively seeking free hardware to give to members of my local LUG. Whenever a friend or business associate mentions that they are upgrading or replacing computers I enquire what they plan to do with the old ones and request that the old gear be given to [...]

27 Jan

Organic Food in Melbourne

Yesterday when walking down Flinders St I noticed that a new store has opened up selling organic food. It’s Flinders Organics and the address is 260 Flinders St Melbourne VIC 3000 (just across the road from Flinders St Station, not far from the Swanston St intersection). I bought some fruit, some Green and [...]

02 Jan

Low Power - They Just Don’t get it

For a while I’ve been reading the Lenovo blog Inside The Box [1], even though I plan to keep my current laptop for a while [2] (and therefore not buy another Thinkpad for a few years) I am interested in the technology for it’s own sake and read the blog.
A recent post concerns a new [...]

01 Jan

Fluorescent vs Incandescent lights

Glen Turner writes about silly people who think that fluorescent lights don’t save energy over their lifetime [1].
A compact fluorescent light (one that is designed for the same socket as an incandescent globe) is not the most efficient light source, the Luminous Efficiency page on Wikipedia [2] lists a CFL as having an efficiency of [...]

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