So we went to the Home Depot last night to pick up some supplies. One of our main goals for was to replace a bunch of the lighting in our home with Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) Bulbs. Our new condo has several recessed lighting fixtures all of which were loaded with 100W Halogen Bulbs; these we replaced with 13W CFL. So if the current rate for power from PSNH is 7.34 cents/kilowatt-hour and if the average life of a CFL is 8000hrs (6 years) then…
(100W * 8000hrs) * ($.0734/1000WHrs) = $58.72
(13W * 8000hrs) * ($.0734/1000WHrs) = $7.63
Those numbers are cost over 8000 hours (which they say is 6 years of use) and since we replaced 6 of the 100W halogen bulbs we will save $51.09 dollars per year in energy costs. Of course we had to pay for the new bulbs. These were $7.99 for a 4 pack* (plus a $1 dollar instant coupon from PSNH) which makes for $1.75 a bulb. So $51.09 - (6 * $1.75) is $40.59 our first year!
Incandescent, Halogen and Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs
In case you are wondering these numbers are ridiculously inflated. I doubt that we’ll have each of these lights on for 1300 hours per year, but in any case they say that it only takes 500 hours of use to pay off a CFL and after that it is pure savings! Of course, there are other benefits to using less energy than just saving money but after you buy something as expensive as a condo you want to pinch pennies as much as possible (especially if those pennies can go towards video games, beer, or TV.) I’m not going to talk about whether the manufacturing process for CFL are better than normal light bulbs because I honestly don’t know but it would be interesting to find out.
Oh, and we also replaced 4 60W bulbs in our upstairs bathroom for an extra $18.40 in savings.
*We bought a different brand of bulbs from Home Depot.
So I lost my notebook yesterday. That is where I write down shit I need to do… now what will I do today! Plus I am now required to go to the red light district to get a new notebook (which happens to be my car as I bought a three pack last time). Sigh.
One thing I did remember to do is to call up Verizon about transferring my account to our new condo. Here the deal (in a D14-esque complaining spiel). Yesterday I called up Verizon and went through their nice automated, voice recognizing menu system, and, finding no option that fit my need, decided to just hit buttons (say things) until I could talk to a human. The only problem was ‘please stay on the line while we direct your call to the next available operator’ was directly followed by ‘the number you are trying to contact is currently unavailable please call…’. WTF. I gave up, deciding to call again the next day.
Upon getting home, the scientist encouraged me to call again (much to my chagrin) and this time I was able to get through, but that department was closed (Indian call centers just aren’t what they used to be)! Blah.
So, I called again this morning and got through successfully… and here’s the deal. If you have a dry loop dsl plan (dsl with no phone) then you cannot transfer your account. You are required to cancel your account and, once the old account has been cancelled (note that this is several days after the date you tell them to cancel it) you can call them up and start a new account. Convenience at its best. Oh, and I also have to ship back our modem. On the plus side, as I said we were going to sign back up again they waived our early termination fee ($70. Though the email I was just sent told me that I am still subject to the fee. Sigh.)… hmm… this information could be used for evil. ‘Hello, Comcast?’
I’m sure all of you have seen/read something about the British government saving our citizens from terrorist attacks. And I’m sure you’ve seen our federal governments response (i.e. Banning all liquids in carry-on baggage… including toothpaste). Awesome, I almost never check a bag because getting your bag off the carousel adds hours onto your flight (there is nothing like standing in a airport lobby at 1am waiting for your luggage and wondering if you’ll fall asleep on the drive home). So now I can’t bring toothpaste, shampoo, shaving cream, or even water. Tis pretty annoying, if you ask me. But what really gets my goat is that no one is really taking this ban seriously. If they were would they be doing this? Seriously. I really hope terrorist don’t start using book bombs… the movies they show on planes are awful!
An accessory for all you ladies… it’ll go well with your Barry White CD. Um… This does remind me of the accessory that came out with the game REZ.
Answer: You are still allowed to bring your OhMiBod onto a plane… but no lubricant.
Now I’m not the biggest Microsoft fan but when something is cool, something is cool. Check out this photosynth video on the Microsoft Live Labs site. It’s a new way of combining all images on the internet referencing the same location and connecting them (start with one photo and scan left or right, and zoom in… using other photos). I think just watching the video is the best way to understand what it is. I’d really like to play with it… especially if it could pull together a ton of pictures from places like the sistine chapel, the louvre or any number of places I’ve never been (or places I have been but want to show other people).
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)? Reefer Madness (1936)? Trip to the Moon, A (1902)? Bride of the Gorilla (1951)? You can watch them all for free on google video or YouTube, but Free Movies organizes all the links for you. Kind of cool, but how is Santa Clause Conquers the Martians in the public domain? It’s only 50 years old! Anyway, this could be great for those slow days at work (or for your last two weeks).
Also, I looked to see if Gymkata was available online but no luck. All I found was a homemade trailer and a bunch of fight scenes. My god does it look bad!
Here’s a pretty cool presentation on steam power… sort of. The idea is to use low temperatures (160o F) to generate steam that runs a turbine. This way you can use the hot temperatures outside to run AC inside, or use the slightly warm exhausts from factories or geothermal energy to generate power. An idea that could get traction as it could save factories money, and help limit rolling blackout caused by people and businesses who crank their AC to ridiculous levels during heat waves (why can’t people turn the AC to 75o instead of 70o? Do they know how much money they would save?!)
In the future we’ll have to make use of a lot of different energy sources. This could be a major one (at least for those not in the cold, cold north) and could go with the tidal power generators that the scientist pointed out, wind, water, solar, coal, oil and gas (until they run out).
Add the ability to link to photos in our ZenPhoto gallery. (I also added this to the Scientist’s blog, if she wants to use it just press the 
button in the menu bar)
Also, on a side note if you want to put an image in one of your posts, go to the ‘Upload’ section in the ‘Write Post’ section area, browse to the file name it and then Upload it. To include it in the post, click on the image, then on ‘Send to editor’.
What I have I done tonight?
- Well the blog ’should’ look a little better (I referred to Heidi on aesthetics).
- I added an Ajax comment thing… meaning you can see your comment getting posted right before you eyes with out having to reload the page. Wooooo. Try posting a comment because it is kind of cool. Sorry Dan, your comment probably wont show up as every single on of you posts has been caught as ’spam’. I always knew you were full of shit.
- Add links to other blogs for Weird Old Guy.
- Got rid of the sidebar and went with a horizontal set of links (similar to Heidi’s), because it looks less stupid.
- Added little images next to links so that tell you if you are (1) about to leave the site, (2) watch a movie, (3) read a Wikipedia article, (4) read an IMDB article and (5) other things.
- Also, if you are into any social bookmarking I’ve added nice little icons you can press add any of my posts (check out the comments section). I use del.icio.us, apparently Xumbi diggs.
I still can’t get the goddamned spellchecker to work. Is anyone else using a spellchecker? If so, which one? Also, the sidebar looks like poop. I was going to fix it but I got distracted by plugins… did you know there is a plugin that lets you list all the plugins you use?! Anyone have any fun plugins? Argh, again. Anyway, I need to figure out the PHP functions that are being called and see if I can (1) use a different one, or (2) change them to do what I actually want. We’ll see.
I would like to say that I can supply as interesting updates as Dan, but all I can say is I had an interview at a Public Library today for a System Admin job. I think it went well, but I’m not entirely sure. I don’t think they asked me enough questions to deduce whether or not I would be a good candidate… maybe they already have someone in mind. Also, I think this is the first system admin job I’ve seen where Unix/Linux experience is not necessary. Silly billy.
Woo. Riding high on coffee! Woo. Maybe the second cup was not a good idea but I was thirsty for something warm and happened to be walking by a full coffee pot with an empty cup. Only one thing could be done.
I’ve not really got much to say but I felt I need to post that I changed the little icon that appears next to the URL and on the tap (in Firefox). It’s the lobster from Heidi’s page. I probably wont keep it (as it is pretty difficult to tell what it is) but I don’t know what image to use! I found this nice site that makes any image into a 16×16 pixel icon image. So if Tizzom is reading he no longer has to display the bluehost icon. Just replace the favicon.ico in the public_html directory and you’re good to go! But if you have any ideas for images I can iconify send me a link and I’ll give it a shot! (I wonder if I can post all the images and setup a poll so people can vote on them! Not that it’d matter. There are only two votes that would count, but polls are fun! I could do a weekly poll! After the icon one I’d do names for James and Jen’s new child. Mwah haha hah ah, cough.)
ha.
I don’t often talk about this sort of thing, but the new Intel Core2 Dou processors are spicy. They give increased performance (not surprising) but they also decrease power consumption by up to 30%. Wow. I’m sure that fact alone will sell Intel a butt-ton of procs.
