Chargers

How to finance your monthly coffee or yearly TerraPass: Tip #10 | Home energy use, Chargers, Appliances, Energy conservation & technologies
Are you plugged in? If you have ever left rechargers or unused appliances plugged into the electrical outlet, you may be in for a bit of a shock. The U.S. Department of Energy tells us that not only do appliances continue to draw electricity while the products are turned off, but in the average home nearly 75% of all electricty used to power electronics is consumed by products that are switched off.

A tip from Ideal Bite
Use power strips to turn off TVs and stereos. You’ll save the energy equivalent of a 100-watt light bulb that is always on.

With stereo or TV or computers one should use a power strip with surge suppressor anyway – I use this brand. In my studio I also use their UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supplies).

GM

GM ready to push into fuel-cell car market | Reuters.co.uk
China is far more committed to replacing imported petroleum than the United States is, and we’re just a little bit disappointed at the lack of will in the current administration,” Lutz said.

Interesting quote by the vice-chairman of General Motors. A bit of the pot calling the kettle black.

Thursday

Mushroom Visitors - 2
I will leave in a week and will return at the end of October. Before I leave I will turn off the commenting option for this Diary, because I have removed more than 1,300 spam items in a little over a month! Commenting will be turned back on once I am back.

Boris commented on September 14th, 2006:
Will you have to be w/o guitar when travelling Tibet like last year in Italy? I could imagine that the altitude wouldn’t do fine with the guitar, no?

I would not dare take one of my guitars on this trip. I expect to buy a guitar in China and hope to find something for a hundred bucks or so. The guitar will be carried by a yak and will have to endure quite a bit in terms of temperatures and handling. If it survives I will gift it to a local person at the end of our journey.

Place and Name

On 8/22/06, DK wrote:
On your recommendation I bought The Practice of the Wild. I am taking my time reading it; reading each section of a chapter 3 times & then rereading the whole chapter because there is so much there to absorb. You had an entry in your diary in which you mentioned learning more about the place where you live & I didn’t think a lot of it until I started reading the book. I have lived in southeastern Massachusetts for 41 of my 44 years but now I want to know more about my place: what’s the difference between the oak with pointy leaves & the oak with rounded leaves, the white pine vs the “scrub” pine, etc. The list goes on. I’ll be buying a copy of the National Audubon Society’s guide to New England. I really do believe it will help make me more complete.

Thank you very much for your note. It is time I learn the names of all the rivers and mountains, of the plants and animals in the biosphere around me, and that I become intimate with the landscape by walking in it… and then we can teach our children.

I have been thinking a lot about this earlier post of mine, specifically the line It is obvious: the subjects we talk the most about must be the most important! That also goes for naming, that is, those items we can name must be more important. Well, when asked by a child to name things, I don’t do so well with nature – hence that is an area I must improve. I grew up in a city, and remember taking walks on Sunday mornings with my dad when I was a toddler. By the time I was four I new all of the car brands and could tell you whether they had a boxer engine or a wankel engine or an inline four etc.

I was reading Robert Fripp’s diary yesterday and at the bottom of that page a random aphorism appears – see link on my sidebar to the right. The aphorism that came up was: In naming myself, I recognize who I am. Very true. I will add to that: In naming my world, I define myself. You can never name everything, and the selection you make and maybe even more importantly the items you exclude, define who you are. And, that will certainly shape our children’s lives.