Energy Savings: Emo Light

Suitable for Goths and blind people, too! I love it.

Internetting from the right-side of the brain: My Mileage Marker

File under: the internets

My Mile Marker . com is a great way to keep track of your car’s fuel economy (or lack thereof). I know these things can be accomplished in spreadsheets, but it’s nice to have someone else take the headache out of it for you, plus there are neat graphs to view once you establish your MPG (ie, fill your tank more than once, consecutively). And, we all know that if your MPG is decreasing, something is wrong with your car. So give it a go, and help the planet a bit while you’re at it!

Go There!>>

Energy Savings

After finally remembering to switch the hot water heater in our house to “vacation” on our last vacation, I’ve tried to be a little more energy conscious. To accomplish a small start, I picked up a few lower energy light bulbs and also took a quick inventory of the power-suckers in our house. Deciding that the basement computer has to stay on for the majority of the day, I found SwitchOff, installed it hassle-free, and set it to 4am (the time after which the computer does no more housekeeping tasks). Admittedly, the computer will not save me the most energy. Saving money, it is important to note, is not the goal. My goal with this small exercise is to save energy.

Thus, instead of the computer, I decided to look into my lighting habits. Ironically, on the same day that I decided to add a few low-impact CFL bulbs to our lighting repertoire, Snopes.com (the post-humous-Faulkner-character’s eponymous site of urban legends) decided to run an article [link contains popups] on the bulbs’ mercury content. Whew, that was a wordy sentence. The short story? The site found no extreme danger of mercury, and with an average savings of around $45.00 / year it is one of three things I’m working on to save a few nickels per kilowatt hour. The others? Unplugging the wine fridge until company comes, splicing in a programmable thermostat, and trying to make the most of Great Stuff, which truly is great stuff.