Category: Energy

It’s time to put the recycling out. I know this for sure because it’s currently spilling all over the floor, so really, it was time to put the recycling out several days ago. What is wrong with me, seriously? I’d actually taken my unemployment pretty well up until now. It was going to be an opportunity to get stuff done around the house, shift into a different career, maybe go on a trip if I was frugal enough.

But instead, I’m mired in the swamp of procrastination. Guess I just need the routine of getting up every morning and going to the office…or wherever. Good to know for life. Though I did manage to catch a documentary yesterday that gave me pause. It started off talking about commercial LED lighting, so I left it on because I was trying to sleep and it sounded dull enough to get me there. But then it turned out to be interesting, funnily enough- the scientific principles of LED lighting are actually pretty cool once you take away all the surface stuff- and then it sort of blended into a documentary about automation in both business and home.

So here’s me wishing I had a robotic butler to take out the recycling, but then they let people test a special automated home for sixty days and they turned out just terrible. Everything was done for them: cooking, cleaning, washing…they never even had to turn on the lights. They had special LED lights that adjusted to location and brightness, with no manual setting. At the end of the sixty days, the people inside were bored stiff and just desperately wanted to wash a dish, or iron a shirt.

Kinda sucks because I’ve forgotten everything I learned about industrial LED lighting solutions, so maybe I can catch the documentary again. Still, maybe I should be grateful that I have to take out the recycling and turn the lights on and off myself. Keeps us all sane, apparently. Thanks, lighting!

-Dai

It’s weird how small things remind you of things from way back. Like…smell. What’s with smell and memory? Just the other day I smelt a pie and suddenly I was frozen in place by a flashback to Christmas 1992. The infamous year of the Chicken Pie Dinner.

Maybe it’s just imprinted in my memory because it tore our family apart. Yeah, that’s got to be it.

Not always smell, though. We had a seminar at work today and it was all about commercial energy storage. Apparently people have been using their hairdryers too much. Who knew? Anyway, I’m not completely up on the methods of industrial energy storage in Melbourne, but I couldn’t stop thinking about ‘Green with Energy’. Anyone remember that? This was back in the days when green power and solar energy were still getting big, and they made this really weird cartoon about it. Bit of early propaganda aimed at children, basically.

The animation was horrible and the voice acting sounds like it was performed by amateurs, but there was a charm to the whole affair. There’s also the fact that it WORKED. Like, I still remember all these random facts about solar energy, years later. I can even tell you all about the benefits and downsides to wind power, as well as what commercial energy storage looked like in the eighties. Seems like things have come a long way since then, as you’d expect. People LOVE them, the thought of some green energy, so I wouldn’t be too surprised if they brought the show back for a new generation. They could add a talking electric car and tell everyone about green power. More than ever we need positive role models for children to promote energy responsibility and an end to reliance on fossil fuels.

I mean, commercial energy storage for Melbourne businesses is certainly looking a lot flashier. Enough for all those hairdryers.