Kasblah

So how much energy does the average person use every day? Swiss scientists worked the numbers and came up with a model for each country’s total energy consumption back in 1998 and divided it by the number of citizens. The result showed that as a planet we average about 2000 watts continuously (17,520 kilowatt-hours per year). That’s equivalent to leaving the hairdryer on 24/7!

Of course, the model didn’t just include electric use, but rather all energy use translated into watts. So our 2000 watts include all the energy used to make our lives go round: the energy used to produce and deliver our food, our gadgets, the fuels used to run our vehicles, etc, they even included the energy used to run sewage plants and other “invisible” things that make our everyday what it is.

So the 24/7 hairdryer doesn’t seem a lot for all this after all? Unfortunately 2000 watts was the planet average. 2004 figures estimate the average European uses three times the average (6000 watts) and the average American twice that again (12,000 watts). Norwegians weigh in at a hefty 8,000 watts.

Not surprisingly the model paints a world of energy haves and have nots, but more alarmingly gives us a reminder how energy use will grow in the future as nations like China and India continue their rapid development. And unfortunately most of the energy we use today comes from limited, non-renewable, carbon-emitting sources. In addition to the impact on global climate there is the risk of conflict as resources grow scarcer.

Along with the model came a vision of a 2000-watt society. A world where most people limit their energy use to 2000 watts. The model aims to more evenly redistribute energy as well as establish a sustainable level of energy usage for the future. Technological advances play a major role in reaching this goal, such as passive house design, zero-energy buildings, low-emission vehicles, etc.

Seems everyone has a post on April Fools, so here’s mine:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/betamaxhd.html

Video geeks will enjoy the irony of this one…

I’ve had a hankering for a good racing game to play on my PC, and after some reading I saw that the new DiRT game is supposed to be the best looking car game ever. Then I read the system specs… my PC doesn’t even meet the minimum specs. Ouch! I knew it wasn’t top dog anymore but it’s barely 2 years since I upgraded it with mid-range components. Hell, it plays that former graphicscardbuster Half-Life 2 just fine!

Disappointed I loitered around Steam for awhile looking for something my dinosaur could handle, and came across a game called TrackMania. A wacky sort of racing game where the cars drive on impossible tracks and jump 10 miles off cliffs, etc Lots of fun. Plus trackbuilder software and a buzzing online community where people compete on each others tracks.

I think the whole Apple iPhone show is fun to watch. Apple releases a phone “for the rest of us”, and predictably every grumpy nerd is complaining about this and that feature missing. Meanwhile a million people have bought the phone since it was launched last week, not bad at all. Apple stock is up 10%.

So is this a flicker for Apple or will the iPhone become a mobile juggernaut along the lines of the iPod? Like the iPhone the iPod was fairly basic when it arrived in stores, other more “features-heavy” MP3 players were already around. But fairly quickly through its combination of style and user-friendliness (and later the successful iTunes store) the iPod came to dominate the MP3 player market. Can the iPhone manage a similar feat? Will it spread beyond the Mac faithful? I think this quote from Business 2.0 is right on when it comes to where this may be headed:

Some prognosticators are predicting that demand will slow down once all of the Apple enthusiasts have bought their iPhone.

I think just the opposite. Apple now has perhaps 500,000 or 1,000,000 additional sales people added to their sales force at no cost to them. IPhone owners are so enthusiastic, and everyone else is so curious, that there will be millions of iPhone demonstrations being conducted today and every day for the next few months. That will sell a lot more iPhones.

So heres a quick test post from a nifty Dashboard Widget called WordPressDash. It lets you quickly post a text to a blog. Pretty basic, I can choose a category but thats about it.