Electric Vehicle Fans

Been getting regular feeds from Zoomi Life for the last couple of weeks - all the latest electric vehicle news. Highly recommended:

http://www.zoomilife.com/

UK Budget 2008

Three thoughts on the UK budget.

I think consumers main concern now is their mountain of debt and how they are going to pay the interest, never mind the capital. Are their jobs secure? Is the value of their house going to go back up again? Negative equity on the car and a mountain of credit card debts. I think, and may be wrong because not everyone is in debt and not everyone worries about if they are, that people are more likely to save or pay off debt with a little extra cash than go out and spend it. So I don't think cuts in taxes are going to do the business in encouraging consumer spending.

The stock markets liked the budget, today at any rate. Well that's okay then. Is part of the success criteria for the budget, that the city will like it? I suspect it is, and is this not the kind of short term thinking that got us into trouble in the first place?

What do we need new roads for? Peak Oil has not gone away and neither has climate change. In fact the problems of Peak Oil just got worse because the low price of oil has stiffled investment in both oil and renewables. I struggle to envisage any scenario that does not involve a decrease in driving in the short term, even the most positivie scenario where we replace some of our transport needs with technology. This budget was a huge opportunity to invest in the energy infrastructure of the country and show that the UK was a sound long term investment. Instead the gamble is that we are all going to start buying again and that energy prices, energy security and climate change are not going to cause a problem any time soon.

Just add a couple of wings....

As a private pilot who once dabbled in building a kit plane, the new Aptera looks remarkably like one of those kits but without wings...

Re eMail overload at big organisations

A couple of friends were telling me last night about the eMail overload they have at their company. 100-200 emails per day (not including spam) all of which have to be scanned to see if they are:
- genuine requests for action
- replies
- just thought you would like to know
- does anyone know....
- arse covering
- arse licking
etc.

We considered a number of solutions from charging people to send emails to banning email altogether, but here was the best idea of the evening.

• Email is for actions only, ie. the first two in the list above
• You can only send email to one person
• You, generally, use the old fashioned chain of responsibility when sending - ie. you send a level up or down, NOT to the whole chain. It is the responsibility of the person you send to whether to forward your email. Structures are fairly flat these days, so not as onerous as it used to be.
  
• All cc's get put on a public (to the organisation) twitter stream instead of being delivered. Can also post direct to twitter stream.
  
• It is NOT expected that everyone will see everything on the twitter stream, but it allows for some element of serandipidy - MD just happens to see cleaners observation re competitions plans leaked to girlfriends, mothers, step-brothers, aunt....

Interested to hear any ideas or experiences of what has worked as huge potential savings here for many organisations! Is it possible to process emails before delivery and remove CC'd people then post text on internal twitter? Would need to notify people their email had not been delivered to everyone, by email, thus increasing the number of emails again!

Self-help gadget for electricity cost reduction

Some time in the future our equipment will negotiate for best price energy without our having to do anything. But in 2008, if we want to reduce our electricity bills we have to do it ourselves. Studies show that installing equipment to show people their current electricity usage has a big impact on their usage. For a short time. But when the novelty wears off we tend to slide back to our old habits. Here is an idea for a gadget to keep reminding us to use electricity efficiently.

Having done your initial measurement, you can tell a gadget your target electricity usage for the day. Once you reach this amount and alarm goes off and the gadget flashes an anoying red. Only 6pm and you've busted your limit again. Of course you will start to ignore this after a while as well, but maybe by then you might have got into the habit of switching the lights off or running the washing machine at night (so you don't hear that alarm going off!).

If I won the Lotto - which car?

My daydreams about which car I would buy if I won the Lotto (in a big way) has changed lately. In the old days (like last month) my daydreams conveniently excluded guilt over carbon emissions, crowded roads and the rough track up to my house in selecting my dream car. Contenders included the Mac Merc Monaro and Aston Martin and of course a Jag XKR.

However, pondering the credit crisis and future fallout, how long before I was struggling to find parts for my Mac Merc in West Cork. If I want to keep driving through the recession (assuming my big win can keep paying for petrol) maybe I would be better of with a classic car. Simple to repair, more parts available. And as I speed down the road in a cloud of carbon emissions I could remind myself that that I was preserving a piece of history for the nation!


Haven't come to a firm conclusion here as my favorite classics are a bit long in the tooth - Jaguar XK120 or never were that reliable - Sunbeam Tiger. Maybe I would go for something a bit more modest like a Triumph Stag?


Many happy hours ahead pondering this hypothetical dilemma.

Stimulate innovation by saying no

Great example of what happens when you say No to someone - just makes them more determined. Unable to get access to a gas meter signal, this guy did a bit of lateral thinking.

http://phk.freebsd.dk/Gasdims/

and http://hackedgadgets.com/2008/10/14/energy-monitoring-project/