Waste Diversion

...from healthy glass to BPA epoxy lined aluminum cans. It is nothing to celebrate.

by Lloyd Alter, January 30, 2012 published on www.treehugger.com... Read more »

By Jeff Alan

Over the holidays I dismantled another misbehaving giant LCD. The problem was that periodically, the screen would garble, and if you waited a couple hours it might fix itself. Or it wouldn't. Either way, it wasn't behaving and it was being replaced. The only indicator that it might be an easy fix was that bashing the top right of the frame would correct the error, if only temporarily. Other investigation aside...

Reducing the device to the point where we had access to (what was probably) the data feeds in the top of the TV, my accomplice and I found that there were flat ribbon cables attached along the top of the LCD panel from long, thin boards (each half had its own board and set of four). We fiddled with these while the TV ran, unable to trigger the dysfunction. So, we waited and hoped and... sure enough, the problem started.... Read more »

Ever noticed some people get by with much smaller fridges? It's not always because they go out to dinner every night. I stayed with a family in Shanghai who ate almost entirely home-cooked, healthy food and had a tiny fridge. You may be surprised how alternate handling of a lot of your food makes it last longer - and uses less space in your fridge. 

According to Lloyd Alter with Treehugger.com, too many of us use our fridge as "an expensive air conditioned parking lots for what Shay Salomon called "compost and condiments." 

Smaller fridge = less electricity. ... Read more »

More ways you can 'monitor' your computer's energy use (part 2 of 2)

Wattch This

By Jeff Alan

Computer power consumption, while receiving increasing attention, is still a confusing beast. One of the biggest potential power drains in a system could be the video card. This is easiest to explain with this fantastic writeup and chart:

http://forums.atomicmpc.com.au/index.php?showtopic=264... Read more »