Happy Earth Day!
10 Geeky Ways to Celebrate Earth Day (from Wired.com)
1. Charge your handheld devices in a greener way – The site localcooling.com has some good suggestions.
2. Install a programmable thermostat in your home – It’s really simple, not that expensive, and is pretty well guaranteed
to save energy, and to reduce your utility bills drastically. It can be
a bit of a chore to get the programming just right to keep your family
comfortable, but the prospect of doing some experimentation has never
yet scared off a true geek.
3. Implement Wake-on-LAN on your home computer(s) –
You know how it is: you want to be able to access your home computer
from wherever you are, whether it’s to get to your music library, or
just to grab a document. But of course leaving the computer on all day
is a huge waste of energy. Get Wake-on-LAN to work on it, and you can have the best of both worlds: get access when you need it without leaving it powered up when you don’t.
4. Buy and use an energy-saving surge protector / power strip
– These are devices that act like regular old surge protectors, but
with an added feature: it helps eliminate “phantom power” waste.
“Phantom power” is the little bit of power many devices draw even when
they’re switched off. Some, like this one from Belkin
, are highly configurable and even have a remote control, for extra geek points.
, are highly configurable and even have a remote control, for extra geek points.
5. Install solar panels on your roof – Obviously
this won’t work for everyone, but if you can do this and you live
somewhere where you get a decent amount of sun, this can really reduce
the amount of electricity you draw from your utility company.
Unfortunately, solar panels aren’t efficient enough yet that you’re
likely to see a drastic difference (especially in winter), but without
solar panels it really is just perfectly good energy going to waste,
right?
6. Find and fix air leaks in your home - Houses, and especially older houses, tend to have a lot of little air leaks, any one of which isn’t too bad, but which together can be a huge energy sink. How is this geeky, you ask? Because it’s a great excuse to buy yourself a Black & Decker Leak Detector
, which in addition to having a rhyming name just looks like a lot of fun to play with use.
7. Get a convection oven - We know that many geeks love to cook,
so this is really a no-brainer. Not only do convection ovens cook food
more evenly than conventional ovens, but they do it more quickly and at
lower temperatures. There are even some newer ovens that combine
microwave cooking with convection and/or halogen light cooking, which
are supposed to save even more energy. We haven’t seen reliable
information on how good a job they do actually cooking the food, though.
8. Track your energy usage online – An excellent, and free, online web application called “WattzOn”
is a tool for estimating your energy usage, comparing it to other
people’s, and helping you plan to reduce it. It’s still in alpha, so you
may run into a few bugs here and there, but it’s certainly worth trying
out, and it’s even more certainly geeky.
9. Turn off screen-savers, and encourage your friends and family to do the same
– Time was that screen-savers were useful, even necessary. Unless
you’re still using a CRT monitor, your screen doesn’t need saving, and
even if you are all modern operating systems have power management
functionality which will do the same thing, only better. It’s much
better to have your monitor switch to power-save mode or simply shut off
after a certain period of non-use, especially if it’s a CRT (as CRTs
draw much more power than LCDs do). Once you’ve done it yourself, it’s
time to use your status as Free Tech Support Provider for your friends
and family to convince them to do the same.
10. Recycle cardboard, cans, and bottles as game terrain -
We’re sure you already recycle, but usual recycling efforts are only
somewhat effective due to the resources required to gather the
recyclable materials, separate them, and do the actual recycling. So why
not find another use in your own home, and a geeky use at that? A
little creativity, a pair of scissors, some paint and some glue, and
you’ve got yourself some nifty terrain for a miniatures campaign, or
maybe as a playset for your kids’ action figures.
