Ideas for reducing power consumption

[GT98]

Make sure you take your showers/baths with someone else of your chosing to save on water/heating costs

Then again that may take longer

[xortam]

We use a lot LED lights for mobile lighting but I haven't seen much interesting for home use. I like halogen on dimmers at home because of their clean brightness when you need it and warm colors when they're dimmed.

One of the best ways we could save energy would be to turn off our computers and quit posting on forums about such things as how to save energy.

[Dr Mordrid]

We've been using high internsity white LED flashlights for some time now. They saved our buns during the power outage last year.

Every one of those flashlights was bright as hell and ran way too many hours on a single set of D cells for the duration of the outage.

I've seen several commercial LED arrays for replacing ligtht bulbs, but they're too expensive at this point. The encouraging part is that the price of the new high intensity LED's is dropping fast.

Dr. Mordrid

[DGhost]

Don't get me started on the dark sky thing... around town all the McDonalds (and I'd assume across the country too assuming a national thing) have put spot lights on all the stores. I guess they figure people must have a difficult time finding them at night or something.

Oh, and nuke Detroit. (The auto manufacturing areas and figuratively speaking of course.) I wonder what percentage of the US's energy and resources is wasted on building disposable automobiles for mindless consumers to buy every year?

awww, you had to bring up the nukes only figuratively? you got my freaking hopes up. *cry*

[Jon P. Inghram]

I suppose a living in a nuclear wasteland might be preferable to Detroit from what I've heard, but as I've never actually been there I figured I should hold back a bit.

I've stuck a cheap Radio Shack white LED in an old 2 AA Maglite. With 3 N cells it's reasonably bright and runs for quite a while, but normally I just use 2 AA's and put up with the reduced brightness.

[agallag]

Make sure you take your showers/baths with someone else of your chosing to save on water/heating costs

In my experience, those kinds of showers use way more water than two typical single person showers, and significantly more soap

[Dr Mordrid]

I suppose a living in a nuclear wasteland might be preferable to Detroit from what I've heard, but as I've never actually been there I figured I should hold back a bit.

Yes, you should and I'm NOT smiling

Nice thing to say given you've probably never been anywhere near Detroit or its suburbs. For your information we have a downtown with more to do than you can shake a stick at, most of it new or newly renovated within the last 20+ years.

Chief among these are Greektown, the Theater District (2nd only to NYC in number of seats; if you can't find some fun here you're dead or dying), the casinos, a ton of restaurants (The Rattlesnake Club or the Union Street Saloon...yummmmm) and what must be two of the best sports venues in the entire US: Ford Field and Comerica Park.

You'll get to see both on TV since we have the All Star Game this year and the the 2006 Superbowl. Right next door to them is The Fox Theater, one of the most beautiful of the renewed grand theaters I've ever seen, which sports a 5 story high main lobby and takes up an entire city block. Nearby is the rest of the Theater District along with The Second City Comedy Club and the aforementioned Greektown.

But of course it would be too much to ask of the media to show that given their bent towards denigrating this area at every opportunity.

Now...some neighborhoods do need renewal, but FYI there are a lot of housing starts taking place and people actually are moving back into the downtown for the new homes, lofts etc.

This is nothing more than what cities like Philidelphia, NYC and many others have had to do in the last 30 years, so pffftttt.....

Dr. Mordrid

[Fluff]

Don't forget the 70mph speed limit, and Coney Island resturaunt.

[Dr Mordrid]

You of course are referring to the Lafayette Coney Island, one of the best outside of...well...Coney Island

70 mph is a guideline in these parts. I've been going 85 on M-14 heading for Plymouth and been passed by a cop going at least 90 with his coffee in hand and not paying any attention at all to me or anyone else

Dr. Mordrid

[KvHagedorn]

I have one of those LED flashlights. Blinding to look into, nevertheless I am required to pull out the big Maglite if I really want to see what I'm doing. I hate the quality of LED light.. it's just so unnatural it makes my skin crawl for some reason.

[gt40]

well, they do make combo lights, standard bulb switchable to LED when power consumption is an issue.

[DGhost]

I have one of those LED flashlights. Blinding to look into, nevertheless I am required to pull out the big Maglite if I really want to see what I'm doing. I hate the quality of LED light.. it's just so unnatural it makes my skin crawl for some reason.

pick up a SureFire sometime. expensive to use a lot, but they are well worth it if you need the light. that and they are about as indestructable as a Maglite. the only problem is they are far more compact than a Maglite, so if you need the weight and, ermm, bluntness of one you will be sadly disappointed.

[Jon P. Inghram]

Sorry Dr Mordrid, I apologize for insulting Detroit (except for the automotive company parts. )

[Mikko]

Switch your multiple CRT monitors to TFT's and stop using your Hyper Super powered NVIDIA SLI cards etc...

[Lizzard[MPE]]

Cynical but only too true. How many SUV gas guzzlers do you see in mall car parks or used for ferrying kids 200 m to/fro school? In my benign dictatorship, I would put a 200% tax on SUVs, pick-ups and other gas guzzlers, refundable on proof of necessity for professional reasons. I would also put a similar tax on road fuel, also refundable on proof of necessity. Let's see how many Hummers stay on the road, then!

funny you say that but we use SUVs to car pool all of us to the movies. better that than taking 5 different cars right?