This section lists all blog posts, regardless of topic.
Energy use and the feedback cycleApril 28, 2008
http://gizmodo.com/384473/manodo-display-makes-you-ocd-about-your-home-energy-usageSomething I've learned in my few years in the working world is that if an aspect of a business needs to change or improve, the first step is to start getting objective metrics about that aspect of the business. From there, you can make changes and see whether the metrics improve. The feedback cycle.
You could make the same argument about energy use in the home. It's fine and dandy to encourage people to "use less energy", but without a tight feedback cycle it's hard to change behaviors. This product looks really interesting: Give people all the information they need in a friendly UI to see what affect their lifestyle changes are having on overall energy use.
Update: How ironic! A sister of a friend of ours came over last weekend to install something very similar to this for us. The City of Waterloo is working with her organization providing people with these things for a couple weeks. Very cool.
The Age of Spiritual Machines
April 27, 2008
Although I've read The Singularity is Near, I have yet to read Ray Kurzweil's previous book, The Age of Spiritual Machines. I didn't realize that this book has predictions for 2009, 2019, 2029, and 2099, so I'm curious to see what good old Ray Kurzweil has to say. Although I don't have a lot of patience for the singularity theory, I think Ray is otherwise a brilliant guy and I expect his predictions for 2019 could be fun to read and ponder.
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