Finally had a chance to do something with the dev boards that turned up over Christmas. Not sure it is of great benefit to mankind though.
All posts by Tom
EU at it again with the energy saving
The EU Eco Design initiative has reached another milestone and the media are up in arms yet again. But my calculations show its not worth replacing what I’ve got… by a LONG way!
Ah the joys of Christmas!
That time of year has finally been and gone. Hellish shopping, working out why the tree lights worked fine before you put them on the tree but not after, cooking for huge numbers of people and vast amounts of washing up.
What a waste of money!
Two events in the recent weeks have prompted a lot of reaction from the armchair experts as being ‘a total waste of money’ and I find it rather troubling! It seems we live in a society where there is a disdain for doing anything successful and an almost religious hatred for those wishing to splash some cash on ‘pointless things’.
Kickstarter fail
Crowdfunding yet again shows the power of paranoia and stupidity to relieve people of their money.
‘100W’ GLS LED Update
Got my shiny new megaman brand 16.5W LED bulb and my word it is a monster! I’d love to take it apart and see what they’ve put in it as you can just about see the LEDs through the frosted glass and they are numerous.
Oh dear, the internet has a dose of the dumb yet again
Every so often the collective IQ of the internet has a blip and there is a mass outbreak of ‘ermahgerd’. This weeks outbreak surrounds a company flogging a desktop milling machine that somehow makes it possible to do something that the ermahgerders thought was impossible but in actual fact is a pretty easy and has been done for decades. Continue reading Oh dear, the internet has a dose of the dumb yet again
Finally a ‘100W’ LED GLS bulb?
If you’ve read some of my other posts you will know of my dislike for CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps). I never bothered to replace the one that died earlier this year as the days were long and I didn’t fancy buying another cheap and nasty bulb. Continue reading Finally a ‘100W’ LED GLS bulb?
Cheap and pretty good LED bulbs
Yes, Lidl! Good colour and good brightness. Will see how long they last.
Crowdfunding – Some good, mostly dumb
Now I’ve got nothing against the general idea of crowdfunding. I’ve backed a few things and I’ve got some cool stuff to show for it. But you really need to pick through the stuff on sites like kickstarter very carefully. Especially after the potato salad thing.
And when you manage to get past the huge number of ‘I need a better camera to take photos of x’ , ‘my camera got stolen/broken’, magic battery free bluetooth location tags, yet another bloody USB battery pack from China or the plethora of USB cables that claim to charge faster you find gems like this:
Oh dear oh dear oh dear… Firstly a quarter of a million bucks? I think he needs to look elsewhere for his tooling! Worst I’ve done is about 20k for a 4 action tool with a 5th manually removed block. Secondly does he know that CFLs can really overheat? It even states on the packaging that you can’t put them in enclosed light fittings! Even LED bulbs have the same warning.
I had a CFL in an open lamp shade and it ended up like this:
If you put a silicone cover over it the poor thing is either going to die in a few months or catch fire.
He even puts one on an LED and covers the heatsink. Dude, what do you think the funky fins are for? Dead-bulb-tastic!
Get a frosted GLS shaped LED bulb. They are getting cheaper and you won’t need to risk inducing self immolation of those nasty CFLs or early death of your costly LED.
Oh yeah, thirdly, Joseph Swan invented the light bulb 😉 Edison copied it.