The Tiny Life

Earlier this year California’s biggest energy utility PG&E announced that they would purchase 200 megawatts of solar power beamed down from outer space starting in 2016. As out of this world the proposal may have seemed, it has recently found solid Earthly ground as the state’s legislators have officially given this space venture the solar powered green light.

Through its power purchase agreement with Solaren Corporation, PG&E will be entitled to power generated from a first-of-its kind space-based solar project. The experimental technology will employ orbiting satellites equipped with solar cells ready to transform the sun’s energy into electricity. The electricity that is produced by these cells will then be converted into radio frequency transmittable energy, collected at a receiving station in Freso, California, and finally be transferred to PG&E’s power grid.

Solaren anticipates that their panels will generate 1,700 gigawatt-hours of energy per year (roughly equal to the annual consumption of 250,000 average homes) throughout the 15-year contract term made with PG&E. While an experimental project such as this seems far flung for California’s Renewables Portfolio Standard program, the agreement was approved because it remains consistent with the state’s objective of increasing its reliance on a diverse supply of renewable energy resources and of supporting renewable technologies. It should be noted that there will be no risk to PG&E, and in turn California customers, as the company is simply agreeing to purchase the power at a certain rate, if and when the project is ever up and running.

Reprinted: Inhabitat Dian Pham

We all love music, the challenge is to have it where you want it when you want it.  I am never without my iPod, I listen to it every day, on it I am able to keep my entire music library with me to the tune of 10,000+ songs.  A side note here, I am not one of those people who listens to it while the shop to have conversations, that’s just over the top.  But what happens when you don’t have an iPod with you, or don’t own one?  There are many other options to have your music where ever you go.

Blackberry Tour (and other Blackberries)  are a great way to have access on the go, the crackberry is something that you can’t let yourself get taken over by, but it can be really useful when it comes to music.  The blackberry can sync with your iTunes (free) and the Tour has a normal head phone jack right there on the side.  I will plug it into my car’s head unit and instantly have my music.  Another option here is Slacker Radio, which is a great service on the BB that is has a free option and a paid option.

The next is option is Open Tape.  This is modeled after the former Muxtape, which is essentially a digital version of the almost archaic, but none the less nostalgic analogue Mix Tape.  Before my time folks would spend allot of time creating great tapes to give to friends and loved ones.  There was a bit of an art form and the effort put into it was much appreciated.  These days we can pound out a mix CD in about 20 minutes, or on our iPods, a playlist in about 5 minutes.  They idea of the mix tape has been left in the past, sometimes I wonder if the work put into them is better than the options of today.  Check out another form of the Mix Tape Reincarnate here

The great thing about Open Tape is that it is licensed under the General Public License, which means no one can claim it as their own, that they can’t profit from it, and that it belongs to everyone.  It takes about 2 minutes to setup on a server and works beautifully.  It is easy to use and has a clean interface.

Once you have it up and running, you can access your music anywhere you have a internet connection, I use it at work, its simple and requires no software to be installed.

Check out my Open Tapes at   www.RyansMixTape.com

By this point I think everyone and their mother know how elctronics when not in use still sap electricity.  Here is a little gadget for your TV or Computer to stop wating electricity in its tracks when not in use via unplugged:

Reprint: unplugged Taryn July 10 2009

We try and turn off all the unneccesary power-suckers in a standard routine every time we leave the house. The lights go off, the computer goes into sleep mode and the TV, DVD player and cable box each get a shut-down with the remotes on the coffee table. But when you’re in a rush to get out the door, you just look for the light switch and the TV power button to get the house dark and quiet. All those other peripherals get forgotten! But what if the DVD player, cable box and surround sound system went off automatically whenever the TV did?

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