A life on Charge

Slab

Slab

Occasional Tour Caddy
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Maybe one for random irritations but I seem to spend a great deal of time just charging or remembering to charge things and just added to the list...

Most of us will be charging phones, laptops, tablets, kindles, speakers, torches, vacs, power tools, kitchen appliances, sat navs/GPS, golf trollys etc etc (I even have a couple of power packs that themselves need charged before I can then charge other things)

Well I got a pressie the other day, a new lighter, looks a bit like a zippo, quite nice I thought...

... well it has no flint or fuel and yup, its rechargeable via USB!


Happy charging folks
:sbox:
 
HomerJSimpson said:
Now you mention it...... Good point well made sir and it does seem the bane of the modern world especially when you haven't charged a device and then need it.
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Yeah its the influence all these things have so that 'charging' become a daily routine and a planned activity (I used to do quite a bit of photography and had to plan to charge camera batteries the night before, same for a golf trolly I guess)

Wouldn't be so bad if the batteries lasted well once charged but sometimes its just a couple of hours use
 
For some people their car will also be on the list.

For phones, hotel rooms where the only sockets are well away from the bed are a bind.
 
At least they have started to make most devices usb compatible by now, so you can use the same charger for most of them. I used to drag a hole laptop case full of chargers for my video cam, my digital photo cam, my mobile phone, my netbook, my mp3 player etc. with me when I went on holiday. Now I normally just take my smartphone, my tablet and my Garmin watch and they all plug into the same usb charger.
 
Does seem to be a lot of hypocrisy out there with do-gooders protesting against fracking, against nuclear power and against burning fossil fuels, even wind turbines cos "they're all bad and wreck the planet" yet expect to go home via powered transport to domestic lighting, hot water, heating, tv's, phones, computers washing machines/dryers etc etc etc and expect there to be no consequences of producing the power to have said luxuries!
 
maxfli65 said:
Does seem to be a lot of hypocrisy out there with do-gooders protesting against fracking, against nuclear power and against burning fossil fuels, even wind turbines cos "they're all bad and wreck the planet" yet expect to go home via powered transport to domestic lighting, hot water, heating, tv's, phones, computers washing machines/dryers etc etc etc and expect there to be no consequences of producing the power to have said luxuries!
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I expect to take advantage of modern technology. But I also expect my government to be minimising the impact on our planet.
There's plenty more we could be doing with solar - we're not far off using it to power cars I believe. And things like ground and air pumps are totally underdeveloped and under used.
Fracking is unproven as a safe means of energy farming with potential to cause more and more sink holes. We know the potential hazard with nuclear fuel.
Call me a do gooder if you like but I think we've raped our planet enough and that politicians should stand up to big business and start doing what's right rather than what makes most profit.

Hypocrite? Shove it up your arse!

😜😝🤓😘
 
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We are currently going through a huge surge in building new homes. Why do the gov't not stipulate that every new build has solar panels on it? Factored into the cost of the house it would have a small impact plus the house builders would be buying and fitting in such bulk that the costs would be driven down anyway. It would help cover powering all of the new devices that need charging now and in the future plus lights and other items. Seems a simple one to me.
 
Lord Tyrion said:
We are currently going through a huge surge in building new homes. Why do the gov't not stipulate that every new build has solar panels on it? Factored into the cost of the house it would have a small impact plus the house builders would be buying and fitting in such bulk that the costs would be driven down anyway. It would help cover powering all of the new devices that need charging now and in the future plus lights and other items. Seems a simple one to me.
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We live on a new build estate and one part is full of solar panels. Frankly they look good awful and I'm not certain how much difference they make. As for resale value I wouldn't want one and nor would anyone I've asked
 
Lord Tyrion said:
We are currently going through a huge surge in building new homes. Why do the gov't not stipulate that every new build has solar panels on it? Factored into the cost of the house it would have a small impact plus the house builders would be buying and fitting in such bulk that the costs would be driven down anyway. It would help cover powering all of the new devices that need charging now and in the future plus lights and other items. Seems a simple one to me.
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You seem to have made a very common mistake in expecting the Government to be involved with something requiring common sense my Lord.
 
HomerJSimpson said:
We live on a new build estate and one part is full of solar panels. Frankly they look good awful and I'm not certain how much difference they make. As for resale value I wouldn't want one and nor would anyone I've asked
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You (one) can actually get solar slates )not panels) that fit in with the roof and actually look pretty good.
Add-in a heat pump, a bit of solar water heating and maybe a wood burner and Bob's your Auntie's hubby.
Not 100% efficient but as good as you're likely to get atm, doesn't affect the look of the place and negates the need for fracking.
As has been mentioned, it's the lack of leadership from any government in the last decade that infuriates.
 
I had a week in Turkey a few years back and every single building I saw (including the Mosque) had solar panels, no matter how old, or new the building. I know they get more sun but you'd think some sort of energy saving device would be mandatory on a new build at least.
 
maxfli65 said:
Does seem to be a lot of hypocrisy out there with do-gooders protesting against fracking, against nuclear power and against burning fossil fuels, even wind turbines cos "they're all bad and wreck the planet" yet expect to go home via powered transport to domestic lighting, hot water, heating, tv's, phones, computers washing machines/dryers etc etc etc and expect there to be no consequences of producing the power to have said luxuries!
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Absolutely spot on. I once covered a protest meeting about a mobile phone aerial being placed near a school. A decision was taken to move it and people came running out of the meeting to phone the news to their friends. And one actually was heard complaining that he couldn't get a signal.
 
Apparently the cost of cabling the power generated back to the land is huge. I know, how much is Hinckley? At some point the costs will mean it becomes more viable as wave power is permanent.
 
Forget to add that some of the people who campaign against fossil fuels also get upset that wave power may affect some fish or birds and so try to block those as well. Deep sigh......................make sense of that if you can.
 
Battery technology is lagging behind everything else.

Hopefully the Tesla/Panasonic gigafactory will change that.

We are making components smaller and more energy efficient yes but they still need a whacking great (relativly) battery lugging around with them. Software features to minimise battery use also help but what we really need is to pack more power per cm3 of battery than we are right now.

Wireless charging will hopefuly also change things, its just getting it into the surfaces (and the devices) we put phones down on (coffee tables, etc) so we don't even realise its happening.

My house is littered with charging points and cables to charge from and we have packs stocked away for emergencies in handbags etc. It seemed the moment we had got away from data cables (everything is done wifi or through powerline adapters now) our use of charging cables doubled or more! I can't recall the last time I backed up photos or transferred a file or even browsed without a long cable trailing back to a modem!
 
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