Random Ruminations

My carbon footprint, or, some shocking truths about my electricity usage

My carbon footprint

In this age of uber-consciousness about global warming, the thought was circling my mind for a long time: the thought that I need to know my carbon footprint; how I, the self-proclaimed “ordinary life” had been eating away at the precious resources of this Earth of ours. What, then, triggered the call to action were two events that happened almost on the same day:

1. My electricity box got a new ’smart meter’ from PG&E, that could read power consumption by the minute.

2. Had a discussion with friends over wine about some of their high electricity bills.

So, over last weekend, there I was, running between the different (electric) switches in the house, and the new ’smart meter’. I would turn on/off appliances selectively, and measure their power requirements (in watts). At the end of some ten minutes of running around the house, I compiled the following chart.

power-excel

There are two sets of appliances there. The ones highlighted in light blue are what remains in standby (or on) most of the time. The others are mostly off but are turned on for various number of hours during a typical week. The six major sources of power consumption in my household are, then:

Normal household apparatus that are in standby (phone, router, microwave oven, clock radio, etc.)
Clothes washer, dryer
Lighting
Kitchen appliances
Computers
Entertainment: tv, music system

On a pie chart, these six would look like so.

power-pie-chart

So, about 28% of my household electricity consumption is from apparata that are on standby most of the time!

Time to switch off, I suppose.

March 7th, 2010

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On Fotomagazine

My photos appeared in the Dutch photography magazine, very conveniently named, you guessed it, “Fotomagazine”.

Here it is:

fotomagazin, Issue 3, 2009

February 12th, 2010

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The art of photography

I am reading this rather old (1981) Time-life book called ‘The art of photography’, and its possibly one of the most interesting books I have read on photography. It talks of photography as an art, a very different attitude to the entire subject from most other books I have seen on this subject.

The difference is rather obvious.

This book talks of: shape, form, texture, pattern, color …

While most other books talk of: aperture, focal length, shutter speed , ISO …

And then yet others: megapixels, zoom, photoshop, HDR …

So what did I learn from this book? It talks about how every successful photograph should have these following elements:
- a subject / theme
- strong visual elements
- design / composition

The authors give many examples of how the same object/idea (in this case, a mannequin, a city, and love) can inspire very different interpretations by different photographers. Its, to say the least, very illuminating to see the varied examples.

Design itself is composed of many different facets:
- The dominant feature in the photograph
- balance
- proportion
- rhythm
- perspective
And each one can bring a completely different way of looking into the same subject.

There’s a long chapter on the meaning of time in photography. In particular:
- Suspended animation : aka still life (or posed portraits)
- Decisive moment : a perfect moment in time
- Sidelong glimpse : just any random moment in time
All these schools of photography have their champions, and its difficult to say one is better way that the other. I guess one needs to go back to the ole threesome: theme, visuals, composition; if there is a striking combination of the three, then its a great photo; else its just a capture of a moment in time.

All in all, a completely different viewpoint. A thinking man’s photography book.

September 29th, 2009

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