Win an eco-​​eye energy monitor and save energy in your home

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED
Win an energy monitor!

We’d like lots more people to save energy, so we’re giving away ten eco-​​eye mini energy mon­it­ors – the handy little gad­gets we’ve been using on the Low Carbon House­holds pro­ject, which let you see just how much elec­tri­city your home is using, in real time.

Fit­ting them is easy (they clip on to your power supply cable near the fuse­box) and the res­ults are guar­an­teed to raise eye­brows from every­one in your household.

To be in with a chance of win­ning, simply take a look around the energy sec­tion of the site and leave a com­ment on any post in that cat­egory before 12 midday on 28 Octo­ber (making sure you’ve given us a valid email address – which will not be pub­lished on the site).We will then enter you into our free prize draw.

Then we’ll select the win­ners at random – and if you’re one of them we’ll send you your very own eco-​​eye mini.

That’s it. No catch [see our full terms and con­di­tions]. Although if you’d care to let us know how you get on with your new gadget, we’d love to hear from you.

Light­ning image by

Flickr user idarknight

Ori­gin­ally posted 2009-​​10-​​20 23:14:00. Repub­lished by Blog Post Promoter

Tags: Cemeteries, Death, Energy, Flickr, Image Galleries, Outdoors, Recreation, Urban Exploration
Posted in Energy | View Comments

Hacked road signs — end of the world in 400 yards

I’m not sure that there’s yet been an inva­sion of Nazi zom­bies, but should one ever happen there’s a fair chance the author­it­ies wouldn’t want to shout about it. Or warn approach­ing motorists.

All the same, it’s hard not to laugh at a recent craze that has seen tem­por­ary road warn­ing signs in the US hacked to read some­thing other than con­sidered safety mes­sages about roadworks.

The mes­sages, repor­ted by the blog Jalopnik, range from the matter of fact (THIS SIGN HAS BEEN HACKED), through the cau­tion­ary (ZOMBIES AHEAD! and RAPTORS AHEAD, CAUTION!) to the rather heart­break­ing (NOBODY HAS EVER /​ LOVED YOU).

Instruc­tions for alter­ing the signs’ mes­sages were pub­lished in Janu­ary on a web­site ded­ic­ated to hack­ing vari­ous hard­ware and soft­ware. In most cases, the site claims, the sign con­trols aren’t pro­tec­ted by a lock or any­thing other than the default pass­word.

But while their altered mes­sages are clearly a little irre­spons­ible, the signs them­selves are yet another example of tech­no­logy making people’s lives easier. In the past, warn­ing motor­ists of impend­ing doom took a can of paint and some dedication:

IMAGES by Flickr users under­bit­e­man and shinythings

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• DIY digital view camera rig (makez​ine​.com)

Ori­gin­ally posted 2009-​​02-​​05 18:20:00. Repub­lished by Blog Post Promoter

Tags: Death, Flickr, Image Galleries, Jalopnik, Outdoors, Recreation, Urban Exploration, Website
Posted in Cars | View Comments