As hybrid cars get cooler looking and more efficient, there is little reason to drive gas guzzlers these days. However, no matter what your car is running on, the basic facts of fuel efficient driving still remain.
Here are some great tips:
Drive the speed limit. “Every five miles per hour above 55 is like paying 14 cents a gallon more for gas,” Fons says.
Play it cool. You use more fuel when you accelerate hard and slam on the brakes.
Inflate your tires to their maximum rated pressure. Fully inflated tires create less friction with the surface of the road, reducing the amount of work the engine has to do.
Get the junk out of the trunk. Carrying extra weight makes the engine work harder, and that can add up to a lot of wasted gas.
Tune your engine and clean your air filter. Good maintenance means better burning.
The best antidote to high tech overload is some old fashioned low tech cool. Check out these 2 great gift ideas that hold your phone and amplify sound without any wires, plugs, or electricity.
The first is a very cool DIY project that involves a block of wood and some basic carving skills. Check out the How To’s here.
The second is a horn phone stand/speaker that works like the above without any need for sharp tools. On sale for an incredible five bucks here.
Do you leave your computer on all night, maybe turning your screen off as you head off to bed? Many rumors abound as to why it makes sense to do so including the famous, “It takes more energy to boot it back up in the morning”. Well it simply isn’t true.
Here are the facts:
A typical computer uses 300 Watts of energy, the equivalent of 3 very bright lamps!
Turning off your computer when not using could save you up to $219 a year. Even if you are using energy saving down mode, you would still save over $100 if you actually turned it off.
Read more about how energy computers and other electronic devices use at How Stuff Works.
Although scientists are still debating the negative effects of cell phone radiation, there’s nothing wrong with minimizing your exposure as much as possible. Here are some tips:
1. Most Fun: Use a retro handset from Moshi Moshi or Yubz.
2. Most Practical: Use a wired headset
3. Easiest: Use the speakerphone
4. Smartest: Wait until after making connection to put phone to your ear. The most radiation occurs when phone is making contact with cell tower.
5. Cleverest: Teeter totter the phone: phones emit much less radiation when receiving than when transmitting. Every millimeter counts so teeter phone away from your ear as you talk.
6. Safest: Don’t put phone to your ear when in a moving vehicle. Not only does the phone emit more radiation when in motion, but talking while driving is as dangerous as driving drunk.
7. Most Fashion Forward: Don’t put the phone in your chest pocket or pants pocket. Not only do you have an unattractive bump, you are also exposing your body to more radiation than if you put it in your purse or briefcase.
With the myriad of funny/interesting/addicting things available on the internet, I constantly worry about our kids wasting too much time on the computer. But what about the older generation? My 87 yo father-in-law for example. He’s got a lot of time on his hands. Much of this time is devoted to a daily washing of his car and the compulsive fixing of anything in his home that might be a little loose or squeaky. He also watches a lot of tv.
One of the many funny Twitter graphics from 11points.com
That’s why we thought a computer would be perfect for him. Little did we know what we were getting into.
Have you heard of the term “click commitment”? If you’ve ever tried teaching an older person how to use the computer, you have experienced this. After a frustrating session with my father-in-law, I read a New York Times article called “It’s Better Late than Never” and finally understood why he it was so hard for him to click the dang mouse. In his generation, things that got broken were not easily fixable and usually ended up costing a lot of money and time. Clicking the “back” button was not an easy concept to understand.
Even my own dad who is just shy of 70 often clicks something only to sit back and enjoy the results of his decision to commit to that click. He also has his Yahoo portal site all set up exactly the way he likes it and Twitter and Facebook be darned, no one better mess with the Yahoo!
The tools we have at our fingertips to stay connected and to instantly find information are truly incredible. Yet I know from personal experience how easy it is to abuse these tools and waste a heck of a lot of time. This fascinating video by Frontline really explores how technology is changing not only our behaviors but also our brains. At one point, a professor at MIT talks about her personal experience of a typical technology filled day. Going through emails, organizing her calendar, and doing various other internet related things makes her feel great. Really on top of things. Then she realizes that the day is gone and she hasn’t done anything significant, hasn’t thought about anything hard. (The entire video is a long but riveting 90 minutes.)
When humans adapted to the written word, we soon lost the ability to memorize and repeat vast amounts of knowledge passed down orally from person to person. But it appears that we managed just fine and now use books to replace our diminished capacity to memorize. With technology and mulittasking becoming the norm, we may be losing the ability to focus on one thing at a time and think deeply about things without distraction. Fast Company also recently had a great article about how some kinds of multitasking costs you more time than you save.
We are immigrants to the digital world, but our kids are natives. Are we doing them a huge disservice by allowing them to use available technology at a very young age? Are we unwittingly creating the dumbest generation? Or is this just a natural progression of the human race with changes that are inevitable like those that took place after discovery of the written word?
As a mom of 2 tweenage boys, I constantly worry about the internet and too much “screen time”. When I say no more tv, they move to the computer. Chased away from computers, they move to their ipods or confiscate my Blackberry to play games. Even doing homework on a computer is not safe unless the internet is somehow turned off and they are not constantly interrupted by friends wanting to “chat”.
A big part of the problem was that the kids would take laptop computers to their rooms to do homework and ended up doing who knows what else for who knows how long! Yesterday, we finally took action and officially made a permanent home for our two laptop computers right in the study. Now all computer use is in a public space and the place where I spend the most time is also the place they do their homework. I guess we are all pioneers in this new world of technology and will have to adapt to the digital wilderness as we go!
