Monday, October 22, 2007

Alternate Energy

I'm trying a little experiment. Let's call it sustainable power on a micro-scale.



It's a tiny solar charger that supposedly is going to charge my mobile phone.* And my iPod too.

I realize my solar charger is not going to save the world or stop global warming, but it's kind of exciting. Of course, I can't try out my new toy right now. It's dark out. The down side of being sustainable.

This could be useful If I ever end up living somewhere without electricity again. Like New York City on a hot summer day.

*Don't laugh at my cheap prepaid phone. Twenty bucks every three months and I can read my e-mail on it, so there.

5 comments:

Matt Hollingsworth said...

Pretty cool. Bet they don't sell many of those in the UK, Ireland, Portland or Seattle, though.

;-)

Evalinn said...

What a great idea, I love it!

I never came around to send and postcard from China, but I´ve posted a "postcard" for u at my blog...

Amanda Castleman said...

Matt: When I lived in Oxford, I ran all my houseboat electrics off solar (yes, even in the cloudy UK). Course, the panels were a wee bit bigger than Marie's...

Cautionary sustainability tale: After I moved out, a series of tenants infested the boat. One reported that the "panels just stopped working one day."

Huh? Five thousand dollars worth of tech went tits up and she only thinks to mention it two months later?

After much trouble-shooting, it emerged that someone had switched the negative and positive input wires.

A someone we suspect was her cuckolded lover...

Anyway, the system wasn't damaged and the tenant went on to marry Bachelor Number Two. All in all, I thought it was a pretty clever revenge. And a good lesson to extend one's ethics through all parts of life, not just green tech.

Marie, I will NEVER mock your trusty Kyocera. I was faithful to mine for years, until the big nav button fell off and it died. I replaced it with another Virgin pay-as-you-go jobbie: brilliant for people who are out of the country a lot and hate talking anyway!

Marie Javins said...

I'll give up my Virgin Pay-As-You-Go when someone convinces me I'll be in the US for more than three months at a time--and pays my phone bill!

Or maybe just when the nav button falls off. That would do it too.

Amanda Castleman said...

And since you're the faithful sort, no one will (hopefully) sabotage your solar panel.

Can't wait to hear how it works. The charger, I mean. Not your love life ... though hints of international glamour and swashbuckling are always welcome! Ax.

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