"The history of switching power supplies turns out to be pretty interesting." It really does: long, fascinating post about a history of AC-DC conversion and how new technologies affected it.

"You could say that it’s tidal, but with the television schedules, rather than the moon."

"...once we return to the sun, late on in our economic history, are we still innocent enough to view it this way? The sun isn't so very different from the Beatles back catalogue - there's a lot of it around, you can't control it, we value it highly, it's a 'public good problem' - but the Beatles are subject to various legal and political protections, most recently retrospective copyright extension. If EMI are allowed to profit from music that they didn't create, might not North Africa have some right to profit from energy that it didn't create?" Some brilliant stuff from Will Davies

"Google PowerMeter, now in prototype, will receive information from utility smart meters and energy management devices and provide anyone who signs up access to her home electricity consumption right on her iGoogle homepage."

"This smart energy saving meter from efergy will enable you to monitor and calculate the cost of running your home or office lights and appliances, and so help you work out your carbon footprint." Not quite a Wattson, but cheaper, for sure.

"Pacific Gas & Electric is giving companies cash rebates for using virtualization software to consolidate their applications onto fewer servers." Interesting approach to a global issue.