Smart Grid – Introduction

These two videos will give you a good introduction to Smart Grids. It would be good to start a dicussion. I will write an article in the coming months regarding my views on it.

UK appears to be the worst recylers of electrical waste in Europe

A study on recycling suggests Britons are the worst in Europe when it comes to recycling electrical equipment – source: BBC

Computer manufacturer Dell found that fewer than half of UK residents regularly recycled old hardware, compared with more than 80% of Germans.

Within the UK, the Welsh are the worst when it comes to recycling technology; almost 20% have never done so.

It is thought the UK creates enough electrical waste each year to fill Wembley Stadium six times over.

Environmental consultant Tony Juniper said that lack of awareness was a serious issue.

PERCENTAGE WHO DO NOT RECYCLE E-WASTE Wales: 19% North-West England 17% North-East England 15% East Midlands 15% London 13% Scotland 13% East of England 11% South-West England 11% West Midlands 10% South-East England 9% Northern Ireland 7% Source: Dell

“Governments in every country need to make the disposal of old electrical equipment as accessible and commonplace as recycling old paper, plastics and glass,” said the former Friends of the Earth director.

In early May, mobile operator 02 looked at what electrical equipment was inside a typical home. It found that there was an average of 2.4 TVs, 1.6 computers, 2.4 games consoles, 3 mobile phones, and 2.2 MP3 players.

Historic legislation

Introduced by the European Commission in 2002, although not coming into force in the UK until January 2007, the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) was European legislation designed to “reduce the amount of electrical and electronic equipment being produced and to encourage everyone to reuse, recycle and recover it”.

Jean Cox-Kearns, recycling manager with Dell, told the BBC that one of the reasons Britain lagged was because other countries had implemented the WEEE directive two years before.

“The UK had historic legislation that they had difficulty in implementing,” she said.

There are concerns that many items that are disposed of – especially computer equipment – still work but have been rendered obsolete by new technology. A number of charities actively collect IT equipment so it can be used in the developing world.

Ms Cox-Kearns acknowledged that was preferable to recycling, although she did have reservations.

“I agree we should maximise the use of computer equipment. However, we need to find out what happens to the equipment after they [the recipients] are finished with them, otherwise it is effectively dumping.”

Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha is awesome. You should check it out, especially relevant to those engineers/scientists/geeks amongst us!

You enter your question or calculation, and Wolfram|Alpha uses its built-in algorithms and growing collection of data to compute the answer. Based on a new kind of knowledge-based computing….

Cramming for exams?

This article brings back memories of cramming for exams – apparently more girls do it than boys…

Article from BBC:

It’s exam season and diligent students have been busy swotting up for weeks. But what about those who squeeze all their revision into the final few days – can cramming ever be a substitute for hard graft?

This is a guilty admission at a time when thousands of students are toiling their way through revision plans ahead of make-or-break exams – I am one of life’s crammers.

Two decades after my A-levels, I am entering the exam hall again next month and old habits are dying hard.

I am sitting A-level Italian and, as usual, prevarication is top of my agenda – slightly ahead of panic – just three weeks ahead of the final written exams.

The first of the papers will test me on my knowledge of two Italian novels and a film adaptation – which so far remain unread and unwatched.

Three days later come two further papers which will challenge me to understand spoken Italian, translate a passage from English and write a couple of essays from scratch.

So I have a dilemma: do I schedule an hour of solid revision every day between now and the moment I hear those unnverving words “You may now turn over your papers”?

Or do I resign myself to a final 48-hour frenzy of focused fact-familiarisation in the second week of June?

Of course, every revision guide advises a carefully timetabled study plan over several weeks or months, and that is clearly sensible for anyone out there banking on straight A-grades to earn a prized university place.

But my situation is different. I have a full-time job and other commitments which don’t easily accommodate a spare hour each evening. And, to be honest, I have nothing to lose.

So is there ever a time when cramming works?

Call the doctor

I’m feeling a little more confident after two Italian oral exams I took last week. I finally settled on my discussion subjects with 48 hours to go, then threw myself headlong into study.

Add in some mnemonic memory techniques and I think I recalled enough when I faced my examiner.

In my mind, the quicker I focused on what I needed to know, the less time I would have to forget it.

I’ve heard all the warnings that it is pointless trying to learn anything too close to an exam. But there is plenty of research pointing out that this is a reckless way to approach exams.

Ofqual – the Office of the Qualifications and Examinations Regulator – has an exams doctor who helpfully answers e-mail queries from worried exam candidates.

And George Turnbull’s advice is simple and unequivocal: “Do not cram the night before an exam.”

He also suggests students who plan long four-hour study slogs to soak up knowledge are only fooling themselves. Such marathon efforts result in “only 10 minutes’ actual work [being] done”.

“Start with the 10 minutes you know you will do. Then have a 10-minute break and start again.”

After a while, he advises, you can increase the amount of time worked between breaks. After a period of five days of increasing study, you’ll have earned an evening out.

WHO’S MOST LIKELY TO CRAM? A survey asked people how they studied for exams – working on understanding the underlying facts; learning by rote or cramming; or no particular method 34% of women relied on cramming, as opposed to 28.8% of men 48% of under-24s crammed; only 17.4% of over-55s said they did so in their last exam Source: Chartered Institute of Education Assessors

The anti-cramming message is hammered home by the findings of a survey that suggests 40% of successful British students would fail their exams if they re-sat them a year later.

Research by the Chartered Institute of Education Assessors (CIEA) found 32% admitted to having used short-term cramming techniques to get through their exams and that this approach is increasing, with 48% of respondents under 24 employing the method.

Graham Herbert, deputy head of the CIEA, said he feared the findings were symptomatic of a test-laden education system, which, he said, was creating a nation of crammers.

And he warned me: “For some people it could work, just to get them through the exam. But to really improve your understanding of a subject, I would say that cramming is not the way to do it.

“It’s evident from the study that the education system is forcing students to memorise facts without gaining long-term knowledge or in-depth understanding of their course material.”

Even as an adult learner, I have sensed the pressure that my tutors are under to ensure good results – by how early they start focusing on how we can pass the end-of-course exam.

Memory tips

I figure that if there is one person I could count on to be in my corner in the cramming debate, it is Dominic O’Brien, an eight-time winner of the world memory championships who now co-ordinates the schools memory championships and runs mind coaching clinics.

DOMINIC O’BRIEN’S TIPS The three pillars to learning are good memory techniques, speed reading and note-taking One memory technique for languages is “gender zones”. Visualise feminine nouns such as “la cantina” (cellar) in your home or home town; masculine nouns such as “il campo” (field) elsewhere To improve speed reading, use a pointer such as a pen to trace along the lines as you read Take effective notes, make mind maps from key words and crystallise original notes down to helpful reminders If you learn something new, review it within 24 hours to help lodge it in your memory

But Mr O’Brien, whose books include How To Pass Exams, cautioned me that I really need to change my approach to ensure the best combination of knowledge and memory.

He said: “The key to remembering information is the five-times principle. Read the information and try to commit it to memory immediately, then review it 24 hours later. Read and memorise it again a week later, then again after a month. When you come to review it a fifth time after three to six months, it should stay in your long-term memory.”

Unless I reschedule my exams for Christmas, I simply don’t have that option but Mr O’Brien has a hothouse alternative. When he enters competitions in which he has to recall a 2,000-digit number inside an hour, he commits them to memory as 10 200-digit numbers then reviews each one after five minutes, 15 minutes and so on.

So it gives me a little hope that my mantra “it’s never too late too learn” may yet pay off, even if I would advise against it for anyone whose future hangs on their results.

Just remember I’ll be the one with the “Do Not Disturb” signs up in mid-June.