Nokia’s Latest Bright Idea

Who Writes This Stuff?
Well, Me. My name is Shawn Day and I am a PhD student in the History Department at McMaster University in Hamilton. Academically, my research interests revolve about nineteenth century Canadian economic, business and social history. Most specifically the role of drink and those who served them in late 19thC Ontario. More broadly I explore the adaptation of technology and information visualisation to the pedagogical process. Professionally, I earned my stripes in the dotcom boom as jack-of-all trades in co-founded development ventures. Prior to that I was a self-employed journeyman involved in diverse aspects of information architecture. I have some history in technology and a joy in life is catalyzing the reaction between technology and the study of history.
Other Places to Find Me

Metrics
Activity: Last 25 Weeks

Projects I'm Involved With

Where I am
Movies I've watched recently:
- Comfort and Joy (1984) 8/10
  2008-06-01 20:54
  
  0.3
- The Boys from County Clare (2003) 8/10
  2008-06-01 20:53
  
  0.3
- The Wind and the Lion (1975) 9/10
  2008-06-01 19:36
  
  0.3
- House of Cards (1968) 8/10
  2008-05-28 14:01
  
  0.3
- Run Fatboy Run (2007) 7/10
  2008-05-26 12:37
  
  0.3
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the... 8/10
  2008-05-26 12:30
  
  0.3
Page Cloud
The 'new' TAPoRware Word Cloud is dynamically generated on page load and takes the words on that page as source. Hovering over a word will pop up the number of time it occurs on this page

May 11

Environment, Marketing, Technology Add comments

Kudos to Nokia for adding the smarts to their cell phones to let a user know to unplug the charger from the wall socket. Apparently this simple operation (presuming people actually do unplug the phones - as opposed to leaving them plugged in and charging all night) will allow saving “enough electricity to power 85,000 homes a year”. From their press release I gather that 1/3 of the energy consumed by cell phones and chargers is by leaving the charger plugged into a live socket after the phone has been unplugged. A simple code addition to add the warning to the phone promises significant energy savings. The big question is, what about all those other non-operational appliances running in the home and still plugged into a live socket? Maybe there is promise in having smarter appliances start to help their owners to learn how to conserve energy. You know? I might even be able to start unplugging my charger without having my phone telling me to do so.