Read more about the article Top deal of the week?
Unschlagbares Angebot der Firma Elektor.

Top deal of the week?

Today I received a newsletter from the publisher Elektor. I am offered a special deal on a Peltier power generator which can power an LED light from a small candle. And this for an astonishing price of €99.95 instead of the normal price of €119.95.

Great offer from Elektor.
Great offer from Elektor.

I’ll have to buy this – or wait a second…

I know the IKEA LED light Jansjö from the add quite well, so I thought until I noticed that this was an USB rip-off from the same series:

IKEA Jansjö spot light: 3 W power, 88 lumen
IKEA Jansjö USB: unknown power(ca 0.5 W?), 10 lumen

We can supply an LED light with probably 0.5 W and 10 lm from the heat of a candle, isn’t it great?

If we stay at IKEA we can buy these candles, 24 with a burning time of 4 hours for €0,99. These together could light our LED light for a full 4×24 hours = 96 hours. Thus we get a total of 96 h x 0.5 W = 48 Wh or 0.048 kWh for €0,99. This corresponds to €20 per kWh, about 100x more expansive than electricity from the wall outlet (in Germany) – ignoring the downpayment on the gadget itself.
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[:de]Bitte, wo kann man sich wirkungsvoll über diese Machenschaften beschweren? Zum wiederholten Male schickt eine mysteriöse Firma namens .DE Deutsche Domain eine "Rechnung", um dann im Kleingedruckten darauf hinzuweisen, dass…

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Read more about the article Brave New World
MS Outlook Web App - a survival mechanism for Outlook/Exchange refuseniks.

Brave New World

Today my employer, Uppsala University, will migrate our email system from an open-source and Unix based one to Exchange Server. At the same time we are all encouraged to migrate…

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