UK hooked on 'essential' gadgets

[Erik]

More miserable consumerism news :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6191841.stm

UK'S GADGET SHOPPING LIST - THE TOP 10
Over the next six months, Britons intend to buy:
digital cameras - 2.5 million
mobile phones - 2.5 million
televisions - 2.25 million
computers - 1.75 million
cordless phones - 1.25 million
DVD players/recorders - 1.25 million
microwave ovens - 1.25 million
mp3 players - 1.25 million
electric kettles - 1.25 million
hairdryers/stylers - 1 million

[isenhand]

More miserable consumerism news :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6191841.stm

UK'S GADGET SHOPPING LIST - THE TOP 10
Over the next six months, Britons intend to buy:
digital cameras - 2.5 million
mobile phones - 2.5 million
televisions - 2.25 million
computers - 1.75 million
cordless phones - 1.25 million
DVD players/recorders - 1.25 million
microwave ovens - 1.25 million
mp3 players - 1.25 million
electric kettles - 1.25 million
hairdryers/stylers - 1 million

You missed the electric tooth brushes. An essential gadget we all must have!

[MacG]

A somewhat mixed bag.

Microwave ovens and electric kettles are very energy efficient compared to other ways to heat food and water, and if you choose to listen to music in an mp3 player instead of a full blown stereo, the energy and resource savings are significant. And my dentist claim that she see a significant improvement to oral health when her patients switch to electric toothbrushes.

[Erik]

More miserable consumerism news :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6191841.stm

UK'S GADGET SHOPPING LIST - THE TOP 10
Over the next six months, Britons intend to buy:
digital cameras - 2.5 million
mobile phones - 2.5 million
televisions - 2.25 million
computers - 1.75 million
cordless phones - 1.25 million
DVD players/recorders - 1.25 million
microwave ovens - 1.25 million
mp3 players - 1.25 million
electric kettles - 1.25 million
hairdryers/stylers - 1 million

You missed the electric tooth brushes. An essential gadget we all must have!

Toothbrushes do get a mention in the article.
Looking at the top ten though, I think maybe the most stupid item is the electric hairdryer, considering the amount of energy they use, how much they damage your hair and how little benefit is derived from having your hair dry a bit more quickly!

As for microwave ovens being efficient (MacG's comment), well I remember before microwave ovens existed when the whole family would eat, together, as soon as the food was cooked, hot and ready to come out of the (conventional) oven. This practise has disappeared with many people now reheating their food individually in the microwave. Also defrosting food would be planned beforehand, i.e. you'd have to take the frozen food out in the morning or the night before and WAIT! But now frozen food gets chucked in the microwave for ten minutes.

[MacG]

I think maybe the most stupid item is the electric hairdryer, considering the amount of energy they use, how much they damage your hair and how little benefit is derived from having your hair dry a bit more quickly!

Ah, dont say that! I used a hairdryer to thaw the oil in an hydraulic logsplitter this weekend, resulting in a week's supply of firewood. Where does this place me?

As for microwave ovens being efficient (MacG's comment), well I remember before microwave ovens existed when the whole family would eat, together, as soon as the food was cooked, hot and ready to come out of the (conventional) oven. This practise has disappeared with many people now reheating their food individually in the microwave. Also defrosting food would be planned beforehand, i.e. you'd have to take the frozen food out in the morning or the night before and WAIT! But now frozen food gets chucked in the microwave for ten minutes.

*Sigh* I have to agree on this one. But when it's only me at home, I imagine that it is very efficient to heat water for a single cup of tea in the microwave.

[bigjim]

Microwaves may be energy efficient from the point of view of the end user, but if all you're buying is those ready meals (which are a crime against humanity) then that will more than wipe out the energy savings I'll bet.

I'm really tempted to buy a new mobile phone but I'm a bit reluctant to since my current one still works after three years. I'm still trying to resist all these naff consumer trinkets

[Totally_Baffled]

Look on the bright side - at least there will be plenty of useless crap to switch off to save energy when UK electricty supplies get tight.

The waste in our system must be enormous.

[isenhand]

I'm really tempted to buy a new mobile phone but I'm a bit reluctant to since my current one still works after three years. I'm still trying to resist all these naff consumer trinkets

Do you ever us them? There is so much stuff in my phone I don?t use.

[Andy Hunt]

My 2-year-old 'phone died recently, and I had to go and get my free upgrade.

There were so many free ones, I couldn't decide between them. The assistant suggested one particular one - when I asked why, he said, "this one costs more if you have to buy it. So if you take this one, you'll be saving more."

I thought this was a pretty lame reason to choose a particular 'phone, so I explained I didn't want a fancy one with mp3 player etc. It turned out they ALL had mp3 players, so that didn't work.

I narrowed it down in the end because only 3 of them were 3G 'phones - not particularly fussed about using the cameraphone facility, but it comes in handy for high-speed internet with the laptop, which works brilliantly actually.

But if you put my new 'phone next to something off Star Trek from even 5 years ago, and my 'phone would beat what they had hands down. There's no phaser in it though, that's one thing. I would have had to pay extra for that.

[Keela]

I'm really tempted to buy a new mobile phone but I'm a bit reluctant to since my current one still works after three years. I'm still trying to resist all these naff consumer trinkets

Do you ever us them? There is so much stuff in my phone I don?t use.

I have a mobile phone... but it spends most of it's time 'lost'!

I do think I 'know' where it is..... but if I look & find it there, I might have to carry it again... and .... well .... I really don't want to. So I haven't looked very hard, much to the family's despair!

I didn't buy it, and I last put money on it 18months ago..... !

I just find them too intrusive. I had a friend come out for a ride with me one day and she spent most of the morning on her phone WHILE RIDING THE HORSE! Turn them OFF!

[Erik]

I have a mobile phone... but it spends most of it's time 'lost'!

I do think I 'know' where it is..... but if I look & find it there, I might have to carry it again... and .... well .... I really don't want to. So I haven't looked very hard, much to the family's despair!

I didn't buy it, and I last put money on it 18months ago..... !

I just find them too intrusive. I had a friend come out for a ride with me one day and she spent most of the morning on her phone WHILE RIDING THE HORSE! Turn them OFF!

Hear, hear!! I am relieved to see that I am not the only person in the so-called developed world who finds mobile phones intrusive then.
They are useful devices, of course, but I do get nostalgic sometimes about those times when we weren't expected to carry a mobile and be contactable 24h a day. What freedom!

Going back to the article on the BBC site, this initiative by the Energy Savings Trust sounds like a good move:

The trust is calling for gadgets to carry labels warning shoppers how much they will cost to run.

It believes labelling might persuade shoppers either to buy less or to choose more energy-efficient models.

"We don't want to be saying 'don't have it' - a lot of it is about information and choices," said EST chairman Edward Hyams.

"On televisions, for example, we would like to see labels saying 'if you watch it, it will cost x pence per hour, if you leave it on standby, it will cost y pence'. Then you can present the environmental cost in monetary terms," he told BBC News.

I think people will respond more if they can see how much it'll cost to run things in monetary terms, perhaps more effective than say the colour- or letter-coded energy labelling which is already in place for larger items.

[kenneal - lagger]

I'm just buying an essential gadget from www.shop.telegraph.co.uk

It's one of these http://www.clifford-james.co.uk/Videos/cjlogmaster.cfm. It means that I won't have to split all the logs in future. One of the family can use this while I do it the hard way, with splitting maul and wedges, on some of the larger logs.

I might fix it on a bench with a longer lever attached and use it by hand. You could do kindling size wood very quickly like that.

There's gadgets and there's gadgets.

[woodpecker]

More miserable consumerism news :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6191841.stm

UK'S GADGET SHOPPING LIST - THE TOP 10
Over the next six months, Britons intend to buy:
digital cameras - 2.5 million
mobile phones - 2.5 million
televisions - 2.25 million
computers - 1.75 million
cordless phones - 1.25 million
DVD players/recorders - 1.25 million
microwave ovens - 1.25 million
mp3 players - 1.25 million
electric kettles - 1.25 million
hairdryers/stylers - 1 million

Digital cameras: I use one for work (and a video recorder too). It's around six years old. But I still have the old manual SLR as a backup.

Mobile phone: essential for work (email is what my clients use). My 3-yr-old Blackberry has had a heart attack (the 'pearl' barely works so I can't scroll though texts emails or missed calls) so will probably have to get a second-hand replacement (again) off ebay.

TV: got mine free from some peeps emigrating to Oz in 2003. It maybe gets watched once or twice a month.

Computer: essential for work. My 3-yr-old Mac is about to hit the dust. (Just had to send it back to Apple for some very expensive out-of-warranty work and it's still not right.)

Cordless phone: bought one of these back in 2002. Serves some purpose (good to be able to attend to parcel deliveries at the front door while still taking part in a scheduled online meeting) but for work it's much better to have a loud speaker-phone (which I bought last year when I had to make and record dozens of phone interviews with people in 3rd-world countries).

DVD player: I had a free DVD player from a neighbour. It's given up the ghost. I use (used) it mostly for seeing documentaries I'd bought from far-flung countries. More often I'm creating DVDs for clients.

Microwave ovens: I acquired a free one back in the early noughties from a Japanese man going back to Japan. Useful for defrosting quickly; barely use it otherwise. After 2 years without, I got another free one from someone in the neighbourhood. Fingers crossed.

mp3 player: can be useful for listening to recordings, but I have a broadcast quality voice recorder which I tend to use for everything recording/listening. I have to supply audio and video recordings as part of work contracts.

Electric kettle: the only thing on the list I don't have. Gas is cheaper.

Hairdryer: I have one dating from 1985 or so. Useful when you have to be at a big-shot client meeting at 7am in the middle of an icy winter and you have long hair. There's no other way of drying your hair at 5am, and not much fun going into the freezing street (where your hair will not dry) with wet hair. The rest of the time I tend to dry my hair naturally (my friends say I always seem to have wet hair) and/or wear a hat over it.

So, while they may be just gadgets for some, quite a number of these are pretty much essential for the work I do. The only one I intend to buy in the foreseeable future is another second-hand Blackberry off ebay.

[vtsnowedin]

Ah, dont say that! I used a hairdryer to thaw the oil in an hydraulic logsplitter this weekend, resulting in a week's supply of firewood. Where does this place me?

As for microwave ovens being efficient (MacG's comment), well I remember before microwave ovens existed when the whole family would eat, together, as soon as the food was cooked, hot and ready to come out of the (conventional) oven. This practise has disappeared with many people now reheating their food individually in the microwave. Also defrosting food would be planned beforehand, i.e. you'd have to take the frozen food out in the morning or the night before and WAIT! But now frozen food gets chucked in the microwave for ten minutes.

*Sigh* I have to agree on this one. But when it's only me at home, I imagine that it is very efficient to heat water for a single cup of tea in the microwave.

If you need to thaw the oil in a wood splitter something isn't right. If you mean the hydraulic oil for the piston it may be contaminated with water and needs to be changed. If water contaminated it will be a milky white color rather then the red tint of new oil. If your talking of heating up the crankcase oil on the engine your running the wrong viscosity grade for winter use in Scandinavia.
I have the best option on cooking food at least in the winter. The wood stove in the kitchen runs fourteen plus hours a day and at least one large tea kettle is simmering on a back lid all day ready to make instant coffee or tea. I have tonight's pot roast in a dutch oven simmering right now. About time to add the carrots.
Of course I have both microwave oven and conventional gas range for the summer and to warm up cold pizza etc.. No need to get carried away with this back to nature stuff while the oil lasts.

[Ludwig]

Sad to say, my job in IT depends on people buying pointless gadgets, so bring 'em on That said, my own home is largely a gadget-free zone. Just can't get very excited about them, particularly since I became PO-aware.