What’s so Smart about Smart Meters?

There’s a lot of hype about so-called Smart Meters at the moment, with the UK Government declaring that every home in the UK will have one by 2020. That’s 50 million meters and a ten billion pound business just in the field of meter supply. (That ought to raise some taxes to offset our national debt!)

While that all seems a long, long time away, it’s not a long time when you consider that (as far as I can tell) no-one has defined what the meters will actually do or how they will do it. Before you read on, think for a moment about what you understand by the term Smart Meter. What is its function? What benefits will it give to YOU as a consumer?

Meters can potentially serve a number of purposes. Firstly, a meter measures the energy consumption so that the energy company can send you an accurate bill. With many of us choosing to get our energy from alternative suppliers estimated bills are all too frequent, so automated meter reading is an obvious benefit rather than just getting annual meter readings and a surprise large bill.  This function isn’t in my book a “Smart Meter”, it’s just plain automated meter reading.  This can be done by a van driving down the road and connecting wirelessly using a short range technology like Bluetooth, ZigBee, Z-Wave or EnOcean, or even using a long-range technology like GSM.  Although GSM requires line rental which is an additional cost, offsetting this against the need to drive a van around can make it viable, especially for more remote areas.

Now, Idaho have said that they are installing about 450,000 Smart Meters in the next three years. These will give the benefits given above, but with the additional feature of constant updates as to electricity usage. This will allow consumers to go online and see how their energy consumption changes as they switch off lights, change to energy saving lightbulbs or make other energy saving measures. Many of us are already performing this monitoring of course with in-home energy consumption meters – you can even connect some models to the computer to download information for analysis. Personally, I’d rather do something useful rather than pore over traces of energy consumption blips.  The UK consultation appears to say that this is the scope of what will be installed by 2020, although the consultation document mentions control of appliances too.

The next step is to add connectivity to appliances in the home. Then, you’ll be able to see what each appliance is consuming. Not that you can avoid running a washing machine or dishwasher, but at least you can have the anxiety of knowing the damage it is causing the environment. Problem is, there is no standard as to how the appliance will communicate with the meter. Will the countries of the world unite and choose one, world-wide standard? Or will they choose regional standards, much as they have with mobile telephones, Television and even to some extent wireless LAN? I expect we will have many standards, so what this will mean is problems for the appliance manufacturers as they will have to further regionalise their products, adding to the cost for the consumer (in addition to the additional cost of adding this monitoring technology).

Then, what will the functionality of the device inside the appliance be? Just energy usage? Or will we be able to control the appliance? These standards need to be set from day one, otherwise we will end up with many variants of usability and functionality in the home.

What will the cut-off point of appliance monitoring be? Will we just monitor appliances that consume over a kilowatt, or down to a hundred watts, or even everything? If it’s the latter, think of the consequence of monitoring your mobile phone charger and table lamps. It’s not as if we have enough data flying around with emails, now we will be bothered with the minutiae of the charge cycle of the Nintendo DS.

How long will it take to get these connected appliances around the home? We had a washing machine that I kept going for twenty years before we relented and replaced it. If I managed to do that again, I could delay Big Brother’s Master Plan until 2029! – Which brings me neatly to another point. Who will get this data? Just us, or will the Government be watching intently our gaming habits and when we wash our underwear? I’m sure at some point they’ll claim that this information will be of use in the fight against terrorism – but, in any case it will turn up in court as evidence that someone was at home because they were playing Call Of Duty on the PS3! With the Government’s exemplary (!) record of keeping our data secure, I’m sure we are all comfortable with them having access to our usage information aren’t we?

Another touted function of the “Smart Meter” is that you’ll be able to remotely control these appliances remotely. You will conveniently be able to switch the oven off if you are going to be late coming home. More importantly, at times of peak demand, the Government will be able to reduce demand for devices that are deemed ‘non-critical’. Switching off the heating for ten minutes, or a refrigerator for an hour shouldn’t make a difference should it?

So as Nick Hunn has asked on his blog – what about security? Will the hackers be able to get in and monitor your appliances too? If they can control them, then children will have a modern day substitute for ‘Knock Down Ginger’. They’ll be able to annoy you by switching off the telly in the middle of The X Factor (maybe a Good Thing, if John & Edward are on), but they’ll also be able to control your heating. Not a problem particularly you might think, who would be bothered to go to that effort, but if they switch off your granny’s heating and she dies, who is to blame? the hackers, or even the Government for allowing an insecure system to start with?

So, all of these questions are to be answered. I’m in the middle of this industry in the connectivity arena and I can’t see any answers to these questions even though I ought to see an inside track. Many customers are talking about making “Smart Meters”, but they are all waiting for someone else to take the lead. If they wait for the Government, will it be the right system?

Some people are excited about the prospect of smart meters, but until I know what they are going to be and the scope of their function, I’ll reserve judgement. Will the use be biased towards the consumer, the energy companies or the Government? If the consumer isn’t going to get the majority of the benefit why should we pay for the additional cost or is it another form of stealth tax? – let’s face it, by creating a new industry, there’s lots of scope for new taxation.

What IS a Smart Meter? What will it do? How will it connect? How will it be secure? How long will it take?

Does anyone know? Call me cynical, but I reckon we’re getting hyped up about something none of us understand.

Forty, Fat & Unfit

Well, fortyish…

Back in June 2008 I had a routine blood test. My liver was found to be over-active, with elevated ALT and iron levels very high. After a couple more blood tests, I was referred to a liver specialist.  This was the start of a rollercoaster ride of worry.

First, I was sent for an ultrasound – yes the sort that pregnant women had. The doctor confirmed that I wasn’t pregnant and that there was a layer of fat on my liver. Normal for my age apparently. I was 45, 5′9″ tall and 14 stone in weight. Not excessive, but maybe a little lardy!

Back to the specialist, who scratched his head a little and sent me for a CT scan. A most unpleasant experience with the iodine being pumped into your body so the scan shows up. Nothing untoward showed up there either.

Finally, the day before Christmas Eve, I am sent for a liver biopsy to make sure there’s nothing abnormal with my liver. This is a procedure that you remain conscious for as the doctor inserts a needle through your left hand side and into the liver. You have to stop breathing as this is done to stop the organs moving around and causing internal bleeding – the most common complication with a liver biopsy. The sensation is like being punched in the side, you can feel the needle push, then pierce the organ as it goes in for the sample. The biopsy failed, so a second needle was inserted (after a little swearing from myself). You then have to lie on your side for two hours, then stay in bed being observed for a further four before being allowed home.

So, wait for the results, then back to the specialist for a verdict.

Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease was the diagnosis in my case. Some people can cope with fat on the liver, but in my case, it makes it go berserk. Excessive iron and other enzymes won’t directly kill you through liver failure, but will cause other organs to have problems. The cure is to lose weight.

I was basically told “it’s not the liver that’ll kill you, but the iron buggering up your other organs”.

So, some incentive then. The prescribed diet was no carbs (no potatoes, rice, pasta, bread), no sugar (cakes, biscuits, sweets,fizzy drinks etc.), and no red meat. So, chicken, fish, salad, vegetables and fruit. Cheese and dairy is OK. I’d already given up the booze when all of this started back in June.

Weight falls off, but it’s boring, and I stuck to it 100% (they scared the sh*t out of me – quite literally).  After about three months, I’d lost about a stone and a half, after five or so, two stone.

I joined a gym too, and when asked what my goal was, I replied “I want to move this up about a foot”, pointing at my stomach.

Back for blood tests and the final verdict after doing what I’ve been told by the specialist. If the blood enzymes are not back to normal, I’m in real trouble. Liver transplant or worse.

The specialist tells me I’ve got the all clear, blood results are back to normal, so I can eat normally now, but I have to keep the weight under control. 11st 12lb at the consultation for the record – a couple of pounds lost through worry no doubt!

I’m keeping the weight off successfully, three months on and still hovering around twelve stone. I avoid eating excessively, I’m still not drinking (mostly). I had two pints of Guinness two weeks ago – a real bender!, but drinking is a rarity now. I don’t eat chocolate bars as snacks any more & sweets just seem pointless. Yoghurt for breakfast, a salad and something like chicken or prawns for lunch and a normal dinner. Crisps and things like pizza are best avoided.

Our office has moved, so visiting the gym’s a problem, but I’m cycling to and from the station every day, so I’m reasonably active. Carrying my cameras around at the weekend is more exercise – yes really! Have you seen me carrying two large cameras and lenses?

Some bonuses :

I’m fitter. Nothing fazes me any more, like long walks, or the odd sprint etc.

I used to have trouble with my knees, and carrying about 15% less weight through them has just about cured that problem.

The downside is that I’ve had to buy new trousers. I’ve gone down two inches on my waist size.

I know that it sounds like a cliché, but I feel ten years younger – some people even say I look it!

Hundreds of chickens have died to help me achieve my goal and I thank them.

A new project…

Key parts for the timer

Well, I bought some Arduino boards a couple of years ago and haven’t really done anything with them.  After experimenting with a few devices, I’ve finally come up with a device that I would like to create.

A camera delay controller.

The idea is that the camera can be triggered by the breaking of one (or two) light beams. This would allow for the classic action capture shots of something falling, breaking, bouncing even. The beam could be positioned anywhere in the object’s fall, and a programmable delay will trigger the camera. So for example, the beams could be set up at a height and the delay would allow the capture of the object hitting the floor.

So far, I have the Arduino controlling a display, but I’ve collected a few other items.

A 1 x 4 membrane switch to allow for the control of the unit.  One button for up, one for down, one for mode, the last for manual trigger.

Mode would allow the user to set different modes for control or entering data.

- Delay, allows the entering of the delay time after the beam has been broken.

- Trigger, select input 1, input 2 or both to trigger the start. (the green button will start whatever the setting)

- Shots, How many shots should be taken in total.

- interval, sets the delay between multiple shots.

For multiple shots, the interval cannot be less than 100mS, as most cameras cannot take more than ten pictures each second in any case!

Setting these modes can be done via the membrane keypad, but I will also add an EnOcean receiver to the device.  These allow for operation at up to 300m range, with no batteries in the transmitter.  I’ve already developed the code for the receiver, and have a four button handheld unit as the transmitter.

An 8 x 1 display would be used in the final device for neatness, but at the moment, I have a 2 x 16 display.

Much of the inspiration has come from  http://www.instructables.com/id/SARJDQMFB0B25OG/

I’ll write my own code though, there’s nothing here that is much of a challenge for me with respect to software – the Arduino makes life very simple with respect to driving the LCD and delays, with functions already built-in. The major challenge will be the mechanical arrangement of the beams, but having seen the arrangement elsewhere using piping,

I’ll probably go along that route.

If anyone has further ideas or encouragement, I’d love to hear them!

Simon Taylor in Song Titles.

Bexxi ( http://bexxi.wordpress.com/ ) gave me the prompt for this meme. Cut/pasted and edited from her blog.

Pick an artist, and using ONLY SONG TITLES from only that artist, cleverly (preferably) answer these questions. This is harder than it seems! ADDITIONAL RULE: You cannot use the same artist I did, or duplicate song titles even if they were performed by another artist.

Artist: Eric Clapton

I chose Eric Clapton, being my favourite artist.

1. Are you a male or female: Forever Man

2. Describe yourself: Behind The Mask

3. How do you feel about yourself: Knocking On Heaven’s Door

4. Describe your EX boyfriend/girlfriend: Willie and the Hand Jive (I thought it sounded funny!)

5. Describe your CURRENT boy/girl situation: She’s Waiting

6. Describe your current location: Circus

7. Describe where you want to be: Carnival

8. Your best friend: Hello Old Friend

9. Your favorite color is: Blue Eyes Blue

10. You know that: I Shot The Sherriff

11. What’s the weather like: Wonderful Tonight

12. If your life was a television show what would it be called: Promises

13. What is life to you: No Alibis

14. What is the best advice you have to give: Let It Rain

15. If you could change your name what would it be: Layla

Borderline Racism In Rugby

I’ve recently been incensed at some comments I have heard in the clubhouse, on the touchline and in writing from opposing teams. Cries of “Get the black bastards” and “run nigger, run” have been heard, as have sideways snipes at the composition of the Farnborough team. We started a match with eight Fijian players in our local side, which other teams take some offence at. Maybe it’s because they are very good, fit and experienced players, and the opposition is jealous, or maybe it’s that their colour provides an easy label to attack them on. One local team writes in their match report “Boro had three chances and took them all, all scored by Fijians of whom there were no fewer than eight in the starting line-up. With a South African captain to boot, Farnborough are certainly the most cosmopolitan club in Hampshire One.”

The BIG point for me is this : These guys are serving soldiers in the British Army. Many of them are due to leave for Afghanistan in the next few weeks to fight on our behalf. So, Farnborough RFC gives them the opportunity to play rugby while they have some free time, and contribute to the success of the local team. Farnborough give these guys the opportunity to play, other local teams could, but do not, and have taken part in these racist chants. Whatever you may think about allowing foreigners to settle in our country, don’t label people who are making a contribution. If you don’t agree with our foreign campaigns, that’s an issue to take up with the government, not the individual soldiers.

I am proud to call the Fijians part of the Farnborough team, and wish them well in their endeavours as they serve for our British Army.

Big Brother Is Watching You Online

Latest news this morning is that our beloved Government, and no doubt an initiative by the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, is to require web 2.0 sites like Facebook, Bebo etc., to hold information available on our connections.

This information will be of use we are told in criminal investigations and (here we go again, the perennial excuse) in the pursuit of defeating terrorism. Terrorism is the global cover for all of these monitoring procedures that are proposed it seems.

Now, I don’t think they are so astute to call it web 2.0, but certain sites as those above are mentioned in the news items this morning. They won’t monitor what we say on those sites, just who we connect with. So, if I connect with someone who is later at suspicion, will I be a suspect too? Then, they will have the excuse to monitor my phone calls, email content etc. Probably writing this puts me on the list and makes me subversive. [waits for knock on the door]

What about Twitter? And then forums like http://www.tipsfromthetopfloor.com/forum. Although the latter does not support contacts directly, you can work out a lot about people’s characters, habits and movements by reading the posts they make.

How will they monitor all this stuff? I would say that just watching half a dozen people like me would be a full-time job!

The Home Office is also running advertising encouraging neighbours to report strange activity from neighbours, like unusual patterns of rubbish, unusual visitors or possibly someone going out early in the morning with lots of black protective equipment bags? – That’ll be me then. [waits for door to be knocked down]

So, with my petition against the erosion of our photography freedoms and this, I’m going to be talked to sooner or later.

What’s all the fuss about Drobo?

It seems to me that marketing has had its way again. Drobo is a fashionable piece of tech equipment (if there IS such a thing), it looks very nice, and it has some fancy LEDs. But, isn’t the ReadyNAS from Netgear a very credible alternative? I’ve had a ReadyNAS NV now for three years, and I have no complaints, with 2.8TB online with four hard drives. (I started with four 300GB drives, then 500GB, having just upgraded to 1TB drives).

For me, the Drobo has some distinct disadvantages.

Out of the box, you have to connect to USB. This means that it works with the computer it’s attached to, and if you want to share files, the computer must be left on. You can get a network interface, but that connects via USB, again limiting the bandwidth.

Drobo’s advantages are basically that you can throw any size drive into it, and it dynamically manages the disk space. ReadyNAS can hot-swap drives, but the resultant RAID is a multiple of the smallest drive fitted, the drive space expands once the last drive is added.

ReadyNAS however, has some spectacular features over Drobo :

Being network based, you don’t need a host computer. It also has backup scheduling, seeking out connected computers at particular times, and backing up data as required. So, it can look after your backups for you just by leaving computers on overnight for example.

It sends you emails when something happens, power failure (as long as it’s on a UPS – which it controls and supports of course). It will also email you with the status of your backups, and a warning as the drive space fills up, or a hard drive fails.

Then, there’s FTP access, allowing you to access files from anywhere, as well as AFP, SMB etc. Media server facilities too.

You can plug in USB drives into the back, they are shared across the network, plug one into the front, and press the button, it will copy onto the RAID.

Then, there’s user access, so you can give different users access to different areas of the file system.

So, I think Drobo is riding on a wave of popularity, and the ReadyNAS is a little overlooked. As for price, it’s not a lot more expensive, especially if you take into account the networking option.

The UK Is A Police State.

We can’t be trusted to look after ourselves, or so it would seem. In the name of the prevention of terrorism, it’s been made illegal to photograph a policeman, member of the armed services or the intelligence services.  So, the pictures of protests last week against homecoming soldiers were technically illegal because the soldiers were clearly identifiable.  The penalty is up to ten years in prison!

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Photorestrict/ – this is a petition I’ve started where you can put your name against this ridiculous amendment to the Counter Terrorism Act, a law which is at best open to interpretation, but gives the police powers to stop people photographing just about anything that might be useful to a terrorist. So, just about anything then.

Now, they want to introduce laws so that we have to declare our travel agendas twenty-four hours BEFORE we travel. On top of that, there are new proposals to use these huge databases that the government are preparing on us to stop us from travelling if there are unpaid fines.  OK if you are wanted for arrest under a warrant, but this might be extended to parking fines too! I’m OK at the moment, but this is just the nanny state gone too far.

Mr Brown, you are a pillock.

Five Things.

Well, this seems like a chain challenge, where Kavey challenged Bexxi, and I volunteered to write about five things that Bexxi thought represented me.  She chose :

1. Rugby

I’ve always preferred rugby as a sport, it’s more varied than football somehow. When there is pain, it’s genuine, unlike the annoying ‘professional’ fouls (or falling over) you get in football.  There’s great honour and spirit in rugby, everybody is part of the team, even the hangers on like myself, not just the players.

I got involved in February 2004 with my local team. I was just after a few pictures for competitions, so I found the local side, contacted them and asked if they’d mind me coming up and taking a few pictures. They could have some for their website if I got any that were any good I said.  That was five years, over a hundred games, probably 36,000 images ago. I was quickly adopted as their club photographer, and am now on the committee as press secretary. I’m even writing the reports for the games these days!

Did I get any competition pictures? – not really, only three notable images and those in the last year.  I’ve made lots of friends, got some commercial photography business, weddings and christenings. Voted clubman of the year last year as well!

2. Linguistic Pedantry

Its a shame. No, it’s a shame. The first thing my school did at age five was teach us to read. They maintained that you couldn’t learn to do anything else until you could do that. Consequently, I’m blessed with reasonable spelling and grammar abilities, but also an inherent intolerance of anyone who doesn’t have the same – especially when they think they do. So, I’m an irritating smart arse, and proud of it.

I don’t know about you, but those errors leap off of the page when I see them. Like signs in shops that say “DVD’s”.

3. Alfie

Alfie is a Ragdoll cat. We got her (yes, HER) as a kitten in January, 2007. She’s full of character, very vocal, and grumbles at me when I sneeze.  The breeder told us she was a boy, in fact, the vet confirmed this. We then took her for her castration, and the vet called to say they couldn’t perform the operation as she needed to be spayed! Oh, the trauma I experienced, was it a gay cat, sex change, what was going on???

We’ve had two cats for years, but Dennis, Rosie’s son, died aged six in September 2006 from complications with a urinary tract infection, leaving his mother behind and confused. Rosie was withdrawn, but as soon as Alfie appeared, she sprung back into life again.  Like many cats, life has settled down so that Alfie adores Rosie, but Rosie tolerates Alfie.

Alfie’s claim to fame is probably her modelling for the TFTTF weekly challenges. I just make life hard for myself by including her each week, in a photographic challenge with titles like “Broken”, “Cookies”, some are quite difficult.

4. France = South Kentishire

Thanks Bexxi. I’m going to have to explain my xenophobia. Maybe slightly tongue-in-cheek, maybe slightly for real, you decide.

The French are so incredibly nationalistic, but they are England’s old enemy. Forget the Germans. The French wave the white flag as soon as someone invades, then wait for us to rescue them. They produce cars like Citroen & Peugeot, when the rest of the world manages to make something decent.  They eat molluscs and reptiles for Christ’s sake. We should never have built the tunnel – you know they even argued about what sea level was, because theirs was different to ours? How Concorde ever flew I will never know.

I was once stuck on an Airbus on a Sunday night after someone had reversed some steps into it. The airline were trying to call Airbus engineers to check if the aircraft was safe to fly. Anyone in France working on a Sunday night? No. Get off the plane and onto another one.

As for South Kentishire, I just think this is an ideal name for France. It’s south of Kent, and would make a fine annexe to the UK. We could call the French “Kents”, because that’s actually quite similar to what we call them already.

34-10 is a great score too.

5. Weight Loss

After a routing blood test last year, my liver enzymes were elevated. So, I had more blood tests, stopped drinking, more blood tests, ultrasound, CT scan and finally after six blood tests in total, a liver biopsy. Very, very unpleasant.

Anyway, it turns out that I have Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, or NAFLD for short. Emphasis on the non-alcoholic please!

The problem is that fatty deposits on the liver can cause scarring, and then cirrhosis, then liver failure. Meanwhile, the liver produces excess iron which can overload other organs in the body, causing lots of other nasty problems. Apparently, with the modern diet, one in five people have a fatty liver, and are at risk of getting NAFLD and complications.

The cure is to lose weight. Doctor’s orders are no red meat, no booze, no carbohydrates. So, what this means is a diet of chicken, fish and vegetables. No bread, no rice, no potatoes.

Join a gym and the weight falls off. I need to lose 2Kg a month for six months. So far, I have lost about seven kilos after as many weeks. I feel better, don’t get out of breath so easily, and my knees which have given me trouble for years, complain less now they don’t have to haul my lardy arse about quite so much.

So, Bexxi, that’s it for now. I bet I’ll read this tomorrow and think of a load more (and spot some typos).

If anyone reads this and would like to continue the challenge, let me know, and I’ll give you five things – as long as I know you well enough of course!

In The Swing

Last Friday, I was the ‘official’ photographer at a charity golf day.  After about 70 players, 800 or so images and a shutter failure on my camera – the day raised over £3000 for the local hospice.  More pictures at www.phooto.co.uk.