We got our smart meter installed today. Unfortunately, Catherine didn’t quite understand why there was a knock on the door, then her computer went beeeeyyooooww … then all our clocks caught the <blink> tag.
While I like smart meters, this one isn’t quite as smart as it could be. To me, a smart meter needs to have a big display of your current demand, and needs to be inscribed with a suitable message like “Quit using so much juice, you cretin!” It also needs to hook into local time-of-use pricing, which me being green and a Bullfrog customer and all, I don’t get to take part in. Boo.
But what could have really gone sideways was my own desktop, which was quietly chugging away installing Ubuntu 7.10. Since I started using Linux in 1995, I don’t think I’ve ever had a system upgrade go totally smoothly. This time, though, I was lucky – the system must have fully initialised before we lost power.
I can’t honestly say I see any difference between Feisty Fawn and Gutsy Gibbon; they both are fairly pretty, and just work.
See, this is what I’d want in a smart meter: http://www.bluelineinnovations.com/Products/EnergyAxis-Edition/