Brother Canada laser cartridge return label

So you bought that Brother laser printer like everyone told you to. And now it’s out of toner, so you replaced the cartridge. If you were in the USA, you could return the cartridge for free using the included label. But in Canada … it’s a whole deal including registering with Brother and giving away your contact details and, and, and …

Anyway, my dear fellow Canadians, I went through the process and downloaded the label PDF so you don’t have to:

If you have an address label printer, I even cropped it for you (with only slight font corruption):

I’m pretty sure this is a generic label, since:

  1. the file is dated sometime about a year ago, and wasn’t generated directly for my download;
  2. I got a different tracking number when I handed the thing in at the post office.

But if they do complain, you know what to do: brother.ca/en/environment

Trolling the Bruce Nuclear Cost and Clean Air Calculator for Fun & Profit

Energy_Calculator-Bruce_Power
You might have seen the Bruce Power Cost and Clean Air Calculator. It’s supposed to show that nuclear is both cheap and clean, and using anything else would make your bills and your emissions go through the roof. Well, here are 40+ scenarios that all save money and emissions while using no nuclear and no coal:

  1. 3.9% Solar, 5.7% Wind, 0.2% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 90.2% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $5.09/month and 89.7 t/CO2 annually.
  2. 2.1% Solar, 10.1% Wind, 0.3% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 87.5% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $8.97/month and 89.2 t/CO2 annually.
  3. 0.5% Solar, 23.6% Wind, 0.4% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 75.5% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $2.75/month and 88.7 t/CO2 annually.
  4. 2.1% Solar, 2.5% Wind, 0.8% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 94.6% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $16.32/month and 87.1 t/CO2 annually.
  5. 3.1% Solar, 0.2% Wind, 1.4% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 95.3% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $13.27/month and 84.5 t/CO2 annually.
  6. 0.6% Solar, 5.4% Wind, 1.8% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 92.2% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $19.52/month and 82.7 t/CO2 annually.
  7. 1.9% Solar, 15.8% Wind, 2.5% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 79.8% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $2.48/month and 79.8 t/CO2 annually.
  8. 0.3% Solar, 13.6% Wind, 2.5% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 83.6% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $12.08/month and 79.7 t/CO2 annually.
  9. 3.0% Solar, 11.7% Wind, 2.9% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 82.4% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $1.21/month and 78.0 t/CO2 annually.
  10. 0.1% Solar, 24.8% Wind, 3.1% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 72.0% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $1.35/month and 77.3 t/CO2 annually.
  11. 2.7% Solar, 4.8% Wind, 3.6% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 88.9% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $8.77/month and 75.2 t/CO2 annually.
  12. 4.1% Solar, 1.2% Wind, 3.9% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 90.8% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $5.96/month and 73.6 t/CO2 annually.
  13. 1.3% Solar, 0.3% Wind, 5.6% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 92.8% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $18.44/month and 66.3 t/CO2 annually.
  14. 2.4% Solar, 0.1% Wind, 6.0% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 91.5% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $13.26/month and 64.7 t/CO2 annually.
  15. 3.8% Solar, 4.6% Wind, 6.5% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 85.1% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $1.99/month and 62.2 t/CO2 annually.
  16. 1.4% Solar, 11.8% Wind, 6.8% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 80% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $5.54/month and 61.0 t/CO2 annually.
  17. 2.9% Solar, 5.7% Wind, 7.0% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 84.4% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $4.64/month and 60.1 t/CO2 annually.
  18. 0.6% Solar, 14.4% Wind, 7.6% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 77.4% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $6.09/month and 57.7 t/CO2 annually.
  19. 0.7% Solar, 12.1% Wind, 7.9% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 79.3% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $7.64/month and 56.4 t/CO2 annually.
  20. 2.1% Solar, 2.9% Wind, 8.5% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 86.5% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $104/month and 53.5 t/CO2 annually.
  21. 1.9% Solar, 13.5% Wind, 8.6% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 76.0% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $0.36/month and 53.1 t/CO2 annually.
  22. 2.5% Solar, 3.5% Wind, 8.6% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 85.4% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $7.63/month and 53.1 t/CO2 annually.
  23. 0% Solar, 5.4% Wind, 8.7% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 85.9% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $17.02/month and 52.9 t/CO2 annually.
  24. 0.5% Solar, 0.4% Wind, 8.8% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 90.3% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $19.53/month and 52.4 t/CO2 annually.
  25. 1.6% Solar, 3.9% Wind, 9.7% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 84.8% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $10.31/month and 48.5 t/CO2 annually.
  26. 2.6% Solar, 6.6% Wind, 9.9% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 80.9% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $2.76/month and 47.6 t/CO2 annually.
  27. 0.6% Solar, 9.6% Wind, 10.5% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 79.3% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $8.70/month and 45.2 t/CO2 annually.
  28. 1.4% Solar, 1.0% Wind, 10.5% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 87.1% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $13.58/month and 44.9 t/CO2 annually.
  29. 0.9% Solar, 12.1% Wind, 11.7% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 75.3% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $3.96/month and 39.9 t/CO2 annually.
  30. 0.4% Solar, 13.9% Wind, 12.6% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 73.1% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $3.89/month and 35.7 t/CO2 annually.
  31. 0.3% Solar, 10.7% Wind, 13.3% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 75.7% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $6.89/month and 32.9 t/CO2 annually.
  32. 0.3% Solar, 10.5% Wind, 13.3% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 75.9% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $7.11/month and 32.8 t/CO2 annually.
  33. 0.2% Solar, 17.8% Wind, 13.6% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 68.4% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $0.18/month and 31.8 t/CO2 annually.
  34. 2.3% Solar, 6.9% Wind, 14.0% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 76.8% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $0.96/month and 29.8 t/CO2 annually.
  35. 3.5% Solar, 0.2% Wind, 14.0% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 82.3% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $2.11/month and 29.7 t/CO2 annually.
  36. 0.6% Solar, 15.2% Wind, 14.0% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 70.2% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $0.68/month and 29.6 t/CO2 annually.
  37. 3.1% Solar, 3.4% Wind, 14.9% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 78.6% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $09/month and 26.0 t/CO2 annually.
  38. 2.2% Solar, 3.6% Wind, 16.8% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 77.4% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $2.65/month and 17.8 t/CO2 annually.
  39. 1.4% Solar, 1.3% Wind, 17.1% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 80.2% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $8.29/month and 16.2 t/CO2 annually.
  40. 1.1% Solar, 4.5% Wind, 18.2% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 76.2% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $5.74/month and 11.5 t/CO2 annually.
  41. 0.1% Solar, 13.3% Wind, 19.1% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 67.5% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $0.70/month and 7.9 t/CO2 annually.
  42. 0.1% Solar, 6.4% Wind, 19.8% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 73.7% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $7.47/month and 4.7 t/CO2 annually.
  43. 0.7% Solar, 8.7% Wind, 20.6% Gas, 0% Nuclear, 70% Hydro and 0% Coal saves $1.73/month and 1.2 t/CO2 annually.

Sure, some of these won’t be practical from a dispatch/capacity perspective, but hey, that’s Bruce’s issue to explain away.

I couldn’t have done it without this tiny routine to produce a list of random numbers that all add up to 1. No way was I clicking those sliders 10000+ times. Viewing the source was handy, though.

sub rndnormsum {
    # generate N uniformly distributed random numbers that sum to 1
    # see http://stackoverflow.com/a/2640079/377125
    my $n = shift;        # number of entries to return
    my @arr = ( 0, 1 );
    foreach ( 1 .. ( $n - 1 ) ) {
        push @arr, rand;
    }
    @arr = sort(@arr);
    my @result = ();
    foreach ( 1 .. $n ) {
        push @result, $arr[$_] - $arr[ $_ - 1 ];
    }
    return @result;
}

Too much packaging, Newark

Newark really need to get a handle on their packaging.

I’d ordered a bluetooth adapter for my multimeter. It needs a little doohickey to attach to my meter, which Newark sent out by separate cover. This is how it turned up:

newark boxes

See the little orange thing on top? That’s the part. It’s 70×40×15 mm, and made in Malaysia. It was packed bubble-wrapped in a sturdy little cardboard box (163×73×43 mm, or 12× the volume of the part). That box was then packed in a very solid box (originally shipped from Penang to Gaffney, SC) measuring  200×200×170 mm; that’s 162× the part’s volume. Finally, that box was inside a third box of 330×245×220 mm, or 424× little doohickeys.

Thing is, the little doohickey is a tough injection moulded polymer part. It could probably be dropped in a padded envelope and survive any mail journey.

We’re going to die out for sure.

#swagfail

Put me out to pasture, my conference swag skills are failing.

I picked this up at Solar Power International:

I thought I was picking up a USB memory stick, as I’d nabbed one in the same form factor before. Break off the backing card at the hinge, and you’ve got a nice tiny data store like the Kingmax ones I used to use.

On plugging it into my Mac, a couple of icons bipped on my dock, then Skype opened. Wat? More importantly, there was no storage to be seen, so once my virus fears had subsided a bit, I was determined to find out what this pointless piece of plastic was doing.

The stick identified itself to the system as an Apple keyboard (USB ID 05ac:020b), and spits out the following characters (captured by cat and xxd on my Raspberry Pi):

0000000: 1b72 1b5b 317e 1b5b 3477 7777 2e62 757a  .r.[1~.[4www.buz
0000010: 7a63 6172 642e 7573 2f73 6365 2d32 3230  zcard.us/sce-220
0000020: 0a                                       .

After reading about evil USB dongles, it seems that the Ctrl-R keypress it’s sending is the Windows “Open Browser” command, and then opens the url www.buzzcard.us/sce-220. This link redirects to www.plugyourbrand.com/gosolar_sce/index.html?u=220, which appears to do some Flash/JS stuff which I don’t want to understand.

The funny thing is, the card has the perfectly respectable www.GoSolarCalifornia.ca.gov (well, respectable if you consider a US .gov website as such) link printed on it. Even printing a card with a QR code linking to that address would be less opaque.

(This is not a link to goatse, honest.)

As is, a bunch of plastic was wasted in vain just to save people typing an URL. We’re all going to die, and it really is your fault …

smarter meter

I just signed up for Toronto Hydro‘s Time-of-Use (TOU) Metering programme. While it was mentioned in this month’s PowerWISE (hey, am I the only one who reads the info inserts that comes with their bill?), it doesn’t seem to have been officially launched.  On first look, it’s fairly nifty (click the image for a full-sized view):
daily TOU breakdown hourly
Since I’m a Bullfrog customer, I don’t think I get charged TOU rates (hey, it’d be nice; actually, if coupled to current capacity, I’d make hay while the sun shines/wind blows/water flows …) but at least I get to see the data. I wonder if the front end is scriptable? I’d love to be able to track my usage day by day.

(And to think, yesterday I was on the cusp of buying a Black & Decker Power Monitor. If it had ethernet/wireless/bluetooth, I’d have been on it like an X on a Thing That X Likes. It looks a bit complex to install.)