A significant percentage of the energy in household use (by my unscientific and guess-heavy research) goes into low-voltage items. Computers, charging phones and batteries and media players and the like. Pretty much anything with a wall-wart is using a good sized chunk of it's power to convert from 120VAC to 6-12VDC (or whatever voltage is required. ...

Looks like the emergency fund may come in handy in the very near future. Last night, the apartment was seemingly hit by lighting and my abundance of electronics has suffered. By my first check, we lost the living room TV, the bedroom Tivo, both wireless routers, the network switch, and the DVD recorder. I'll also need ...