How to transform yourself over the summer?
I'm moving into Year 9 this year, and i really want to make an impression on the first day back. I need to get to grips with EVERYTHING this summer: friends, schoolwork, future plans, boys, socialising, being creative, hair, make up, clothes... Argh! So how should i plan my summer?
How do I stop or reverse an electrical digital KWH meter?
Short answer:- You don’t. It’s an offence to tamper with electricity meters. It is also dangerous, because you are working on the live side of the main switch. The fault currents are very large, and you will not be happy with the results (injury, burns, amputation, death).Long answer:- The tariff meter has two input and two output wires - active and neutral, in and out. Within the meter there is a current sense circuit and a voltage sense circuit. In the old days of electromechanical meters, you could reverse the current sense and get the meter to run backwards. But to do this you had to open the meter by breaking the lead seal, and tamper with a live circuit. There are plenty of people who did not live to see any financial gains due to blowing their arms off when they slipped doing the swap.With new, electronic metering this swap does not work, because they are programmed to refuse to count backwards. The meter will record power delivered in to your house, and make a separate record of power out from your house to the grid. This is because of the recent introduction of solar cells and other forms of domestic generation e.g. wind turbines. The “power in” is charged at a certain rate, while the “power out” is charged at a different rate. The two amounts are recorded separately and charged separately (one is a cost, one is a refund). Consequently, there is no real way to reverse the meter as was done in the old days.If you try to hack the firmware, you are going to have a lot of work ahead of you, and likely a long time in jail to wish you had done better things with your time. I would venture to say the average meter is not hackable. The firmware will almost certainly be on-chip, and when the lock bits are set, the chip is unreadable. You will be able to erase it (i.e. set memory to zero) but that means you will have to write the whole tariff meter code from scratch, with nothing to guide you as to what it ought to do, the protocol it uses to communicate, etc.Don’t do it.Regards, Tony Barry
Innovation: How do I make useful household things from waste?
Use your imagination! Almost everything can be turned into something that’s useful. It’s just a matter of coming up with a good idea and thinking outside of the box. Here are a few ideas that are very easy to do-it-yourself and don’t take a lot of time:1. Use plastic bottles as a garden sprinkler, drip irrigation system or plant containerImages from Soda Bottle Sprinkler, How to Make a Drip Irrigator from a Plastic Bottle and 35 Unique Ways To Reuse Plastic BottlesFollow the links above for instructions on how to make.2. Use old pantyhoses as a duster, a filter, stuffing for toys, or protective cover for fruitImages from New ways to use old pantyhoseMore ideas also here: 25 Unique Uses for Pantyhose and What to do with broken nylon tights?3. Turn single-use plastic bags into a sturdy tote bagImage from How to Make "Fabric" from Recycled Plastic Shopping Bags.One word of warning; you can do lots of great things with plastics, but be careful when heating them because this can release toxic fumes (see also Can I recycle plastics at home by melting and molding?).4. Create a basket or bowl from old newspaperImages from: How to Make a Basket from a Newspaper - CraftStylish and Paper Mache BowlsIt’s a bit more work than the other ideas, but still very doable if you follow the instructions5. Use left-over aluminium foil to speed up ironingIf you have some left-over aluminium foil that is still clean you can put it on your ironing board. The foil will reflect back the heat. More info and other uses: Thirty Unusual Uses for Aluminum FoilSo far I mentioned easy ideas that don’t take much time. If on the other hand you do have do have lot’s of time, but lack ideas on how to upcycle something, remember that you can turn almost anything into a toy or home decoration:Images from Ian Muttoo on Flickr and Ed Chew’s Tetra Pak lamp
How do I use a Celestron Powerseeker 70AZ telescope?
This is an odd question. Not sure what you mean by "how do I use?" This is an extremely straight-forward instrument. You should have the main tube, the mount and tripod, a diagonal, and one or more eyepieces. You may also have a barlow lens (I believe the set comes with two eyepieces and a barlow). There should also be a small low-powered telescope attached as a finder scope.If the scope is already connected to the mount, you simply slip in the diagonal and add an eyepiece and point at what you want to look at. Every time you set it up, there's a chance the finder scope is not aligned. I recommend finding a distant, but bright street light (something not moving), or perhaps the red light on the top of a tower, in the main scope, then adjusting the finder scope to match (there are 3 screws for this, and if you're not used to it it takes a little practice, but pretty quick you'll get the hang of it). There should be a knob on either side of the focuser that slides the focus tube in and out to provide proper focus. What else do you need to know?