This interesting website gives a simple and unbiased overview of all the policies of the parties involved into the next UK elections.

Check out which policies I think are the best.

During the past few years I have read mostly technical books and articles (programming, computer graphics, lighting design, daylighting). This year I'd like to make an effort to go back to the reading habits I had before starting to work.

Here is the list of books currently sitting on my bedside table:

In the meanwhile, I have read these books, and will hopefully post some reviews in the next few days.

The Optimise installation has been celebrating optimisation research at Arup from the front windows of 12 Fitzroy St. in London for more than one year.

It was designed by me and Giulio Antonutto, and put together with the help of SuperBlue.

I dismantled it last Thursday 7th January 2010, so it is no more. So I'm just leaving this picture sequence to remember it visually.

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'Bye bye!

I've looked for information on the web to link a CurrentCost CC128 energy meter, an Arduino microcontroller and Pachube for energy logging, but most of the tutorials and scattered pages were not related to the CC128 model, so I thought of sharing what I have managed to put together.

This code makes it possible to update instantaneous electricity power and temperature readings from the CC128 CurrentCost unit to Pachube using an Arduino microcontroller.

It is only required to change the variables and defines at the beginning of the CC_Pachube_Ethernet.pde file to suit one's needs:

/*<br> * Send CurrentCost readings from CC128 to Pachube using the Arduino Ethernet Shield<br> * 2010-01-01 Francesco Anselmo<br> */<br>// please fill in the variables and defines below according you your settings<br>#define rxPin 4 // read only on pin 4 to get data from CC128<br>#define txPin 300 // set write to non-existent pin (300)<br>#define SHARE_FEED_ID 2130 // this is the Pachube feed ID for data upload<br>#define UPDATE_INTERVAL 20000 // interval used to update data, in milliseconds<br>#define RESET_INTERVAL 10000 // interval used to reset the connection if needed, in milliseconds<br>#define PACHUBE_API_KEY "put your Pachube API key here" // Pachube API key <br>byte mac[] = { 0xCC, 0xAC, 0xBE, 0xEF, 0xFE, 0x91 }; // make sure this mac address is unique on your network<br>byte ip[] = { 192, 168, 1, 2 }; // no DHCP so we set our own static IP address

A chopped ethernet cable can be used to connect the CC128 unit to the Arduino board:

The result is something like this:

Perfect time to start writing on this notepad.