After a particularly nasty ice storm knocked out power to more than 1 million in Massachusetts and New England in mid-December, one resident did, well, what any good engineer would do:
"When it looked like we were going to be without power for awhile, I dug out an inverter (which takes 12v DC and creates 120v AC from it) and wired it into our Prius."
According to the NYT blog post "Prius: It's Not Just a Car It;s an Emergency Generator" the resident used his improvised power source to run his refrigerator, freezer, TV, woodstove fan and several lights.
Knowing several Patriots fans, I would assert that getting the TV going was paramount to the man's survival. But one does have to wonder about the need for a freezer during icy weather.
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Comments (2)
And once again I ask - why is this in Made by Monkeys? The man has had a good idea, and made it work too.
Posted by Wendy Bourne | January 15, 2009 9:27 AM
Please don't take the name 'Made by Monkeys' too literally, or too seriously - it's a broad church encompassing design and 'good ideas, bad execution'. Sometimes it's 'bad idea, bad execution' and sometimes, as in this case, it's 'good idea, different execution'.
I'm sounding a bit Rumsfeld-like, with 'known unknowns, etc'... Think of 'Made By Monkeys', as 'unknown knowns' ;-)
AW
Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com
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January 15, 2009 4:22 PM