If you are interested in tracking the power usage of appliances via a computer, the open source tweet-a-watt is a nifty project you can build.

http://www.ladyada.net/make/tweetawatt/

You don't think "this guy is a dick" is just as rude if not more so?

If you think really hard, you might be able to understand why someone might think the sentiment of "someone who wants to do something I don't want to do or understand is a dick" to be overly harsh, and thus come to an understanding why someone might take offense to the post.

I personally wouldn't want to make this, being neither a cigar smoker or a fan of twitter, but I don't think that people with different enthusiasms are dicks for having them.

Remember, the bragging here is "look at the clever way I made these bit of technology work", not "you should subscribe to my cigar's tweets."

The article is about how he did it, not why you should follow his twitter feed. If you actually RTFA, you will see it is about how to interface the sensor to a computer, how to gather meaningful data and present it with the google API and other interesting things. The tweeting function is just one of the things he did with the data.

Please explain this assertion. I'm having problems getting past "since only girls are named Mary, 'at least one child named Mary'=='at least one daughter'". I understand that the converse is not true.

My person religion prevents me from using the word "you" on Thor's day, as this is the day that it's all about ME!

Thank you for being so understanding!

Amen!

Excellent point, that would have been a lot more clear cut. I'm probably reading to much into it.

But it still sounds like "her interest in playing games with me is a phase" which is a sad sentiment about someone you plan to spend your life with. Or even just "her interest in playing computer games is a phase" which would sound very bizarre if it were said about a guy.

I wouldn't have found the "cute little notebook" phrase noteworthy if it hadn't been accompanied by the bit about his fiance's interest in his interests to be a passing phase.

Sure it might be, but by that logic, his own interest in having a computer to play games might be a passing phase. He might as well give her his computer and assume he won't want it after he gets over his "wanting to play video games with his wife" phase.

An easy test is to flip it around. If she told him he could NOT have something because "it's just going to be a phase", would he be miffed? And if she turned around and announced it on the internet, might he not feel even more belittled? Maybe not, but it would be understandable if he was.

Oh come on now anonymous coward. Why can't I be both?

"she has a cute little notebook.... what amounts to a passing phase."

Are this condescending to your fiance directly, or just when she is not around?