LPG vs ULP - Ford Falcon

Intro

Here's some fuel economy stats from my LPG Falcon BF sedan, compared to the ULP model I drove while my
LPG was being serviced.

LPG

Best 10.5 L / 100km @ $0.60/L = $6.30 / 100km
Avg 11.5
Worst 12.5

ULP

Best 7.5 L / 100km @ $1.50/L = $11.25 / 100km

Summary

You use more 25% more LPG fuel per distance (as LPG has lower energy density), but it costs 40% of ULP, making it overall half the price to run.

You lose some power on the LPG model (10-20%) but the 4.0L V6 has plenty. Servicing is slightly more expensive, but not enough to cancel out the cost benefit. Plus it has less dirty emissions as it burns very cleanly compared to ULP.

Diversity of climate across suburban Melbourne

Most of us are probably aware of how weather varies across Melbourne, for example wind on the coast and drizzle in the hills. Over the last 10 years of living in the western suburbs and working in the eastern suburbs, I've really become aware of how different it actually is!

The east gets twice as much rain as the west. You can notice the difference in lawns and gardens since the drought and recent big rain falls. Here's some information:

http://www.bom.gov.au/info/ftweather/page_30.shtml

http://www.theage.com.au/news/the-big-dry/ups-and-downs-of-melbournes-wet-and-dry-divide/2003/10/05/1065292468485.html

MythTV heaven

Fresh from a recent MythTV upgrade at his house, Dave came to my house on Friday to assist me in installing MythTV on my Linux PVR box. I had attempted a couple of times before, but lack of time and a confusing installation process lead to failure, so I've been using a combination of Freevo, the at daemon, and scripts I wrote.

Well, five hours later we had a mostly working MythTV installation! I spent a bit of time writing scripts to import my old Freevo recordings and metadata, but it mostly seems to be working.

MythTV does everything I always wanted Freevo to do, plus more. Naomi is happier too as it doesn't crash as much as before and seems to be more resistant to Oskar's keyboard fiddling.