URLs du Jour

2007-05-18

"Energy Efficient Edition"

  • The scandal of washing machines that don't wash, thanks to Your Federal Government, has made it to the New York Times, thanks to John Tierney. (Via Instapundit)

  • I don't play Second Life, but someone's figured out that all those avatars tromping around virtual reality use real servers using real electricity. Iain Murray speculates:
    Now some people are suggesting a carbon tax on electricity. If we use Sir Nicholas Stern's figure of $85 worth of damages per ton of CO2, the average Second Life player should pay $140 to the government per year to account for his or her destructive geekery.
    "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that avatar behind the virtual tree."

  • Of course, if you really are willing to sacrifice geekily for the environment, you can use Blackle instead of Google. As their "about" page explains:

    Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. "Image displayed is primarily a function of the user's color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen." Roberson et al, 2002

    In January 2007 a blog post titled Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year proposed the theory that a black version of the Google search engine would save a fair bit of energy due to the popularity of the search engine. Since then there has been skepticism about the significance of the energy savings that can be achieved and the cost in terms of readability of black web pages.

    Well, exactly.

  • When a Heather Mac Donald essay begins:
    There may be jobs requiring greater mendacity than a college affirmative action officer - college president comes to mind - but there can't be many.
    … it's pretty much a must-read here. Ms. M. posts an actual e-mail exchange with UCSD's chief diversity officer, Jorge Huerta; if you haven't gotten your minimum daily requirement of educrat bafflegab, check it out. (Via Katie's mom.)

  • Has it really been only a year? Seems like longer! Brendan Smith's essay at Weekend Pundit looks at the momentous event that forever divided New Hampshire's past from its future:
    In the 21 years I've lived in New Hampshire there has never been one more filled with excitement than the last one...and the best is yet to come.

    Of course you know what I'm talking about....this month we celebrate the first anniversary of the pumpkin becoming the official state fruit of New Hampshire.

    Sarcasm may be involved here … not sure.


Last Modified 2007-05-19 4:45 PM EDT