Comments on: Green is the new black

By: Steven Kempton

Steven Kempton — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 04:14:54 +0000

I hope we win the World Cup before we run out of power, we won’t be able to watch the game without it…..

By: Brandon

Brandon — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:14:33 +0000

Found this through sphere…

Just to note, Google did not make Blackle. Some company named Heap Media based out of Australia did.

And they made it in direct response to Mark Ontkush’s article, as stated on their Aboute page, http://www.blackle.com/about

Just FYI

By: M Freitas

M Freitas — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 09:24:44 +0000

Hmmm. No. Blackle is not Google’s. The registrant is wrong, the registrar is wrong and it says “Google Custom Search”.

It’s just someone trying to cash in Google AdSense by looking “green”.

Buried.

By: kristinsavage

kristinsavage — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 03:39:58 +0000

I’m no conspiracy theorist, but i once heard someone suggest that this whole global warming/energy conservation buzz is simply a deceptive ploy to control supply and create scarcity, ala Blood Diamond. If so, the irony in seeing Greenpeace street volunteers possibly campaigning for the very ‘powers’ they surely detest is not lost on me.

By: zef

zef — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 01:30:08 +0000

Update (which I kinda reinforces my previous post): If you read the comments on http://ecoiron.blogspot.com/2007/01/black-google-would-save-3000-megawatts.html many people are saying:

“It will actually require MORE energy to display a black page on a LCD monitor. Liquid crystals BLOCK light from the lamp if a current is applied to them…”

Go figure – going green isn’t as simple as you might think.

By: zef

zef — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:06:33 +0000

I’ll all for green initiatives but not at the cost of people’s eyesight and accessibility.

Heavy usage of this site (and other sites with light text on dark) could lead to eye strain (the readibility of the search results is awful) – possibly to a trip to the optomestrist – leading to prescription glasses – leading to fueling the mining industry – followed by factory production of glasses (probably using coal-fueld plants) and then air miles to ship the glasses to NZ…

I know, this may sound silly or extremist, but my point is that the renewable energy race is complex and will only truly make sense when we can measure the onflow effects of initiatives. For example, according to BRANZ did you know that buying a heatpump is actually INCREASING the demand for electricity in NZ? Why? Because people who used to heat their homes (and water) with wood burners are switching to heatpumps. And what’s more, many of these people have to supplement the heatpumps with the woodburner because the heatpumps don’t heat as well – so now they’re burning more wood and more electricity!

By: Refreshing the focus « kristin savage - stories

Refreshing the focus « kristin savage - stories — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:37:52 +0000

[...] maybe the focus should be energy conservation . I heard about Google’s new initiative [...]

By: Patrick Te Tau

Patrick Te Tau — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:33:35 +0000

This argument is irrelevant for an LCD screen. So I propose that on geek oriented sites make the pages take up at least a 1280 pixel wide format. This way crusty geeks will be encouraged to upgrade to LCD screens in order to fully enjoy there web browsing experience. For non-geek sites you could justify a darker design.

But then again, make them brighter. Encourage people to consume allot of power. This has a benefit that as soon as we actually have a tangible energy crisis (like nationwide blackouts) we may be able to trigger a technology boost like is typical during war times. It took 6 years given a cold war with Russia to get to the moon. Without such powerful motivation to drive such development it could of taken much longer… The renewable energy race is on!