By David February 18th, 2010
Mark Zuckerberg’s collage creation has grown and grown and is today in second place on alexa.com’s global traffic rank. To cope with all this traffic Facebook has announced its plans to open an enormous data center in Oregon USA. This is a big step for Facebook for the first time they will now have their very own data centre.
Giant data centers use a lot of power and this is why Facebook’s neighbours Google and Yahoo power their data centers with hydroelectric power. Facebook however is planning to power their new facility with coal.
I am asking you join this Facebook group Tell Facebook to use Clean Energy for its Data Center to tell Zuckerberg we want to keep Facebook clean.
Facebook is only as good as its users and application developers make it.
By Johan February 16th, 2010
I went to the store today to get a new TV and since I don’t know that much about home media I asked the salesperson for some advice. Basically I had two choices – a regular flat screen LCD TV or an LED TV. My inevitable question was: ”What’s the difference?”. Besides the obvious differences in the image contrast, colours and price, I was told that the LED TV needs less power than the LCD TV. I found this very interesting so I went home and started looking for more info on the differences in energy consumption between the two types of TVs. What I found out was that some reports claim that you can save up to 40% of the power using an LED TV instead of an LCD TV. Now I just had to find out how much energy an LCD TV consumes and it turns out that a 40” LCD TV consumes up to 350 kWh/year. To get some perspective, compare this to a normal sized house that consumes around 25000 kWh/year. So it turns out that you actually can save some energy choosing an LED TV. And doing so is a good example of making a small reduction of your impact on the environment through a small action without compromising your lifestyle.
So, what did I choose? LCD or LED? As I said, one of the differences between LCD and LED is the price, which is still quite a bit higher for the LED. So I went for the LCD, but I’ll be sure to use the energy saving mode.
By Johan February 11th, 2010
Do you live in a city? If you do, you are probably familiar with the environmental impact that has to do with people living very close together. And even if you don’t live in a city you have probably seen pictures of smog spread out like a blanket over downtown Mexico City or discolored snow along the streets of Moscow. Everyone understands the hazards of the pollution. You don’t want to breathe unclean air. And you certainly don’t want to eat the brown snow. But you still want to live in the city! That is not surprising. In a city, there is always something to do. The cities have all the best clubs, there are wide varieties of shops, restaurants and cafés and the largest companies have their headquarters in cities so you are more likely to find your dream job there. In fact, more and more people are moving to urban areas. Within 15 years, 60% of the people in the world will live in cities with a population of more than 1.000.000. How will these people cope with the pollution? The answer could be plants. We are all familiar with the photosynthesis; carbondioxide + plant = oxygen. Research has proven that some common indoor plants are more efficient in the process of growing your own fresh oxygen. These plants are Areca Palm, Mother-in-law’s tounge and Money Plant. The Areca Palm converts CO2 to oxygen, the Mother-in-law’s tounge does the same thing at night and the Money Plant cleans the air from chemicals for you. By growing a few of these plants per person you can grow all the fresh air that you need to stay healty. Scientist Kamal Meattle says that it would even be theoretically possible to live in a bottle without dying from lack of oxygen if you have a few of these plants with you. Besides the effects on your personal health, these plants will reduce the energy requirements of your home by 15%, since you will not need to bring in any fresh air. So if you live in a city (or a bottle), you should consider buying a few of these plants to improve your health, reduce your energy consumption and to enhance the atmosphere in your home.
If you want to see Kamal Meattle talk about his studies, click the link below:
http://www.ted.com/talks/kamal_meattle_on_how_to_grow_your_own_fresh_air.html
By David February 9th, 2010
Thorium nuclear power. What? Was my first thought when i read an article in Wired magazine about this new or in fact old power source. Thorium could be the future for nuclear power generation and holds many advantages over Uranium. Thorium would provide safer reactors that need smaler buffer zones. Which means we could have nuclear reactors built closer to where the electricity is used. Leading to less power lost to transportation.
Star Trek - The Thorium Contemplation
Three reasons why I think Thorium trumps Uranium:
- Thorium is far more abundant as well as much more energy dense.
- Waste products generated by thorium are virtually impossible to turn into plutonium
- Thorium waste remains dangerous for hundred of years rather than thousands.
By David February 9th, 2010
DVDs, CDs and Blu-Rays are obsolete! Why? Because most of us have for some time now been able to download our digitized entertainment from the internet. Sadly distributors of music and movies have taken far to long to realize that digital content can be distributed via the internet. This is why web sits such as “thepiratebay.org” and programs such as “napster” have pioneered the distribution of digital entertainment.
One could argue that their services have only been so popular/successful because music and movies are available for download free of charge to anyone with an internet connection. This is true. But they have also provided and extensive library of music and movies available globally from the first release date in high quality with a simple search and click before there was a legal option available. Never the less the pirate pioners are now also responsible for the word “download” bringing fear to the music/movie distributors today. I would like to argue that this has prevented the development of the internet as a trusted and viable media distribution channel. Production/distribution companies such as Universal Pictures should see “download” as a distribution channel free form intermediates, carbon emissions and production costs.
Ok so what diffrence does it make if i buy my films on DVD or online?
The environmental impact. For some reason the marketing divisions of media distributors have also over looked this fact. Think of it have you seen any marketing campaign encouraging you to download from ex itunes, cdon.com or an internet service provider because it is more environmental friendly. Not manufacturing ex a DVD and packaging it in a DVD case is quite simply not as efficient as downloading.
To start downloading is a very simple change for us to make and it will also simplify or lives.
Clicking download >> pay >> wait 1min >> and play.
Is far easier than using deprecated formats. The DVD way:
click buy >> pay >> wait for 3-7days >> remove packaging (wasteful) >> open dvd box >> insert DVD into DVD player >> click play >> and finally enjoy.
My next post will be a small tutorial/review/comparison of different music and movie download services to help you start downloading.
By Johan December 16th, 2009
So, we’re finally up and running! This is the CarryMe blog in which you’ll find interesting and hopefully useful things that we find important and want to share with the world. Pretty soon we will add a few new features to the website where you will find more info on the whole idea of the CarryMe concept and how you can contribute to our cause.
Stay tuned…
