kip/bot/blog

I generally enjoy, admire, groove on all the clever things people come up with to save energy and be greener.  Blackle is no exception, though I’m wondering whether all the cool things I like sharing are adding up to something.  Anyway, here’s blackle’s explanation of what it’s doing:

Blackle was created by Heap Media to remind us all of the need to take small steps in our everyday lives to save energy. Blackle searches are powered by Google Custom Search.Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. “Image displayed is primarily a function of the users 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.

Came across a line in Omnivore’s Dilemma that captures some of my frustration with super-crunching and marketing models:

To reduce [a complex agricultural system under discussion in the book] represented the scientific method at its worst. Complex qualities are reduced to simple quantities; biology gives way to chemistry . . . that method can only deal with one or two variables at a time. The problem is that once science has reduced a complex phenomenon to a couple of variables, however important they may be, the natural tendency is to overlook everything else, to assume that what you can measure is all there is, or at least all that really matters. When we mistake what we can know for all there is to know, a healthy appreciation of one’s ignorance in the face of a mystery . . . gives way to the hubris that we can treat nature as a machine.

I love the idea of biology giving way to chemistry: systemic thinking giving way to engineering problems. How often do designers struggle against models of people that focus on two factors to the exclusion of everything else, that reduce people to the actions we want them to take?

Stick a pin in it and it dies.

Guy Kawasaki has a photo tour of Jerry Yang’s green building at Stanford.  I especially like the “light shelf” shown below:

It provides some shade to the office, and the top reflects light deeper into the space inside.   And it’s just a simple slab.

Nice cuts from  of the XO: 1) reduced chemicals in the battery; 2) low power needs of the machine (1/30 of most devices); 3) quick clip about the non-reflective screen (one slide below):

While working briefly with some environmental groups, I became convinced that the best way to reach red (or at least non-green) America was through their garages. Real men love their tools and their tinkering. Americans profess to love ingenuity and entrepreneurialism. Environmental solutions are “Popular Mechanics” all over. Ecogeek is a blog that hits some of those notes (while staying just this side of Edward Abbey).

Below is a clever solar collector, which is cheap, cheap, cheap. Rather than having to spend money on creating optimally curved mirrors, Solar Bubbles inflates a bubble where the top is clear (allowing sunlight in) and the bottom is reflective (collecting the rays). The curve is created and maintained by the air inside. Balloons aren’t exactly manly Black & Decker workmate style, but this is so much more appealing than talking about breaking the oil addiction.

Another idea on the blog this week, is a revolving door that transforms the turning of the doors into power.

What I love about this post is its honesty:

Mostly, it’s just a demostration project though. The power generated would likely not be enough to ever pay for the device and many revolving doors are already heavy enough without the added resistance of a generator.

Still, it’s hard not to find the idea pleasant.

It’s a healthy attitude about innovation, recognizing the importance of exlploring dead ends, the iterative nature of invention and design. It’s also a good demonstration of sensibility and intelligence within a community that usually doesn’t get credited for having any.