harmonicminer

Revealed: the environmental impact of Google searches

Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research.

While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2 Boiling a kettle generates about 15g. “Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power,” said Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist whose research on the environmental impact of computing is due out soon. “A Google search has a definite environmental impact.”

I knew it.  All along, it’s been those Volvo driving, brie eating, global warming googlers who’ve been killing us.  File this in the “counter intuitive” knowledge department.  The article goes on to say world wide internet usage is worse than the airline industry for global CO2.

And we already knew the Prius is worse for the environment than the Hummer!  So the next time you see some holier-than-thou type googling for the lowest price gas station from his guilt-laden Prius on his cell phone (doubtless killing birds with extra radiation emissions), just drive over him with your Hummer.  And smile while you’re doing it:  according to  1 Peter 4:8 , “Love covers a multitude of sins,” and you KNOW you love your Hummer.

Today I begin a new semester of teaching.  And I have multiple music projects going at once, so the brutal fact is that I’ll have to blog a little less.  I’ll try to keep putting up links to items I find interesting, and will comment when I can.

I have one musical project going that readers might find interesting, but I can’t talk about it quite yet.  Soon, I think.

In the meantime, check back when you can.  I’ll still try to put something up pretty often that I think is interesting, though I may comment less than before until summer time.  We’ll see…  I often fail to keep my promises to myself to spend less time doing something I enjoy, but which doesn’t help pay the bills.

Happy 2009!

Bush to Protect Vast New Pacific Tracts – NYTimes.com

President Bush will designate vast tracts of American-controlled Pacific Ocean islands, reefs, surface waters and sea floor as marine national monuments on Tuesday, limiting fishing, mining, oil exploration or other commercial activity, White House officials said Monday.

Working on the legacy, I see.

Sigh.

MP3 player lights rescuers’ way to missing skiers – Yahoo! News

Swiss rescue officials say they have found two missing skiers after spotting the light from their MP3 music player.

May God be with you and yours as we celebrate the birth of Christ.

Cynics consumed with Bush hatred will not be able to stomach this editorial, but there is some truth here that pretty much never gets told in the major media. Read it all.

This Thursday morn, Julie McPhillips will awake to the great hope that is Christmas Day. And amid her joy for the Savior born of woman in a Bethlehem stable, she will offer two prayers.

The first will be for her son, Lt. Brian McPhillips, killed in action in April 2003 as the First Marine Division fought its way into Baghdad. The other will be for the man on whose orders Lt. McPhillips was sent to Iraq: George W. Bush.

Here is the most clear cut presentation of the history of recent economic problems that I’ve seen in video.

and

via Powerline

Read this.

Then go here, browse a bit, and do what’s right.

Here’s a twenty year old article that could have been written yesterday. The money quote:

Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek has provided the answer: “It is through the mutually adjusted efforts of many people that more knowledge is utilized than any one individual possesses or than it is possible to synthesize intellectually; and it is through such utilization of dispersed knowledge that achievements are made possible greater than any single mind can foresee.”[9]

The market brings together the information possessed by all individuals in the market and, therefore, is able to make better decisions on questions of optimal resource allocation than can any group of bureaucrats. To try to identify “winners” and “losers” beforehand is folly.

Read the entire article, and ponder the fact that congress is about to get into the automobile manufacturing business. Other businesses will follow.

Are we about to learn, the very, very hard way, what European socialists already proved, namely that governments can’t run businesses and make them work? What they CAN do, of course, is interfere with business, and make it fail. That, in fact, is what happened in the recent mortgage finance debacle, and a large part of the reason for American automaker’s difficulties, namely the legal props for union muscle, and the requirements for various aspects of automobile design.