New Apple Slate

These are the most accurate pictures we have found on the internet about the new apple slate. In 12 hours we should see if our rumours were correct

My parents introduced me to global warming when I was 9 years old. For me it’s obvious, sensible and practical. As with all science; that could all be changed by one proof, one moment, or one idea that proves that it isn’t true. It’s easier to prove a negative.

Having said that. What are the upsides and downsides of going green without the global warming debate.

Upsides

Power of Positive Intention

People like positive things. By behaving in a sustainable way people will repect you for it and appreciate your passion.

Less Carbon Dioxide

For me this means less horrible fumes, smells and gases as I walk down the street. This also means people with asthma can breath more easily, and die less often.

People who drive stupid cars are perceived as stupid

When people drive a 5 litre V8 engine, in the modern world they should be embarrassed. Really Really embarrassed. Formula 1 cars go at 200 miles per hour, do 0-60 (0-100Kph) in 1.9 seconds,  making your eyes pop out the back of your head.  Formula 1 cars are 2.5 litre engined. 5 litre engines are *rightly* an embarrassment.

Less Consumption becomes a positive

I was born in the 80′s where the money-money-money culture fuelled a consumption culture. Now things are on there heads a little bit. Buying local, fuel efficient seasonal foods is being drilled into peoples heads. Where I got married this year, all the food came from within 50 miles.  Proving your affinity with your locality is now positive. Although things cost more, you tend to buy less of them. Buying less, but quality things that last is one of the reasons the rich get richer.

Downsides

Price

Things that have the green label, “energy efficient” are given a premium. This could be marketing, or just technological. Green energy is more expensive.

Conclusion

What ever you think of the green debate I can’t see a downside, other than money, why we wouldn’t want to go lower-consumption even if Global Warming didn’t exist. As current evidence strongly suggests that it does, all the better.

What am I doing?

I dont drive for distances of  less than 10 miles without a very good reason.

I travel by public transport everyday.

Smarticles a digital creative agency I founded with my friends, uses an environmentally aware datacentre.

I try to recycle as much as I can.

I know it’s not perfect, but hopefully, every little helps.

- Joel

I found some interesting blogs. One with an alternatives to the javascript forms library I linked to in my previous post.  This one is written in jQuery, so if I’m building a jQuery app I know what to use.

jQuery plugin for html5forms, including browser support detection

http://www.newmediacampaigns.com/page/nmcformhelper

Styling post for html5forms

http://24ways.org/2009/have-a-field-day-with-html5-forms

If you find anything out there (prototype?) – let me know

Joel

I am in Belgium for my job, and sometimes searching the internet for stuff is annoying. If you search with English words, you are given a small fraction of the results that you would expect. I find myself translating, either in my head or on-line, the keywords into French and Dutch and then sorting through the results in the different languages until I find what I am looking for.

Therefore I was pretty happy when a new feature of Google search was announced. Google translated search was released this week, all you have to do is a normal search, click on Show Options and then choose Translated Search.

Search is then in multiple languages, interlaced by relevance.

I found it really useful, I wonder if I could use it as my default firefox search.

Joel

We were having a problem performance tuning an application. The reason, it seemed pretty quick.

It was a heavy Ajax app with YUI. But it loaded in under a second, and was nice. Refreshing the datatable with a hundred rows took 2 seconds. We worked on that took it to 0.4 seconds. The bug however remained on the bug tracker.

The solution (by way of finding the problem) was performance in IE. The solution, found by a colleague, was to specify the widths of the columns in the datatable.

Joel

Just saw this.

All seems far to vague.

However, the wierdest one for me was “and using ICT to improve energy efficiency in public administrations”. Not being funny – but ICT tends to be at best neutral to power usage, at worst it seems pretty detrimental.  I know that clever lighting strategies and heating strategies can reduce power requirements. Intelligent environmental sensoring can minimise power usage.  But I find it strange that using ICT to improve energy efficiency.

What do you think? can ICT improve energy efficiency? or am I just thinking inside the box?

On the plus side, at least the UK is near the top of the list for something positive. The bid to increase e-procurement presents a real opportunity for European companies.

- Joel